The report comes after Britain approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine
About two million doses of COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca will be delivered to the UK each week by mid-January, reports The Times.
AstraZeneca expects to deliver a total of two million doses of the vaccine by next week, the newspaper reported, naming an unnamed member of the Oxford-AstraZeneca team. “The plan is to build it up pretty quickly – by the third week of January we should be reaching two million a week,” the report added.
The company was not immediately available to respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The report comes after Britain on Wednesday approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, hoping that swift action would help stem a record spike in infections caused by a highly contagious form of the virus.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered 100 million doses for the country as part of an agreement with the company. The company said it plans to provide millions of doses in the first quarter, adding that the first vaccinations are expected to begin this year.
Britain, which has recorded more than 50,000 new daily cases of COVID-19 in the past four days, is dealing with a rapid spread of a much more contagious variant of the coronavirus. As of Friday, the UK has recorded 53,285 new COVID-19 cases and 613 deaths.
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