Here already! First doses of jabs arrive for V- Day
NHS receives precious cargo ... and it could be given to UK patients as early as tomorrow
PACKAGED in a plain white box, the precious contents need handling with care.
These are the first doses of the Pfizer vaccine arriving at UK hospitals yesterday and heralding the start of mass vaccinations, hailed as ‘the beginning of the end’ for coronavirus.
Up to 50 hospital hubs will start vaccinations tomorrow – dubbed ‘V-Day’ by UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
In Scotland, the first vaccines will be given to those running the vaccination programme.
Initial doses of the vaccine – given the green light last week by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – are being prioritised for those most at risk.
Elderly patients, aged 80 plus, attending hospital for other appointments, are likely to be first in line for the jab, followed by care home and NHS staff.
The UK has ordered 40million doses, enough to vaccinate 20million people, and as many as ten million doses are expected by the end of the year.
Pictures show the arrival of a batch of vaccine at Croydon University Hospital in south London over the weekend, with similar scenes unfolding all around the
‘Help the country turn a corner’
country. There, it was unboxed by a pharmacy technician wearing protective safety equipment, designed to cope with its -70C cold-storage requirements.
After going through final quality control checks the batch is placed in a freezer to ensure it can be kept at the right temperature until it is ready to be used.
Distribution of the vaccine across the UK is being undertaken by Public Health England and the NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland through systems adapted from those used for the national immunisation programmes.
The vaccine’s arrival came as health chiefs announced it is ‘very safe, effective and will help the country turn a corner’.
Dr June Raine, chief executive of the MHRA, said a strong vaccine uptake was key to getting rid of tier restrictions.
She said there ‘should be no doubt whatever that this is a very safe and highly effective vaccine’.
Dr Raine likened the Pfizer vaccine to getting a flu jab or holiday inoculations, adding there should be ‘real confidence’ in how rigorously it has been tested.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Dr Raine said it was ‘vitally important’ those eligible had the vaccination, to ‘ help defeat this terrible disease’.
She said: ‘I would really like to emphasise that the highest standards of scrutiny, of safety and of effectiveness and quality have been met, international standards. And so there should be real confidence in the rigour of our approval.
‘More than that, our Commission on Human Medicines has scrutinised every piece of data too, so there should be no doubt whatever that this is a very safe and highly effective vaccine. It will help us turn the corner.’
Her comments were echoed by Mr Hancock, who said the fast-tracked vaccine approval could see restrictions eased before the end of March.
Meanwhile, Scottish officials have said they are looking at a range of venues to use as vaccination centres, including airports and sports stadiums.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman revealed yesterday that the first vaccines will be given tomorrow to those running the vaccination process, with health and social care workers also getting their first dose this week.
She said the Scottish Government is set to have all the country’s over-50s vaccinated by next summer.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The vaccines will initially be held in 23 freezers sited in NHS board vaccine deployment centres. To start with, delivery will be close to the vaccine deployment centres.
‘We are looking at a number of options around large vaccination centres. These include football grounds, airports and others, although these venues would not come on stream until later next year, once we have delivery of sufficient quantities of the vaccine.’
Mr Hancock said the plan was to vaccinate more than half of the most vulnerable groups across the UK by the end of February. He said millions of doses of the Pfizer vaccine would be in the UK before the end of the year and he was hopeful that a second vaccine from Oxford University and AstraZeneca would be approved by Christmas.
This could allow the strictest of restrictions to be eased before Easter as had originally been planned, he said.
‘There’s no doubt that having the vaccine early will bring forward the moment when we can get rid of these blasted restrictions, but until then we have got to follow them.
‘Help is on its way,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph.
IT’S been a miserable year but the end is in sight. Tomorrow, the Covid-19 vaccine is launched, bringing hope that this pandemic can be defeated in the coming year.
Repeated lockdowns will have saved some lives but others will be lost to the health consequences of mass inactivity, layoffs and mental ill-health.
The Pfizer vaccine offers an opportunity not only to eradicate Covid but to begin repairing the wider damage it has caused.
That is why it is a moral imperative that all who are offered the vaccine take it. We have an obligation not only to ourselves and our f amilies but t o our l ocal communities and the country at large.
Failing to do our part would cost lives and undermine efforts to get the UK back on its feet. No one should fall for the antivaccination conspiracy theories being peddled by internet cranks.
The scientists behind this jab are among the best in the world. Trust them, not something shared by anti-vaxxers.
This is a historic moment for the UK and we should be proud of what we have achieved.
Those who seek to divide our nations should reflect, as should we, how different things might have been i f they had their way.