Hopes rise for approval of coronavirus vaccine by end of this year

Hopes are rising that a coronavirus vaccine will be approved by the end of the year, with healthcare workers receiving their first dose in early 2021.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s leading expert in infectious diseases, said on Sunday it should be known by the end of November or early December if a vaccine was safe and effective.

The Irish government added to the growing optimism that a vaccine would soon be available.

“I’m increasingly optimistic, as is government, that we will see a vaccine approved in the next couple of months and that in the first half or first quarter of next year it’ll be possible to start vaccinating those most at risk,” Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, who is also a doctor, told RTE radio on Sunday.

Fauci’s remarks came after a report that the NHS in the UK is preparing to start immunising frontline staff with a vaccine within weeks. The Mail on Sunday published a memo by Glen Burley, the chief executive of a group of hospitals in the Midlands, in which he said NHS care providers had been told to be prepared to start a Covid-19 staff vaccine programme in early December.