Covid-19: Vaccinations

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; the primary care networks are best suited to focusing on that and delivering that vaccination, which will protect those who are most vulnerable from dying from covid-19.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

All credit and our great thanks to the vaccine taskforce and to our scientists, who have been brilliant in developing the vaccine. In our history, it has often been production engineering that has let us down, so may we have some figures? How many doses are produced each day? What is our manufacturing capacity? Are there any hold-ups or capacity problems in testing the batches? How many doses are being filled in the vials each day? Again, what is the maximum capacity?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

It is not our capacity, but the manufacturers’; AstraZeneca produces the Oxford vaccine, and Pfizer-BioNTech produce their vaccine, and Moderna’s is now also approved and in process. There are a number of processes throughout the manufacturing process. When we go from the bulk vaccine into fill and finish, there is a period of time and a sterility test the vaccines have to go through. Then there is batch testing by both the manufacturer and the regulator. All of that gets better and better every single day. It is a new manufacturing process. Oxford-AstraZeneca are delivering 100 million vaccines, which is what we have bought from them, and we have bought 40 million from Pfizer. We will have millions of vaccines in the weeks and months to come. We will meet our target of mid February for delivering the opportunity of a vaccine to the four cohorts most vulnerable to covid.