Hopes are rising that the NHS will introduce a coronavirus vaccine soon after Christmas.
Deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van Tan has privately told MPs trials of the Oxford University vaccine have shown it will cut infections and save lives.
Thousands of NHS staff, including pharmacists, dentists, midwives and paramedics, are to undergo training to administer doses before the end of the year.
The first vaccines are expected to be made available to the elderly, vulnerable and frontline NHS and care staff but the majority of the public will not receive one.
Van Tam, regarded as a “vaccine optimist”, told MPs: “We aren’t light years away from it. It isn’t a totally unrealistic suggestion that we could deploy a vaccine soon after Christmas.”
Government scientific adviser Jeremy Farrar said there was “light at the end of the tunnel” as he believed a vaccine would be ready in the first three months of next year.
But he said the UK needs a circuit breaker lockdown now to make the most of a potential breakthrough.
The Wellcome Trust director said: “I do believe the vaccines will be available in the first quarter of next year, I do believe that monoclonal antibodies to treat patients and save lives will be available in the coming months.
“It’s with that context that I think we need to reduce transmission now and we need to get ourselves back to the beginning of September as a country, not in piecemeal, not in fragments across the country, but as a whole country.”
He added that Christmas would be “tough” this year and unlikely to be a traditional family celebration.
