Watch LIVE: Downing Street coronavirus vaccine briefing with Jonathan Van Tam
11 November 2020, 09:54 | Updated: 11 November 2020, 10:57
WATCH LIVE: Coronavirus data briefing (11 November 2020)
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van Tam is holding a briefing on the coronavirus vaccine.
He was giving the latest on the development of new coronavirus vaccines alongside Dr June Raine, Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and Professor Wei Shen Lim, Chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Today's briefing comes as students have been told they will have a seven-day window to go home for the Christmas holidays.
On Monday, it was announced that a potential coronavirus vaccine has been 90% effective in clinical trials, and will start being rolled out in December.
Two doses of the vaccine would be required, Prof Van-Tam added, and people would have to wait at least two weeks after the second injection for it to full effect.
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He also said age "is the biggest priority" for patients who most need the vaccines.
But he warned that if the vaccine is approved it would not be enough to suppress the ongoing second wave.
"Right now the message is 'stand fast' rather than get too overexcited about where we are," he added.
"Frankly, we're in the middle of the second wave, and I don't see the vaccine making any difference for the wave we are now in," he said.
"I'm hopeful that it may prevent future waves, but this one we have to battle through to the end without a vaccine."
