Table of contents

  1. Using this guide
  2. Clinically extremely vulnerable
  3. Coronavirus and COVID-19
  4. Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
  5. Deaths and COVID-19
  6. Furlough
  7. Local lockdowns and restrictions
  8. Lockdown
  9. Long COVID
  10. New variants of the coronavirus
  11. NHS Test and Trace
  12. Outbreak or pandemic
  13. Pre-coronavirus and pre-lockdown
  14. Quarantine
  15. R number
  16. Self Employment Income Support Scheme Grants
  17. Self-isolation
  18. Shielding
  19. Social distancing
  20. Spread
  21. Support bubble
  22. Vaccines and vaccinations 
  23. Waves

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Vaccines and vaccinations 

Vaccines are substances that stimulate the immune system into producing immunity to a specific disease.  

Vaccination is the act of administering a vaccine into the body.  

Immunisation is the process whereby someone becomes protected against a disease after they have been vaccinated. It is often used interchangeably with vaccination. For consistency, use vaccination.  

Vaccines against the coronavirus (COVID-19) should be referred to as “COVID-19 vaccines”.   

When discussing COVID-19 vaccines in general, use “a COVID-19 vaccine” rather than “the COVID-19 vaccine”. This is because there are multiple types of vaccines and so we need to make it clear we are talking about all vaccines.  

Only refer to a specific type of COVID-19 vaccine by name if you need to make the distinction between the vaccine types clear. There are currently three COVID-19 vaccines being administered in the UK:  

  • Moderna   
  • Pfizer-BioNTech  
  • Oxford-AstraZeneca  

When discussing vaccine doses, refer to them as “the first dose” and “the second dose”.  

The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine was approved for use in January 2021. 

More than 23,000 people have received the first dose of their vaccine.  

The number of people receiving their vaccinations has doubled. 

Vaccination centres have been set up across the UK.