UK Coronavirus Live: Boris Johnson Leads Downing Street Briefing After Political Vaccine Use Approved

Van-Tam says this is a complex product. It is not a yogurt that can be easily taken out of the fridge and put back. It must be handled with care.

Stevens says the NHS needs to get regulatory approval to apply the vaccine to nursing homes. He says he hopes that will happen this month.

Q: Scientists say that nursing home residents should get the vaccine first. Are you confirming that this will not happen? And does that mean you are failing the most vulnerable?

Johnson He says the government wants to put him in a nursing home so he can protect the most vulnerable “as quickly as possible.” But each case has 975 vaccines. He wants to avoid waste, he says. That is why they need to find a way to divide the vaccine packages.

If they don’t transport the vaccine correctly, it won’t work, he says.

He says the MHRA is expected to provide further guidance soon on how it could be distributed to nursing homes.

He says that the goal should be to use the vaccine we have to protect the most vulnerable.

Q: Now that we have the vaccine, how important is this moment?

Johnson says it’s a great time. And it’s a moving moment, he says. He says he is lost in admiration for scientists.

We have a vaccine that really works for Covid. But we haven’t gotten along with Sars or Mers or HIV.

The worst thing now would be to relax the guard, he says.

Johnson says it would be a mistake to loosen the restrictions now.

Q: When will the government provide certainty about what is happening with the exams next summer?

Johnson says the government will launch more tomorrow. He wants the exams to go ahead. But it will explain how it will help the students to sit up.

• Johnson confirms that English learners will go ahead with exams next summer.

Van-Tam says low uptake will mean restrictions will have to be in place longer.

Van-Tam says he was quite excited when he heard the news this morning.

It was, even though we have a vaccine, we need more. And some of the vaccines may fall by the wayside, he says.

He says we need people to take it.

Stevens says that after the GP offices will start operating the local vaccination centers. Eventually there will be 1,000 in England. At-risk patients will be invited.

And, once the regulator approves a way to deliver supplies of the vaccine (which comes in packs of 975 and must be stored at -70 ° C), it will be distributed to nursing homes.

Then it will be provided at the vaccination centers. And starting in January, local pharmacists should be able to offer it too, he says.

• Stevens confirms that the first vaccinations will take place in hospitals, not residences, for logistical reasons.

Stevens says that next week around 50 hospital centers in England will begin offering the vaccine to staff and people already due to enter the hospital for an outpatient appointment.

So if you’re going to be one of those people, next week or in the weeks that follow, the hospital will contact you. You don’t need to do anything about it.

Stevens he’s talking about vaccination guidelines. (See 11.23 a. M.)

The rollout will take place in phases, he says.

Most vaccinations for people in the population at risk will be carried out in the period from January to March or April, it says.

It also says that people need two doses, 21 days apart. Doses should be reserved for people receiving a first dose in December.

Johnson urges people in level 3 areas to participate in community tests.

And people should follow the restrictions, he says.

He says that the idea of ​​returning to normality next year is no longer a hope; we can be sure that it will happen and that we can get our lives back, he says.

Johnson says it has been almost a year since Covid began to torment humanity.

We were waiting for the moment when the “searchlights of science” would find the virus and show how it could be defeated.

The vaccine performs a form of jujitsu on the virus and allows it to be defeated.

The UK was the first country in the world to reserve supplies of the Pfizer vaccine, he says.

Nursing home residents, nursing home staff, the elderly, and the clinically vulnerable will have priority.

But logistically it is complicated, he says. He says it will be a few months before people in these groups are vaccinated.