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More than 10 million people in the UK have now received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
Professor Robert Read, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Southampton, and a member of the UK Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said:
“This is a fantastic moment for the UK. Ten million of our most vulnerable people given protection with their first jab in a matter of weeks and with very few reports of serious side effects. This is going to make a big dent in serious COVID and hospital admissions and deaths. I am really delighted with this.”
Prof Nilay Shah, Head of Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London:
“It’s always been our view that aiming to hit 500,000 vaccinations a day consistently is a challenge but one that can be achieved with all elements of the system (manufacturing, storage, distribution, administration) working effectively. This has been achieved on many days and on average we are not far off with the figure of 10m. It means that we will be roughly on track for vaccinating the first priority groups by mid-February. So it’s something to be celebrated.”
Dr Peter English, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control, Former Editor of Vaccines in Practice Magazine, Immediate past Chair of the BMA Public Health Medicine Committee, said:
“A single dose of both of the Covid-19 vaccines currently in use in the UK is highly effective at preventing severe illness requiring hospital admission, and death. There will be a lag between vaccination and seeing these effects, as it takes up to three weeks for the immune system to fully respond; and it takes about 2 weeks from the start of symptoms before people typically require hospital admission, with death usually occurring three or more weeks after symptom onset.
“It is good to see that new case rates are starting to fall; but the numbers are still terrifyingly high, so the sooner we can get vulnerable people vaccinated, the sooner we can expect them to be protected from serious illness, and the sooner – and larger – the falls we can expect to see in hospital admissions and deaths.”
Prof Keith Neal, Emeritus Professor of the Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases, University of Nottingham
“10 million is very good especially as that is well on the way to ensuring we are protecting the majority of the most vulnerable people. We now know that a single dose provides significant protection and very likely will reduce transmission.
“I know of vaccinators who have been trained and have time to do more vaccinating – the simple issue is that this is a vaccine supply issue as to why we cannot do more.
“Pre-ordering and identifying production facilities BEFORE we knew if the vaccine would work is why we are as advanced in our vaccination coverage as we are now.
“Vaccine supply issues have been a long standing problem well before this need for COVID-19 vaccines and to produce a brand NEW vaccine in bulk this quickly is a major achievement. It is well recognised that there are regular batch issues and this partially explains what we are seeing in Europe with vaccine supply.
“Anyone who is saying what the UK has achieved with the vaccine roll out is not good enough needs to identify what THEY would have done differently.”
Prof Lawrence Young, Virologist and Professor of Molecular Oncology, University of Warwick, said:
“This is a great achievement and demonstrates what we can be accomplished when we empower the NHS locally.
“We are on track to giving the first jab to those groups most vulnerable to COVID by mid-February.
“We should soon see the impact of this vaccination on reducing levels of hospitalisation and mortality.
“Hopefully an effect on virus transmission will also be evident. It is now vital that we continue at this pace.
“We have secured access to over 350 million doses of the 7 most promising vaccines and now have a proven infrastructure for vaccine delivery.
“But we mustn’t forget the importance of the second booster jab – this will not only further elevate levels of protective immunity but is also likely to prolong the immune response thereby providing protection for a longer period. The strong antibody response boosted by the second jab may also be more protective against virus variants.
“The more the virus is allowed to spread, the more chances it has to evolve and form new variants. Stamping out harmful infection and, hopefully, transmission by vaccination along with other control measures (hands, face, space plus test, trace, isolate) to stop the virus spreading provide hope of a return to normal life in the not too distant future.”
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
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