Boris Johnson: Vaccines will be delivered 24/7 'as soon as we can' amid limit on supply of jabs

Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) today, Mr Johnson said “at the moment the limit is on supply” of vaccines.

But questioned by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer he said: “I can tell him that we’ll be getting to 24/7 as soon as we can.”

Earlier, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the roll out of the coronavirus vaccine will accelerate over the coming weeks as more supplies become available.

And he questioned whether there would be demand for a round-the-clock vaccination operation.

He said the NHS was “absolutely up for doing that” but “most people want to get vaccinated in the daytime, and also most people who are doing the vaccinations want to give them in the daytime, but there may be circumstances in which that would help”.

Mr Hancock told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that 2.3m people across the UK had received the jab and health services were “on track” to deliver it to 14m by mid-February.

“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,” he said.

But Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi, appearing in front of the Science and Technology Select Committee, refused to confirm the stock numbers when pressed by MPs, citing security reasons.

While Tom Keith-Roach, president at AstraZeneca UK, when questioned on when the firm would be able to deliver the promised 2m doses a week to the UK, said: “I expect us to get there very rapidly and I would say that the middle of February is a conservative position, therefore."

Initially this had been promised as mid-January.

Mr Zahawi said that initial vaccination supply had been “lumpy” but he now had “line of sight” of deliveries to the end of February.

“In any manufacturing process, especially one where you’re dealing with a biological compound, a novel vaccine is lumpy at the outset,” he told the Commons Science and Technology Committee.

“There’s no doubt that it was, but getting better. It begins to stabilise and you get a much clearer line of sight.

“I now have line of sight of deliveries all the way through until the end of February and getting more confidence about March as well.

“We have millions of doses coming through in the weeks and then next month and the month after.”