Photographer: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire/Bloomberg
Lockdowns in the U.K. could be eased at the end of February as the imminent approval of a Covid-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca Plc will permit the vaccination of as many as 15 million of the country’s most vulnerable people, the Mail on Sunday reported.
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 rolled out across the U.K. from Jan. 4, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
The U.K. became the first country in Western Europe to begin vaccinations, when it started using the Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE shot on Dec. 8. More than 600,000 people have been vaccinated through Dec. 20. The government is hoping 2 million people will get a first dose of one of the vaccines within two weeks of the January roll-out of the new shot, the Telegraph said.
The country has been one of the hardest hit in Europe with more than 70,000 deaths, the most in the region after Italy. Much of the U.K. has been moved into the harshest Tier 4 restrictions, which prohibit household mixing and forced the closing of pubs, restaurants and many businesses, after the discovery earlier this month of a more contagious strain of the virus.
Read More: Why the U.K.’s Mutated Coronavirus Is Fanning Worries: QuickTake
The Sun newspaper reported that regulators will approve the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine as early as Dec. 28. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency will need time to carry out a review of the vaccine data, a health department spokesperson said by email, without indicating when a decision would be reached.
Read More: EU Begins Coordinated Vaccine Rollout After Clearing Pfizer Shot
The AstraZeneca vaccine is easier to store and handle than the one from Pfizer, helping efforts to reach people in secluded parts of the country. Approval has been slowed by discrepancies in efficacy rates produced in trials. AstraZeneca Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot told the Sunday Times that new data will show that the vaccine has achieved the 95% efficiency rate reported by Pfizer.
“We think we have figured out the winning formula and how to get efficacy that, after two doses, is up there with everybody else,” he told the newspaper. “I can’t tell you more because we will publish at some point.”
The Telegraph also reported that mass vaccination centers at sports stadiums and conference venues are expected to begin in the second week of January. The newspaper said that government officials will hold a meeting on the pandemic Monday after scientists warned that school closures may be necessary to slow the spread of the new Covid-19 variant.
The rate at which the virus is increasing, known as the R number, is estimated at 1.1 to 1.3 as of Dec. 24, according to the latest government data. A reading above 1.0 indicates the spread of the virus is accelerating. The U.K. reported 34,693 more cases and 210 deaths on Dec. 26.
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