UK approves use of Oxford vaccine

The United Kingdom took a major step toward bringing the novel coronavirus back under control on Wednesday when it approved a vaccine developed locally by scientists at the University of Oxford and the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.

The nation's health minister, Matt Hancock, said on the BBC's Breakfast program that the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency's green light for the vaccine's use was a "significant moment" in the nation's fight against the virus and the COVID-19 disease it causes.

"2021 can be a year of hope and recovery because we can see our way out of the pandemic," he said.

The BBC quoted Prime Minister Boris Johnson as saying the development of the vaccine was "a triumph" for British science.

"We will now move to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible," he added.

England's chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, highlighted the "considerable collective effort that has brought us to this point" as he welcomed the news.

The vaccination, which was tested for safety and efficacy during many months of clinical trials, will be given to people who are older than 80 and to health workers to begin with, starting on Jan 4.

The jab will bolster a vaccination campaign that has already begun that features an inoculation produced by a collaboration between the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech. That vaccination was approved earlier in December and has already been given to more than 600,000 people in the UK.

Experts say the Oxford/AstraZeneca injection should end up being more useful on a global scale than the Pfizer/BioNTech jab because it is relatively cheap and easy to produce and does not require specialized storage conditions.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine will be administered in two doses given between four and 12 weeks apart, a formula that the company says achieved 100 percent success during trials in preventing severe cases of the disease.

AstraZeneca's chief executive, Pascal Soriot, said on Radio 4's Today program that the company anticipates delivering 2 million doses a week.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine will be sold on a non-profit basis to developing nations, for around $3 a dose, the Financial Times reported.

The paper said experts believe both vaccines will be effective against a new variant of the novel coronavirus that was identified in the UK earlier in December and that is believed to be much more easily transmitted from person to person. The new strain has caused infection rates in the UK to soar recently, and placed great strain on hospitals.

Susan Hopkins, senior medical adviser to Public Health England, told the Guardian newspaper research shows the variant does not appear to cause "more severe disease or increased mortality but we are continuing our investigations to understand this better".

The approval of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could help reduce pressure on hospitals, which treated 21,787 people on Tuesday for COVID-19, which was more than the peak of 18,970 seen on April 12, on the worst day of the first wave.

The fast-spreading new strain prompted the government to extend and strengthen its range of local lockdowns across England on Wednesday, and to order the delayed reopening of some schools following the Christmas vacation. Scotland took similar steps.

Hancock and Education Secretary Gavin Williamson both made statements to lawmakers in the House of Commons outlining why they had to take action.

Hancock said England's strictest level of lockdown, Tier 4, would be extended on Thursday to include previously excluded parts of the Southeast, most of the Midlands, the Northeast, and the Southwest.

After the announcement, almost 80 percent of people in England were set to be living under the toughest lockdown restrictions, which call for people to stay at home as much as possible and for bars and most shops to be closed.

Williamson said most primary schools in England will reopen on Monday as planned but secondary schools and colleges will not reopen until mass-testing can be rolled out to all students.

He said that should mean most students will be back in class by Jan 18, although he conceded students in some areas will have to be taught remotely.

The new strain of the virus prompted the English county of Essex, which lies to the northeast of the capital, to declare a "major incident" on Wednesday.