UK secures 2m more doses of Moderna virus vaccine
Britain has secured two million doses of Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, to be available in Europe as early as spring; there is a risk of a third virus wave, says Raab
Britain has secured two million doses of Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, to be available in Europe as early as the spring, the government said on Sunday, in addition to the 5 million doses it secured from the US company two weeks ago.
Britain is at risk of suffering a third wave of coronavirus infections if it does not get the approach to lockdown restrictions right in the coming weeks, foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday.
“There’s a risk of that (if) we don’t get the balance right,” Raab told the BBC when asked about a possible ‘third wave’ resurgence of cases in January and February.
He said the government was doing everything it could to avoid another national lockdown.
The new deal came a day ater Prime Minister Boris Johnson named Nadhim Zahawi, a junior business minister, to be minister responsible for the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines.
Britain now has access to enough doses of Moderna’s vaccine candidate for around 3.5 million people.
Overall, it has access to 357 million doses of vaccines from seven developers, according to government statement.
“With a wide range of vaccine candidates in our porfolio, we stand ready to deploy a vaccine should they receive approval from our medicines regulator, starting with those who will benefit most,” health minister Mat Hancock said in the statement.
Moderna’s experimental vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial.
Deliveries to Britain could begin as early as the spring, if the vaccine meets the standards of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
Britain has also ordered 40 million doses of a vaccine developed by Germany’s Biontech SE and Pfizer Inc of the United States, which has been found to be 95% effective in preventing the spread of the new coronavirus.
The UK regulator is set to approve the Biontech-pfizer vaccine this week, and deliveries will begin within hours of the authorisation, the Financial Times said on Saturday.
Britain has also secured 100 million doses of the vaccine developed by Astrazeneca PLC and Oxford University and has targeted a rollout to begin before Christmas.
England needs tough restrictions ater its current lockdown ends if hospitals are not to become overwhelmed, a senior minister said, as the government prepares for a mass vaccine roll-out.
But despite progress with the vaccine, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said tough measures were still necessary to fight the disease ater the current national lockdown ends on Dec.2.
Writing in The Times, Gove warned that without further restrictions on most of England’s population hospitals would be overwhelmed.
He urged lawmakers to back government plans in a vote next week.
More than 20 million people across large swathes of England will be forced to live under the toughest tier of cornavirus restrictions.
A growing number of lawmakers in Johnson’s Conservative party have voiced opposition to the tiered restrictions plan.
Some argue that the areas they represent have low infection rates but face the toughest rules, while others say the new measures will cause unnecessary economic harm to local businesses.
There is also some public opposition to the restrictions. Police in central London said they made over 60 arrests during anti-lockdown demonstrations on Saturday.
Gove said the level of infection across the country remained “uncomfortably and threateningly high.” He noted that the number of hospital beds filled with infected patients was not far from its peak earlier in the year.
From the current high base, the National Health Service would be under severe threat if infections started to rise again and tougher measures were needed to manage the virus, he said.
“These new tiers, alongside the wider deployment of mass testing, have the capacity to prevent our NHS being overwhelmed until vaccines arrive,” said Gove.