Coronavirus: UK could lift lockdown in February after vaccinating 15 million vulnerable people

Name: Coronavirus vaccine: ‘Go for it’ says 90-year-old UK grandmother after getting first Pfizer shot
Uploaded: 2020-12-27T16:02:13.000Z
Duration: 54 s
Description: Coronavirus vaccine: ‘Go for it’ says 90-year-old UK grandmother after getting first Pfizer shot

AstraZeneca’s vaccine will be approved soon and rolled out across Britain from January 4

Much of the country has been moved into the harshest Tier 4 restrictions after the discovery of a more contagious strain of the virus

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A nurse prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, Britain. Photo: AFP

Bloomberg

Published: 12:02am, 28 Dec 2020Updated: 12:02am, 28 Dec 2020

Lockdowns in the UK could be eased at the end of February as the imminent approval of a Covid-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca will permit the vaccination of as many as 15 million of the country’s most vulnerable people, The Mail on Sunday reported.

The country’s health service would no longer be at risk of being overwhelmed by virus cases once that threshold is met, the newspaper said. The vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca will be approved soon and rolled out across the UK from January 4, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

The UK became the first country in western Europe to begin vaccinations, when it started using the Pfizer and BioNTech shot on December 8. More than 600,000 people have been vaccinated through December 20. The government is hoping 2 million people will get a first dose of one of the vaccines within two weeks of the January roll-out of the new shot, The Telegraph said.

The country has been one of the hardest hit in Europe with more than 70,000 deaths, the most in the region after Italy. Much of the UK has been moved into the harshest Tier 4 restrictions, which prohibit household mixing and forced the closing of pubs, restaurants and many businesses, after the discovery earlier this month of a more contagious strain of the virus.

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Coronavirus vaccine: ‘Go for it’ says 90-year-old UK grandmother after getting first Pfizer shot

The Sun newspaper reported that regulators will approve the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine as early as December 28. The Medicines and Health care Products Regulatory Agency will need time to carry out a review of the vaccine data, a health department spokesperson said by email, without indicating when a decision would be reached.