LONDON (AP) – Britain took another giant step in the fight against COVID-19 on Monday, accelerating its immunization program, offering the world’s first shots of the vaccine created by Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
Dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, was the first to receive the new vaccine, administered by the head nurse at Oxford University Hospital. Pinker said he was so pleased and that he could “now look forward to celebrating 48 years of marriage with my wife Shirley later this year.”
As of December 8, the UK National Health Service is using a vaccine produced by Pfizer and the German company BioNTech to inoculate health workers and residents and nursing home staff. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine expands that arsenal and is cheaper and easier to use because it does not require the super-cold storage required for the Pfizer vaccine.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was given to a small number of hospitals in the UK in the first few days, so that the authorities could be alert to any adverse reactions. But hundreds of new vaccination sites – both in hospitals and in local doctors’ offices – will be launched this week, joining the more than 700 already in operation, NHS England said.
In a move from practices in the US and elsewhere, the UK now intends to provide people with secondary doses of both vaccines within 12 weeks of the first shot, rather than 21 days, to boost immunizations. to as many people as possible.
Deputy Prime Minister Jonathan Van-Tam said on Sunday that the decision was “what needs to be done for the nation as a whole.”
The UK is in the midst of an acute outbreak, with over 50,000 new coronavirus infections a day in the last six days. On Sunday, it registered another 54,990 cases and another 454 virus-related deaths, to bring the total number of confirmed pandemic deaths to 75,024, one of the worst in Europe.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned on Sunday that more difficult blockade restrictions in England are likely in the coming weeks as the country moves away from a variant of coronavirus that has pushed infection rates to record levels.
Johnson, however, insisted he had “no doubt” that schools were safe and urged parents to send their children back to class on Monday in areas of England where schools intend to reopen. Teachers’ unions have called on schools to use distance learning for at least two weeks more so because of the variant, which officials said is up to 70% more contagious.
“We are fully committed to doing whatever it takes to control the virus, which could involve tougher action in the coming weeks,” Johnson told the BBC.
Johnson acknowledged that school closures, shutdowns and a total ban on mixing in households could be on the agenda for areas with the greatest stress.
London and the south-east of England are facing extremely high levels of new infections and it is speculated that restrictions there will have to be tightened. Some areas in the region have more than 1,000 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 people.
Johnson’s Conservative government is using a system of restrictions on coronavirus levels to try to stop the virus from spreading. Most of England is already at the highest level of Tier 4, which involves closing non-essential shops, gyms and leisure centers and going home training.
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