Economic output has plummeted on a million and a half.

People have died all the time.

We've been waiting and hoping for the day when the searchlights of science would pick out our invisible enemy.

Give us the power toe, stop that enemy from making us ill.

And now the scientists have done it, and they've used the virus itself to perform a kind of biological jujitsu to turn the virus on itself in the form of a vaccine.

In a idea that I think was pioneered in this country by Edward Jenner in 17 96 Andi Today we can announce that the government has accepted the recommendation from the Independent Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to approve the Pfizer biotech vaccine for distribution across the United Kingdom after months of clinical trials involving thousands of people to ensure that the vaccine meets the strictest, internationally recognized standards of safety quality on effectiveness thanks to the fantastic work of Kate Bingham and the Vaccines Task Force, we've purchased more than 350 million doses of seven different vaccine candidates and the U.

K was the first country in the world to preorder supplies of this Pfizer vaccine, securing 40 million doses through our winter plan.

The NHS has Bean preparing for the biggest program of mass vaccination in the history of the UK, and that's going to begin next week on in line with the advice of the Independent Joint Committee on Vaccination.

Andi Immunization.

The first phase will include care, home residents, health and cast off the elderly on those who are clinically extremely vulnerable.

But there are immense logistical challenges.

The virus has got to be stored at minus 70 degrees.

Each person needs to injections three weeks apart, so it will inevitably take some months before all the most vulnerable are protected long, cold months.

So it's a worthy mawr vital that, as we celebrate this scientific achievement, were not carried away with over optimism or fall into the naive belief that the struggle is over.

It's not.

We've got to stick to our winter plan a comprehensive program to suppress the virus, protect the NHS on the vulnerable, keep education on the economy going and use treatments.