Hospitals have been told to prepare for the rollout of a coronavirus vaccine in as little as 10 days’ time, with NHS workers expected to be at the front of the queue, the Guardian reports.
NHS bosses said hospitals in England could expect to receive their first deliveries of a vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech as soon as Monday 7 December, with regulatory approval anticipated within days.
According to sources at several hospitals across the country, NHS England said they should expect to get stocks of vaccine on 7, 8 or 9 December.
Initially only NHS staff are set to be given the jab, with care home residents and the over-80s having to wait. This is despite those two groups being classed by the government as top priorities for Covid immunisation, as they have the greatest risk of death from the disease. Care sector chiefs reacted angrily, warning that the move would be seen as a “betrayal”.
Guidance issued in September by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), the government advisers who decide which groups get priority, said older people in care homes and their staff should be top of the list. Anyone over 80 and all those working in health and social care were the second priority, it said. Public Health England reiterated the priority list in guidance for the NHS on Friday, the Guardian reports.
