LONDON: Britain is targeting a 24-hour, 7-day a week vaccination programme as soon as possible, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday, as he bids to step up the pace of the rollout and give shots to at-risk groups by mid-February.
AstraZeneca executives said the company was on track to deliver 2 million doses a week before mid-February, and Johnson said the availability of more shots would be crucial to scaling up to a round-the-clock service.
“We’ll be going to 24/7 as soon as we can,” Johnson told parliament. “At the moment the limit is on supply.”
Johnson hopes that giving protection to the elderly, the vulnerable and frontline workers by mid-February will provide a route out of a new national lockdown which began in England last week.
Scotland, which locked down at the same time, said on Wednesday it would tighten its measures further.
Across the United Kingdom, there are 15 million people in the highest priority groups. Only 2.4 million have been vaccinated…
