All UK adults should be offered a first Covid vaccine by September - is it a realistic plan?
All UK adults will be offered their first Covid vaccine by September, Dominic Raab has claimed.
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Hide AdSpeaking on Sophy Ridge on Sunday, the Foreign Secretary said that the current expected date for all UK adults to have been offered their first Covid vaccine is in September, but that it could happen sooner.
Mr Raab said: "Our target is that by September to have offered all the adult population a first dose, if we can do it faster than that, great, but that's the roadmap."
The Government's Covid vaccine delivery plan, which was published a week ago, said that it planned to offer all UK adults the jab "by the autumn", so Mr Raab's goal of September provides a more specific target.
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Hide AdThe Foreign Secretary also said that he hoped some restrictions can begin to be lifted by early spring.
"What we want to do is get out of these national lockdowns as soon as possible. The roadmap that I described is that by early spring, hopefully by March, we'll be in a position to make those decisions," Mr Raab commented.
He added: "We want to make sure that we can do it in a safe way but again, we've got to, at this point in time, really focus on protecting the NHS and rolling out the vaccine.
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Hide Ad"If we do those two things, we get into a much better place by early spring."
How many people have been vaccinated so far?
More than 3.8 million people have now received their first dose of a Covid vaccine as part of the Government's mass rollout plan, including the over-80s, care home residents and NHS and social care staff.
The Government has a target of offering 15 million people in the UK a Covid vaccine by 15 February.
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Hide AdAfter the first four priority groups have been offered their first jab (including care home residents and their carers, over-80s, frontline health and social care workers, the over-70s and the clinically extremely vulnerable) the offer will then be extended to the next five groups.
This includes people aged 50 and over and those aged between 16 and 64 who have underlying health conditions.
The UK currently has a total population of between 67 and 68 million people.