UK on course to meet vaccine targets despite ‘lumps and bumps’ in supply, says minister
Britain is on course to meet its vaccination targets despite major “lumps and bumps” in supplies expected over the next few months, the housing minister has said.
The UK will see a “significant reduction” in Covid-19 vaccine supplies from 29 March onward, a letter from the NHS to local vaccination centres revealed yesterday. The NHS said volumes for first doses will be “significantly constrained”, with disruption set to last for at least four weeks.
Speaking to Sky News this morning, Robert Jenrick admitted there “will be some supply issues” with the UK’s vaccination rollout, but insisted that the country is “still on course” to meet its targets for jabs.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set a target of 15 April to offer a first dose of a Covid vaccine to all over-50s, while all adults in the UK are set to be vaccinated by 31 July at the latest.
Pubs, restaurants and non-essential shops are also set to reopen in less than a month’s time under the PM’s roadmap for leaving lockdown.
Jenrick said there was “no reason to believe the roadmap is affected by this temporary shortage in supply,” and that there was “no concern that we are off course”.
He refused to comment on speculation that the disruption to vaccine supplies was due to production problems in India, saying he would not go into details of specific contracts.
The housing minister added that the UK’s vaccine programme deals with complex supply chains that stretch across the globe, adding that there was always going to be “lumps and bumps” in new supply manufacturing processes.
“Nobody who has an appointment should be concerned, you’re still going to get your second vaccine, all those appointments will be honoured,” said Jenrick.
The NHS letter sent yesterday said appointment centres should make sure that no more appointments are uploaded to the national booking system or local booking systems for April.
Health secretary Matt Hancock said at last night’s Downing Street press conference that the changes are to ensure that all vulnerable people that have not been vaccinated are reached as a part of the rollout.
“Now we’ve opened up to the 50 and overs, then we’re going to really focus on getting the vaccine to the most vulnerable and because we have a whole load of second vaccines to deliver vaccine supplies are always lumpy,” he said.
“We regularly set out technical letters to the NHS to explain the ups and downs to the supply over the future weeks.”
EU exports
It comes amid fresh threats from the EU over vaccine export controls to Britain. The European Commission warned yesterday that it will block vaccine exports to the UK and other countries with high vaccination rates if shortages in the bloc’s vaccine supply are not filled.
European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen announced the bloc was facing “the crisis of this century”, as she cautioned that the EU “will have to reflect on how to make exports to vaccine-producing countries, depending on their level of openness”.
“We will reflect on whether exports to countries who have higher vaccination rates than us are still proportionate,” Von der Leyen added.
The threats drew sharp criticism from cabinet ministers, with Jenrick saying this morning that he was “surprised and disappointed” by Von der Leyen’s comments.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab warned yesterday that the “world is watching” the EU’s handling of the vaccine shortage.
“All of us, including our European friends, have been saying throughout the pandemic that you’d be wrong to curtail or interfere with lawfully-contracted supply. We said it last year on PPE. We’ve been saying it this year on other things,” he said in an interview with Reuters.
“Frankly I’m surprised we’re having this conversation,” Raab added. “It is normally what the UK and EU team up with to reject when other countries with less than democratic view than our own engage in that kind of brinkmanship.”