LONDON – After coming first in the race to approve vaccines against Covid-19 and in the campaign for the highest number of inoculations in Europe, Great Britain is preparing to beat the rest of the continent in another category: in September it will already begin to administer a third dose to its population, starting from the category most at risk, people over 70 years of age. This was announced by Nadhim Zahawi, Undersecretary of Health, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph: “Some people will get three doses within ten months.”
In practice, this is what is commonly called a “booster”: those who have already had the first two doses of the Pfizer vaccine or the AstraZeneca vaccine during this year, will be able to have a third of one or the other starting since September. According to early studies, the antibodies produced by a full two-dose vaccination for Pfizer or AstraZeneca (while other upcoming vaccines, such as Johnson & Johnson’s, are in a single dose), can last six to eight months. in some cases perhaps even more. To prolong its effect, and to better deal with the new variants of the virus that will continue to present themselves with its evolution, at some point another dose will be needed: and the United Kingdom is evidently already organizing to do so.
Virologists have long predicted that the Covid-19 vaccine will have to become an annual precaution, just like the flu vaccine that is administered to millions of seniors, adults and at-risk groups every year, to renew its effect and adjust it. to the new variants that also develop for this more common and better known disease. Therefore, the same will have to be done for the pandemic that has shocked the world and London is preparing to have enough vials for a third autumn dose: a goal that the government of Boris Johnson certainly took into account when it ordered hundreds of millions of doses and signed. contracts with pharmaceutical companies that commit them to supply them relatively quickly, unlike what has happened so far in the rest of Europe.
Meanwhile, from this Monday the relaxation of restrictions begins: with permission to meet in groups of up to 6 people outdoors, which by combination coincides with a mini-heat wave expected for the beginning of the week across the country in which the thermometer could reach 24 degrees centigrade. The beginning of a return to normality in stages, which provides for the reopening of shops from 12 April, with extended hours, until 10 in the evening, to help boost consumption and the economy, and then gradually also that of pubs and restaurants. A result made possible by a national lockdown in effect practically before Christmas and by the vaccination campaign that today should reach 30 million people who have already been given a first dose and more than 3 million who have been inoculated. two, bringing the number of daily infections down to around 5,000 and that of victims to less than one hundred a day. But the war on Covid continues and the British are already making plans for the autumn campaign, precisely with the “call” of the third dose.
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