Article written by Anna Gross, Financial Times
According to Kate Bingham, the chair of the UK COVID-19 task force, t vaccinating everyone in the country was “not going to happen”, adding, “We just need to vaccinate everyone at risk.” (Gross, 2020).
Ms. Bingham also remarked that the government was aiming to vaccinate around 30 million people, less that half the UK population of 67 million.
“There’s going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It’s an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health workers and care home workers and the vulnerable”.
The UK’s vaccination policy will be aimed at the most vulnerable, while those who are “healthy”, and who are much less likely to have severe outcomes from COVID-19, will be given less priority.
David Nabarro, part of the special envoy to the WHO on COVID-19, said that addressing the COVID-19 pandemic was “not going to be a case of getting everyone vaccinated”
Nabarro clarified, “we’re not fundamentally using the vaccine to create population immunity, we’re just changing the likelihood people will get harmed or hurt. It will be strategic.”
The vaccine administration will likely be ‘strategic’, says Nabarro.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization in the UK, last week stated that “age-based programmes are usually easier to deliver and receive higher vaccine uptake”
Older adults in care homes and care home workers would likely be at the top of the priority list, with adults aged 50-80 next (with priority given to those on older end of the age scale).
Stay tuned…
Works Cited:
https://www.ft.com/content/d2e00128-7889-4d5d-84a3-43e51355a751