Oxford vaccine ‘to be approved before the new year’
The Oxford vaccine is expected to be approved before the end of the year, making it the second Covid vaccine to be approved in the UK.
It is believed the vaccine will be approved on 28 or 29 December after final data is provided to the health regulator on Monday.
The UK has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine, with 4 million immediately available. Unlike the Pfizer jab, the Oxford vaccine does not have to be kept in freezing temperatures, making it more practical to administer.
The news, which was first reported by The Telegraph, comes as a third lockdown looms in the UK, following a rise in infections in the last week that scientists have said will be made worse by the relaxation of the distancing rules over Christmas.
Last night Boris Johnson met with ministers to discuss implementing tougher restrictions, which could see changes made to the rules as early as today.
There is evidence to suggest that a new strain of the Covid-19 virus transmits more easily from person to person, and is to blame for a spike in cases mainly concentrated in the South East of England.
Merry jabmas
Millions of the most vulnerable people in the UK are set to be vaccinated against the virus by March, which could mean an easing of social distating rules and restrictions by the spring.
Football stadiums and other large venues will be opened in the first week of January to allow mass vaccinations on a scale never seen before in the UK, according to the Telegraph.
By this weekend 500,000 people are expected to have received the Pfizer vaccine, which the UK was the first country in the world to approve.
By next week more than 200,000 people per day should be receiving jabs, equating to well over one million doses before Christmas.
Whitehall sources told The Telegraph that once the Oxford vaccine is approved and mass vaccine centres can open up, several million people per week can be vaccinated, leading to 20 million of the most vulnerable people being vaccinated by March.