LONDON – The United Kingdom on Monday became the first country in the world to start using the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and drugmaker AstraZeneca, increasing a nationwide vaccination program because the infection rates are unprecedented on British hospitals. .
Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, received the first shot at 07:30 in Oxford University Hospital.
“The nurses, doctors and staff of today were all brilliant, and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife, Shirley, later this year,” Pinker said in a statement issued by the National Health Service was issued.
The deployment of the new vaccine comes at an important moment for British authorities, who are struggling with a surge in infections blamed for a new virus variant that the authorities say is highly contagious. Scotland applied a lock-up until the end of January amid increasing pressure on officials to tighten restrictions in the UK
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said stricter measures were imminent, announced a nationwide speech at 8 p.m. The British Parliament will be recalled to sit on Wednesday.
“If you look at the numbers, there is no doubt that we will have to take stricter measures, and we will announce it in due course,” Johnson said as he visited people using the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine at Chase Farm. hospital in north London. .
The UK is in the midst of an acute outbreak, and has recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus infections in the past six days. On Sunday, it recorded another 54,990 cases and another 454 virus-related deaths to increase the confirmed death toll from the pandemic to more than 75,000, one of the worst in Europe. Some areas north-east of London have infection rates of more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.
Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon says people in Scotland should stay legally at home from Tuesday, except for essential reasons to ease the pressure on hospitals and intensive care units.
Under the new lock-in rules in Scotland, people can go to practice, but they can only meet one person from another household. The closure of the school is being extended until February, except for children of key workers and children under social care.
“I am more concerned about the situation we are facing now than I have ever been since March last year,” she said.
Scotland, which has its own government, has regularly imposed stricter coronavirus restrictions than those in England throughout the pandemic.
British regulators last week allowed the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, which gave public health officials a second vaccine in their medical arsenal. Britain’s mass vaccination program began on December 8 with the shot developed by Pfizer in New York and its German partner BioNTech.
Britain has acquired the rights to 100 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is cheaper and easier to use than some of its competitors. In particular, it does not require the storage required for the Pfizer vaccine.
The new vaccine will be administered in a small number of hospitals over the first few days so that the authorities can take note of adverse reactions. But the NHS said hundreds of new vaccination sites – including local doctor’s offices – would open later this week and join the more than 700 vaccination sites already in operation.
A “massive training operation” is now underway in the vaccination program, Johnson said. But aspects of Britain’s vaccination plans have sparked controversy.
Both vaccines require two shots, and Pfizer recommended that the second dose be given within 21 days of the first administration. But the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization said authorities should give the first dose of vaccine to as many people as possible, rather than setting shots aside to ensure others receive two doses. This extended the time between doses from 21 days to within 12 weeks.
Although two doses are needed to fully protect against COVID-19, both offer high levels of protection after the first dose, the committee said. Giving priority to the first dose will maximize the benefits of the vaccination program in the short term.
Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said policymakers are being forced to balance the potential risks of this change with the benefits amid a deadly pandemic.
“We have a crisis situation in the UK with a new variant that is spreading rapidly, and as it became clear to everyone in 2020, delays are costing lives,” Evans said. “When there are limited resources of doses and people to vaccinate, showing more people with potentially less efficacy is demonstrably better than more complete efficiencies in just half.”
In England alone, 23,557 people were admitted to hospital on Saturday with COVID-19. Although figures for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have not been updated in recent days, they are higher than the British peak during the first wave of the pandemic.
Before Christmas, the government closed non-essential shops across London and parts of south-east England to try to curb the new variant, but health officials say stricter measures are now needed.
Johnson said there were ‘tough, tough’ weeks ahead in the fight against COVID-19. More school closures, curfew rules and the total ban on domestic mixing may be on the agenda.
While schools in London have already closed due to the high infection rates in the capital, students in many parts of the country returned to their personal classes on Monday after the Christmas holidays. However, unions representing teachers have called for schools in England to remain closed for at least two weeks, while classes are being moved to distance education.
Professor Andrew Pollard, one of the scientists who led the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, received his shot on Monday.
“It was an incredibly proud moment for me to receive the real vaccine that the University of Oxford and the AstraZeneca teams have worked so hard to make available to the UK and the world,” he said.
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Associated Press Writer Sylvia Hui contributed
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