75% OF UK COULD BE FULLY IMMUNIZED BY AUGUST

Mon 12 April 2021:

The UK could fully vaccinate three-quarters of its population by August despite ensuing vaccine shortages and rising concerns over a possible link between the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots, Anadolu Agency reported.

Airfinity, which tracks global vaccination programs, has said on Sunday that 75% of the UK population could be inoculated by the first week of August, following the US, which is predicted to reach the same level in July.

“We expect the US to storm ahead. Production is going very well there and they are not exporting any doses. The EU is also finally beginning to speed up too. But despite all the recent problems, the UK should still come out very well placed,” The Observer newspaper quoted Matt Linley, a senior analyst at the group, as saying.

The recent forecast is welcoming news for Britain as there are growing concerns over a four-week delay in its vaccination program.

Some 1,730 people in the UK had a confirmed positive test of the virus on Sunday, raising this week’s total to 18,403. This represents a 30.2% decrease in comparison to the last seven days.

The country registered seven deaths within 28 days of testing positive for the virus on Sunday. Between April 3 and 11, there were 251 deaths within 28 days of testing. This shows a 2.4% increase in comparison to the previous week.

Over 32 million people were administered their first dose of the vaccine by the end of April 10 with 7.4 million people now having received the second. Vaccines are currently administered in two doses, 21 days apart.

Tensions with the EU rose in the last 2 months as the bloc threatened to impose a temporary ban on vaccine exports to the UK, arguing that its priority is to focus on immunizing its own population.

Experts have repeatedly underlined the need for vaccine distribution to be global, including in developing countries, but there has been inevitable focus on frontrunners in the race so far. On Friday, Thierry Breton, the European commissioner leading Brussels’ vaccine taskforce, claimed that “like the fable of the tortoise and the hare”, the initially slow-moving EU vaccine campaign was accelerating as the UK rollout was beginning to flag.

The UK was the first country in the world to start vaccinating with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab last December, and with a seemingly healthy supply of AstraZeneca doses and an extraordinary mobilisation by the NHS, appeared well ahead of the EU, which failed to build up supply and distribution capacity quickly.

Moreover, India, which is world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has also imposed a temporary export ban to many countries across the world, including the UK.