Almost 138,000 people vaccinated against Covid-19 so far – minister

Almost 138,000 people across the UK have been vaccinated against Covid-19 so far, a health minister has said.

Nadhim Zahawi, who oversees the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine in England, tweeted that there had been a “really good start” to the NHS vaccination programme with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab.

He wrote: “A really good start to the vaccination program(me). It’s been 7 days and we have done: England: 108,000 Wales: 7,897 Northern Ireland: 4,000. Scotland: 18,000 U.K Total 137,897. That number will increase as we have operationalised hundreds of PCN (primary care networks).”

It came after Government officials refused to be drawn on how many doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are due to arrive in the UK and on what schedule.

It had been hoped that 10 million doses would be in the country by the end of 2020, but this has now dropped to five million doses.

To date, 800,000 doses of the jab are known to be in the country so far.

Overall, the UK has already ordered 40 million doses – enough to vaccinate 20 million people.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he hopes several million people can be vaccinated before Christmas.