Exclusive: Over-70s to get Covid vaccine invitations as jabs rollout ramped up

With 90 per cent of over-80s now vaccinated in some areas, ministers prepare to give green light to next age categories

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People aged 70 and over are expected to begin receiving coronavirus vaccinations as soon as next week as the Government ramps up its inoculations programme, The Telegraph can disclose.

With 90 per cent of the over-80s now vaccinated in some areas and 3.2 million doses administered in total, ministers are preparing to give the green light to the next age categories getting the jab.

Letters inviting the over-70s to book vaccinations are set to arrive on doormats early next week, meaning the first appointments would be possible before next weekend, it is understood.

Ministers are on course to deliver the two million doses a week they promised by the end of January with a further 316,694 announced on Friday, adding up to a total of 3.23 million.

However, the pipeline of vaccine deliveries was thrown into doubt after Pfizer announced "reductions" in weekly shipments of around a million doses at the end of this month.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference on Friday, Boris Johnson said: "With almost 45 per cent of our over-80s now vaccinated and almost 40 per cent of care home residents, we are steadily protecting those most at risk.

"And I pay particular tribute to the vaccination efforts going on in Cockermouth in Cumbria, Yateley and Cheltenham, where they have vaccinated around 90 per cent of their over-80s in their communities."

Government sources said the timetable for the next cohort of recipients had not yet been agreed, but senior officials said the over-70s would be invited for vaccinations "in the coming days".

GPs were told on Friday that they could begin inviting patients over 75 to receive unused Covid-19 vaccines for the first time. In some areas GPs have already begun vaccinating the over-70s cohort, although people in that age group have not been invited to mass vaccination hubs.  It was not clear whether the 1.2 million clinically vulnerable people will be invited for jabs.

"Some GPs have already done most of the over-80s and we can't afford to wait around," a senior source in the vaccination programme said. "It's taking some time to reach all of the people in the first category, so it makes sense to move to the next JCVI [joint committee on vaccination and immunisation] cohorts and we have the supplies to make it work."

It represents the most significant ramp-up of the vaccination drive so far, with around 5.5 million people newly eligible for jabs. However, the move may raise questions over whether doses destined for care homes and housebound elderly people may be diverted to younger people.

Next week, health officials are expected to announce a major expansion with around seven more mass hubs, including Merseyside's St Helens rugby stadium and Bournemouth international conference centre. 

Fifty of the major centres are due to be open by the end of the month as the programme is scaled up to cover far larger numbers.

Health officials have said all care home residents should be offered the vaccine by the end of next week, with higher payments for centres that achieve it by Sunday. 

There is a major postcode lottery in provision of jabs across the country. Health officials are keen to ensure that areas that are lagging catch up with areas that are faring better in order to avoid a situation in which 70-year-olds in some areas get the jab while those in their 90s living elsewhere go without.

In London and the east of England, fewer than one in three people aged 80 and over have been offered the jab, compared with almost half in the North-East and Yorkshire.

Earlier this week, The Telegraph revealed that doctors in some areas had been told to "pause" vaccinations after racing through their populations of over-80s.

Meanwhile, deliveries of up to a million doses of the Pfizer vaccine a week were under threat after the firm announced a "fluctuation" in supplies. Pfizer said planned global deliveries of its BioNTech vaccine would be delayed at the end of the month while its main factory in Belgium is upgraded.

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A source at the firm said that while countries in the EU may miss out on their first shipments, the UK was "better placed" because the vaccine had been approved there earlier. Three million doses are still in the NHS system waiting to be administered, the source added.

However, the company said there would be a "reduction" in the doses scheduled to be delivered to the UK at the end of January and the beginning of February. It is understood to have told the UK Government that scheduled deliveries cannot now be brought forward to help accelerate the rollout.

According to figures released earlier this week by the Scottish government, the UK was expecting around 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the final week of January and just under one million doses in the first week of February.

A Pfizer souce said the delay would be worth it because the upgraded factory would be capable of pumping out two billion doses globally before the end of the year.

The news was greeted with fury in the EU, where the Pfizer jab was first delivered at the end of last month. Around nine of the 27 EU governments complained of "insufficient" doses at a meeting this week, according to reports. In a letter about the delays to the EU commission, the health and social affairs ministers of six EU states said: "This situation is unacceptable."

A Pfizer spokesman said: “We understand a change to deliveries has the potential to create uncertainty. However, we can confirm the overall projected volumes of delivery to the UK remain the same for quarter one (January to March).

"We continue to liaise with the UK Government and the Vaccines Taskforce to work through short-term impact of these changes to our January deliveries and support the goals of the UK COVID-19 vaccination programme.”

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