Vaccinating all in country 'not going to happen': UK's vaccine task force head

London: Britain's vaccine task force chair, Kate Bingham, said that vaccinating everyone in the country for the Coronavirus was 'not going to happen', telling the Financial Times that they need to vaccinate only those at risk.

"There's going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It's an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health workers and care home workers and the vulnerable", Bingham said in an interview with the newspaper.

Bingham's comments follow that of Prime Minister Boris Johnson who on Sunday said he expected the next few months of the COVID-19 pandemic to be bumpy, but that things would look radically different in the spring.

"People keep talking about time to vaccinate the whole population, but that is misguided," she said to the FT, adding that vaccinating healthy people, who are much less likely to have severe outcomes from COVID-19, "could cause them some freak

harm".

Britain suffered Europe's worst death toll from the virus with the current total standing at over 42,300.

The Times, citing government scientists, reported last week that a mass roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine in Britain could be finished in as little as three months, adding that health officials estimate that every adult could receive a dose of the vaccine within six months.

Bingham said the government was aiming to vaccinate about 30 million people, compared with a UK population of about 67 million, if a successful vaccine against COVID-19 was found, according to the FT.

Meanwhile, a technical glitch has resulted in 15,841 positive cases of Coronavirus not being counted in the official daily of COVID-19 log in the past week, England's health authority has admitted.

Public Health England (PHE) said the issue had been identified overnight on Friday, and a rapid investigation calculated the list of cases that had gone unreported between September 25 and October 2.

However, its chief sought to reassure the British public on Sunday that each of those who had tested received their COVID-19 result as normal and were advised to quarantine as per the current rules.

A technical issue was identified overnight on Friday 2 October in the data load process that transfers COVID-19 positive lab results into reporting dashboards.

After rapid investigation, we have identified that 15,841 cases between 25 September and 2 October were not included in the reported daily COVID-19 cases, said Michael Brodie, Interim Chief Executive of the PHE.

Every one of these cases received their COVID-19 test result as normal and all those who tested positive were advised to self-isolate, he said.

Amid mounting criticism, the health authorities stressed that the National Health Service (NHS)-run Test and Trace system for Coronavirus had worked to quickly resolve the issue and that the processes have been made further

robust.