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索尔兹伯里指出，研究数据表明，辉瑞疫苗注射一剂就有高达91%的免疫作用，注射两剂能获得95%的免疫力。两剂的免疫作用其实只比一剂提高了4%。

多位专家赞同索尔兹伯里的建议。英国呼吸道病毒威胁咨询小组成员、伦敦帝国理工学院实验医学教授奥彭肖（Peter Openshaw）教授说：“从让尽可能多的人得到保护的角度来看，调整为一剂量方案似乎是一个明智的策略。”

伦敦卫生与热带医学学院药物流行病学教授斯埃文斯（Stephen Evans）也赞同道：“有证据表明一剂量短期内有疗效，而且似乎很可能疗效不会明显下降。”

不过，另一位英国呼吸道病毒威胁咨询小组成员巴克莱教授（Wendy Barclay）持反对意见。她告诉英国下议院科学技术委员会说，疫苗的疗效是以两剂为基础，若只接种一剂，必须对临床试验数据进行更多分析。

英国政府部门人士说，已就专家们的建议方案与英国药品监管机构进行沟通，最终决定须由英国政府疫苗接种和免疫联合委员会（JCVI）批准。

辉瑞疫苗现使用方法为每人注射两剂，最多间隔21天。英国已预订4000万剂辉瑞疫苗，于12月初获得80万剂，目前已注射超过60万剂。不过，当地仍有约半数的医院和三分之二的全科医生未分配到任何辉瑞疫苗。

Regulatory approval of a vaccine candidate developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca could relax the lifting of Covid-19 curbs in the country, cabinet office minister Michael Gove has said.
Once the independent regulator has assessed and approved it, Gove said on Monday, there would be a “significant increase” in vaccine availability.

“If we do get the authorization for that vaccine, and the rollout goes according to plan, then we will be able to progressively lift some of the restrictions which have made life so difficult for so many,” the minister said, speaking on Sky News. Britain has already started an inoculation campaign, with health authorities rolling out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

After a new, more contagious strain of coronavirus was detected, the government put more communities in England under Tier 4 restrictions – the highest level of curbs. However, schools have been allowed to remain open. There have been calls for next week’s return to the classroom of primary-school children and of pupils of secondary-school age who are sitting exams this academic year to be delayed. The government is keeping such decisions “under review,” Gove noted.

“Our plan is that primary schools will go back, but, with secondary schools, it will be the case that, next week, only children in Year 11 and Year 13 – those who are doing their GCSEs, their BTECs, their A levels – will go back.” This plan also applies to the children of key workers and pupils whose particular needs require the school’s support and care, he said, clarifying that, this additional cohort aside, “other children in secondary schools won’t go back for a week after that.”

On Sunday, Britain recorded 30,501 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 2,288,345, and a further 316 deaths, with 70,752 people having died since the outbreak began.

“The potential compensations to be paid are likely to be too much for any entity – either vaccine producers or poorer countries – to assume by themselves,” said Keiji Fukuda, a clinical professor at the University of Hong Kong who previously worked for the World Health Organization (WHO).
Countries’ regulators have repeatedly emphasised that serious adverse effects caused by vaccinations generally are rare – about one or two per million doses.
But the full picture on possible side-effects is not yet known, with Covid-19 vaccines having been developed at an unprecedented speed – developing a vaccine typically takes up to a decade. Some side-effects may be found only after large-scale vaccination.
At least eight people have reported serious allergic reactions after receiving the Pfizer and BioNTech mRNA vaccine in the past two weeks, according to Science magazine.
“On the one hand, the Covid-19 vaccines are urgently needed and could be used by billions of people,” Fukuda said. “On the other hand, there is little experience with them and the full risks for serious adverse events is not clear.”
Covax, a global initiative aimed at securing equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines for 92 low and middle-income countries, also seeks to indemnify suppliers with the aim of removing barriers to acquiring doses.
Co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, the vaccine alliance Gavi – backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – and the WHO, the Covax programme published a briefing note in November addressing the issue.
The note said that “countries and territories will be required to indemnify the manufacturer” and that Covax was “exploring backstopping guarantees for these indemnification obligations”.
Under normal circumstances, vaccine manufacturers and distributors would get insurance to cover the risks, but such coverage may not be available for the current pandemic because of its unprecedented scale, the note added.

Covax said it would establish a no-fault compensation mechanism for people suffering serious side-effects after receiving a vaccine from its programme. The level of compensation would depend on the severity of the effect and the GDP per capita of the country, it said, with payment funded by a levy on vaccines, involving contributions from manufacturers and participating countries.
No-fault compensation programmes for vaccine side-effects, first initiated in the 1960s, are designed to reduce the need to resort to legal action to access compensation, by not requiring the injured party to prove negligence or fault by a vaccine provider or manufacturer.
Of the WHO’s 194 member states, at least 25 – mostly high-income ones – have previously implemented such a mechanism, according to an analysis of no-fault compensation programmes published in the journal PLOS One in May.

Although the programmes in all of those countries require proof of the causal relationship between vaccination and side-effect, they vary when it comes to aspects such as the source of funding and who oversees it.
In the United States, vaccine manufacturers are protected from legal liability when providing products to combat public health emergencies such as a pandemic, under the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act. In 2010, the legislation established a compensation fund for people suffering adverse side-effects, which has since paid out on 29 of the 499 claims filed, with 10 cases still under medical review, according to the Health Resources & Services Administration.
Given the low approval rate for claims, legal experts have questioned the worth of the scheme, Reuters has reported.

Two vaccines to prevent Covid-19 infections have now been granted authorization for emergency use, and every day thousands more people are becoming vaccinated. As of Dec. 23, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 1,008,025 initial doses of the two Covid-19 vaccines have been administered.

States	Number of doses	Per 100k
Alaska	11,845	1619.18
Alabama	4,489	91.55
Arizona	NaN	NaN
Arkansas	NaN	NaN
Texas	131,748	454.37
Florida	113,946	530.53
Illinois	100,991	796.97
New York	89,000	457.5
California	70,258	177.81
Pennsylvania	66,350	518.28
Colorado	63,233	1098.04
Tennessee	53,258	779.86
Ohio	50,601	432.89
Virginia	43,043	504.28
Indiana	40,000	594.16
Michigan	37,660	377.1
New Jersey	36,500	410.93
Louisiana	32,766	704.83
Washington	30,000	393.96
Oklahoma	29,725	751.21
West Virginia	28,626	1597.3
Georgia	26,010	244.97
North Carolina	24,500	233.6
Missouri	23,000	374.75
Maryland	18,789	310.78
Utah	16,924	527.89
Connecticut	16,487	462.43
Oregon	14,524	344.36
Kentucky	11,192	250.51
Wisconsin	10,358	177.9
Idaho	9,673	541.28
Delaware	6,569	674.6
District of Columbia	4,500	637.62
Hawaii	NaN	NaN
Iowa	NaN	NaN
Kansas	NaN	NaN
Nevada	16,147	524.23
South Dakota	12,910	1459.32
Nebraska	8,985	464.48
Maine	0	0
Massachusetts	NaN	672.98
Minnesota	2,999	53.18
Mississippi	NaN	NaN
Montana	7,407	693.03
Rhode Island	7,072	667.57
South Carolina	7,000	135.96
North Dakota	5,669	743.9
Vermont	4,374	700.97
New Hampshire	1,955	143.78
New Mexico	NaN	NaN
Wyoming	2,865	495.02

在英国出现变异冠状病毒后，瑞士宣布从英国入境的所有人必须自我隔离10天，这也包括数百名计划在当地一处滑雪胜地度假的英国游客。然而，在瑞士政府告知420名英国人他们需要隔离后，至少一半都“秘密逃走”，许多人甚至只隔离了一天。

据英国《卫报》27日报道，瑞士政府12月21日宣布，自12月14日以来从英国入境的所有人都需要自抵达之日起自我隔离10天。瑞士方面设法追踪到了420名来自英国的游客，他们被告知要进行隔离。然而，瑞士《星期日新闻》在一篇报道中指出，这些游客中至少有一半“秘密”逃离了瑞士巴涅斯市（Bagnes）的一处滑雪胜地。

报道中提到，自12月20日起，瑞士和英国间的航班就被取消了，目前尚不清楚这些游客到底去了哪里。一些游客后来联系了他们住的酒店，询问他们是否还需要支付最初预订的住宿费用。许多酒店老板表示，他们是在英国客人不接打到房间里的电话，或者是留在房间外的饭菜原封未动后才注意到他们离开的。