GP surgeries will be put on standby to start delivering a jab to over-85s and frontline health workers, according to GP magazine Pulse.
It said two vaccines were being prepared including one that requires two shots and must be stored at “minus 70 degrees”.
Candidates from Oxford University/Astrazeneca and BioNtech/Pfizer are thought to be the frontrunners.
Both vaccines fit the bill and are currently in the last phase of trials.
Pulse said GPs will soon be sent details of how they should deliver the service above their usual contract.
The Royal College of GPs said it was not aware of conversations happening with practices yet, but would welcome involvement in a Covid vaccination programme.
with one that must be stored at “minus 70 degrees”.
Candidates from Oxford University/Astrazeneca and BioNtech/Pfizer are thought to be the frontrunners.
Both vaccines fit the bill and are currently in the final phase of trials.
Pulse said GPs will soon be sent details of how they should deliver the service above their usual contract.
GP surgeries will deliver the jab to over-85s and frontline health workers (Image: Getty)
The Royal College of GPs said it was not aware of conversations happening with practices yet, but would welcome involvement in a Covid vaccination programme.
Previous reports have suggested major cities, including London, Leeds and Hull, could set up vaccination centres to allow thousands of people to be inoculated every day.
Trainee nurses, physiotherapists and paramedics may be deployed to help deliver the programme.
However, a widespread roll-out of vaccines is not expected to begin until next spring with the elderly first in line for it.
The news comes after the country’s Chief Medical Officer raised hopes that families will be able to spend Christmas together.
Professor Whitty said it is “realistic possibility” that the month-long shutdown will achieve its aim and drive down Covid-19 infection rates to manageable levels.
Once the countrywide restrictions – starting tomorrow – come to an end on December 2, England could then go into a new regional tiering system.
Experts are currently working on a special system that would help people “maximise” the opportunity for celebrations without increasing transmission of the disease, he said.
With the UK’s daily coronavirus death total hitting 257 yesterday, Professor Whitty told MPs that Boris Johnson’s new national lockdown would produce the desired results on time.
“If people adhere in the way that I expect they will, it’ll reduce R below 1, in my view, in the great majority or all of the country,” he told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.
A Government adviser said that while the R number appears to be falling, it is still above 1 (Image: Getty )
“I wouldn’t want to imply that suddenly that means that Covid is over as a problem.
“This is a long haul.”
He said it was “a realistic possibility” the restrictions would be lifted on December 2, but the decision “is rightly one for ministers and Parliament”.
On the new tiering system for December, he said: “We’ll have to work out ways we can advise people in a way that maximises their ability to keep with the essence of what is the festivity but minimises the risk of transmission and we are trying to work that through at the moment,” he said.
“But how risky that will be, how far that road we can go down, will very much depend on the epidemiology.” Professor Whitty and the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, also admitted the localised, three-tier lockdown approach – only introduced on October 14 – was starting to drive down the R rate and slow the spread of infections, particularly in northern hotspots which had been subjected to Tier 3 restrictions.
But he claimed the measures were not working fast enough to counteract a mid-September surge in infections which has triggered a wave of hospitalisations that modellers believe will breach national hospital capacity by November 20.
He said: “It is difficult to be absolutely confident about how far their effect [the tiered system] has gone.
“I am confident Tier Two has had an effect and that Tier Three has had a bigger effect…But the early indications we have at the present is that this has not achieved getting the R below one.
“It has brought it much closer to one but it is still doubling over a longer period of time.”
New data from the Covid Symptom Study app, which is run by King’s College London (KCL), suggests there has been a slight drop in new Covid-19 infections across England, Wales and Scotland.
Chris Whitty has raised hopes of families being able to spend Christmas together (Image: Getty )
Professor Tim Spector, who leads the app study, said: “More good news as the Zoe CSS app survey continues to show a plateauing and slight fall in new cases in England, Wales and Scotland with an R of 1.0.”
R, which stands for reproduction number, represents the average number of people each Covid-19 positive person goes on to infect.
When the figure is above 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially, but if it goes below 1, it means the outbreak is shrinking.
The data from KCL’s symptom tracker app appears to differ from the figures published last Friday by the Government Office for Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), which estimates R to be between 1.1 and 1.3.
A Government adviser said that while the R number appears to be falling, it is still above 1 – which means “we are still looking at a growing epidemic”.
The UK’s daily coronavirus death toll hit 257 yesterday (Image: Getty )
Express Opinion
TRANSATLANTIC politics will take second place for many while the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc.
So it is very welcome that the Duchess of Cornwall has paid tribute to the brave nurses who have been at the heart of the fight to keep us all safe and well.
She was right to say that the efforts of our coronavirus front line medics “has rendered us deeply in their debt”.
