Hospitals in England have been told to prepare to start administering CoVid-19 vaccines within days. The fast roll-out was revealed by NHS sources to The Guardian newspaper.
It is thought that as of early December, the vaccine given out will be the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which tests show has a 90% efficacy rate. The UK has around 4 million doses of this particular vaccine. It is as of yet unclear when the Oxford vaccine will begin being distributed, of which the UK has 70 million doses, enough to vaccinate the entire population.
Serious concerns about the testing of the Oxford vaccine have emerged in the last week after it was revealed that a sample of the test population were administered one-and-a-half doses of the vaccine instead of the recommended two-doses. The efficacy of the vaccine is said to be between 60 and 90%, but the testing mix-up has made this less certain.
Regulators are expected to give the green-light to any vaccine with over 50% efficacy.
It is thought that in the first round of vaccination that will begin shortly, it will be those over the age of 80 and NHS workers who will be immunised. Then, if the Oxford vaccine is approved, the rest of the population will begin being vaccinated with the older sections of the population and those with underlying health conditions being given priority.
A senior hospital director told The Guardian:
"We've been told to expect the vaccine on 7 December and plan to start vaccinating our staff all that week. However, it's the Pfizer vaccine we're getting, so it can't be moved again once it gets to us and we then have to use it within five days, as that's its shelf life. The original plan was to do care homes first. But once the vaccine gets to us it can't be used in the community, so only NHS staff will be able to have it, at least initially."
Another director added:
"In practice the NHS will vaccinate NHS staff with the Pfizer vaccine, and pretty quickly, because of its short shelf life. So it will be NHS staff who get it first."
While the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine have shown very high efficacy rates of over 90%, they do need to be stored at around minus 80 degrees centigrade, meaning that large scale vaccination programs will have logistical problems. This is not the case for the Oxford vaccine, which can be stored within a normal fridge and therefore makes it much more suitable for mass vaccination campaigns.
It is not thought that CoVid-19 will ever be eradicated and that it is estimated that it will remain within the human population permanently even with widespread vaccine usage.
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