professor andrew pollard. e former government chief scientific adviser sir david king. hejoins me now from cambridge. good morning to you. professor pollard, talking about this being a moment to celebrate. you must agree with that? of course, it is a moment for celebration. and what we now need from government is a very clear and explicit strategy for vaccine roll—out. we have heard that it is quite feasible that over the next six months we can get a significant roll—out of this vaccine, which is critically important. but let me just remind everyone where we are with the disease at the moment. london and the south—east have been under tier 4for 13, london and the south—east have been under tier 4 for 13, 1a days now. and i'm afraid tierfor is not containing the spread of the virus. hospitals in london are now being overstretched and we believe in two weeks' time they will be beyond being overstretched. so the situation is really very, very critical throughout the country. and i say throughout the country becaus

andrew pollard. do you believe this is a turning point in the vaccination effort? >> i think this is an absolutely critical moment in that we have got first regulator approve approval for a vaccine developed specifically for mission not for profit and get it distributed around the world. >> reporter: with the approval of the oxford vaccine, officials in this country are also changing the way they distribute vaccines. until now, patients have come in and gotten their first dose and then got an appointment for or come back three weeks later for a second dose. now all efforts are going to get into giving giving that initial dose and not worry about the next dose three months and all energy is giving people one dose which doctors say provides a decent level of immunity. richard engle, nbc news, london. >>> the first known case of that more infectious covid-19 mutation is spreading rapidly in the parts of the uk. that man is said to be a man in his 20s with no travel history. health officials aren't sure how he got it but they say he is recovering in isolation south of

andrew pollard. do you believe it is a turning point in the vaccination effort? >> i think that it is an absolutely critical moment in that we have the first regulator approval for a vaccine that has been developed specifically with the mission to be not-for-profit to be distributed around the world. >> reporter: and with the approval of the oxford vaccine, this country is also changing how the distribution will take place. up until now, the patients have gone into the hospitals where they have the cold facility, and they have gotten the first injection, and then come back three weeks later or gotten the appointment to come back for the second dose, and now all of the effort is going to be put on giving people the most number of people possible that first dose and then pushing back for three months the second dose, so that, a very large number of people will be able to get the first dose which provides a decent level of immunity according to the doctors. >> yeah, a lot of people are undoubtedly hoping that it is a turning point in london. thank you for the report

we're joined by professor andrew pollard, who is leading the oxford trial. good morning.emia and research this year, and a triumph of collaboration amongst the institutions here, the 19th sites in the uk, and internationally, with our teams the uk, and internationally, with ourteams in the uk, and internationally, with our teams in brazil and in south africa, all of whom have contributed to this huge effort to bring us to this point. sorry to interrupt you. it has been described on this programme is a game changer. what different is it going to make? i think it is a game changer because it isa think it is a game changer because it is a vaccine which can be distributed easily. there are large numbers of doses manufactured around the world. of course, the moment we have regulatory approval for the emergency use here in the uk. but what we're hoping over the weeks ahead is that we will hear more approvals elsewhere in the world, which means that we can really start moving the vaccine to all the vulnerable people that there are in different populations, to have the greatest p