AstraZeneca says it will boost vaccine production to 2M a week | Politico - Jan. 15, 2021 |

Health authorities in the UK have decided to change their distribution strategy, prioritizing giving as many people a first shot as possible.

British drugmaker AstraZeneca says it will boost production of the coronavirus vaccine it developed with Oxford University to two million doses a week by the middle of January.

According to the Times, an unnamed member of the Oxford/AstraZeneca team said production was expected to reach a total of 1 million doses by the end of next week.

"The plan is then to build it up fairly rapidly -- by the third week of January we should get to two million a week," they added.

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Meanwhile, a senior scientist from Oxford University has complained that the country's pharmaceutical manufacturing base is not prepared to handle the roll-out of the jab.

"The government has been completely disinterested in building onshore manufacturing capacity for any of the life-sciences products," said John Bell, professor of medicine at Oxford.

Simple math ... manufacturing rate of 52 million per year to double to 104 million 🚱 ... cutting corners to please the Brexiteers in the City.

Update on the vaccine supply issues & confusing govt lines on this 1/2 @ks_1968 [_link]

— Sarah Rosemary (@SarahRosemary3) January 2, 2021