Everyone eligible for a coronavirus booster jab will be offered one by the end of January, Boris Johnson said as he promised “another great British vaccination effort” to tackle the Omicron variant.
The Prime Minister said at least 400 military personnel will help the NHS and volunteers deliver jabs, with centres “popping up like Christmas trees”.
Mr Johnson told a Downing Street press conference: “We’ve already done almost 18 million boosters across the UK but we’ve got millions more to do to protect the most vulnerable.
We’re going to be throwing everything at it in order to ensure that everyone eligible is offered that booster, as I say, in just over two months
Boris Johnson
“Then we’ll move down the cohorts rapidly, and working together with the devolved administrations we want to ramp up capacity across the whole United Kingdom to the levels we achieved in the previous vaccination effort.
“We’re going to be throwing everything at it in order to ensure that everyone eligible is offered that booster, as I say, in just over two months.”
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the booster programme would be put “on steroids” to meet the target.
The need for action was underlined as the number of confirmed cases of the Omicron variant in the UK reached 22, with that figure expected to increase further.
