The report comes after Britain approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine
About two million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca are expected to be delivered every week in mid-January in the UK, The Times reported.
AstraZeneca expects to provide two million doses of the vaccine in total next week, the newspaper reported, citing an unidentified member of the Oxford-AstraZeneca team. “The plan is then to increase it quickly – in the third week of January we are expected to reach two million a week,” added the report.
The company was not immediately available to respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The report was released after Britain approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, in the hope that rapid action will help stem a record increase in infections caused by a highly contagious form of the virus.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered 100 million doses for the country as part of an agreement with the company. The company said it plans to supply millions of doses in the first quarter, adding that the first vaccinations are scheduled to begin this year.
Britain, which has recorded more than 50,000 new daily cases of COVID-19 in the past four days, is dealing with the rapid spread of a much more infectious variant of the coronavirus. As of Friday, the UK recorded 53,285 new cases of COVID-19 and 613 deaths.
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