Vaccine supply is holding back jabs programme, says Matt Hancock

The UK coronavirus vaccine rollout is constrained by limited supply of the vaccines, but the government is on track to vaccinate the top four priority groups by 15 February, Matt Hancock has said.

The health secretary’s comments came amid reports of GP surgeries in some areas having to pause inoculations because supplies were being diverted to areas that still have higher risk groups.

“Supply of the vaccine is the rate-limiting factor and we have to make sure that the vaccine is distributed to everybody, in the first instance over the age of 80 and then over the age of 70, by 15 February, so we’re on track,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Asked whether the problem was that there was not the vaccine to give to those GPs, he replied: “Correct. As I’ve said all the way along in this vaccine programme, the rate-limiting step on the rollout is the supply of the vaccine itself. We are now managing to get that supply more than we have done before, and it will increase over the next few weeks.