Activities

Stage 8
What everyone needs
Activity 1
What should the world do? The Covid-19 pandemic has affected everyone in
the world. In order for us all to return to the ways in which we used to live,
we need to have a vaccine that will strengthen our bodies’ responses to the
virus.
Many countries (China, United States, India, Russia, Australia, Germany,
United Kingdom, Taiwan, Cuba, France, Japan, Canada, Italy, Kazakhstan
and South Korea) worked to conduct the research to produce a vaccine for
Covid-19. At incredible speed, within 12 months, more than a dozen different
organisations were carrying out trials on people. These countries usually had
groups of university laboratories, public health organisations and drug
companies working together.
Vaccines work because they give the body some molecules from the disease
and the body then creates an immune response that gets rid of the invading
molecules. When the body is then invaded by the full virus, its immune
system remembers what to do, and destroys the virus before it can seriously
harm the person.

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What everyone needs

When a potential vaccine has been produced, it has to be very carefully

trialled to make sure that it does not cause people to become ill. Doses are
given to volunteers who are carefully monitored to make sure that they do not
get the illness from the vaccine. Then the volunteers have to be exposed to
the virus to make sure that the vaccine protects them from the live virus.
The vaccine then goes through a legal approval process, and passes to the
manufacturer to make millions of copies. Only then can a vaccination
programme be given to the population of a country.
The whole process costs many millions of dollars, which is funded by
governments, research foundations, universities and drugs companies.
The research and trialling process for a Covid-19 vaccine happened at
extraordinary speed, as within 12 months of the virus spreading, a vaccine for
Covid-19 had been approved by a number of countries and vaccinations had
begun.

Discuss this information in your groups and then answer

the following questions.

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Which continents have had no organisations involved in the vaccine research
programme?
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Governments want to be able to buy vaccines as soon as possible to give to
their citizens so that people can safely go back to work and not get ill.
Governments that funded the research expect to be able to do this.
How would you make sure that people in other countries get the vaccine?
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Are there world organisations that might make this happen?
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Governments in the countries making the vaccine are probably able to pay
more for the vaccine than countries in Africa or South America, for example.
How should countries in Africa or South America get the vaccines they need
too?
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What problems would be caused if only people who could afford a vaccine
were immunised?
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What would happen if some parts of the world become free of Covid-19 and
others still have it within their country?
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Is it in everyone’s interest to fight this particular virus?
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What everyone needs

Activity 2
Imagine a situation in which you are responsible for
selling vaccines for your company.
In your office there are four people waiting to talk to you.
Each has a separate story to tell. What is your response going to be to each of
them?
Person one
A government official who wants to buy enough vaccine for the country. Their
department paid a significant amount of money to help develop the vaccine.

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Person two
An official from a charity who is supporting several countries in Africa. She has a very
small amount of money available to her.

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What everyone needs

Person three
The head of the manufacturing department of your company. They are experiencing
considerable pressure to deliver enough vaccine doses to meet demand and think they
will not be able to deliver the orders the company already has.

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Person four
An official from a country that is very rich, but has not been involved in developing the
vaccine. They want to have their order completed immediately and will pay more if
necessary.

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What everyone needs

Activity 3
The Veronica Bucket is an invention of a biologist called
Veronica Bekoe from Ghana.
It enables people to wash their hands in running water, which is especially
important in countering Covid-19. Veronica Buckets have been issued to
schools and colleges across Ghana since the pandemic started, and have also
been installed outside shopping areas. The Ghanaian Government also made
water free for a number of months when it started a lockdown across the
country. Many countries expected their citizens to stay at home and not travel
to work or for any other reason. This was called ’lockdown’.
Visit this website to see a picture of a Veronica Bucket:
https://connecting-classrooms.britishcouncil.org/resources/home-learning/bringing-
covid-19-under-control/veronica-bucket

In your groups, discuss the idea of the Veronica Bucket.

How effective do you think this would be in parts of the world where they do
not have regular running water?
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What everyone needs

Are there any similar ideas that you can think of that were effective in
supporting people in your area during the pandemic?
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Many Governments made money available to people to help them when they
were in lockdown and not able to work. How do you think this can be made
to work for the people who need it most?
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Some restaurants served free food to their local communities when they were
forced to close during lockdown. Were there any schemes like that in your
area that helped people during lockdown?
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What everyone needs

Activity 4
Here are some words that you need to use confidently.
Match each word to the correct meaning.
immune
antibody bacteria endemic infection
response
immune
inoculate pandemic vaccine virus
system

Word Definition
A substance used to stimulate the body to produce immunity
against a disease, but without giving the person the disease itself.
The process of giving a vaccine to a person.

A protein produced in the blood by the body to counter the effect

of something alien in the blood, such as a bacteria or virus.
The reaction of the cells and fluids in the body to something that
is not recognised by the body.
The organs (such as the thymus and lymph system) and processes
of the body that provide resistance to infection and toxic
substances.
A tiny molecule of protein that needs to invade living cells of a
host animal in order to survive and which can make the animal ill.
A single celled microorganism that has cell walls but does not
have an organised nucleus. Some of these cause disease.
A disease that occurs around the whole world affecting lots of
people.
The process of a microorganism entering the body.

A disease that is regularly found among a group of people or in a

certain area.

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 Activities Stage 8
What everyone needs

Activity 5
Complete this skills check diagram, reflecting on your learning and skills
development in this Challenge.
Collaboration: I have
thought about the need for
collaboration between
countries so everyone can
Research: I have
be vaccinated against
researched the ways
Covid-19
in which vaccines Collaboration: I have
are made and discussed the issues of
understand about the availability of
their functioning vaccines with my group

Collaboration: I
Reflection: I have
have listened to
understood more
the views of other
about the issues
people in my
that influence the
group and
availability of
explained my
vaccines
views carefully

Reflection: I have
Collaboration: I have
understood how vaccine
shared my ideas with the
availability will impact
group and have agreed a
everyone
Collaboration: I have group position on the
helped keep the group on issue
task and been cooperative
with everyone

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What everyone needs

What I have learnt to do through this Challenge is

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What I would like to develop further

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What I think I still need to learn

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