‘VACCINE ON FRONT LINE IN A MONTH’
NHS PUT ON STANDBY TO GIVE WORKERS AND OVER-85s JABS
THE NHS is being put on standby to roll out a coronavirus vaccine for all front-line workers from next month.
Doctors’ surgeries will be asked to get ready to deliver the jab, which will also be offered to everyone over 85, amid optimism that current medical trials will conclude successfully – as the highest number of deaths were recorded since May.
GPs’ magazine Pulse said ‘a number of sources’ have revealed that an announcement about new NHS contracts, which lay the groundwork to distribute and administer doses, will be made next week. It remains unclear who will supply the vaccine but those currently in development include one by Oxford AstraZeneca and another from Pfizer. The jabs will be distributed by GPs and NHS trusts at mass vaccination sites.
Specialist teams will take the vaccine into places such as care homes, according to Pulse. The report represents the first firm indication of how the government will prioritise who will get a vaccine when it becomes available.
It could have a dramatic effect on the country’s healthcare system and
prove a lifeline for front-line staff and the elderly. More than 600 NHS staff and care workers are believed to have died after catching Covid-19 this year.
Pulse editor Jaimie Kaffash cautioned that, while latest developments were a cause for hope, potential vaccines had still not been signed off as safe.
He said: ‘It is undoubtedly good news. The NHS is optimistic about a vaccine being administered – enough to introduce contractual terms for GPs to administer it from December.
‘However, we don’t know the efficacy of any vaccine as yet. This is not a silver bullet.’
Prof Stephen Evans, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told Metro: ‘It is just possible that the optimistic view that a vaccine becomes available in 2020 with sufficient efficacy will be true.’ The news came as the UK recorded 397 more daily deaths from Covid-19 – the highest since May, with 20,018 new cases.
The Office for National Statistics recorded 978 fatalities in England and Wales in the week ending October 23 with Covid-19 mentioned on the death certificate – up 46 per cent on the week before.
Meanwhile, there are claims that the ‘second wave’ may have peaked.
Researchers at King’s College London said the UK ‘R rate’ had fallen to one – meaning a ‘ plateauing’ of new cases. And Prof Carl Heneghan, of the University of Oxford, said hospital admissions were ‘flatlining... and deaths are too’.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said of the Pulse article: ‘While there are no certainties in the development, production and timing of new vaccines, there is a possibility a Covid-19 vaccine could be available in the UK in the first part of 2021.’