British medical regulators may be in a position to approve a second Covid-19 vaccine within days, the North’s Minister for Health Robin Swann has told the Stormont Assembly health scrutiny committee. The Northern Executive also announced on Thursday evening that with the exception of “wet pubs” the current extended two-week lockdown will end next Friday (December 11th). Next week, Northern Ireland is due to see the start of the rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which was approved on Wednesday, with 12,000 mostly frontline health workers due to be immunised before Christmas. Mr Swann told the Assembly’s health committee that a second vaccine could be authorised for use within “days” while adding that this was not a time for “societal complacency”. Bed occupancyCurrent figures show that over the past week the incidence of the virus in Northern Ireland has reached a plateau rather than dropped.

Source: The Irish Times December 03, 2020 14:37 UTC