Volunteer army ready for vaccine roll-out

An army of more than 10,000 medics and volunteers has been recruited by the NHS to help deliver the Oxford Covid vaccine once it is given approval this week.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that teams are trained and ready to begin giving the jab at sports stadiums and race courses across the country, with a target of vaccinating a million people each week.

The Oxford Astrazeneca jab could be approved as soon as tomorrow by the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, after the final cut of data was submitted by the Government last Monday.

Officials have pinpointed January 4 as the date the roll-out of the mass vaccination programme will begin. A government source said: ‘‘At the moment we are operationalising everything... for the first Oxford-astrazeneca jabs in arms. You’ll see it everywhere, while we’ll also be carrying on with Pfizer.’’

The source added: ‘‘Tens of thousands of vaccinators and support staff have been recruited.’’

They are expected to be delivering a million jabs a week to the vulnerable by the middle of next month once manufacturing has been scaled up.

The Telegraph can also reveal that ministers are looking at proposals to triple the length of the time between taking a first and second dose from three weeks to 12 weeks, in order to speed up the delivery of the vaccine.

It comes as frontline NHS workers have been told they will soon receive the Oxford vaccine, and amid calls for teachers to be prioritised alongside health workers to help keep schools open.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive of Astrazeneca, said the firm had come up with a ‘‘winning formula’’ that boosted the effectiveness of the jab so it matched that of the Pfizer-biontech vaccine.

Britain has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford jab, with 40 million due to be available by the end of March. The ease of delivering the vaccine, compared with the complicated cold chain required for the Pfizer jab, and its low cost, mean its approval is viewed as a game-changing development. The roll-out of the Oxford jab is a core element of the Government’s exit strategy from tough lockdown measures.

Ministers are aiming for all vul