Coronavirus vaccine: UK mustn’t take ‘foot off the pedal’ says GP

The Covid-19 vaccination programme is well underway, with several different vaccines currently being used to get the UK out of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now claimed almost 90,000 lives since the pandemic began. Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirmed this evening that more than four million people have been vaccinated with at least their first dose as of Monday, January 18.

The Health Secretary confirmed that some areas had finished vaccinating certain groups, with the NHS in Slough managing to give first doses to all care home residents in the Berkshire town.

The latest figures showed a record 37,475 people were in hospital with coronavirus, while there had been a further 599 reported deaths within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 and 37,535 new cases.

The Government is on track to vaccinate around 15 million high-priority people across the UK by February 15, including health and social care staff, the elderly and people in care homes.

It is making it more likely that measures could be lifted in England by mid-February.

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The Prime Minister said earlier this month that 24 hour rollout of the vaccine was being looked into, sparking hopes that the process could be speeded up significantly, meaning lockdown restrictions can end quicker.

Currently, vaccines are administered from 8am to 8pm across the UK, with some areas having managed to give first doses to the majority of over 80s in their area.

The programme is now ready to move onto giving the over 70s their first jabs, with the older generations and healthcare workers remaining the priority.

Government ministers have been keen to emphasise that every adult will be offered their first dose by September.

Areas of London will be trialling 24 hours vaccination by the end of this month, Vaccines minister Nadhim Zawahi has confirmed.

NHS staff who work shifts are expected to be the main users of the service, while elderly and vulnerable people will continue to be offered daytime appointments at centres across the city.

He said: “If you just want to chase volume, chase speed, and not accuracy, 24 hours works really well. But if you want to chase both accuracy, protecting the most vulnerable and of course speed, then you want to do what we’re doing, which is primary care networks, hospitals, large vaccination centres, and of course pharmacies last week.”

The current aim is to have priority groups given their first dose by the middle of February.

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When will 24-hour vaccination begin?

Professor Stephen Powis, the NHS national medical director for England, told Sky News the 24/7 pilot would be starting “within the next week or two”.

However, there is currently no concrete indication of when it could be rolled out across the country.

NHS England chief executive Sir Simon told the BBC: “We will start testing 24/7 in some hospitals over the course of the next 10 days.

 “But we are at the moment vaccinating at about 140 jabs a minute and yesterday, a quarter of a million people got their vaccinations on the NHS.

“I’m pretty confident by the time we get to the end of today, Sunday night, we will have perhaps done 1.5 million vaccinations this past week, that’s up from around a million the week before.”

A YouGov poll last week found 43 percent of Brits would be happy to have a vaccine appointment between midnight and 6am.

Perhaps surprisingly, a further 32 percent would turn down an appointment at that time.

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