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The NHS will be ready to start vaccinating people against the coronavirus next month, if approved by regulators.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock, speaking at a press conference in Downing Street, revealed that the government has now taken the “first step” to authorize a COVID-19 vaccine in the UK.
The ministers have formally asked the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to evaluate the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine for use in the UK.
The jab has shown an efficiency rate of 95% in the phase 3 clinical study of the companies.
The government has formally asked the UK regulator to evaluate the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
Hancock said the companies had already started submitting data to the MHRA and would submit their full data in the coming days.
“This is another important step forward to face this pandemic,” added the Secretary of Health.
“If a vaccine is approved, of course it will be available across the UK from our NHS, free of charge at point of delivery based on need and not ability to pay.”
Mr. Hancock said, if the MHRA approves a vaccine, “we will be ready to begin vaccination next month, with most of the rollout in the New Year.”
He added: “We are heading in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go: the coronavirus remains a serious danger at this time.”
The press conference came when it was announced that another 511 people had died after testing positive for COVID-19, with another 20,252 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.
England’s deputy chief medical officer said he believed the UK was on the “gliding path” towards launching a vaccine.
However, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, who appeared at the press conference remotely because he isolates himself after “family contact,” cautioned that delivering a vaccine might not be “totally straightforward.”
He added: “I accept that sometimes when you are on the glide slope you can have a crosswind and the landing is not totally easy, totally textbook? Of course.”
Professor Van-Tam warned that infection rates would “rise again” if people did not abide by the coronavirus restrictions put in place at Christmas.
But he dismissed the idea that there was a “magic number” of how many days of additional restrictions would be needed for each day that COVID rules could be relaxed during the holiday period.
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Earlier this week, it was suggested that England might face almost a month of additional lockdown in exchange for five days of release from restrictions over Christmas.
The UK government and the decentralized administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have held talks on a joint approach to Christmas, and the four nations hope to ease current restrictions to allow families to reunite in greater numbers.
But Hancock said it was “still too early to say” what rules might be in place over Christmas, or what restrictions might be necessary once England’s current lockdown ends on Dec. 2.
“I’m afraid we haven’t made those decisions yet,” he said.
The Health Secretary said he was “increasingly confident” that life will be closer to normal in spring.
He added that the UK was “clearly close to the peak” of the second wave of coronavirus infections.
Earlier on Friday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the incidence rate of COVID-19 appeared to have “stabilized” in England and Scotland.
He also said that rates had been declining in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said the replication number, or R-value, for the whole of the UK had dropped to between 1 and 1.1.
