Nearly 1.5m in the UK have received first Covid vaccine jab
Boris Johnson has today announced that just under 1.5m in the UK have now received their first Covid vaccine jab as he doubles down on a promise to hit 15m vaccinations by next month.
The new figure means that around 200,000 people have been vaccinated since Tuesday – a rate well below what’s needed to hit the government’s 2m a week target.
The Prime Minister said the vaccine is being rolled out in care homes from today, with the aim of all the country’s care home residents being immunised by the end of the month.
“It’s thanks to the arrival of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine…that we can accelerate the rollout of the vaccine in care homes,” he said.
The government will open seven large vaccination centres next week, with London’s Excel Centre one of the venues chosen.
This is along with another 1,000 GP surgeries and hospitals and 200 pharmacies that will be able to administer Covid vaccines by the end of next week.
NHS England chief Sir Simon Stevens said today that 80,000 people have been enlisted to administer the Covid vaccines, with 18,000 already operating.
The government is aiming on having the UK’s over 70s, frontline health workers, care home staff and people who are considered “extremely clinically vulnerable” all vaccinated by 15 February.
Before the Open newsletter: Start your day with the City View podcast and key market data
This would be 15m people and it is believed this would reduce Covid death rates by up to 88 per cent.
“Our tactics are to use the immense natural capacity of the NHS and by the end of the week there will be over 1000 GP led sites providing vaccines, 223 hospital sites, seven giant vaccination centres and a first wave of 200 community pharmacies,” Johnson said.
“If all goes well these together should have the capacity to deliver hundreds of thousands of vaccines a day by 15 January and it is our plan that everyone has a vaccination available within a radius of 10 miles.
“The limits are not on distributional power, but on the supply of vaccines and I have no doubt we have enough supply to vaccinate these four [most vulnerable groups by the 15 February deadline and we also have the distributional network to do it and to continue an expanding programme down that priority list.”
It comes as it was announced earlier today that a new drug to treat severe cases of Covid has been approved in the UK.
Data from clinical trials published today showed that tocilizumab and sarilumab, which are typically used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, reduced the relative risk of death by 24 per cent when administered to patients within 24 hours of entering intensive care.