Covid-19 news: UK on track to start vaccine roll-out in December

Vaccine vial

John Cairns/Jenner Institute

Latest coronavirus news as of 5 pm on 23 November

Oxford vaccine researcher says UK is on track to vaccinate high-risk groups  in December

People in high-risk groups in the UK may be able to get a coronavirus vaccine by December, with doses for the wider public being made available by next spring, said Adrian Hill at the University of Oxford today. Hill is the head of the institute behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine candidate, which may be up to 90 per cent effective according to preliminary results published today. “I think we are on track for the timeline […] to start getting this vaccine rolled out from December,” said Hill. “Hopefully there will be a vaccine available for all adults, but that’s likely to be springtime rather than in January.” In addition to the UK, governments in the US and Germany are also preparing to start vaccinating some people in December. 

The UK has pre-ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate, as well as 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine candidate and 5 million doses of Moderna’s candidate. “The bulk of the vaccine rollout programme will be in January, February, March. And we hope sometime after Easter things will be able to start to get back to normal,” UK health minister Matt Hancock said today. It isn’t yet clear how long any immunity generated by coronavirus vaccines might last.  

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COVAX – a global coronavirus vaccine allocation coalition with the World Health Organization – has been working to discourage governments from hoarding vaccines and ensure the most vulnerable groups in each country are vaccinated first. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is already part of COVAX, which aims to distribute about 2 billion doses to 92 low- and middle-income countries at a maximum price of $3 per dose. In a statement today, AstraZeneca said it will seek an emergency use listing from the WHO to accelerate access to its vaccine candidate in low-income countries. 

Other coronavirus news

UK prime minister Boris Johnson announced more details about England’s planned return to a three-tier system of coronavirus restrictions, after the nationwide lockdown ends on 2 December. Parliament will vote on the plan later this week. Under the new system, more areas will be placed in the higher tiers compared to before the current nationwide lockdown. On Thursday, the government will confirm which regions will fall under which tiers. This will be based on analysis of cases among all age groups, particularly those above 60, as well as the rate at which cases are rising and falling and the current and projected pressure on the NHS in the region, Johnson told parliament today, which is in line with advice from the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. Johnson also revealed plans for a programme of mass testing, similar to that which took place as part of a pilot in Liverpool, to be rolled out in all tier-three areas in England after the lockdown ends. Johnson said rapid coronavirus tests are already being deployed in the NHS and in care homes, with the goal of allowing every care home resident to have two visitors who can be tested twice a week by the end of the year. 

Covid-19 hospitalisations continue to surge in the US, with a new record of 83,870 people hospitalised with the disease in the country on Sunday. There have been reports of crowding in US airports ahead of Thanksgiving this week, despite the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warning against travel for the national holiday. Senior US health adviser Anthony Fauci warned yesterday that spikes in cases would not become evident until weeks after Thanksgiving. He told CBS this could create a “very difficult” situation as winter approaches.

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The worldwide covid-19 death toll has passed 1.39 million. The number of confirmed cases is more than 58.8 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

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What to read, watch and listen to about coronavirus

Race Against the Virus: Hunt for a Vaccine is a Channel 4 documentary which tells the story of the coronavirus pandemic through the eyes of the scientists on the frontline.

The New York Times is assessing the progress of different vaccine candidates and potential drug treatments for covid-19, and ranking them for effectiveness and safety.

Humans of COVID-19 is a project highlighting the experiences of key workers on the frontline in the fight against coronavirus in the UK, through social media.

Belly Mujinga: Searching for the Truth is a BBC Panorama investigation of the death of transport worker Belly Mujinga from covid-19, following reports she had been coughed and spat on by a customer at London’s Victoria Station.

Coronavirus, Explained on Netflix is a short documentary series examining the on-going coronavirus pandemic, the efforts to fight it and ways to manage its mental health toll.

New Scientist Weekly features updates and analysis on the latest developments in the covid-19 pandemic. Our podcast sees expert journalists from the magazine discuss the biggest science stories to hit the headlines each week – from technology and space, to health and the environment.

COVID-19: The Pandemic that Never Should Have Happened, and How to Stop the Next One by Debora Mackenzie is about how the pandemic happened and why it will happen again if we don’t do things differently in future.

The Rules of Contagion is about the new science of contagion and the surprising ways it shapes our lives and behaviour. The author, Adam Kucharski, is an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and in the book he examines how diseases spread and why they stop.

Previous updates

Graffiti showing a person wearing personal protective equipment and holding a syringe in their gloved hand on the wall, with a person walking in front of it.

Hope of a future coronavirus vaccine, in Paris, France

JEANNE ACCORSINI/SIPA/Shutterstock

20 November

NHS England’s draft plan aims for widespread vaccination of adults by start of April

A draft of NHS England’s plan for the roll-out of a coronavirus vaccine aims for widespread vaccination of all willing adults in England by early April, if sufficient doses and other crucial supplies are available. Under NHS England’s draft covid-19 vaccine deployment programme, which was outlined in a leaked document dated 13 November seen by HSJ, most doses of the potential vaccine would be administered between early January and mid-March, at a rate of between 4 and 5 million each week. The vaccinations would take place at thousands of “community mass vaccination sites” arranged by local GPs, with additional “large scale mass vaccination centres” in stadiums and conference centres. Priority will be given to healthcare workers and care home residents who would start to be vaccinated in early December, followed by people aged 80 and above, those in their seventies and those in their late sixties. Adults under 50 could start getting vaccines late January, with the majority vaccinated in March. The draft plan relies on more than 7 million doses of a vaccine being available in December. The document does not mention which vaccine will be used, and it is not known how many doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will be available by then. The document also includes very little detail about how the NHS will surmount the significant logistical problems with delivering vaccines that require strict temperature-controlled supply chains.

US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German company BioNTech said they applied to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today for emergency use authorisation for their coronavirus vaccine candidate in the US. This week, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was found to be 95 per cent effective in phase III clinical trials. The UK government has pre-ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccines, and recently secured an initial agreement with US pharmaceutical company Moderna for 5 million doses of their vaccine candidate, which preliminary results indicate is almost 95 per cent effective. 

Other coronavirus news

Coronavirus infections in England may be levelling off, according to the latest results of a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics. Estimated daily new infections in England decreased slightly to 38,900 new cases per day during the week ending 14 November, compared to 47,700 during the previous week. “These numbers would be the first where we might hope to see the national lockdown beginning to impact,” said James Naismith at the University of Oxford in a statement. “We know that social restrictions are the most effective way to bring down the number of new infections.”

The World Health Organization has advised that Ebola treatment remdesivir should not be used in people hospitalised with covid-19. The FDA approved remdesivir for use in people over 12 who are hospitalised with covid-19 last month. “The trials reported to date have shown no impact of remdesivir on survival,” said Martin Landray at the University of Oxford in a statement. “This is a drug that has to be given by intravenous infusion for 5 to 10 days and costs around £2000 per course. So remdesivir is not cheap, it is not convenient, and it has no impact on the mortality among the people at highest risk.”

Personal protective equipment ordered by the UK government may have come from factories using North Korean slave labour, the Guardian reported.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised people in the US not to travel for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.

Coronavirus deaths

New Scientist Default Image

The worldwide covid-19 death toll has passed 1.36 million. The number of confirmed cases is more than 57.1 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Pedestrians pass festive lights on Oxford Street in London, UK

Pedestrians pass festive lights on Oxford Street in London, UK

Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

19 November

‘Substantial risks’ with socialising over Christmas, warns UK science adviser

People mixing from different households during the Christmas period poses “substantial risks”, particularly for older people who are more vulnerable to severe covid-19, a scientist advising the UK government has warned. Socialising during the holidays is likely to result in increased contact between younger generations “with high incidence of infection”, and older people, said Andrew Hayward at University College London, who is a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. “My personal view is we’re putting far too much emphasis on having a near-normal Christmas,” Hayward told BBC Radio 4. “We know respiratory infections peak in January so throwing fuel on the fire over Christmas can only contribute to this.” England entered a four-week nationwide lockdown on 8 November, which is due to end on 2 December. Next week, the UK government is expected to set out proposals for easing restrictions in December.

The city of Hull currently has the highest infection rate in England at 751 per 100,000 people, compared to 274 per 100,000 across England as a whole. Local MPs have asked the UK government for help, including support from the military to carry out mass testing in the city. Last week, the military was deployed to help the NHS with mass testing in Liverpool. The government said its coronavirus task force would discuss response measures with leaders in Hull. 

Other coronavirus news

Preliminary results suggest an arthritis drug may improve outcomes in severe covid-19. The findings, which have not yet been published or peer-reviewed, indicate that critically ill covid-19 patients treated with Roche’s anti-inflammation drug Actemra are more likely to survive after being admitted to hospital for covid-19. The drug, also called tocilizumab, is one of several being evaluated as part of the REMAP-CAP trial, led in the UK by researchers at Imperial College London and the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre. Other studies have shown mixed results on the effectiveness of tocilizumab in covid-19 patients, said Athimalaipet Ramanan at the University of Bristol in a statement

The Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine candidate is safe and induces an immune response in people in their 60s and 70s, according to results from a phase II trial published in the Lancet. The results are based on a study in 560 volunteers. The findings are significant, because the risk of severe covid-19 increases with age. Data from on-going phase III trials will reveal whether the vaccine candidate can prevent people from becoming ill with covid-19.

The number of covid-19 patients in US hospitals has doubled in the past month, with new record daily numbers of hospitalisations reported every day this week. Almost 77,000 people were hospitalised with the covid-19 in the US as of Tuesday and more than 250,000 people have died from the disease in the country since the start of its epidemic.

Coronavirus deaths

New Scientist Default Image

The worldwide covid-19 death toll has passed 1.35 million. The number of confirmed cases is more than 56.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Getting a vaccine to the world: Once a coronavirus vaccine is approved, the race is on to overcome the biggest logistics challenge in history to distribute it around the globe.

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