The United Kingdom seems on Friday on the way to succeeding its ambitious bet to vaccinate against the coronavirus around 15 million vulnerable people by Monday, suggesting a way out to the strict containment in place since the beginning of January.
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“Looks like we’re on the right track” to meet the goal of vaccinating the first four priority groups – over 70s, caregivers, nursing home workers and residents – Prime Minister Boris said in a video on Twitter. Johnson.
It is a tour de force for the head of the Conservative government, so far credited with chaotic handling of the pandemic which has infected more than four million people and left more than 116,000 dead in the United Kingdom, the country on most bereaved in Europe.
His government has made the vaccination campaign, the first to be launched in a Western country in early December, a national cause to get out of the health crisis, in the face of a new variant that has appeared much more contagious in England.
In total, more than 14 million people have already received a first dose of the AstraZeneca / Oxford or Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, according to official figures as of Thursday.
More than 530,000 people have been vaccinated with the two required doses, which authorities have decided to take for up to 12 weeks to be able to immunize as many people as possible.
Welsh in the lead
Wales is the first of four British nations on Friday to offer a vaccine against COVID to those most at risk, 740,000 people, welcomed the Welsh Prime Minister, Mark Drakeford.
“It’s a race against the coronavirus”, not between the different nations of the country, he insisted. This success should soon allow a “cautious” relaxation of certain restrictions in the spring, according to him.
In England, Boris Johnson’s government hopes to be able to begin to very gradually lift the confinement imposed in early January from March, targeting as a priority the reopening of schools currently closed, as well as non-essential shops, pubs and restaurants.
Pressured by some deputies of his conservative majority to strongly loosen the screw, the leader will present on February 22 a roadmap “to reopen schools and gradually our economy and society”, said his spokesperson.
“The latest data clearly shows that we remain in a difficult situation with the public health service still very strongly under pressure,” he said.
The epidemic is receding
The contaminations, which had peaked at more than 68,000 in one day in early January, have however dropped drastically since the start of containment.
For the first time since July, the range for estimating the virus’s reproduction rate fell entirely below 1, standing between 0.7 and 0.9, meaning the epidemic is receding.
The National Bureau of Statistics estimated on Friday that one in 80 residents of England was infected with the virus last week, and one in 60 in London, compared to one in 50 and one in 30 respectively in early January.
If the UK is starting to see the end of the tunnel, epidemiologist Neil Ferguson has warned against any rush.
“I’m hopeful that this will be the last lockdown, as long as we’re relatively careful when we get out of it,” he said on a Politico podcast. A return to normalcy cannot take place until the entire adult population has been vaccinated, he added.
According to the expert, who advises the executive, “it is very unlikely that this virus can one day be eradicated from the human population”: “it will become an endemic coronavirus” which can be managed through “routine immunizations”, like the flu.
By May, the government expects to have vaccinated the nine priority groups, or 32 million vulnerable people or people over 50, representing 99% of deaths. And all adults by September.
While acceptance of vaccination is high overall in the UK, reluctance is higher among minorities and the health service is broadcasting videos in different languages or using celebrities like Elton John to encourage them.