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Summary
- On Friday, Britain recorded a new daily high of 1,325 deaths and more than 68,000 active cases due to coronavirus.
- NHS England is expected to organise a vaccination drive for all the frontline staff in the next few weeks
- The UK health ministry has given the nod for purchasing 10 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine and initiate vaccination drives by Spring 2021
The hospitals in London are at risk of being overwhelmed as Friday witnessed the highest daily death toll since the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic. PM Boris Johnson has enforced the third lockdown and is procuring more and more vaccines to stem the pandemic and protect its people. Notably, the new strain of coronavirus vaccine has a higher transmissible rate in contrast to Sars-Cov-2.
Britain witnessed a previous high of deaths due to coronavirus in April last year. On Friday, Britain recorded a new daily high of 1,325 deaths and more than 68,000 active cases due to coronavirus. It is important to note that Britain is at fifth position in death tally across the world, where nearly 80,000 Britons lost their lives due to the pandemic.
As the infection rates continue to soar at an alarming rate across the country, UK’s biggest asset, the National Health Service and its hospitals have been under immense pressure since the start of the pandemic. It is imperative to stem the pandemic as London, which has a population of around 9 million, might run out of hospital beds.
The frontline staff consisting of doctors and nurses who have been serving since the pandemic washed up the shores of the UK are at greater risk, and immediate action must be taken to protect them in the first place. Following the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, NHS England is expected to organise vaccination for all the frontline staff in the upcoming weeks. NHS Trusts would be able to provide vaccinations for healthcare staff, social care workers and other frontline volunteers by mid January.
According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, more than a million people were infected with the deadly virus in the last one week. Nearly 1,122,000 people in England were infected with the deadly virus in the week ending 2 January. And most positive cases are infected with the newly found strain of coronavirus.
Britain is doing whatever it takes to curb the spread of the pandemic. The UK on Friday approved Moderna’s vaccine, which is the third after the vaccines by Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The UK’s health ministry is scheduled to buy 10 million doses and initiate vaccinations by Spring 2021.
Also read: Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine impresses, demonstrates 94.5% efficacy
The Moderna vaccine has a higher efficacy rate of more than 90 per cent in contrast to AstraZeneca, and it has already received regulatory licenses in the US and other developed nations.
