SARS-NCoV 19 pandemic has been terrible for everyone, and even worse in Third World countries, which normally have weak national health systems and a very low number of vaccines available. Here in Europe and the rest of First World countries, we have been lucky by comparison. We consider that, despite all of the bad things the pandemic implied, people have learned a lot of valuable things about health, science, vaccines, fake news, etc. The very first thing is, according to the big differences between 2020 and 2021 statistics, there is no doubt that vaccines work, and they must be used the right way:

• an ill individual (with fever or diarrhoea, or immediately after a major operation, for example) cannot be vaccinated till their condition is back to normal

• the choice of one type or vaccine or another, and the right pattern depends on the individual, their age and health condition. The same pattern is not valid for every individual (person or animal)

• after the inoculation, a few days of quiet life become necessary: no long trips or big efforts, no long walks or hard exercise or massive meals. The vaccine takes its time to take effect (about 2-4 weeks), so you are not automatically protected after the injection. So, the way they vaccinated Spanish football national team immediately before the European Championship started, makes absolutely no sense

• sometimes we see people who want to inoculate their pet today, because they are going to travel tomorrow. That’s not a good idea, because the stress that a trip implies won’t let the vaccine make a proper effect, and in the worst case scenario, will make the animal seriously ill (just think about those puppies bred by inhuman breeders hundreds of kilometres away from you that have to stand a long and uncomfortable travel and normally have a vaccination immediately before they go. No wonder high mortality ratios happen in these cases

• not all the vaccines stop transmission of the disease. What they normally do is, when a vaccinated individual catches the disease, the symptoms are very mild and not life threatening

• preventing is far better than treating, medically and economically speaking. It’s much better to vaccine a dog against kennel cough than treating the disease with tablets or injections for a minimum of 10 days

• an excellent way for preventing diseases is hygiene and ventilation. It’s much more efficient opening all the windows for a few minutes in the morning and in the evening than cleaning and disinfecting non-stop

• shocking news is very often fake news.  It is science, not luck, that is rescuing us from the pandemic. Let’s not forget what we have learned these past 2 years, in order to not to repeat the same mistakes in the future!