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Sir John Bell told Channel 4 News that the phase 3 programme to evaluate the coronavirus vaccine is fully underway. The Professor of Medicine added that if the vaccine is approved by the middle of September the UK population would be vaccinated before Christmas. 

Sir John Bell said: “I can give you some good news which is that the phase 3 programme to evaluate this vaccine is fully underway.

“There are vaccinations going around 18 sites in the UK.”

Channel 4’s Cathy Newman asked: “How many doses could we have before Christmas in the UK?”

Sir John Bell replied: “Well I think the intention is to get up to 100 million doses in the UK.

“Certainly 60 million doses by Christmas.”

The Channel 4 host said: “So we could have this whole thing nailed by Christmas?”

The Oxford University Professor responded: “The answer is fingers crossed tailed wind behind us we could have a vaccine approved by the middle of September.

“If we do then it would mean we could get the population vaccinated by Christmas.”

At the time of writing, Britain has the fifth-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world.

The UK has more than 284,000 cases in total as of June 4 and the current official death toll stands at over 40,000.

The Government has begun to relax the lockdown imposed in mid-March, with some workers now allowed to head back to the workplace if they cannot conduct business from home.

Non-essential shops across Britain are due to reopen on June 15 and the Government confirmed the day will also mark the start of compulsory face-mask wearing on public transport.

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Worldwide there have been more than 6.8 million COVID-19 cases.

The death toll has reached more than 399,000.

More than 3.3 million people have recovered from the coronavirus across the globe.

The United States has the highest amount of COVID-19 cases in the world with more than 1.9 million confirmed cases.

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