Vaccines can mitigate the British epidemic in weeks

LONDON – Britain is on a pace to deliver the first injection of a two-dose coronavirus vaccine to the entire population in late June, if supply and logistics issues can prevent one of the world’s fastest deployments from slowing down.

The most vulnerable will receive their first doses much earlier – probably in the next two weeks – which could dramatically reduce the number of deaths. The over-seventies, nursing home residents and workers, health and social workers, and those whose health problems make them extremely vulnerable are all on track to receive their first vaccinations before February 15. Together, these groups make up 88 percent of all Covid19 deaths.

The timeline shows the promise of vaccination as a way out of the deadliest phase of the pandemic in rapidly evolving countries. Early data from Israel shows a significant reduction in infection after just one injection, and a recent analysis suggested that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine not only provides good protection against disease and death, but also has the potential to reduce the transmission of the virus. to decrease. Scientists have said the results are promising, but have yet to be confirmed.

As of Wednesday, the UK had vaccinated more than 15 percent of the population, more than anywhere else in the world apart from Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The United States was more than 8 percent and the European Union less than 3 percent.

Of course, the vaccine rollout in Britain is unlikely to follow a perfectly straight line. A vaccine war with the European Union could jeopardize the supply of vaccines, and the country’s decision to deliver more first doses while delaying second injection doses could create a backlog of patients. (The first dose of a vaccine offers varying degrees of protection, somewhere around 50 percent, which can be as high as 95 percent after the second injection.)

“The first shot is the easiest to get started, the second is harder,” said Kit Yates, a mathematical biologist at the University of Bath. “If we go back for the second dose, we have to do it in the right order, and that’s a bit of bureaucracy that could potentially slow things down.”

If the current rate of vaccination in Britain were to slow by 20 percent, it would take until the end of July to vaccinate everyone.

Until now, the rapid rollout of vaccines in the country has been considered a success. Britain was moving faster than any other Western country to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in early December and the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in late December, and it began vaccinating health workers and the elderly on December 8. Over the past two weeks, the country has administered an average of 394,000 doses per day.

The pace of vaccinations was also boosted by running the campaign through the highly centralized National Health Service, which covers all British and provides most of the country’s health care system. And in addition to Britain’s relatively rapid vaccine approval process, the country moved more aggressively than the European Union, ordering large quantities of vaccines several months before they were approved.

“It’s a hedge of your betting strategy,” said Mr. Yates. “We’ve bought huge doses of vaccines on the off chance that some don’t work.”

The UK government has now ordered 407 million doses from seven manufacturers – about six per person in the country – although only three of the vaccines are currently approved for use. With some deals, deliveries of vaccines will be delivered in the second half of 2021 or even next year.

It wasn’t until last week that the country passed the stark milestone of 100,000 Covid-19 deaths, by far the highest toll in Europe. But the success of vaccine rollouts so far offers hope that Britain’s most vulnerable will be protected and that the number of Covid-related deaths will drop significantly in the coming weeks.