Rather than vaccinating everyone, the aim is to "vaccinate everyone at risk," Kate Bingham, Chair of
According to her, those who believe that everyone in the population will be vaccinated are nurturing a "
"People keep talking about 'time to vaccinate the whole population', but that is misguided," Bingham was quoted as saying.
"There's going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It's an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health workers and carehome workers and the vulnerable," she added.
Her comments came as the UK last week announced more than 10,000 new cases for the first time since mass testing began.
There were 12,872 new
However, the government said a technical issue meant some cases earlier in the week were not recorded at the time so had been included in the new data.
Bingham said that vaccinating a wider section of the population may make sense only when there comes a vaccine which proves to be 95 per cent effective, which is believed to be quite unlikely, said the Financial Times report.
British Prime Minister
Speaking at a BBC programme, the PM said there was "hope" in beating Covid, but called on the public to "act fearlessly but with common sense".