UK’s speedy coronavirus vaccine approval sparks hope (and questions) – By Helen Collis and Ashleigh Furlong (Politico) / Dec 2 2020
Moving at breakneck speed, the UK is setting its sights on on mass immunization.
The world is watching the U.K. — and this time not for the Brexit drama.
Excited webinars, press conferences and briefings Wednesday offered a first glimpse of what is likely to become the next big challenge for countries all over the world: delivering whole population immunization against coronavirus.
Leapfrogging the U.S. — and weeks ahead of a similar decision for the rest of Europe — among the first concerns is whether the U.K. has taken a shortcut in green lighting the Pfizer/BioNTech jab.
The message from the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Wednesday was definitive. “No corners have been cut,” said Chief Executive June Raine during a televised briefing.
Expert scientists and clinicians have been “working around the clock, carefully and methodically, pouring over tables and analyses and graphs for every single piece of data,” she said.
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