England set to suffer sharp drop in Covid vaccine doses

Experts warn there’s no room for another setback

Kate Devlin

Whitehall Editor

Tuesday 06 April 2021 20:24 BST

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England is set to suffer a sharp drop in coronavirus vaccine doses with numbers falling by up to half a million a week until the end of July.

Inoculations in England will drop from an expected 3.2 million to just 2.7 million weekly, according to a document produced by the government’s scientific advisers.

The figures emerged as the number of daily first doses administered fell to their lowest since early January on Easter Monday.

Downing Street insisted the programme was still on track to offer a vaccine to every adult in Britain by the end of July.

But experts warned the numbers left no room for another setback.

Professor Christina Pagel, a member of the Independent Sage group, said: “There is now no room for manoeuvre. If the government do not get these doses then they will miss that target.”

The figures were buried in an official document released at the start of this week.

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It showed that the Cabinet Office has indicated that an average of 2.7 million vaccine doses a week will be given in England until the end of July, down from a previous estimate of 3.2 million.

Last month the NHS warned there would be a “significant reduction” in the number of vaccines given in April. But experts had hoped that numbers would pick up again after that.

The April problem was blamed on issues with the international supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The government is refusing to be drawn on details around the supply and delivery of vaccine doses to the UK.

But the Cabinet Office information, given to experts on the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) suggests a fall in supplies may last for months.

In the middle of February Spi-M produced papers which were based on an average of 3.2 million doses a week until the end of July and 3.9 million after that.

The new scenario, provided by the Cabinet Office, for the latest paper was “considerably slower”, with 2.7 million weekly doses until the end of July and 2 million from then on.

However, the Spi-M summary notes that the two scenarios produced by the Cabinet Office “may not reflect the situation most likely to occur”.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “The health secretary set out a couple of weeks ago now the fact that there will be a slight reduction in April but the key thing to remember is that doesn’t mean that we are not on track to hit our pledges.

“We remain on track to vaccinate all those in phase one by 15 April, we remain on track to vaccinate or provide the first dose to all adults by the end of July.”

The final easing of major Covid-19 restrictions in England is due to take place on 21 June.

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