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The UK will increase its coronavirus mass vaccination program this week, and millions of people will be offered shots as the country closes its borders to anyone who has not tested negative.
Vaccinations will be offered to people elderly 70 and older, and those considered “clinically extremely vulnerable” as of Monday – the third and fourth priority groups. Prime Minister Boris Johnson calls it an ‘important milestone’ in the vaccination effort.
The government wants to offer the vaccine to all British adults by September, Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday. To date, more than 4.3 million people have received according to their first dose Bloomberg’s vaccine detection.
Meanwhile, Monday’s ministers close travel routes with other countries, meaning that all visitors from overseas within 72 hours of the trip need a negative test result to enter Britain. Health officials will tighten the controls to make sure they isolate themselves over the next ten days.
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The government has not ruled out setting up quarantine hotels or using GPS trackers to make sure people stay. Raab told Sky News that it would consider ‘all possibilities’ to enforce Covid rules and prevent new virus variants from derailing the UK’s vaccination efforts.
To force travelers to stay in dedicated hotels on arrival, the UK will be left behind for many months in other countries, such as Australia, which introduced the policy last March.
England is in its third national exclusion, with schools closed and people being ordered to stay home as the government tries to control the increase in cases during the winter. There are currently more than 37,000 coronavirus patients in the hospital, and the daily death toll remains high – with another 671 deaths recorded on Sunday.
Johnson’s government is pinning its hopes on the vaccination program to end the crisis. The National Health Service will start rolling out the two new groups this week as some areas in England have already vaccinated the top two priority groups: those over 80 and health and care workers in the forefront.
More than 39.7 million shots fired: Covid-19 Vaccine detection
Ten new mass vaccination centers will be opened this week – including on a racetrack, cathedral and rugby field – which will take the total to 17 in England, with more to follow. There are also 1,200 hospitals and websites run by general practitioners that offer vaccinations.
“We have a long way to go and there will undoubtedly be challenges ahead – but by working together we are making great progress in our fight against this virus,” Johnson said in a statement.
The current exclusion is expected to be reviewed in mid-February, but ministers have warned that a return to normalcy will not be forthcoming. Raab said restrictions would only be lifted by the ‘early spring’ and that it would be a gradual process rather than a ‘big bang’.
Benefits Driving
The profound impact of ten months’ restrictions on businesses and workers means that Finance Minister Rishi Sunak is increasingly under pressure to do more to help the poorest families.
The UK’s largest opposition party in the UK will increase the heat on Monday by forcing a vote in the House of Commons on extending a boost in distributions of more than £ 1,000 a year – to 31 March. Raab said the removal of Universal Credit was a ‘temporary measure’ and would support the March budget.
The Times reported on Saturday that Sunak plans to make a one-time payment of £ 500 ($ 680) to take advantage of it. But a powerful group of conservative lawmakers, the Northern Research Group, has warned that this would not be enough – and has insisted that Sunak expand the benefits.
Ministers are also responding to calls to do more for sectors of the economy hardest hit by the virus – the British Chambers of Commerce warned last week that many businesses were ‘on their knees’.
A new government bursary program for airports and their ground operations to help with the cost of closing travel routes was welcomed by the British Airline Pilots Association – but they warned that the situation for aviation was “becoming desperate” and called for a broader recovery plan .
For Eurostar International Ltd., whose passenger trains connect London with Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, the outlook is equally bleak. Traffic dropped by 95% ahead of the latest measures, prompting London’s first lobby group to write to Sunak urging him to act swiftly to protect the operator’s future.
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