From one of the world’s oldest general medical journals – the prospect of vaccines avoiding the harm and misery of extended restrictions is a cause for optimism, but we are far from ending COVID-19 as a public health issue. The vaccine trials’ results were announced via press releases, leaving many scientific uncertainties that will dictate how the vaccines will affect the course of the pandemic. Peer-reviewed publication should resolve these issues, but other questions will not be answerable for some time.

Given the bleak economic outlook for the year ahead, boards should be ensuring they have a robust risk management, governance and internal control framework in place. This should be underpinned by harnessing the skills, talents and resources of internal audit functions to provide independent assurance that risks are being managed and mitigated effectively.

An 80% take up of a COVID-19 vaccine could be necessary to protect the community. But given the scale and complexity of the task, vaccines will not be a silver bullet, according to this report.

On a new Lloyd's Syndicate that will insure the transportation and storage of COVID-19 vaccines—once developed and approved for use—in emerging market countries. This highly collaborative undertaking harnesses the collective capabilities, expertise and resources of several public, private and non-profit organisations, including AXA XL.