Plans are in place to get a Covid vaccine out to the most at risk in the county as soon as next month.

Oxfordshire’s Director of Public Health, Ansaf Azhar, in an update on the virus at a county council health improvement partnership board meeting today, said preparations were already underway to meet the 'absolutely massive task'.

It comes after late-stage trial results from Pfrizer this week showed it was 95 per cent effective, with the UK having already ordered 40 million doses.

Results from Moderna have also shown similar success.

Mr Azhar explained arrangements were now in place locally to get a vaccine, once approved, out to where it was most needed, including those aged over 80 and health and care staff.

Mr Azhar said: “The plan is to roll this out in December, starting with the high priority groups like older age, especially those over the age of 80 and health and care staff.

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“Our health colleagues have been leading on this and been working very hard to set this up and the aim is to roll this out gradually - we wouldn’t expect big numbers in December.

"But the aim is to start this as soon as possible and all arrangements have been made locally to make that happen.”

On both vaccination and mass testing, he added: “It is an absolutely massive task in a way we have never seen before.

"It will put a huge demand on our workforces across the system and I think it’s really important pieces of work, our staff and our workforce will be really challenged by this.

“There’s lots of things about the vaccination we haven’t got answers yet, just like the testing. It’s a very fast evolving picture.”