Vaccine rollout slowing despite PM’s pledge

When Boris Johnson delayed “freedom day” on Monday, he laid out what many are describing as an ambitious new target: to vaccinate all UK adults by 19 July and to secure a double dose for two thirds of the adult population by this new unlocking date. 

Ministers had previously pledged to offer jabs to all over 18s by 31 July. So the PM’s announcement has been widely interpreted as a promise to accelerate the pace of the roll-out in the coming weeks. 

But is this realistic? On the contrary, with Pfizer supplies set to be tight, it looks like the vaccine roll-out is slowing down. 

Latest figures show that over half of UK adults have now had two vaccine doses while almost four in five have received their first jab. The NHS has confirmed that all English adults should be able to book their first vaccine appointment by the end of this week. 

On Monday, however, the UK administered 368,555 vaccine doses – under half of the 844,285 it managed on a single day in March. According to analysis conducted by The Telegraph, just 1.2 million first doses have been dispensed in the last week, compared with more than three million a week during the highest peaks of the roll-out. The UK is currently lagging behind Germany, Italy and France in terms of daily doses administered. 

It’s important to note that we have seen these vaccination figures fluctuate week-to-week and day-to-day throughout the roll-out. That being said, fears about constrained supplies suggest that the reduced rate at which injections are currently being dispensed may continue to fall further. 

Since the government ruled out the use of the AstraZeneca jab for under 40s over blood clot fears – and with Moderna supplies expected to be very low all along – the UK is now heavily reliant on Pfizer to vaccinate the young. 

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson has denied that there are any shortages of Pfizer vaccines, insisting that “deliveries are coming in on time and as ordered.”

Yet at the NHS Confederation’s annual conference on Tuesday, Sir Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, warned that “supply continues to be constrained”. Last week, Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine minister, also admitted that stocks of Pfizer would be “tight” this month. 

In Salford, Greater Manchester, one of the current virus hotspots, local health leaders and MPs have been told to expect fewer Pfizer supplies this week. Barbara Keeley, the Worsley and Eccles South MP, confirmed: “They’ve told us to expect 3,500 doses of Pfizer this week, and then only 2,200 doses next week.”

Similarly, in a letter seen by the The Telegraph, NHS bosses at Derbyshire NHS Foundation Trust warned staff and volunteers at the Derby Arena vaccination centre that some shifts will be cancelled in the coming weeks. “As Derbyshire will not be receiving large quantities of the Pfizer vaccine, which we need for the younger cohorts, it means activity at the vaccination centre will be reduced for a few weeks,” the letter said. The NHS bosses added: “We are being advised there will be more vaccine in July to carry on with our younger adults.”

Will the government be able to still meet its 19 July target even if the roll-out does slow down in the coming weeks?

The answer is likely to be yes, but in large part because the pledge is less ambitious than it may at first appear. 

Whitehall insiders are reported to be unsure if the existing pace of just under 400,000 daily doses will be sustained in the next five weeks. However, they are still confident that they will meet the target because doing so doesn’t actually require picking up the pace. 

The pledge to speed up second doses to under 40s, for instance, would still be possible even if vaccinations ran at half their current pace, according to analysis from The Telegraph. For the government to meet its new goal of offering second jabs to two thirds of adults, it would need to administer six million jabs to people in their 40s and 50s in the next five weeks. When we take into consideration that two million people got their second jabs in the last week alone, this prospect doesn’t look too daunting. What is more, offering second jabs will be less of a challenge because there is an abundant supply of AstraZeneca vaccines. 

How, then, is the UK in a position to be making pledges to ship millions of vaccines to poorer countries, if supplies are running so short? Again, the answer is that the five million doses the UK has promised to share in the coming weeks will almost certainly be AstraZeneca – so they won’t put a further strain of Pfizer supplies.