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Summary
- More than 500,000 doses to be available from today, being delivered at 730 established sites to begin with
- Vaccination sites to be increased to more than 1,000 within few day
The first set of doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are to be rolled out as the UK health secretary calls it a ‘pivotal moment’ in nation’s fight against the Covid-19 virus. Over half a million shots of this newly approved vaccine would be available on day one and would be administered to the vulnerable groups first.
The vulnerable groups include healthcare workers, 80 plus people, and care home staff and residents. Specifically, the vaccination services have to ensure that each care home resident in their local area receives the shots by the end of this month.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was given the UK government approval last week, which marked its first global approval.
(Image source: ©Kalkine Group 2021)
The British department of health and social care said that the jabs would be made available at already established 730 vaccination sites first and within this week itself, the number of sites would be raised to more than 1000.
The jab is being administered by six hospital trusts across the nation, including the Oxford University Hospitals NHS (National Health Service) Foundation Trust, where the vaccine was made. Two other hospital trusts are located at London, and one each at Warwickshire, Sussex and Lancashire.
Matt Hancock, health secretary said that the vaccine will speed up the eradication of the coronavirus pandemic from the country. At the same time, he urged the Britons to keep following the social distancing related government restrictions while the inoculation drive was underway to keep the fresh cases under check.
Britain has secured 100 million jabs of the vaccine made jointly by the Oxford University and AstraZeneca, which is sufficient for its population.
To be exact, doses totaling 530,000 shall be available from today, tens of millions more are to be scheduled for delivery in the next few weeks and months as the quality checks get completed. The vaccine has come out more than a month after the Pfizer - BioNTech one began to be given to the British people. Over 1 million people have received its first dose by now.
It is claimed that the AstraZeneca vaccine is easier to transport as compared to the Pfizer one. The latter one also needs a relatively colder environment for storage, close to minus 70C, while the AstraZeneca jab can be stored in the fridge between two to eight degrees only.
The cases of coronavirus rose sharply across the UK during the past few days, fuelled by a newly found highly transmittable virus variant. Yesterday, close to 55,000 new cases were found in Britain, according to the latest government statistics.
