Photographer: Owen Humphreys / PA Wire / Bloomberg
Photographer: Owen Humphreys / PA Wire / Bloomberg
Closures in the UK could be eased in late February with the imminent approval of a Covid-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca Plc will vaccinate up to 15 million of the most vulnerable people in the country, the The mail was reported Sunday.
The country’s health service would no longer be at risk of being overwhelmed by virus cases once that threshold is met, the newspaper said. The vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca will be approved shortly and will be rolled out across the UK from January 4, Sunday Telegraph reported.
The UK became the first country in Western Europe to start vaccinations, when it started began using Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE the shot on December 8th. More than 600,000 people have been vaccinated as of Dec. 20. The government expects 2 million people to get a first dose of one of the vaccines within two weeks of January the launch of the new shot, the Telegraph said.
The country has been one of the hardest hit in Europe with more than 70,000 dead, the most in the region after Italy. Much of the UK has moved to the more stringent Level 4 restrictions, which ban mixing of homes and force pubs, restaurants and many businesses to close, following the discovery earlier this month of a variety more contagious virus.
Read more: Why the UK’s mutated coronavirus worries: QuickTake
The Sun newspaper reported that regulators will approve the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine as early as December 28th. The Medicines and Health care The Product Regulatory Agency will need time to review vaccine data, a health department spokesman said by email, without indicating when a decision would be made.
Read more: EU begins coordinated deployment of vaccines after clearing Pfizer shot
The AstraZeneca vaccine is easier to store and handle than the Pfizer vaccine, which helps reach people in remote areas of the country. Approval has been slowed by discrepancies in the efficacy indices produced in the trials. AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot told Sunday Times, new data will show that the vaccine has reached the 95% efficiency rate reported by Pfizer.
“We think we’ve figured out the winning formula and how to get an effectiveness that, after two doses, is there with everyone else,” he told the newspaper. “I can’t tell you more, because at some point we’ll post.”
The Telegraph also reported that mass vaccination centers at sports stadiums and conference venues are expected to begin the second week of January. The newspaper said government officials will hold a meeting on the pandemic on Monday after scientists warned that school closures may be needed to curb the spread of the new Covid-19 variant.
According to the latest government data, the rate of increase in the virus, known as the R number, is estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3 as of December 24th. A reading above 1.0 indicates that the spread of the virus is accelerating. The UK reported 34,693 more cases and 210 deaths on 26 December.
(Updates with comments from the CEO of AstraZeneca from the sixth paragraph)