According to the Chief Medical Officer of England, the launch of a vaccination campaign against the coronavirus cannot mean the immediate lifting of restrictions aimed at curbing the epidemic.
Chris Whitty, who attended a joint hearing of the Health and Science and Technology Committees of the House of Commons in London on Wednesday night, said, referring to Covid-19 disease caused by the coronavirus, that Britain will only be able to phase out “Covid lifestyle” gradually.
According to Professor Whitty, it would be the biggest mistake for people to relax compliance now by citing the start of a vaccination campaign. “It would be as if someone was giving up the marathon at the 26th kilometer,” said the head of the Chief Medical Officer Service in England.
He added that the moment will come when a decision will have to be made as to which measures to withdraw, when and at what pace, but it will basically be a political decision backed by the arguments of science.
Chris Whitty stated that in the next three months, vaccines cannot yet be expected to provide an adequate level of protection against the virus.
He said, however, that he expects to have three or four different vaccines to choose from by mid-2021.
In the UK, the vaccination campaign began on Tuesday with a vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
Of this vaccine, which was approved by the British Medicines Agency (MHRA) last week, 800,000 doses are available in the first round, but the British government has so far prescribed 40 million doses of it.
According to British Health Minister Matt Hancock, millions of people could be vaccinated with the vaccine as early as December.
The MHRA has also begun the process of approving a vaccine co-developed by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals and Oxford University, and the UK government hopes the vaccine could also be marketed before Christmas. The government has already ordered 100 million doses of this vaccine.
According to unofficial statistics, 8.000 patients were vaccinated in the first 24 hours of the UK vaccination campaign.
On Wednesday, the MHRA issued a recommendation that those who know they may respond to any food or medication with acute allergic symptoms should not self-administer the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
As a precedent, two staff members of the British Public Health Service (NHS) developed mild allergic symptoms after receiving the vaccine.
Both affected people have chronic and acute food allergies in a medically proven way and always carry antibodies with them.
Stephen Powis, director of medicine for the NHS UK department, said both patients were fine and had responded well to treatment.
Professor Powis stressed that such phenomena occur regularly after the introduction of new vaccines, and the pharmacovigilance has issued a recommendation for allergy sufferers for precautionary reasons.
June Raine, chief executive of MHRA, also stressed in a statement on Wednesday that such reactions aren’t uncommon, but also occur with other vaccines such as seasonal flu vaccines.
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