UK Breaks Daily Covid Vaccine Record with Over 660,000 Jabs Administered

The UK has broken its record for the most Covid-19 vaccines administered in one day.

660,276 vaccinations were administered on Thursday, March 18 – 50,000 more than the previous record which was set on January 30 when 609,010 were administered. 528,260 of those were first doses and 132,016 were second doses.

Just under half of the UK’s adult population has now had their first dose, according to the government’s coronavirus dashboard, which is 49.9%.

The record comes before a slowdown in the rollout next month, with delays in deliveries from India and the need to retest a batch of 1.7 million doses meaning there will be fewer jabs available for administration in April.

Speaking at Thursday’s Downing Street briefing, the prime minister said: “We have always said that in a vaccination programme of this pace and this scale, some interruptions in supply are inevitable.”

Another potential difficulty with supply could be European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s threat to halt exports of jabs from the EU to countries with higher vaccination rates that do not offer reciprocal supplies of the vaccine. The issues with supply came as regulators in the UK and Europe reaffirmed the safety of the Oxford AstraZeneca jab – a vaccine the prime minister received himself today.

Johnson claims that every adult will be offered a first dose of the vaccine by the end of July, the over-50’s and the clinically vulnerable will be offered the first dose by April 15, and the second doses will be available to approximately 12 million people in April.

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