UK seeks to give 1st COVID shot to all adults by September
LONDON (AP) — The U.K. government plans to offer a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine to every adult by September as the nation’s health service battles the worst crisis in its 72-year-history.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Sunday that the government is still opening new vaccination sites and will soon begin trials that will give round-the-clock injections at some locations to help increase the pace of delivery.
“Our target is by September to have offered all the adult population a first dose,’’ he told Sky News. “If we can do it faster than that, great, but that’s the roadmap.”
Britain has more than 51 million adults in its population of 67.5 million people.
The ambitious vaccination program comes amid crushing pressures on the National Health Service. Already beleaguered hospitals are admitting another COVID-19 patient every 30 seconds, putting the service in its most precarious situation ever, said Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England.
“The facts are very clear and I’m not going to sugarcoat them, hospitals are under extreme pressure and staff are under extreme pressure,’’ he told the BBC. “Since Christmas Day we’ve seen another 15,000 increase in the in-patients in hospitals across England. That’s the equivalent of filling 30 hospitals full of coronavirus patients.”
Britain’s health care system is staggering as doctors and nurses battle a more contagious variant of the coronavirus coupled with cold, wet winter weather that drives people inside, where infections spread more easily.
The surge in infections has pushed the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 to a record 37,475, more than 73% higher than during the first peak of the pandemic in April. Britain has reported 88,747 coronavirus-related deaths, more than...
