LONDON – The coronavirus, like in the US, tore through nursing homes, taking tens of thousands of lives. Now the UK is hoping it will turn the tide, thanks to a homemade vaccine that still needs to be approved elsewhere in the West.
More than four million people at risk in the UK, almost 8% of the adult population, have been vaccinated with at least one shot of vaccine.
Among them are more than half of the most fragile group of all: the 300,000 elderly people from nursing homes who cannot travel to get a chance. The key to achieving this was mobile vaccination teams armed with a shot developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca PLC.
Together with a network of GPs and vaccination centers in sports centers, hotels and cathedrals, this shot has helped the country stay on track to a target of vaccinating the most vulnerable people by 15 February.
According to the government, the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has also been approved in India, Morocco and some Latin American countries, is a game changer to reach people hidden in smaller nursing homes.