Photographer: Anthony Devlin / Bloomberg
Photographer: Anthony Devlin / Bloomberg
The United Kingdom must confirm that residents in all eligible nursing homes in England have received an offer of the Covid-19 vaccine, despite a dispute over Europe’s exports raising concerns about supplies.
Shots were offered to eligible residents of more than 10,000 homes, where possible, official figures are expected to be released on Monday. The announcement was made after guarantees yesterday from the secretary of International Trade, Liz Truss, that the supply of vaccines to the country is guaranteed and that the country will meet its distribution schedule.
The UK plans to offer vaccines to about 15 million people in its four priority groups by 15 February. This includes residents of nursing homes, people over 70, frontline health professionals and the clinically extremely vulnerable. So far, a total of 8,977.32 people have received their first dose, with a record number of almost 600,000 people being bitten on Saturday alone, government data show.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the numbers of nursing homes as “a crucial milestone in our continuing race to vaccinate the most vulnerable”. Even so, he warned that the number of cases and people hospitalized remains dangerously high. More than 100,000 people died in the UK after a positive test for the virus.
Among those hospitalized with Covid is Captain Tom Moore, the 100-year-old veteran who raised nearly 40 million pounds ($ 55 million) for the country’s health service.
The United Kingdom expanded its vaccine pipeline on Monday, exercising the option to order another 40 million doses of Valneva SE, bringing the total to 100 million doses. The UK has an option for other 90m doses from 2023-2025, according to Valneva, who estimated a total of 190 million doses at up to 1.4 billion euros ($ 1.7 billion).
| Developer | No. of doses guaranteed by the United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Oxford / AstraZeneca | 100 millions |
| Valneva | 100 millions |
| GlaxoSmithKline / Sanofi Pasteur | 60 million |
| Novavax | 60 million |
| BioNTech / Pfizer | 40 million |
| Janssen | 30 million |
| Modern | 17 million |
The government is “absolutely confident” that it can continue to deliver its vaccine plan, Truss told Sky News on Sunday. His comments came after the European Union’s executive branch announced that it would require manufacturers to obtain authorization before sending shots made in the bloc to some other countries. This raised concerns about the supply of shot from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, made in Belgium, to the UK
Vaccine Row
The source of the dispute is AstraZeneca Plc’s decision to prioritize Britain over the EU after a Belgian production failure, in what Brussels claims to be a breach of contract. After a flurry of activities, AstraZeneca agreed to deliver 9 million additional doses of vaccines to the EU in the first quarter of this year, bringing the total to 40 million in the period, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter on Sunday.
Read more: In the face of a vaccine emergency, the EU has become the enemy of all
The fight caused an uproar after an EU threat to unilaterally trigger emergency clauses in its post-Brexit deal with the UK, which authorities have since backed down. Irishman Taoiseach Micheal Martin told the BBC that people were “taken aback” by the measure, while former Prime Minister Tony Blair described it as “very foolish” and said that it jeopardized Ireland’s peace agreement with the Good Friday 1998 Agreement.
Von der Leyen on Sunday held a video call with chief executives of pharmaceutical companies to discuss how vaccines can be deployed, manufactured and approved more quickly in the future.
“The pandemic highlighted that manufacturing capabilities are a limiting factor. It is essential to face these challenges, ”the commission said in a statement after the conference call. He added that “the emergence of worrying variants increases the imminent threat of reduced efficacy from recently approved vaccines.”
– With the help of Alex Morales and Marthe Fourcade
(Updates with Valneva request in the sixth paragraph)