Coronavirus update

OVER 13 MILLION PEOPLE have received at least one dose of the vaccine so far across the United Kingdom

       

Britain has administered more than 13.6 million vaccines across the UK. We are now averaging 2.5 million doses a week. Nine out of ten of those aged 75 and over in England have had their first dose – as we vaccinated at a rate of 1,000 jabs a minute last Saturday. The rollout is being accelerating with a target of offering a vaccine to everyone over 50 by May.

One in four British adults have now received a coronavirus vaccine, with first doses having been given to:

93 per cent of individuals in care homes

92 per cent of people over 80

96 per cent of 75-79 year olds

77 per cent 70-74 year olds

The vaccine has now been offered to residents at every eligible care home with older residents in England. 

Vaccination teams have visited every eligible care home with older residents in England – 10,307 in total – and offered vaccinations to all their residents and staff, a vital milestone in the ongoing race to protect the most vulnerable against the disease.

Only two countries, the United States and China, have vaccinated more people than the UK.

An Britain has now secured early access to over 407 million total doses of vaccines for 2021 and 2022.

This means we will have the Oxford-AstraZenca vaccine manufactured in Oxford, Staffordshire and Wrexham; the Novovax vaccine made in Teesside and the Valneva vaccine, subject to approval, produced in Livingston, Scotland – a great example of what we can achieve together as one United Kingdom.

Last week the UK government announced a new partnership with vaccine manufacturer CureVac to rapidly develop new vaccines in response to new Covid-19 variants if needed. While the vaccines we are deploying now are safe and effective, this partnership will allow us utilise the UK’s expertise on genomic and virus sequencing to quickly develop new varieties of vaccines to combat new strains of the virus if necessary.