England Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the approval of the groundbreaking Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is a “great British success story”.
He told Times Radio: “This is a great British success story and the reason it matters so much is that this vaccine is easy to administer, it only needs to be stored at a normal fridge temperature so we can get it right out into GPs’ surgeries, into care homes, and critically we’ve got 100 million doses coming so everybody can get vaccinated.
“Because of the way that it’s been approved, because the second dose is only needed after 12 weeks, it means that we can accelerate the rollout of this.”
Asked whether two million vaccinations per week was possible, Mr Hancock said: “That’s absolutely deliverable by the NHS.
“The question is how fast the vaccine can be manufactured and the NHS stands ready across the whole UK to deliver this vaccine, along with the existing Pfizer vaccine, at the speed at which it can be manufactured.
“The NHS is ready, it’s done a brilliant job so far of getting going with the first one, which of course is harder to administer. But we are ready to accelerate and we now can accelerate both because of the approval of this vaccine and also the fact that because protection comes from around two weeks after the first dose, it means that we can get out and vaccinate a whole load more people with their first dose very rapidly.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson took to social media to express his joy. He tweeted: “It is truly fantastic news – and a triumph for British science – that the @UniofOxford/@AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use.
“We will now move to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tweeted: “Fantastic news. Thank you to everyone involved, from the scientists to the volunteers.
“We now need a national effort to get vaccinations delivered across the country.”
