East, South East and North West England. Authorities in these areas have starting offering door-to-door and mobile testing as part of a push to test 80,000 people for the variant, and are sequencing of every positive test. In all these areas it is imperative that people must stay at home and only leave home where it is absolutely essential, Mr Hancock said. The government is offered testing to everyone in these areas aged over 16, even if they have had the vaccine. Mr Hancock urged all residents and everyone who has to leave home for essential work to get tested. Workplace testing is also being expanded across the country, including at the UK parliament, and more scientific work is underway to leaven more about new variants , the Health Secretary added.
UK Orders 40 Million More Doses of Valneva COVID-19 Vaccine
The British government signed a deal on Monday for an extra 40 million doses of the CCP virus vaccine developed by French pharmaceutical firm Valneva.
The UK government had already purchased 60 million doses of the vaccine. It has invested millions of pounds in Valneva’s manufacturing facility in Livingston, Scotland, which began production last week.
I’m so pleased we’ve secured an additional 40 million doses of the Valneva vaccine
This vaccine shows the best of Scottish expertise right at the heart of our UK vaccine endeavour, & demonstrates the strength of our union working together.https://t.co/XRCSAyMejp
It is vital that we do all we can to stop transmission of this variant and I strongly urge everyone in these areas to get tested, whether you have symptoms or not, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in a statement. We continue to closely monitor new variants, here and around the world, and in addition to our already extensive testing service, we are making surge testing capacity available to affected areas. The highly contagious COVID-19 variant first identified in South Africa is spreading rapidly around the world, and was last week detected for the first time in the United States, which has the highest numbers of cases and deaths in the world.
Life after Covid: The people who will re-enter society last
Danielle Seal likens going for a walk during the pandemic to an extreme sport.
“When I go [and walk] the dog I have to ask people to stay two meters away,” she told CNN. “And that’s what really upsets me. If you try and squeeze past me, you are putting my life in danger. Going for a walk is an adrenaline-seeking extreme sport.”
Seal has Common Variable Immunodeficiency Disorder (CVID), a type of primary immune deficiency (PID). This means that her body does not produce protective antibodies to defend itself against pathogens like bacteria or viruses, leaving Seal and others like her extremely vulnerable to infections even without a global pandemic.
Valneva begins large-scale vaccine manufacturing at its Livingston site in West Lothian
up to 60 million jabs due to be manufactured by the end of 2021 if the vaccine is approved
UK government investment will support 100 new jobs at the site, a doubling of the workforce
This follows a multi-million-pound joint investment in the facility by the UK government last year as part of an agreement in principle to secure early access to Valneva’s vaccine by the end of 2021. 60 million doses have already been secured for the UK, with an option to acquire a further 130 million if the vaccine is proven to be safe, effective and suitable.