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More than a million people in the UK have received a COVID-19 vaccine, Matt Hancock revealed.
The Health Secretary said “the end is in sight” as the country reaches the milestone of its race to vaccinate the population against the coronavirus.
Vaccinations began almost a month ago after the UK became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer / BioNtech jab developed in the US.
Hancock tweeted on Saturday: “A huge THANK YOU to everyone playing their part in the national effort to defeat the coronavirus.
“Over a million people have already been vaccinated.
“With the acceleration of vaccine deployment, the end is in sight and we will get through it together.”
It comes after the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine was approved for use earlier this week, which means the UK will soon have enough doses of the vaccine to immunize the entire population.
The first 530,000 jabs are expected to be deployed on Monday, with a potential of 24 million people to receive the jab before Easter.
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By mid-January, two million doses of the Oxford vaccine are expected to be delivered each week, a source told The Times.
A member of the Oxford / AstraZeneca team said: “The plan is to build it pretty quickly – by the third week of January we should have two million a week.”
The second doses of either vaccine will now take place within 12 weeks instead of 21 days as originally planned.
Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) vice-chairman Professor Anthony Harnden defended the plans.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today show on Saturday that the patients he had dealt with had agreed to the move, saying: “When it was explained to them that the vaccine offers 90% protection for one dose, the priority was to vaccinate as many people. the elderly and vulnerable as possible, they understood.
“I think the country is in all of this together.
“And I think we really, really want to come together to try to make the best possible strategy.”
Meanwhile, England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty has warned that COVID vaccine shortages “will last for months” despite the new Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine which ameliorates supply issues.
But Pfizer and Oxford / AstraZenica both refuted reports of shortages.
Watch: Altmann: The price of a wrong vaccine could be very high
Pfizer said in a statement today: “We have no supply issues on our side at this stage with respect to what has been agreed with the UK.”
Meanwhile, Dr Mary Ramsay, head of vaccinations at PHE, told Sky News that mixing is not recommended and should only occur on “rare occasions.”
“We don’t recommend mixing COVID-19 vaccines – if your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine, you shouldn’t get the AstraZeneca vaccine for your second dose and vice versa,” she says.
“There may be extremely rare occasions when the same vaccine is not available, or where it is not known which vaccine the patient has received.
“Every effort should be made to give them the same vaccine, but when this is not possible, it is better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all.”
Meanwhile, medical experts and public officials have said the north of England braces for a devastating wave of COVID-19 as the new variant continues to spread across the UK.
The mutant coronavirus strain was first detected in the southeast before Christmas and was found to be 70% more transmissible.
It has since spiked new infection rates, putting the NHS on the verge of being overwhelmed.
Several London hospitals like UCH and Royal London have made desperate appeals for more staff in the past 24 hours as COVID services quickly fill up.
A nurse, who works at Whittington Hospital in north London, described the conditions “unbearable” as the number of patients with Covid-19 continues to rise.
The nurse described patients left in hallways, some spending up to three hours in ambulances due to a lack of beds and one without oxygen when their bottles ran out.
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The nurse said, “I’m worried about patient safety because if these little things happen now when we’re running out and it’s busy it will only get worse.
“I don’t know what else is going to happen – that worries me.”
The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals is reaching record highs in many parts of England – including London, the South West and the Midlands – with admissions exceeding levels seen in the first wave.
NHS England said on Friday another 420 deaths in the UK had been reported and 50,668 cases had been confirmed.
Watch: How does the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine work?
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