LONDON (AP) – The UK government plans to offer a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to all adults by September, while the country’s healthcare system faces the worst crisis in its 72-year history.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday that the government will soon begin a 24-hour injection test in some locations, as it continues to add more vaccination sites to increase the pace of delivery. The National Health Service opened a mass vaccination center on Saturday in historic Salisbury Cathedral, where the injections were accompanied by organ music.
“Our goal is until September to have offered a first dose to the entire adult population,” he told Sky News. “If we can do this faster than that, great, but this is the script.”
Britain has more than 51 million adults in its population of 67.5 million people.
The ambitious vaccination program comes amid overwhelming pressure on the National Health Service. Hospitals already under siege are admitting another COVID-19 patient every 30 seconds, putting the service in its most precarious situation ever, said Simon Stevens , executive chairman of NHS England.
“The facts are very clear and I will not mitigate them, the hospitals are under extreme pressure and the team is under extreme pressure,” he told the BBC. “Since Christmas Day, we’ve seen another 15,000 increase in the number of patients admitted to hospitals across England. This is the equivalent of filling 30 hospitals with coronavirus patients ”.
Britain’s healthcare system is reeling as doctors and nurses struggle with a more contagious variant of the coronavirus, along with the cold, wet winter that takes people inside, where infections spread more easily.
The increase in infections has pushed the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 to a record 37,475, more than 73% more than during the first pandemic peak in April. Britain reported 88,747 coronavirus-related deaths, more than any other country in Europe and the fifth largest number worldwide.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on January 2 ordered England to make its third national blockade in an effort to slow the spread of the virus and protect the NHS, which Stevens said he now has about 50,000 employees on leave due to HIV infections. COVID-19 and exhibition quarantines.
The government says it will not review the blockade measures until mid-February, when it plans to offer at least one dose of the vaccine to everyone over 70, as well as to frontline health workers and others who are especially vulnerable. to COVID -19.
Once that goal is reached, the UK will offer the vaccine to everyone over 50 before finally passing it on to everyone over 18.
Unlike other nations, Britain has chosen to stretch the time between doses of the vaccine from 21 days to up to 12 weeks – a decision that means more people will receive at least one dose more quickly.
Britain has approved three vaccines – one from Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna. The first two are already in use, while doses of Moderna are not expected until spring.
Meanwhile, vaccination centers are opening in England in some of the country’s great cathedrals. Salisbury Cathedral, which also houses a copy of the Magna Carta, opened its large nave to the public. Others will follow as the implementation continues.
Organ music played while the jabs were being delivered to Salisbury. The orders were fulfilled.
“I doubt that anyone is having a hit in environments that are more beautiful than that, so I hope it will make it easier for people when they enter the building,” said Rev. Nicholas Papadopulos, Rector of Salisbury.
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