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LONDON (AP) – Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to set tighter restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19 on Monday, even as Britain ramped up its vaccination program by becoming the first country to start using the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and drug maker AstraZeneca.
Johnson, who said tougher measures were imminent, announced he would address the nation at 8 p.m. (3 p.m. EST). The British Parliament will be recalled from its recess to sit on Wednesday. The Prime Minister’s Office did not release any details of the new measures before Johnson’s remarks.
The UK has seen an increase in coronavirus cases in recent weeks as public health officials struggle to control the spread of a new variant of COVID -19 which is more contagious than previous variants. Authorities have recorded more than 50,000 new infections per day since crossing this milestone for the first time on December 29. On Sunday, they reported 454 virus-related deaths to push the confirmed death toll to over 75,000, one of the worst in Europe. Parts of north-east London have average daily infection rates of more than 1,000 new cases per 100,000 population, compared to a national rate of 451.
“If you look at the numbers, there is no doubt that we will need to take more stringent action and announce them in due course,” Johnson said during a visit to some of the people receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine at Chase Farm Hospital, North London.
Before Johnson could make her announcement, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon imposed a lockdown in her country until the end of January.
From Tuesday, the Scots will have to stay at home, except for essential reasons, to help ease the pressure on hospitals and intensive care units, Sturgeon said. Under the new rules, people can exercise, but can only meet someone from another household. Schools will remain closed until February, except for children of primary workers and those in social services.
“I am more concerned about the situation we are facing today than I have been at any time since March of last year,” Sturgeon said in Edinburgh.
Scotland, which controls its own health policy under Britain’s decentralized system of government, has often imposed stricter coronavirus restrictions than England’s.
The announcements come the day British health officials began arming the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine across the country, fueling hopes that life could start to return to normal in the spring.
Britain has secured the rights to 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is cheaper and easier to use than some of its competitors. In particular, it does not require the super-cold storage necessary for the Pfizer vaccine.
The new vaccine will be given in a small number of hospitals during the first few days so that authorities can watch for side effects. But the NHS said hundreds of new vaccination sites – including local doctors’ offices – will open later this week, joining the more than 700 vaccination sites already in operation.
A “massive scale-up operation” is now underway in the vaccination program, Johnson said.
But aspects of Britain’s vaccination plan have sparked controversy.
Both vaccines require two injections and Pfizer had recommended that the second dose be given within 21 days of the first. But Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization said authorities should give the first dose of the vaccine to as many people as possible, rather than reserving injections to ensure others get two doses. It lengthened the time between doses from 21 days to 12 weeks.
While two doses are needed to fully protect against COVID-19, both vaccines offer high levels of protection after the first dose, the committee said. Making the first dose the priority “will maximize the benefits of the immunization program in the short term,” he said.
Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said policymakers were forced to balance the potential risks of this change against the benefits amid a deadly pandemic.
“We have a crisis situation in the UK with a new variant that’s spreading quickly, and as it has become clear to everyone in 2020, delays are costing lives,” Evans said. “When the resources in doses and in the number of people to be vaccinated are limited, vaccinating more people with potentially less effectiveness is clearly better than more complete effectiveness in only half.
In England alone, 23,557 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Saturday. Although figures for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have not been updated in recent days, this is higher than the peak in the UK during the first wave of the pandemic.
The government closed non-essential stores in London and parts of south-eastern England ahead of Christmas to try to contain the new variant, but health officials believe stricter measures are now needed.
Johnson said there were “tough, tough” weeks ahead in the fight against COVID-19. More school closures, curfews and a total ban on domestic mixing could be on the agenda.
While schools in London are already closed due to high infection rates in the capital, students in many parts of the country were returning to in-person classes on Monday after the Christmas holidays. Unions representing teachers, however, have called for schools across England to remain closed for at least two weeks, with classes moved to distance learning.
But with the vaccination, there is hope. Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, received the first Oxford-AstraZeneca shot at 7:30 a.m. at Oxford University Hospital.
“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,” Pinker said in a statement released by the National Health Service.
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Associate Press Editors Jill Lawless and Sylvia Hui contributed
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Follow AP coverage of the coronavirus pandemic on:
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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