Oxford vaccine trial moves into hospitals amid fears coronavirus not prevalent enough in wider society

The Oxford University vaccine trial is heading into hospitals amid fears that Covid-19 is not prevalent enough in wider society, a leading scientist has revealed. John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, said more than 1,000 people had been vaccinated in the first phase of the project and that, so far, things were going well and the drug looked safe. However, as researchers wait for an "efficacy signal" that will establish whether those who have been given the vaccine can ward off the virus, Prof Bell admitted there was a risk that there may not be enough "active disease" to infect people, prompting the team to employ different tactics. "The disease is on the wane and there is a risk that we won't be enough active disease to catch people," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "We're doing some clever things. We have good data now on how much disease is around. But the population that is still at pretty high risk are healthcare workers. "So they will be moving, or will have already moved into the healthcare worker population, because there the disease prevalence is about four per cent. So they should be able to get a signal from those individuals, we hope."