Despite stark failures in curbing Covid-19's spread, the UK has scored a notable success with its mass vaccination drive, giving 15 million people a first dose by this weekend.
Here are some of the factors behind the speedy roll out. Early backing In May 2020, the UK government signed a deal with the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to buy 100 million doses of their still unproven vaccine, three months before the European Union followed suit.
It also gave £65.5 million (€75m) to fund clinical trials and manufacturing. World firsts In early December,Britain became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.