UK to provide COVID-19 vaccine to all adults July-end

All adults in Britain will be offered the first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of July, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

Johnson will set out a roadmap to ease England’s third national lockdown on Monday, having met a target to vaccinate 15 million Britons from higher-risk categories by mid-February.

Britain now aims to give the first dose to all over-50s by April 15, the government said, having previously indicated it wished them to receive the shot by May.

If all adults receive a dose by the end of July, it will be well ahead of a previous target that they would receive a vaccine by autumn.

Johnson cautioned that there was a need to avoid complacency, adding that lockdown would only be lifted slowly.

So far, the UK has given the first dose of vaccine to 17.2 million people, over a quarter of its 67 million population.

Two vaccines – one made by Pfizer and BioNTech, and another developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca – are being rolled out, and UK officials have advised that there can be a 12-week gap between doses.

(edits by EP News Bureau)