LONDON (Reuters) – Britain wants to have offered all nine groups on its initial COVID-19 vaccination priority list their first shot by May, the government said on Friday, setting a more specific target than it had done previously.
“The UK’s vaccination programme is planned to have reached all nine priority cohorts by May,” the Cabinet Office said in an announcement permitting local elections to take place on May 6.
Previously the government had only said it wanted to vaccinate groups 1 to 9 by the ‘spring’. It has committed to offer the jab to its first four priority groups by Feb. 15 and is on track to do so.
So far it has delivered shots to almost 10.5 million people and aims to have hit 15 million by the mid-February target. The additional five priority groups comprise 17 million more people.
(Reporting by William James and Paul Sandle; editing by Michael Holden)
