When we interviewed Matt Hancock this week, he was clear that the government isn’t going for herd immunity through vaccination. Instead, the government is seeking to use the vaccine to protect the vulnerable and break the link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths. Once that is done, the government will start to ease restrictions. Crucially, he was also clear that the government now regards the first shot as the most important metric when counting vaccinations.
In his Monday night address, Boris Johnson said that if the government could succeed in giving a first shot to the first four groups in the vaccination programme by mid-February then the government would start ‘cautiously, to move regions down the tiers.’
If the government is to hit this target it will have to be vaccinating around two million people a week.
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