How vaccine goal will be achieved – Nadhim Zahawi

As of today, in England, 2.33 million vaccinations have been given, with 1.96 million receiving their first dose and 374,613 having already received both doses.

We are on track to deliver our commitment of offering a first vaccine to everyone in the most vulnerable groups by the middle of next month. These are groups, it is worth reminding ourselves, that account for more than four out of every five fatalities from the Covid virus, or some 88 per cent of deaths.

But of course this is a delivery plan for everyone – a plan that will see us vaccinate all adults by the autumn in what is the largest programme of vaccination of its kind in British history.

The UK Vaccines Delivery Plan sets out how we can achieve that noble, necessary and urgent goal. The plan rests on four key pillars: supply, prioritisation, places and people.

On supply, our approach to vaccines has been to move fast and to move early. We had already been heavily investing in the development of new vaccines since 2016. At the start of last year, this technology was rapidly repurposed to develop a vaccine for Covid-19, and in April we provided £20m of further funding so that the Oxford clinical trials could commence immediately. Today, we are the first country to buy, authorise and use that vaccine.

Also in April, we established the UK Government’s Vaccine Task Force, and since then it has worked relentlessly to build a wide portfolio of different types of vaccine, signing early deals with the most promising prospects.

The second pillar of our plan is prioritisation. The basic principle that sits behind all of this is to save as many lives as possible as quickly as possible. In addition, we are working at speed to protect staff in our health and social care system.

All four UK chief medical officers agree with the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to prioritise the first doses for as many people on the priority list as possible and administer second doses towards the end of the recommended vaccine dosing schedule of 12 weeks. That step will ensure the protection of the greatest number of at-risk people in the shortest possible time.

The third pillar of our plan is places. We have more than 2,700 vaccination sites up and running. There are three types of site. First, we have large vaccination centres that use big venues such as football stadiums. The second type is our hospital hubs. The third is our local vaccination services, which are made up of sites led by GPs working in partnership with primary care trusts and, importantly, with community pharmacists.

This offers the flexibility that we need to reach many different and diverse groups and, importantly, to be able to target as accurately as we can. By the end of January, everyone will be within 10 miles of a vaccination site. In a small number of highly rural areas, the vaccination centre will be a mobile unit. It bears repeating that, when it is their turn, we want as many people as possible to take up the offer of a vaccine against Covid-19.

The fourth and final pillar is, of course, our people. I am grateful to the many thousands who have joined this national mission. We now have a workforce of some 80,000 people ready to be deployed. This includes staff currently working within the NHS of course, but also volunteers through the NHS Bring Back Staff scheme, such as St John Ambulance personnel, independent nurses and occupational health service providers.

We recognise that transparency about our vaccine plan will be central to maintaining public trust. Since December 24, we have published weekly UK-wide data on the total number of vaccinations. From this week, we are publishing daily data for England showing the total number vaccinated to date.

This continues to be a difficult time for our country, but we have always known that a vaccine would be our best way out of this evil pandemic, and that is the road we are now taking.

We are under no illusion as to the scale of the challenge ahead and the distance we still have to travel. In more normal times, the largest vaccination programme in British history would be an epic feat, but against the backdrop of a global pandemic and a new, more transmissible variant, it is a huge challenge.

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