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Three million Covid vaccines have now been administered in Britain, Matt Hancock revealed today.
The Health Secretary tweeted that he was ‘delighted’ with the news, adding: ‘We’re accelerating the Covid vaccine roll-out across the UK.’
It comes after it was revealed GPs will be offered a £30 bonus for every care home resident they vaccinate before the end of the week.
GP-led hubs administering the vaccine will be granted a cash incentive in hope of speeding up the roll-out of jabs in care homes.
NHS bosses told family doctors it ‘expects’ care home residents and staff in England to be vaccinated by the end of this week, or by January 24 ‘at the latest’.
Matt Hancock tweeted that he was ‘delighted’ with the news: ‘We’re accelerating the Covid vaccine roll-out across the UK’
There are currently 300,000 care home residents and 500,000 residential carers in the UK.
And every 20 vaccinations given to older care home residents may save one death, according to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
Care home residents top the list which sets out nine categories of those most at risk. The next category include over 80s and all frontline health and care workers.
The NHS England letter to GPs revealed that the rate will return to £10 per dose after January 24.
Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, welcomed the ‘excellent’ news and called on care home staff to be prioritised too.
Vic Rayner, executive director of the National Care Sector, added: ‘Communication and planning between GPs, care homes, residents and their relatives will be fundamental to ensuring that everyone who so desperately needs this vaccine can take up their rightful place at the front of the queue.’
The Government aims to have the top four priority groups – including care home residents and their carers, frontline health and social care staff and all those over the age of 70 – offered their first jab by mid-February.
It comes after it was revealed people previously infected with coronavirus have more protection against reinfection five months later than people getting the Oxford vaccine, and the same level of immunity that is provided by the Pfizer jab.
Data from PHE’s SIREN study, which follows more than 20,000 healthcare workers at more than 100 sites across Britain, looked at how many members of NHS staff in the study group caught the virus more than once.
It comes as it was revealed people previously infected with the coronavirus have more protection against reinfection five months later than people getting the Oxford vaccine, and the same level of immunity that is provided by the Pfizer jab
A total of 6,614 workers were found to have had the virus in early 2020, either through antibody testing, PCR swabs or clinical evaluation based on symptoms.
Just 44 people from this group later tested positive for the coronavirus as a result of reinfection.
PHE scientists say this means previous infection confers 83 per cent protection against reinfection, and also reduces the likelihood of developing symptoms and severe disease.
Meanwhile, England could escape tougher lockdown measures for now after science chief Patrick Vallance suggested the current measures are ‘enough’ to control the mutant Covid strain and Neil Ferguson pointed to a ‘plateau’ in hospital admissions.
Boris Johnson is set to hold off tightening the rules despite soaring deaths and Nicola Sturgeon imposing extra curbs in Scotland, as a heat map of the country’s outbreak suggests the situation is starting to improve.
After the UK recorded its deadliest toll yet with 1,564 victims, Sir Patrick warned last night that the UK is in for a ‘pretty grim period’ as deaths will not fall for ‘some weeks’.
But he also indicated that the case rate was more encouraging, with a run of four days of week-on-week falls. Government data show many areas of England turned ‘green’ in the week to January 8, meaning cases are dipping – although there are also worrying ‘hotspots’ such as parts of the North West.
Sir Patrick said: ‘I think what we know now, which we didn’t know a few weeks ago, was would these sorts of restrictions be enough to bring this virus under control with the new variant? And the answer is yes, it looks like it is, and things are at least flattening off in some places, not everywhere.’
Professor Ferguson – whose modelling is reputed to have triggered the first lockdown in March – said this morning that the growth rate was slowing nationally, and in some NHS regions there were ‘signs of plateauing’.
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