People walk by Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), London, Britain, May 26, 2020. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo
LONDON: People in Britain will be able to decide whether they want to have the coronavirus vaccine or not, Health Minister Matt Hancock said on Tuesday, adding that children will not need to be vaccinated.
"We're not proposing to make this compulsory, not least because I think the vast majority people are going to want to have it," Hancock told BBC TV on Tuesday.
"This is not for children and children have a very low susceptibility to coronavirus," he added.
The British government has asked the National Health Service to be ready to deploy any COVID vaccine from the start of December and it will then roll it out, starting with the most vulnerable, the health minister said on Tuesday.
Matt Hancock told Sky News that there were many hurdles still to clear and the government would not deploy the shot until it was confident in its clinical safety.
