The Government’s target of boosting every Briton by the end of the year is slipping further away, after only 840,000 third Covid jabs were given yesterday.
Only nine days remain for No10 to reach its ambitious goal of providing every UK citizen a boost before the year ends.
When Boris Johnson announced the turbocharging of the Covid top-up jab campaign on December 12 the Prime Minister said the UK would need to deliver 1million boosters per day in order to meet the objective.
Johnson had previously promised that he would call the Army to use volunteers vaccinators in order to give more jabs due to increasing concerns about the Omicron Omicron Omicron strain of Covid.
The Prime Minister made a promise but the target of 1,000,000 daily boosts is still not achieved.
UK was just a few hundred thousand short of meeting its 1milllion daily goal on Tuesday.
Yesterday’s addition of 840,000 more jabs brings the number of boosted Britons down to under 31.7million.
The UK has 45million eligible people for the booster. Therefore, the vaccine campaign will need to distribute 1.5 million Covid jab doses daily between now and New Year.
Boxing Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day would be included.
Although booster numbers have increased in the last week, No10 still hasn’t achieved its goal of providing a million boosters per day. This is frustrating.
Covid cases rose 35 percent to under 120,000 today, despite not being able to meet the target of one million boosters.
According to Government data, a record-breaking 119,789 cases were reported in the UK within the past 24 hours.
Covid hospitlisations also rose, by a fifth in a week to 1,004, the first time this figure has breached a thousand since early November.
Although death rates from the virus were steady at 147 in 2016, this is not an indicator of how long it takes for someone with the virus to get seriously ill.
Today’s figures came after Sajid Javid hailed ‘encouraging’ evidence that the mutant strain is milder than Delta amid hopes a New Year lockdown can be avoided.
Following confirmation by Downing Street that there would be no announcements regarding toughening rules, the Health Secretary declared that the findings about severity were “encouraging”.
Javid said that although the virus is rapidly spreading, it will pose a grave threat. He also stressed the need for large-scale hospitalisations due to the high number of affected patients.
For a short time, Mr Johnson will be leaving Britons at peace. However, he is reminding them to take extra precautions during holidays and protect themselves and their families.
With more information on the variant expected later, ministers find themselves again trapped between medical and scientific advisors who urge caution and business and Tories that want the economy to continue running.
The MPs and hospitality industry demand immediate clarification that no additional restrictions will be placed over the New Year period. This could spell doom for many restaurants and bars after recent cancellations.
Omicron, which is rapidly spreading throughout the world, has been warned by scientists that it still presents a grave threat to NHS. SAGE member Professor Andrew Hayward warned that Omicron still poses a serious threat to the NHS and the situation is not clear for the elderly. He also said that pressure is on the NHS ‘just getting worse’.
Rumours have swirled that the prime minister might not go to war with lockdown-sceptic MPs and ministers by issuing guidelines rather than legal curbs.
Even if Parliament were to be recalled on Boxing Day, it will still prove difficult for the vote to take place and any further restraints would have been put in before the close of the week.
Professor Lockdown Neil Ferguson — who just last week warned there could be up to 5,000 daily Omicron deaths in the UK — said the country’s fourth wave will be ‘nothing like what we seen last year, with ICUs overflowing with patients’ on the back of the new findings.
At Imperial College London, his team discovered that Omicron caught Britons were between 15% and 20% more likely to get admitted than Delta.
But the real-world analysis, of more than 300,000 people between December 1 and 14, found the chance of having to stay in the NHS overnight was even lower, with a reduced risk of between 40 and 45 per cent.
The findings are believed to have contributed to Mr Johnson holding off Christmas restrictions despite record case numbers — with 106,122 positive tests reported yesterday.
After weeks of destruction caused by Omicron, venues are anxious to find out if they can open for trading on this crucial day.
Javid noted that early results on severity had been ‘good’ and were encouraging. He stressed that it wasn’t yet clear how mildly the variant was.
Omicron is more contagious than Delta and spreads faster, which we know. Any advantage Omicron may have over Delta must be weighed against Omicron’s potential for spreading.
“Even though a lower percentage of individuals are at greater risk of being hospitalized, even if it is still a significant proportion of the population, substantial hospitalisation could still occur.”
Javid stated that no further announcements are planned by the government this week.
‘Despite the caution that we are all taking, people should enjoy their Christmases with their families and their friends – of course, remain cautious,’ he said.
“We will monitor the situation. This new information has allowed us to learn even more.
“We will continue to analyse that data, and if necessary we’ll do more. But nothing will happen prior to Christmas.”
England’s wait-and see approach is starkly different from the rest of the UK. Tensions are rising between Westminster, the UK devolved administrations and funding for bailouts.
Wales banned big New Year’s Eve parties and ordered nightclubs to close. Rules in Scotland restrict alcohol consumption to tables only starting December 27, which has hampered hospitality.
And in Northern Ireland, Stormont ministers agreed a series of restrictions due to come into force on Boxing Day, including the closure of nightclubs, and guidance to limit contacts with different households.
Welsh economy minister Vaughan Gething said he did not believe Mr Johnson would be able to hold out ‘for very much longer’.
Another Covid story: MailOnline’s analysis found that nearly two thirds of all new Covid patients admitted to hospitals in England had been admitted with a different condition.
In the two weeks to December 21, hospitals in England recorded 563 new coronavirus inpatients — the majority of which are believed to be Omicron now that the variant is the country’s dominant stain.
Just 197 people (35%) were treated for Covid. 366 others (65%) only tested positive once they were admitted for other reasons.
MailOnline received advice from experts that distinguishing admissions solely for Covid was vital so ministers do not become too concerned about the rising number of patients and scare off the public.
London is driving England’s incidentsal hospital admissions. London has been the Omicron hotspot of the UK and admissions are on the rise.
MailOnline analysis shows that just over 4 out 10 Omicron patients from London received treatment for another condition.
After Omicron’s dominance in the capital in early December, there were 523 additional ‘Covid admissions’. This resulted in an overnight stay of 2 weeks.
Admission rates for Covid in the capital are one factor ministers are keeping an eye on before potentially pulling the trigger on more curbs because London is considered to be a few weeks ahead of the rest of the country in its Omicron outbreak.