The UK’s vaccination programme has made incredible progress in just eight weeks.
Thanks to the mammoth effort of the NHS, volunteers from Trending In The News’s jabs army, local government and the armed forces we have now given the first dose of the vaccination to more than 10 million people in every corner of the UK.
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This is a monumental milestone and means more than 10 million people – almost one in five adults – are starting to receive protection from this awful disease.
That’s millions of the most vulnerable people, including grandparents, elderly care home residents and frontline health and care workers, whose lives may have been saved.
To put this into context, that’s the equivalent of vaccinating 111 capacity crowds at Wembley stadium in just eight weeks.
It’s an incredible achievement, however you look at it.
We find ourselves in this position thanks to the ingenuity of the Vaccines Taskforce.
Our strategy has been to invest early and invest at risk.
We’ve backed seven different of the most promising vaccines and have pre-ordered a total of 407 million doses on behalf of the entire UK, crown dependencies and overseas territories.
We’ve also built up our vaccine manufacturing capability at home.
As a result, today we have the AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured in Oxford, Staffordshire and Wrexham; the Novavax vaccine made in Teesside; and the Valneva vaccine manufactured in Livingston in Scotland.
It’s a great example of the strength of our union and what we can achieve together, working as one United Kingdom, when we draw on the best minds and resources from every part of our great country.
We should be proud of our achievement and I hope it offers fresh hope to everybody that the future is bright and we have a way out of this pandemic.
