Britain gears up for vaccine rollout
Inoculations to begin as authorities aim to protect ‘liquid gold’
LONDON — In Bristol, a sports stadium is being converted into a temporary clinic to provide inoculations, as is a racecourse outside London. Village halls, libraries and parking lots across the country are also being turned into makeshift vaccination centers, with the government enlisting military planners for advice.
As it prepares to begin rolling out a coronavirus vaccine Tuesday, Britain is taking on the biggest logistical challenge ever faced by the country’s health service: the vaccination of tens of millions of people against coronavirus in a matter of months. At the same time, law enforcement authorities are contending with an array of potential security threats to the vaccination campaign.
Inoculations are expected to begin Tuesday at selected hospitals throughout Britain that have received the first batches of vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech, which need to be stored at low temperatures. But the temporary clinics that are being hurriedly put together are expected to play critical roles as the mass vaccination program expands.
Retired health workers are being asked to help, while the National Health Service is also recruiting tens of thousands of first aid workers and others to help administer the shot, as the
vaccine becomes available to progressively more people.
“I think all people who can help should put their hands up,” said Sarah Wollaston, who worked as a doctor before serving in Parliament until recently. She has just completed part of an online refresher course to qualify to help in the vaccine rollout.
“Physically, giving someone a vaccine is very straightforward,” she said. “The challenge is the logistics.”
While industry experts and health officials grapple with that, law enforcement officers and cybersleuths face an equally pressing
challenge in the potential security threats surrounding a product in such high demand.
“It is the most valuable asset on earth right now,” said Lisa Forte, a former British counterintelligence employee and a partner at Red Goat, a cybersecurity firm. “Naturally, this will attract highly skilled cybercriminals, criminal groups and state actors.”
Europol has warned that organized crime groups might target trucks containing vaccines for theft and hijacking, and last week Interpol warned against an “onslaught of all types of criminal activity linked to the COVID-19 vaccine,”
which it has described as “liquid gold.”
From the factory to hospitals and other sites, the Pfizer vaccine — because it has to be stored at minus 94 degrees — is vulnerable to sabotage, in addition to theft.
Success is hardly guaranteed, given Britain’s spotty record on logistics during the COVID-19 crisis. In the early stages of the pandemic hospitals were left chronically short of basic protective equipment like masks and gloves, putting some workers at risk of infection.
Since then, the government has struggled to establish a test and trace system, despite budgeting around
$16 billion for the muchcriticized project.
Already, Pfizer’s problems sourcing raw materials may force it to cut the number of vaccine doses promised for delivery this year to Britain possibly by around half, to 5 million. And there is a potential bottleneck in the production of dry ice needed for packing and shipping the vaccine.
Yet experts are cautiously optimistic that the vaccine rollout will go better than the government’s earlier, fumbling efforts to address the pandemic because it will be handled under the umbrella of the National Health Service, which has extensive experience with organizing mass immunizations, like annual flu shots.
“It is not going to be without problems because of its scale and the logistics — I would be amazed if, in six months something, somewhere, didn’t go wrong,” said Helen Buckingham, director of strategy and operations at the Nuffield Trust, a research institute specializing in health.
Vaccines will be offered at three different types of locations: hospitals; doctors’ offices and clinics; and temporary vaccination centers still being prepared, including drive-thru sites, sports stadiums and public buildings. Family doctors, who will carry much of the burden, can call on their experience of giving at least 15 million flu shots each year.
In addition to the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, Britain is likely to authorize at least two others, one produced by Moderna and another by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. But when and where each one will be available is unclear.
Martin Marshall, chair of the council of the Royal College of General Practitioners, notes that refrigeration requirements for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines introduce a complication doctors do not have with flu shots. Both require a second injection after several weeks.
“We are pretty used to delivering big vaccination programs, but of course no one has ever had to deliver one in a situation where the vaccinations don’t come through in pre-filled syringes,” Marshall said.