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UK Vaccine Rollout Success

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 10:43:55 GMT

Covid-19: Novavax vaccine shows 89% efficacy in UK trials

A new coronavirus vaccine has been shown to be 89% effective in large-scale UK trials.

The Novavax jab is the first to show in trials that it is effective against the new virus variant found in the UK, the BBC's medical editor Fergus Walsh said.

The UK has secured 60 million doses of the jab, which will be made in Stockton-on-Tees in north-east England. Meanwhile, a single-dose vaccine developed by Janssen is 66% effective, trial results have shown. Janssen, a company owned by Johnson & Johnson, is also investigating whether giving two doses will give either stronger or longer-lasting protection. The company said its initial findings showed one dose prevented 85% of severe cases. Both the Novavax and Janssen jabs will need to be reviewed by regulators before they can be used.

The PM welcomed the "good news", with doses of the Novavax jab expected to be delivered in the second half of this year if approved for use by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the government said.

The UK has so far approved three coronavirus vaccines for emergency use - one from Oxford University and AstraZeneca, another by Pfizer and BioNTech, and a third from drug firm Moderna.

The Novavax jab, which is given in two doses, was shown to be 89.3% effective at preventing Covid-19 in participants in its Phase 3 clinical trial in the UK, and around 86% effective at protecting against the new UK variant. The jab's efficacy against the original Covid-19 strain was calculated to be 95.6%.

The Phase 3 trials - the final stage before a vaccine is looked at by a regulator - enrolled more than 15,000 people aged between 18-84, of whom 27% were older than 65, US firm Novavax said.

In the South African part of the trial, where most of the cases were the South African variant of the virus, the vaccine was 60% effective among those without HIV.

Stan Erck, chief executive of Novavax, said the results from the UK trial were "spectacular" and "as good as we could have hoped", while the efficacy in South Africa was "above people's expectations".

He told the BBC the manufacturing plant in Stockton-on-Tees should be up and running by March or April, with the company hoping to get approval for the vaccine from the MHRA around the same time.

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New Lockdown

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 19:12:21 GMT

Covid: England's third national lockdown legally comes into force

England's third national lockdown has legally come into force, with MPs set to vote retrospectively on it later.

The measures, which include a stay-at-home order and the closure of schools to most pupils, were announced by the prime minister on Monday.

All of the UK is now under strict virus curbs, with Wales, Northern Ireland and most of Scotland also in lockdown.

On Tuesday the number of new daily confirmed cases of Covid in the UK topped 60,000 for the first time.

And it is thought one in 50 people in private households in England had the virus last week - rising to one in 30 in London.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics also suggested more than one million people in England had Covid between 27 December and 2 January.

To read more and go to the original source of this post, please click here to go to the BBC's website.

New era for the UK begins as it leaves the EU.

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 18:47:17 GMT

As the UK has left the EU, it now begins a new chapter.

A new era has begun for the United Kingdom after it completed its formal separation from the European Union.

The UK stopped following EU rules at 23:00 GMT, as replacement arrangements for travel, trade, immigration and security co-operation came into force.

Boris Johnson said the UK had "freedom in our hands" and the ability to do things "differently and better" now the long Brexit process was over.

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How business have adapted as a result of Covid-19 and lockdown periods.

Sun, 22 Nov 2020 19:19:24 GMT

Covid lockdown 2.0: 'We've had to completely change our business'

Businesses up and down the country have had to adapt to get through the lockdown periods, everything else that the pressures of Covid-19 have brought to bear on business.

To read more information and look at this article in its original source on the

BBC's website please click here.