U.K. Will Start Immunizing People Against COVID-19 On Tuesday, Officials Say

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The U.K. will begin a mass vaccination against COVID-19 on Tuesday, as hundreds of thousands of doses of Pfizer’s vaccine reach the public. Here, a temperature-controlled cold storage truck leaves a Pfizer facility in Belgium Thursday.

Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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U.K.’s Approval Of Pfizer Vaccine Should ‘Give People Hope,’ Vaccine Expert Says

«We’ve thoroughly tested our plans in Wales and expect to start vaccinating frontline staff and others from Tuesday, First Minister Mark Drakeford said in a briefing Friday. «We hope this marks a turning point and will put us on a long path back to normality.

With the first vaccine now ready for use, Drakeford added, «we hope that the next one will follow soon.

The U.K. has recently succeeded in bringing its number of new coronavirus cases down, after reaching alarming all-time highs in November. But a number of hotspots remain in many parts of the U.K., and restrictions on businesses and social activities are common.

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The U.K. approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine just two days ago. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is slated to meet on Dec. 10 to consider granting regulatory approval.

In the U.S., officials are also working to send a massive amount of vaccine doses to the public, through Operation Warp Speed. Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the effort’s chief adviser, said on Wednesday that he is «confident that we will be able to distribute enough vaccine to immunize 20 million people in the U.S. in December – a figure that would then rise as more doses are received. First priority will be given to front-line workers and people with elevated health risks, he said.

The vaccine’s arrival is an extraordinarily fast development in a field that normally takes years to develop new vaccines.

«Previously, the fastest time from initiation of a vaccine development effort to an approved product was four years, Dr. Richard Hatchett, the CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which develops vaccines against emerging infectious diseases, recently told NPR’s Frank Langfitt.

The COVID-19 vaccine was developed less than a year after the release of viral genome sequences. «That’s never been done before, Hatchett said. But he also said people should feel assured that the new drug is safe. Many of the time gains came through fast-tracking drug trials, and particularly through streamlining the drug-making process.

«They have sped up the development largely by, in parallel, making investments in manufacturing processes that ordinarily you might delay until you had data from your early stage clinical trials, Hatchett said. «They’ve taken the risks in the manufacturing process, but not taken risks with the clinical development.