Health workers and the over-80s are among the first in line for the newly-approved Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine after the UK’s immunisation watchdog unveiled its priority list.
With rollout in the NHS due to start as early as next week, the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) announced the updated list on Wednesday.
The UK has already ordered 40 million doses of the free jab - enough to vaccinate 20 million people, or a third of the population.
Scotland is expected to receive an estimated 320,000 doses in the first round of distribution across the UK.
The JCVI said its ranking of priorities is a “combination of clinical risk stratification and an age-based approach, which should optimise both targeting and deliverability”.
Here is its new priority list:
1 Older adults resident in a care home and care home workers
2 All those 80 years of age and over. Front line health and social care workers
3 All those 75 years of age and over
4 All those 70 years of age and over
5 All those 65 years of age and over
6 All Individuals aged 16 to 64 with underlying health conditions.
7 Moderate-risk adults under 65 years of age
8 All those 60 years of age and over
9 All those 55 years of age and over
10 All those 50 years of age and over
11 The rest of the population (priority to be determined).
It will be early January before anyone in the UK can claim to benefit from a working vaccine as it needs to have two weeks between each of its two doses, and it takes four weeks for overall effectiveness.
The NHS has a programme to roll it out successively to different groups stretching through the spring and into summer 2021.
Dr June Raine, head of the regulator which approved the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, said no corners had been cut in assessing its safety.
She said the checks conducted by the UK regulator on the vaccine are “equivalent to all international standards”
The MHRA chief executive told a No 10 briefing: “The public can be absolutely confident that the standards that we have worked to are equivalent to standards around the world.”
Prof Sir Munir Pirmohamed, the chair of Commission on Human Medicine Expert Working Group, said people given the vaccine would become immune seven days after the second dose, although there would be partial protection 12 days after the first dose.
The UK has bought 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BionNTech vaccine but has several other vaccines on order too.
