What exactly is the Pfizer vaccine, who will get it, and is it safe?



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Hancock said Dec. 8 that more hospitals would be added to the list that can begin vaccinating people “later today.”

Responding to Conservative MP Holly Mumby-Croft, she said: “We started in 70 hospitals across the UK. Those are the ones that can best deal with the difficult logistics of having a vaccine that needs to be stored at least 70.

“But I understand the desire of all hospitals to be on that list and we will publish a list later today.”

Frontline NHS staff will no longer have priority for the coronavirus vaccine, following confusion over the number of doses the UK would receive before the end of the year.

NHS staff were to be first in line for the hits after it was deemed too difficult to get the vaccine into nursing homes. But amid the uncertainty over supplies of the new jab, nursing homes rose again on the list.

Chris Hopson, executive director of NHS Providers, said that some 800,000 initial doses “could be the only batch that we receive for some time.”

Speaking in the Commons on Dec. 8, Hancock said there are “huge logistical challenges” to launching the vaccine, yet the next shipment is scheduled to arrive next week. “

Next week, the NHS will expand its vaccination program, with Pfizer’s jabs extended beyond 70 hospitals to around 300 general practitioner centers, targeting people 80 and older.

An additional 1.2 million to 1.6 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be delivered to the NHS next week, it became known Tuesday night.

The rest of the four million doses destined for the UK before the end of the year will arrive in one shipment the following week, according to The Times.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) initially said that nursing home residents and staff should be first in line to receive vaccinations, followed by those over 80 and health workers in general.

However, due to anticipated difficulties in getting the elderly vaccinated, NHS staff were told to prepare to get vaccinated by receiving the winter flu shot before the end of November as there had to be at least one week between the two vaccinations.

The Pfizer / BioNtech jab should be shipped on dry ice at -103F (-75C) and only lasts for five days once stored in a refrigerator at typical temperatures of 35.6F – 46.4 (2-8C), making it impractical deploy it in nursing homes.

Senior NHS officials claim that the jab can only be transported one more time after it reaches a central facility, and must be moved in batches of 975, meaning the vaccine will be wasted if shipped to smaller care homes. they have only a few dozen residents.

However, Pfizer has said that the vaccine can be shipped to nursing homes as long as the vaccine travels no more than six hours after it comes out of cold storage and is then placed in a normal refrigerator between 2 ° C and 8 ° C. ° C.

However, the Scottish Health Secretary announced that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be delivered to residents of nursing homes in Scotland within fifteen days.

Jeane Freeman said conversations on Dec. 3 had confirmed that the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine can be shipped unfrozen for up to 12 hours and can also be divided into smaller packages under “certain conditions.”

Ms. Freeman told MSPs that this makes the vaccine “more usable with minimal waste for nursing home residents and our senior citizens.”

She said: “We can indeed bring the vaccine to them, or close to them, and we will begin that exercise from December 14.”

The National Care Forum said the only viable solution for nursing home residents is to get the strokes “over the threshold.”



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