The mind-blowing numbers of Britain’s historic Covid vaccination rollout from 730 open sites and £12bn cost to 357m jabs
NATIONWIDE delivery of the coronavirus vaccine is one of the biggest logistical challenges in peacetime history.
But we now have two vaccines available in our arsenal against the pandemic, with the first Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs given to vulnerable people yesterday.
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It’s been nine months since Boris Johnson first ordered Brits to stay at home in response to the deadly bug, and many hope vaccines will be the way we ultimately beat the virus and ditch dreaded social distancing measures once and for all.
But in order to get there, millions of doses of vaccines need to be made, delivered, and administered to vast swathes of the population on a scale never seen before.
357m doses
Boris Johnson says his target is to deliver two million jabs a week. It’s thought that’s the amount needed to give the most vulnerable in society at least one dose of the vaccine by the end of March, although two doses are required for maximum protection.
The Government has orders for 357million doses of seven different vaccines. But at the moment we have nowhere near that stock ready for delivery.
Around 530,000 doses of the newly approved Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine started being given to people on Monday, with “tens of millions” more doses expected in the coming weeks.
It’s not clear how many doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are ready to be given to UK patients. But since the start of its rollout in December 2020, a million people have received the jab.
The new Oxford-AstraZeneca is easier to use as it doesn’t need to be stored at extremely cold temperatures. The NHS has ordered 100million doses and it’s thought there are around five million already in the UK.
However, there were only just over half-a-million ready to go on Monday because the others still needed to be put into vials and certified ready for use.
332 days
The world’s scientific community took less than a year – a total of 332 days – to successfully develop a Covid vaccine.
On January 11, 2020, scientists published the genetic sequence of Covid-19. Eleven months later, on December 8, an effective vaccine was administered for the first time in the UK.
The figure was recently named the Royal Statistical Society's (RSS) International Statistic of the Year.
730 sites
So far, over 730 vaccination sites are in use to deliver the jabs.
But hundreds more are expected to open this week, taking the total to over 1,000 by Friday.
The new Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is being delivered in hospitals for the first few days before being sent to vaccination hubs of all kinds.
GP surgeries, leisure centres, and sport stadiums will all be drafted in to help deliver both vaccines.
One in four
Nearly a quarter of people in England live in an area with no vaccination centre, figures show – indicating a postcode lottery for coronavirus jabs.
NHS England data shows 13million of the country’s 56million population live in a constituency where no site has yet been set up.
The figure includes locals in Bedford, Newark, Notts, and Braintree, Essex.
The city of Nottingham, with a population of around 330,000, has only one centre.
50,000 volunteers
Huge numbers of people are being drafted in to help the Herculean task of delivering millions of vaccines to the nation’s most vulnerable.
Tens of thousands of current and former NHS staff have already completed online training to deliver vaccines.
And over 5,000 armed forces personnel are also deployed in the fightback against the pandemic – the biggest homeland operation the UK has ever seen in peacetime.
The soldiers are carrying out 70 different tasks, including assisting with the rollout and delivery of the vaccine.
But even that won’t be enough. The NHS is also calling for over 50,000 volunteers to sign up to a ‘Jab’s Army’ to help run pop-up vaccination centres.
Some 7,750 selfless citizens signed up in the first 48 hours of The Sun’s appeal for recruits.
Seven celebs
At least seven celebrities have received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
They include singing legend Sir Tom Jones, 80, Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith, 80, veteran performer Lionel Blair, 92, singer Marty Wilde, 81, Emmerdale actor Patrick Mower, 82, comedian Jack Whitehall’s dad Michael, 80, and Lord Of The Rings star Sir Ian McKellen, 81.
While Sir Tom dubbed the jab “the real deal”, Sir Ian said: "Of course, it's painless... it's convenient, and getting in touch and meeting NHS staff and saying thank you to them for how hard they've been working is a bonus, I would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone.
"I feel very lucky to have had the vaccine."
£12billion
The overall cost of vaccinating the population in Britain could cost as much as £12billion, Whitehall’s spending watchdog says.
It’s thought the UK may be paying as much as £24-£28 per dose for the Moderna vaccine – which may be twice what the US is paying for the same treatment.
But the Moderna vaccine is yet to be approved in the UK.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca jab costs about £3 per dose compared with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s £15 price tag.
-70C
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine needs to be stored at -70C.
It’s being delivered to the UK from Pfizer’s plant in Belgium, with up to 5,000 doses travelling in each specially-designed box which can keep the vaccine at the right temperature for 10 days if it remains unopened.
Once delivered to vaccination centres, it can be kept in fridges for up to five days at between 2C and 8C.
By contrast, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine can be stored in a normal fridge throughout its supply line making it much easier to distribute.
95 per cent
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was found to be 95 per cent effective in clinical trials.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca jab was found to be 62 per cent effective with two doses, but differences between how studies of the vaccines’ efficacy were carried out make direct comparisons tricky.
It’s also important to remember that the best flu vaccine is only about 50 per cent effective.
And no one who received the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine got seriously ill with Covid during trials.
60 per cent
Originally, it was thought that around 60 per cent of the British population would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.
Herd immunity is a situation in which enough people in a given population are immune to the virus that it dies off due to a lack of transmission.
But now that more infectious mutant variants of the virus are circulating, as many as 80 per cent of the whole population could need vaccinating to guarantee herd immunity.
How long it will take to hit such a huge target will depend on how quickly the different vaccines are made available and how quickly they can be administered.
75,024 dead
New cases of Covid-19 are rocketing despite three quarters of England living under Tier 4 restrictions.
Some 54,990 new cases were recorded on Sunday, with hospital admissions soaring high above what they were during the darkest days of the first wave of the pandemic in April 2020.
Case numbers have roughly doubled from 400 per million people in December to 800 per million now.
And the R rate now stands between 1.1 and 1.3 – anything over one means the outbreak is growing.
So far, 75,024 Covid-related deaths have been recorded in the UK.
One in 20 anti-vaxxers
According to an , 16 per cent of the UK population are very unsure about receiving a vaccine.
And another 12 per cent say they’ll delay or avoid getting a Covid-19 vaccine altogether.
One in 20 even described themselves as anti-vaccination for Covid-19.
Disturbingly, one in five thought Covid vaccine data are fabricated and another one in four people didn’t know whether such fraud is occurring.
If large sections of the population refuse to take vaccines when they’re available, the pandemic could be prolonged and avoidable deaths may occur.
Nine priority groups
There are nine priority groups for vaccination, thought to be the most vulnerable to Covid-19.
The nine groups cover around a quarter of the UK population and represent between 90 and 99 per cent of those at risk of dying from the coronavirus.
Coronavirus vaccine priority groups
1. Residents in care homes for older adults and their carers
2. 80-year-olds and over and frontline health and social care workers
3. 75-year-olds and over
4. 70-year-olds and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals
5. 65-year-olds and over
6. 16- to 64-year-olds with serious underlying health conditions
7. 60-year-olds and over
8. 55-year-olds and over
9. 50-year-olds and over
Number one
British gran Margaret Keenan last month became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus jab following its clinical approval.
Margaret, now 91, had the shot at University Hospital Coventry, West Mids, on December 8, followed by a booster injection three weeks later.
The retired jewellery assistant said she felt extremely "privileged”.
82 years old
Brian Pinker, 82, became the first person in the world to receive the "game-changer" Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine on Monday.
Dialysis patient Brian was injected by nurse Sam Foster at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital.
The retired maintenance manager said: "The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year."
Three glasses of Prossecco
Patients who have received the Covid jab should avoid drinking alcohol, an emergency medicine specialist warns.
Dr Ronx Ikharia conducted an alcohol experiment to prove that ingestion of alcohol can reduce the body’s immune response to the vaccination.
The experiment, shown in the new BBC documentary The Truth About... Boosting Your Immune System, analysed blood samples before and after drinking three glasses of Prosecco.
It found three glasses was enough to bring down the effectiveness of lymphocyte cells in the blood by as much as 50 per cent.
Experts say the reduction in lymphocytes could lower the effectiveness of the body's immune response.
1.4 jabs administered per 100 people
In the UK, 1.4 Covid jabs have been administered per 100 people.
This is compared to a huge 12.6 per 100 people in Israel and 3.5 in Bahrain, according to figures from Our World in Data.
However, Britain ranks higher than the US (1.3), Denmark (0.7), Russia (0.55), China (0.3) and Italy (0.2).
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