British Government Predicts Pandemic Will End in Spring as Oxford/AstraZeneca Vaccine Is Approved

The Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine won approval from British regulators Wednesday—a landmark moment that the U.K. government claims will see off the pandemic by the spring. Britain is the first nation in the world to approve the Oxford shot, which is cheaper and easier to store than other vaccines. The country has ordered 100 million doses, which, when combined with its store of Pfizer-BioNTech shots, will be enough to vaccinate the whole population. Interestingly, the approval came with a shift in Britain’s vaccine strategy—it’s now aiming to give as many people as possible their first shot, to provide some level of protection to more people, rather than focusing on giving the required double dose of the vaccine to a smaller number of extremely vulnerable people. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Wednesday: “We now know, with a very high degree of confidence, that we’re going to be out of this by the spring.”