UK buys 60m vaccine doses

BRITAIN will be at the front of the queue to get another potential coronavirus vaccine after striking a deal to buy 60million doses.

The Government has entered into an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur to be one of the first countries to get their new vaccine.

If it works, a jab may be available for those in most danger of falling severely ill in the first half of 2021.

It is the fourth deal struck – three with British-based trials – to secure early access to vaccines. The UK is now guaranteed 250million doses, any of which could be used together if one does not work well enough on its own.

Meanwhile, 72,000 people have signed up to a register launched to encourage people to volunteer for vaccine trials.

IN the frenetic global race for a coronavirus vaccine, British drug firms are flying ahead. Since the crisis began, companies such as AstraZeneca and GSK have worked tirelessly with researchers at our best universities to find a cure.

And their labours are beginning to bear fruit, with three British-made vaccines likely to be available by early next year.

Compare this can-do attitude with the lethargy endemic in other institutions – the big banks, Civil Service, major accountancy firms. While they stall over returning to work, our cities become ghost towns, the economy goes into freefall and mass unemployment looms.

Yes, Covid is still with us and the authorities must come down with force on local spikes. But if ministers are to coax Britain’s whitecollar workers back to the office, they must be careful with their language.

Talk of an imminent ‘second wave’ of the virus is overblown and frightens people unnecessarily. It could happen but there is currently little evidence that it will. The Government message should be much more about balancing risk.

For the overwhelming majority of people, the risk of dying from Covid is vanishingly small. If we don’t get back to work soon, economic misery is a racing certainty. the US Congress really need to ask whether Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook are too powerful, or whether they operate as virtual monopolies? The answer to both questions is obviously yes. And they pay pitifully small amounts of tax to boot. President Donald Trump said yesterday that if Congress doesn’t act to ‘bring fairness to Big Tech’, then he will. About time, too!