UK reaches Covid-19 vaccine goal of 15 million first doses

The vaccine programme is seen as one of few successes in the government’s handling of a pandemic that has left the country with a higher death toll and worse economic damage than its peers. With a population of around 67 million, the United Kingdom’s vaccination progress is among the fastest in the world.

The British government set a Feb. 15 target date to reach 15 million people in priority categories: care home residents and staff, frontline health and care workers, all those aged 70 or over and the clinically extremely vulnerable.

Johnson said all those groups had been reached in England but did not speak for Scotland or Northern Ireland, and did not say the overall target had been met. Wales said it had met the target on Saturday.

In some areas those in lower priority groups have received jabs, meaning that it was not clear if the UK-wide target for the top priority groups had been met

“Today we have reached a significant milestone,” Johnson said. “No one is resting on their laurels… We’ve still got a long way to go and there will undoubtedly be bumps in the road, but after all we’ve achieved, I know we can go forward with great confidence.”

Britain is also emerging from the worst of a second wave of the pandemic. On Sunday it reported nearly 11,000 new infections and another 258 deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test. The official death toll by this measure is over 117,000.

Government data showed the total receiving first vaccines doses was 15,062,189 and 537,715 second doses had also been administered. Johnson will set out further progress on Monday…..read more