OUR health reporter Gergana today reports on her visit to the new Covid-19 vaccination hub at the Kassam Stadium.

She came away from the stadium with plenty to be positive about: she saw fantastic work being carried out in a military-style operation which was changing the lives of hardworking NHS staff who have risked their safety for months during this pandemic to keep others safe.

However, speaking to some of the world’s top experts on this disease, she also got plenty of food for thought.

Nick Broughton – CEO of the local NHS trust which is running the Kassam vaccination centre – warned her that it is entirely possible that mass vaccination for coronavirus will have to become an annual event, just like the flu vaccination is at the moment.

Andrew Pollard, meanwhile – the head of the Oxford University team who developed a vaccine – warned Gergana that his team is already braced for ‘bad behaviour’ from the virus, i.e. possible mutation into other strains which could be resistant to his team’s current serum.

He was bullish about it and confident, but he also did not deny that the challenge was there.

Prof Pollard said yesterday that 'we are at a game-changing moment' – but if we are at the top of a mountain in one sense, then it is also a vantage point on which we can get the best idea yet of just how long the road ahead is going to be.

If the virus does keep mutating in the way that we have already seen several times now, then that will provide challenges that we have to keep tackling.

No one knows for certain how much protection any of the current vaccines will provides against mutations.

However, if this virus behaves anything like the flu, then it might mutate in countless ways meaning that we have to constantly modify our vaccines to protect against new strains.

It's not a pleasant thought, but the confidence of those like Dr Broughton and Prof Pollard does give us hope today.