The NHS has said official figures are expected to confirm on Monday that it has offered a coronavirus vaccine to every older care home resident across England.
In another milestone for the vaccine programme, coming after it set a new daily record of almost 600,000 people being inoculated against Covid-19 on Saturday, nurses, GPs and other NHS staff have offered the jab to people living at more than 10,000 care homes with older residents.
The small remainder have had their visits deferred by local directors of public health for safety reasons during a local outbreak. Those homes will be visited and jabbed as soon as NHS staff are allowed to do so.
Boris Johnson called the achievement a crucial milestone in our ongoing race to vaccinate the most vulnerable. The prime minister said: Vaccines are our route out of the pandemic, and having protected 8.9 million people with a first dose so far, our rollout programme will only accelerate from here on.
The milestone came after a record 598,389 vaccinations were administered across the UK on Saturday. Of the 9,468,382 jabs performed so far, 8,977,329 were first doses and 491,053 were second doses.
The seven-day rolling average of first doses given in the UK is now 374,858. Based on the latest figures, an average of 401,512 first doses of vaccine would be needed each day in order to meet the governments target of 15m first doses by 15 February.
