The UK has ordered 40 million doses of a breakthrough vaccine, the first to be proven effective at preventing the coronavirus.

The vaccine, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, has been shown in preliminary tests to prevent the virus from taking hold in 90% of patients.

Around 43,000 people have taken part in phase three trials of the treatment with no safety concerns raised.

The UK is in line to have 10 million doses of the vaccine by Christmas and so long as it passes safety tests, a programme of vaccination is likely to begin with the elderly, those living in care homes and health and care workers.

Speaking to the nation earlier this evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson cautioned that it was “very early days”.

Both he and England’s deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van-Tam reiterated that we “must not slacken our guard” against Covid-19 during this second wave of the pandemic.

Today there have been a further 21,350 positive coronavirus cases across the UK, and 194 people have died of the coronavirus within 28 days of having tested positive.

There have been 67 new positive cases of Covid-19 in Cornwall today, bringing the total confirmed cases in the county since the start of the pandemic to 2,787.