UK Government To Set Out Covid-19 UK Vaccines Delivery Plan

The UK Government will today (Monday 11 January 2021) be publishing its Covid-19 UK Vaccines Delivery Plan, which the Health and Social Care Secretary, Matt Hancock, will set out at a Downing Street press conference in the afternoon.

The Health Secretary will visit one of the seven new regional vaccination centres to see first-hand an element of the plan in action, which will lay out the strategies behind the development, manufacturing and deployment of the vaccines.

More than 1,000 vaccination sites have already been established across the UK, helping those who are most at risk from COVID-19 to access vaccines for free, regardless of where they live and around two million people in the UK have now been vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines since the vaccination programme began. Last week the third vaccine, by Moderna, was approved by the MHRA.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said:

“Since the historic day the first vaccine was approved, the NHS has made fantastic strides in offering the vaccine to as many at risk people as possible and at record pace.

“We have worked closely with experts across the NHS, local governments and the armed forces to put in place full and thorough preparations for this rollout – this is the biggest vaccination programme in British history.

“From today, the full scale of our plans will be published, so the public can be assured of the time, effort and resources that have gone and will go into ensuring we protect the British people from the scourge of this virus.

“The U.K. vaccine delivery plan will be the keystone of our exit out of the pandemic, but we all must continue to play our part by staying at home, following the rules and keeping hands, face, space at the forefront of our minds when out and about.”

The NHS will be offering a vaccination to everyone in the top four priority groups as set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation by 15 February. This includes:

• all residents in a care home for older adults and their carers;
• all those 80 years of age and over and frontline health and social care workers;
• all those 75 years of age and over;
• all those 70 years of age and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals.

Minister for Covid-19 Vaccine Deployment Nadhim Zahawi said:

“With around two million people in the UK now having received their first dose of the vaccine, this has truly been a remarkable effort from a variety of organisations spanning a number of sectors.

“Our plan of action will set out our ambitions for the coming weeks and months as we continue to expand our programme at breakneck speed, with strategies to underpin every commitment.

“It’s been phenomenal to see our extensive preparations come to fruition and from tomorrow the public will also be able to see exactly how we will ensure they and their loved ones get the vaccine as quickly as possible.”