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 Britain has seen one of the world's quickest vaccine rollouts,
behind only Israel in the proportion of its population receiving at
least one dose of a COVID-19 shot.
The government said it had now offered at least one shot to priority
cohorts 1 to 9, which include all adults over 50, the clinically
vulnerable, and health and social care workers, ahead of a target to
do so by Thursday.
"We will now move forward with completing essential second doses and
making progress towards our target of offering all adults a vaccine
by the end of July," Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a
statement.
Britain has slowed down the pace of first doses, to ensure people in
high-priority groups receive a second dose despite lower vaccine
supplies in April than March.
In a boost to vaccine supplies for first doses, the rollout of
Moderna's shot in England begins on Tuesday, after first doses were
given in Wales last week.
Already used in the United States and other parts of Europe, it
becomes the third vaccine to be used in Britain after AstraZeneca
and one from Pfizer-BioNTech,.
Moderna uses the same mRNA technology as Pfizer's shots but can be
stored at normal fridge temperatures unlike its rival U.S. vaccine,
which must be kept and shipped at ultra-low temperatures.
Johnson's office said that the government remained on track to offer
all adults a shot by July 31. On Tuesday, the National Health
Service said that people aged 45 or over could now book appointments
to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
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 The success of the vaccine
programme has underpinned Johnson's roadmap out
of lockdown, which on Monday saw all shops and
outdoor hospitality settings in England reopen,
with some celebrating on the street into the
evening. Adding a note of
caution to the optimism, the government announced an expansion of
so-called surge testing in the south London boroughs of Lambeth and
Wandsworth to detect cases of the variant first found in South
Africa.
There have been 74 confirmed and probable cases of the coronavirus
variant, known as B.1.351, in the boroughs, and there is concern
that vaccines are less effective against it.
"The important thing will be to watch: If the South African variant
has really taken off, and we'll probably know in about two to three
weeks, then we may need to pause re-opening a little bit," James
Naismith, professor of structural biology at the University of
Oxford and director of Rosalind Franklin Institute, told BBC Radio.
With more than 127,000 fatalities, the United Kingdom has the
fifth-highest death toll in the world from COVID-19.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; additional reporting by Sarah Young;
Editing by Nick Macfie and Jon Boyle)
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