By Von der Leyen says UK vaccine rollout is ‘speedboat’ compared with EU’s big ship.
European commission’s president admits it underestimated difficulties in vaccine rollout.
The EU has administered vaccines to 3.22% of its adult population, compared with 15.5% who have had a first jab in the UK.
In the UK at least 10,490,487 people have now had their first dose of a Coronavirus vaccine and 501,957 has had their second dose.
According to a study by researchers from King’s College London, roughly one in three people recently given a Covid vaccine report some mild side-effects.
The government’s vaccines delivery plan
The Cabinet Office said the UK’s vaccination programme planned to have reached all nine priority cohorts by May – which it said gave the government confidence to commit to holding local elections that month.
Previously the government has declined to give a firm date, saying only that all over-50s would likely receive their first dose of a vaccine by the spring.
The government’s vaccines delivery plan states: “The government’s top priority is to ensure that everyone in cohorts 1-4 is offered the opportunity to receive their first dose of vaccination against Covid-19 by 15 February.
Professor Graham Medley from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and chairman of the Sage modelling subgroup Spi-M, said the government should “make decisions dependent on the circumstances, rather than being driven by a calendar of wanting to do things.”
