PM: Now we can reclaim our lives
Britons will soon be able to ‘‘reclaim our lives’’ thanks to a coronavirus vaccine that will be given to 2.5 million people by the end of this month, Boris Johnson said yesterday.
The prime minister hailed the ‘‘fantastic moment’’ that Britain became the first Western country to approve a vaccine, and suggested life could ‘‘return to normal’’ in the spring.
The first doses of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine could arrive as soon as today, with the country’s biggest ever inoculation programme due to start on Monday.
The over-80s, care home staff and front-line NHS (National Health Service) workers will receive the first jabs but care home residents will not now be at the front of the queue, it was announced, because of ‘‘logistical challenges’’ in transporting the vaccine, which must be stored at minus 70 Celsius.
Pfizer said the first 800,000 doses of the vaccine, enough to inoculate 400,000 people, were on their way to Britain from a factory in Belgium.
The first phase of the programme, covering everyone over 50 and the most vulnerable in younger age groups, is expected to be completed by March or April, after which Covid restrictions could start to be relaxed. However, Johnson sounded a note of caution against ‘‘over-optimism or a naive belief that the danger is over’’, saying the tier system would have to stay in place for months.
‘‘This is not the end,’’ he said. ‘‘We have to fight on.’’ Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, said the vaccine would not mean the
end of Covid and that it would ‘‘be with humankind forever’’ and a ‘‘seasonal problem’’ like flu.
He hinted that face masks and hand sanitisers could ‘‘persist for many years’’, prompting an onair disagreement with the prime minister, who had suggested that the country would ‘‘go back to normal’’.
Johnson told a press conference that the roll-out was ‘‘a huge moment’’, when ‘‘the searchlights of science’’ had managed to ‘‘pick out our invisible enemy and give us the power to stop that enemy from making us ill’’.
He said: ‘‘We are no longer resting on the mere hope that we can return to normal next year in the spring but rather the sure and certain knowledge that we will succeed and together reclaim our lives and all the things about our lives that we love.’’
Britain has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, enough to jab 20 million people with two doses, dispensed 21 days apart.
Full immunity comes seven days after the second dose.