Health chiefs set to wrap up a yuletide gift
THERE is new hope for Christmas with plans to roll out a coronavirus vaccine within three weeks.
Health chiefs are reportedly ramping up preparations to make a jab available within a month.
Jon Findlay, head of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in central London, is said to have told executives that it could be distributed by December.
It would be for frontline NHS staff, care home residents and those aged over 80.
Reports also claim Guy’s, along with King’s College Hospital in south London, could become “vaccine hubs” with staff recruited to a “vaccine taskforce”.
Plans are also said to be under way to create a network of Nightingale Vaccination Centres with 500 earmarked to be up and running by December.
A source close to the project said: “Buildings that can be re- purposed, like leisure centres and warehouses, will be used, starting in areas of high infection.”
The plans come after the Government introduced laws to bypass EU approval if an effective jab is found ahead of the Brexit transition period on December 31.
Sir Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, has said he is “10 out of 10” certain the health service can “get going” if a jab becomes available before Christmas.
Deals have already been struck by the Government to buy 350million doses of the six different Covid- 19 vaccines currently being developed.
An NHS spokesman said: “GPS will play an important part in delivering a Covid vaccine as soon as it is ready and exact arrangements will be announced shortly.”