Vaccinations could blunt British epidemic in weeks

LONDON – Britain is set to give its entire population the first shot of a two-dose coronavirus vaccine by the end of June if it can avoid the supply and logistical problems that threaten one of the world’s fastest implementations delayed.

The most vulnerable will receive their first doses much sooner – probably during the next two weeks – which can dramatically reduce deaths. People over the age of 70, nursing home residents and workers, health and social care workers, and those whose health problems make them extremely vulnerable are all on schedule to receive their first vaccine shots before February 15th. These groups together accounted for 88 percent of Covid19 deaths.

The timeline shows the promise of vaccination as a way out of the deadliest stage of the pandemic in the rapidly moving countries. Early data from Israel show a significant decrease in infection after just one shot, and a recent analysis suggested that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine not only provides good protection against disease and death, but can also reduce the transmission of the virus. . Scientists have said that the results are promising, but that they still need to be confirmed.

As of Wednesday, the United Kingdom has vaccinated more than 15 percent of its population, more than anywhere else in the world except Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The United States was more than 8 percent and the European Union was less than 3 percent.

Of course, Britain’s rollout of vaccines is unlikely to follow a perfectly straight line. A vaccine war with the European Union could jeopardize the supply of vaccines, and the country’s decision to deliver more first doses while delaying the doses of the second shot could create a backlog of patients. (The first dose of a vaccine provides varying degrees of protection, somewhere around 50 percent, which can rise to 95 percent after the second shot.)

“The first jab is the easiest to get started, the second is harder,” said Kit Yates, a mathematical biologist at the University of Bath. “If we go back for the second doses, we have to do it in the right order, and that’s a piece of bureaucracy that could possibly slow things down.”

If the current rate of vaccination in Britain were to decline by 20 per cent, it would take until the end of July to vaccinate everyone.

So far, the country’s rapid deployment of vaccines has been a success. Britain moved faster than any Western country in early December to authorize the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, and the AstraZeneca-Oxford shot down in late December, and on December 8, health workers and the elderly were vaccinated. For the past two weeks, the country has applied. average 394,000 doses per day.

The rate of vaccinations is also being aided by the campaign by the highly centralized national health service, which covers all Britons and provides the bulk of the country’s healthcare. And in addition to Britain’s relatively rapid approval process, the country has moved more aggressively than the European Union and ordered large quantities of vaccinations a few months before it was approved.

“It’s a hedge for your betting strategy,” Yates said. “We bought large doses of vaccines if the opportunity did not work out.”

The British government has now ordered 407 million doses from seven manufacturers – about six per person in the country – although only three of the vaccines are currently approved for use. Some offers will deliver the range of vaccines delivered in the second half of 2021 or even next year.

It was only last week that the country surpassed the grim milestone of 100,000 Covid-19 deaths, by far the highest toll in Europe. But the success of the vaccination so far offers hope that Britain’s most vulnerable will be protected, and that the number of deaths linked to Covid will drop significantly in the coming weeks.