Plans for at least two million vaccinations per week

The government has announced that it plans for tens of millions of people will be immunised by the spring at over 2,700 vaccination sites across the UK.

As part of comprehensive plans to rapidly scale up the coronavirus vaccination programme, the government has said that, by the end of January, everyone in England will be within 10 miles of a vaccination site or, for a small number of highly rural areas, the vaccine will be brought to them via mobile teams.

This means that there will be the capacity to deliver at least two million vaccinations in England per week by the end of January and all residents and staff in over 10,000 care homes across the country will also be offered a vaccine by the end of the month.

The Department of Health and Social Care says that this will be made possible by the rapid expansion of the programme, including: 206 active hospital sites; 50 vaccination centres; and approximately 1,200 local vaccination sites – including primary care networks, community pharmacy sites and mobile teams.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “It’s taken a tremendous amount of hard work and dedication to make such an incredible start to this ambitious deployment programme. Our vaccine deployment plan sets out exactly how we will harness these efforts to expand the programme quickly and safely.

“Our UK Covid-19 vaccines delivery plan maps our route back to normality, but it does not mean we can be complacent and it is mission critical that everybody abides by the restrictions in the coming weeks. The next few months will present a significant opportunity to turn the tide of battle against Covid – I am looking forward to watching these plans bring more reassurance and hope back to people’s lives after a difficult year.”