LONDON – Coronavirus has spread to nursing homes in the UK, as well as the United States, claiming tens of thousands of lives. The UK now hopes to be turning the tide, thanks to a home vaccine that has not yet been authorized elsewhere in the West.
More than four million of the people most at risk in the UK, almost 8% of the adult population, have been vaccinated with at least one vaccine injection.
Among them are more than half of the most fragile group of all: the 300,000 elderly people living in nursing homes who cannot travel for an injection. The key to reaching them has been mobile vaccination teams armed with a shot developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca PLC.
Together with a network of family doctors and vaccination centers in sports centers, hotels and cathedrals, this photo helped the country stay on track to vaccinate its 15 million most vulnerable people by mid-February.
The government says the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was also authorized in India, Morocco and some Latin American countries, was a game changer for reaching people hidden in smaller health homes.