Matt Hancock has received more than one million people in the UK a COVID-19 vaccine.
The health minister said the “end is in sight” as the country reached the milestone in its race to vaccinate the population against coronavirus.
Vaccinations began almost a month ago after the UK became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer / BioNtech jab developed in the US.
Hancock tweeted on Saturday: “Thank you so much to everyone who is playing their part in the national effort to defeat coronavirus.
“More than a million people have already been vaccinated.
“With the acceleration of the vaccine, the end is in sight and we will get through it together.”
This comes after the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine was approved for use earlier this week, which means the UK will soon have enough vaccine doses to immunize the entire population.
The first 530,000 sticks are expected to be rolled out on Monday with the potential for 24 million people to be stung before Easter.
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By mid-January, two million doses of the Oxford vaccine are expected to be provided weekly, a source told The Times.
A member of the Oxford / AstraZeneca team said: ‘The plan is to build it up pretty quickly – by the third week of January we should be getting two million a week. ‘
Second doses of one of the vaccines will now take place within 12 weeks, rather than 21 days as initially planned.
Vice-Chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI), Professor Anthony Harnden, defended the plans.
He told BBC Radio 4’s program Today on Saturday that patients he was dealing with had taken the step, saying: ‘When it was explained to them that the vaccine provides 90% protection for one dose, the priority was to to vaccinate so many people. the elderly and vulnerable community possible, they understood.
“I think the country is all set on this.
“And I think we really, really want to get together to do the best strategy possible.”
Meanwhile, English chief medical officer Chris Whitty has warned that the shortage of COVID vaccines will last for months, despite the newly approved vaccine Oxford / AstraZeneca improving the issues.
But both Pfizer and Oxford / AstraZenica have refuted reports of shortages.
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Pfizer said in a statement today: “We have no issues at this stage with regard to what has been agreed with the United Kingdom.”
Meanwhile, Dr Mary Ramsay, head of vaccinations at PHE, told Sky News that mixing is not recommended and that it should only take place on “rare occasions”.
“We do not recommend mixing the COVID-19 vaccines. If your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine, you should not get the AstraZeneca vaccine for your second dose, and vice versa,” she said.
“There may be extremely rare occasions where the same vaccine is not available, or where it is not known which vaccine the patient received.
“Every effort should be made to give them the same vaccine, but where this is not possible, it is better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all.”
Meanwhile, medical experts and public officials have said Northern England is backing a devastating COVID-19 wave as the new variant continues to spread across the UK.
The mutant coronavirus strain was first detected in the Southeast before Christmas and was found to be 70% more transmissible.
It has since raised new infection rates, putting the NHS on the brink of overwhelm.
Several London hospitals such as UCH and the Royal London have made desperate pleas for more staff over the past 24 hours as COVID wards are rapidly filling up.
A nurse, who works at Whittington Hospital in north London, described the ‘unbearable’ conditions as the number of Covid-19 patients continues to increase.
The nurse described that patients were left in the corridors. Some spent up to three hours in ambulances due to lack of beds and one was left without oxygen when their cylinder was up.
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The nurse said: ‘I am concerned about the safety of patients, because if these little things happen now when we are short and busy, it will only get worse.
“I do not know what else is going to happen – it worries me.”
The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals is at record levels in many areas of England – including London, the South West and the Midlands – with admissions higher than the levels seen during the first wave.
NHS England said on Friday that 420 deaths had been reported in the UK and that 50,668 cases had been confirmed.
See: How does the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine work?