Pilot, 20, Uses Plane To Draw Syringe In Sky For Vaccine Message

A pilot has sketched a syringe in the sky in celebration of the roll out of the coronavirus vaccine.

Samy Kramer, from Germany, flew 200 kilometres in a bid to raise awareness about the start of the Pfizer/BioNTech campaign in Europe.

He mapped out how the route would need to be taken on a GPS device, before flying in the skies above Lake Constance, southern Germany.

It created a syringe-shape, which showed up on flightradar24.

Speaking to Reuters, 20-year-old Kramer said: "There are still relatively many people opposing the vaccination and my action may be a reminder for them to think about the topic, to get things moving.

"Perhaps it was also a bit of a sign of joy, because the aviation industry has been hit pretty hard by the pandemic."

PA

The vaccination campaign started officially in Germany today (Sunday 27 December), with the government hoping to distribute more than 1.3 million doses to local authorities by the end of the year. It plans to hit about 700,000 doses a week during January.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine is expected to be rolled out across the UK from 4 January, according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph.

Currently, the only coronavirus vaccine available in the UK is the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that has been in use since early December, but ministers have set the wheels in motion to get the next vaccine out to two million people over the next two weeks, the newspaper reports.

Developed at Oxford, but licensed to AstraZeneca, the second vaccine is expected to be given the green light by medical regulators over the next few days, before it will be allowed out into the community.

The boss of the company behind the Oxford vaccine reckons the jab could be more effective than they first thought, too.

PA

That would definitely be a piece of good news, with cases on the rise across the UK once again and a new variant - thought to be as much as 70 percent more infectious - causing havoc across London and the South East.

AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot told The Sunday Times that he thinks the researchers have discovered the 'winning formula' for their two-dose vaccine and promised they'd get all of the results from their tests out soon, in order to have the vaccine approved as promptly as possible.

Topics: World News, Weird

Amelia Ward

Amelia is a journalist at LADbible. After studying journalism at Liverpool John Moores and Salford Uni (don't ask), she went into PR and then the world of music. After a few years working on festivals and events, she went back to her roots. In her spare time, Amelia likes music, Liverpool FC, and spending good, quality time with her cat, Paul. You can contact Amelia at [email protected].

@ameliasward