One in nine people in England have been vaccinated, Matt Hancock confirmed today.
The Health Secretary said that 77.8% of people over 80 have received at least one dose of their vaccine.
But Mr Hancock also gave a stern warning for Brits to follow the rules – and warned that supplies of the vaccine supply remained “tight”.
He repeated warnings that the new variety discovered in Kent was proving “between 30-70%” more infectious and also more deadly.
Now he insisted was not a moment “to ease up” on coronavirus restrictions.
He told the Downing Street press conference: “This is not a moment to ease up. The success of the vaccine rollout means we cannot put this progress at risk.”
On Monday, the Government said a further 592 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Monday, bringing the UK total to 98,531.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 115,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
The Government also said that, as of 9am on Monday, there had been a further 22,195 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.
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Dr Susan Hopkins, Covid-19 strategic response director at Public Health England, said the UK was still “far away” from achieving herd immunity.
She said: “One in 10 people having immunity is far away from where we need to be.
“Herd immunity is a word we use to describe the immunity we get from vaccination.
“The big job here is to roll out the vaccination to those individuals first of all, to those who are high risk of death and hospitalisation and then to the rest of the population.
“Once we have done that, then we will have herd immunity.
“We should not be focusing on getting infection and the consequences of this infection, getting us out of this right now.”
(Image: REUTERS)
It came as Boris Johnson said England’s schools would reopen “as fast as possible” as he faced Tory pressure to set out a timetable for pupils to return.
The Prime Minister said the Government would be “looking at the potential of relaxing some measures” as England’s lockdown restrictions are reviewed on February 15 but could not guarantee that pupils would return to classes before Easter.
“There’s nothing I want to do more than reopen schools, I’ve fought to keep schools open for as long as I possibly could,” Mr Johnson said.
“We want to see schools back as fast as possible, we want to do that in a way that is consistent with fighting the epidemic and keeping the infection rate down.”
The Prime Minister faced pressure to set out a timetable for pupils to return to class – currently only vulnerable children and those whose parents are key workers are attending school, with home learning for all others.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the Government would examine the data “and that will inform what we may or may not be able to ease from (February) 15 onwards”.
He added: “It has always been our intention to ease restrictions where we can from that point on the 15th, and schools are obviously our top priority.”
