The UK has ended up being the first in the world to have approved a coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer / BioNTech, paving the way for a mass vaccination.
The UK drug regulator, MHRA, says the vaccine, which provides up to 95% safety against Covid-19, is protected for use.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the first 800,000 doses will be available in the UK from next week.
He added that people should wait to be contacted by the NHS.
Older people in care homes and care home staff top priorities, followed by those over the age of 80 and health care workers.
But due to limited stock and the need to store at -70 ° C, the first vaccinations will likely be administered in hospitals, so nursing home residents may not be vaccinated until at a later time.
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Pfizer / BioNTech jab is the fastest vaccine to go from thinking to reality, and it only takes 10 months to observe identical steps which generally span 10 years.
The UK has already ordered forty million doses of the free vaccine - sufficient to immunize 20 million people.
Hancock said the doses will be rolled out as quickly as possible by Pfizer in Belgium, with the first loading next week and then "several million" in December.
The vaccine will be not mandatory and there will be three ways to vaccinate people across the UK:
Hospitals
Mr. Hancock said: • Vaccination centers "are a bit like the Nightingale Project and have some Nightingale's"
• In the community, with doctors and pharmacists.
About 50 hospitals are in standby mode, and vaccination centers are now being set up - in places like conference centers or sports stadiums.
Since the initial doses are delivered to hospitals, which already have vaccine storage facilities at -70 ° C, the first vaccinations will likely be done in hospital centers - for care home staff, NHS staff, and patients - so no vaccine misses out.
It is believed that the vaccination network can begin delivering more than 1 million doses per week once adequate doses are available.
Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of the National Health Service, said the health service was preparing for "the largest vaccination campaign in the history of our country."
But experts said people still needed to be vigilant and follow the rules to stop the spread of the virus - including social distancing, face masks and self-isolation.
"We can't lower our caution yet," said the government's chief medical adviser, Professor Chris Whitty.
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