The health secretary hailed the 'great British success story' in the Commons today.
The UK has 530,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine available from Monday, Matt Hancock has announced.
The health secretary hailed the ‘great British success story’ in the Commons today, saying it ‘offers hope not just for this country but for the whole world’.
He added that it ‘brings forward the day we can lift the restrictions that no one in this house wants to see’, as he confirmed three-quarters of England will be in tier four from tomorrow.
He said: ‘We need to vaccinate as quickly as supply allows, following the necessary safety checks, of course, and the NHS stands ready to accelerate deployment at scale from Monday 4th January.
‘We have a total of 100 million doses on order which, combined with the Pfizer vaccine, is enough to vaccinate every adult in the UK with both doses.
‘We will, of course, vaccinate according to the JCVI priority, but today’s news means everybody who wants one, can get a vaccine.
‘We already have 530,000 doses available to the UK from Monday, with millions due from AstraZeneca by the beginning of February.
‘The clinical advice is that the Oxford vaccine is best deployed in two doses, up to 12 weeks apart.
‘The great news is people get protection after the first dose. This means we can accelerate the speed at which we can vaccinate people for the first 12 weeks before we return to deliver the second doses for that long-term protection.’
‘It brings forward the day on which we can lift the restrictions that no one in this house wants to see any longer than absolutely necessary.’
The ‘game-changing’ jab was given the green light by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) today.
It has been described as ‘a vaccine for the world’ given its low cost and the fact that it can be kept in refrigerators rather than at ultra-cold freezer temperatures.
It comes as the number of Covid-19 patients in English hospitals is the highest it has been during the pandemic.
The health secretary said the Midlands, the North East, parts of the North West and parts of the South West are moving into the toughest tier on New Year’s Eve, joining millions of people in London and the South East.
Almost all remaining areas will be moved into tier three, except for the Isles of Scilly, which will remain in tier one, the lowest level of restrictions.
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