All UK adults to be offered Covid vaccine by 31 July
The UK is now aiming to have all its adults offered a first Covid vaccine by 31 July, after already administering 17m jabs.
All over 50s, social and health care workers and all those who are clinically vulnerable to Covid will be offered a jab by 15 April.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he now wants the rollout to go “further and faster”.
Health secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News today: “We think we have the supplies ale to do that, we can see the NHS and all those partners working on this can deliver jabs at about half a million a day – an incredible effort.”
He added: “There are clinical trials underway into if children should be vaccinated. It should be absolutely safe for children, that’s being investigated.”
The UK met its first target of giving a first Covid vaccine to the 15m most vulnerable people by 15 February, after setting up almost 2,000 vaccination centres across the country.
Hancock has said that all UK adults will be offered two vaccines by September.
However, several media reports have speculated that this target could be brought forward to July.
Professor Adam Finn, a member of the government’s JCVI vaccine unit, told the BBC: “The strategy from JCVI that’s being provided as advice to the government is just being finalised at the moment, and then government will make their decision as to how to do this during the coming days, so I think there’ll be some kind of public announcement around that in the next week or so.”