'Great day for humanity': How front pages reacted to news of COVID vaccine

The front pages of Tuesday’s newspapers all focus on the news of the world’s first effective coronavirus vaccine.

Health secretary Matt Hancock has told Sky News he has asked the NHS to be ready to deploy the vaccine from the start of December.

On Monday, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced that their COVID-19 vaccine has been more than 90% effective in trials.

As a result, one of the government’s top scientists said he was “hopeful” the vaccine could be ready by Christmas, while a member of its vaccine taskforce predicted life may return to normal by spring.

Read more: How front pages reacted to three-tier coronavirus lockdown

The results of the vaccine’s trials were also heralded by Tuesday’s newspapers.

The Daily Telegraph said it was “a great day for humanity” on its front page, although it carried prime minister Boris Johnson’s warning that there is a “long way before we have this thing beat”.

The Daily Mail echoes the moon landings by calling the vaccine “one small jab for man”, adding that the rollout could begin within weeks.

Writing in the paper, microbiologist Professor Hugh Pennington predicted the vaccine’s makers could be awarded Nobel Prizes.

The Times carried a picture of BioNTech founders, married German-Turkish couple Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sahin, who have built a business worth £16bn.

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