Britain dished out 420,000 booster Covid vaccines today in a six per cent rise in a week — 80,000 injections short of No10's ambitious target.
Daily data from the Department of Health shows 19.4million booster jabs have been given out across the UK, with 420,910 administered in the last 24 hours.
Boris Johnson unveiled a mammoth new booster vaccination drive on Wednesday and pledged that all 53million adults in the UK would be offered a booster by the end of January.
The Government is aiming to dish out at least half a million boosters every day, or 3.5million per week to hit the deadline. But in the last seven days, just 2.6million have been administered, an average of 380,000 per day.
There are growing concerns that the NHS will not be able to hit its target as hospitals wrestle with staff shortages and try to juggle clearing the backlog of elective care that has amassed during the pandemic.
Further doubts were raised today when a thousand people were stopped from a vaccination centre based at a pharmacy in Peterborough because there were not enough volunteers.
As part of the ramped-up booster drive, 3,000 sites will offer vaccines, at least 400 military personnel will be deployed to assist NHS staff, while volunteers and GPs will get more cash for every injection they give out by the end of next month.
NHS leaders today said the only way to meet the target will be to scrap routine operations so staff can shift their attention to rollout.
And GPs were today released from their duty to perform routine health checks on older Britons until April to help with the rollout, despite the booster doses supposed to be completed in the next eight-and-a-half weeks.
Meanwhile, a Covid booster trial found third doses will likely offer good protection against the Omicron variant.
In total 18million Britons have had a booster jab so far and, after yesterday's guidance change, all 53million adults over 18 will be eligible eventually. At the current rate of 2.4million jabs per week, it would take until March to get everyone boosted
In England, 353,104 third doses were dished out, while 35,034 were administered in Scotland, 18,019 in Wales and 14,753 in Northern Ireland.
Under the booster plans, everyone over the age of 18 in the UK will be offered a Covid booster jab three months after their second dose.
The injections are being administered in five year descending age groups, starting with the oldest and most vulnerable before moving down.
The NHS will contact people when they are eligible to book an appointment.
Some 19.4million people have been boosted already - equating to 33.8 per cent of the whole population.
The number of third doses dished out in a single day has only exceeded half a million twice so far - on October 21 when 612,192 were administered and on November 10 when 532,238 were dished out.
The 500,000 daily target was not in place then, but there are doubts within the NHS on whether it can be met.
It comes as the Halls Vaccination Centre, based at a pharmacy in Orton Wistow, Peterborough, today told 1,000 people they couldn’t get a Covid injection because they didn’t have enough staff.
The centre is supposed to provide up to 1,500 jabs a day, but need the equivalent of 19 full-time volunteers to help run the centre at that level.
Shabbir Damani, a
