As at Saturday over 9 million people had received their first jab of the vaccine, and 491,053 of those have had a second dose.The vaccines record comes after a week which had seen a row with the European Union over vaccine distribution. Five in six people aged 80-years-old and above have now received a vaccine in England. This means that three-quarters of those over the age of 75 but under 80 and four-fifths of those over 80 have now been jabbed.
The Vaccine
Scientists began the quest to find a vaccine against the new coronavirus when its genetic sequence was released in January 2020
A global scientific effort is what has led to the development of a number of coronavirus vaccines, which promise to help protect the world from the devastating virus Covid-19. About 587 deaths were recorded within 28 days of testing positive to Covid on Sunday. It takes the UK's total death count to 106,158, although the number of reported deaths tends to reduce over the weekend.
The pandemic brought collaboration like never before,with teams across the world working on multiple stages of development at the same time compressing 10 years' work into less than 12 months.
Researchers studied the virus in detail to identify an antigen. A tiny part of it that would trigger our body's immune response. Most of the successful jabs contain tiny, harmless fragments of the virus or blueprints for making those fragments inside our bodies. Researchers tested these antigens using computer models and cells in the lab, monitoring side-effects.
Once these lab-based trials were completed, the vaccines were then given to volunteers across the world to ensure they were safe and effective but also to calculate dosage.
Projections for next month
The Government has set a target of getting the first dose to 15 million people in the top priority groups, including all over-70s, by February 15. Based on the latest figures, an average of 401,512 first doses of vaccine would be needed each day for this target to be met.
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