Is Matt Hancock backing off mid-February vaccine target ALREADY?

Tory MPs accused Matt Hancock of playing down the Government’s vaccination ambitions yesterday, amid claims that the his department has snubbed an offer by pharmacists to help the biggest vaccination drive in history – and it emerged doses of the vaccine will not be delivered to GPs on a Sunday.

The Health Secretary described the prospect of giving the coronavirus jab to the 13million vulnerable people who are most by mid-February as a ‘best-case scenario’ – despite it being the only way the country will get out of lockdown, with the livelihoods and mental well-being of millions riding on it.

Many of his parliamentary colleagues were not reassured by his comments to them over Zoom yesterday morning.

One MP who referred to the call as ‘Hancock’s half-hour’ said: ‘He emphasised that the prospect of the vulnerable being vaccinated by mid-February was a best-case scenario. It was heavily caveated.

‘He set out plenty of reasons why it might not happen by then. He left himself plenty of wriggle room. It was very much an aspiration and there were no guarantees. I fear that they have not got the vaccine in sufficient quantities.’

‘He said two million doses of the Oxford vaccine would arrive this week for use next week. They should have been stockpiling. The rollout needs to happen as fast as possible. It’s the only chance we’ve got.’

The Tory MPs fears follow claims from industry leaders that high street pharmacies ‘desperately’ want to roll out more than a million Oxford vaccine doses a week but have been snubbed by the government. They say pharmacies could help deliver more than a million injections a week if the 11,400 locations with a pharmacist trained to give injections carry out 20 a day.

And leaked documents show Public Health England has decided to not work on Sundays to deliver the Covid-19 vaccines to NHS hospitals, with guidance to NHS Trusts warning that deliveries will not be made on Sundays or after agreed ‘cut-off points’ every lunchtime, according to reports. 

The news comes as: 

• Chris Whitty warns Covid restrictions might be needed next winter if the vaccine drive isn’t effective enough 
• Government graphs show cases of highly-infectious Covid variant are dropping in London and the South East 
• Lockdown 3 is set to cost Britain £390million a day, fuelling fears of financial double-dip recession 
• Boris Johnson reveals that one in fifty people now have Covid, as the UK records another 830 deaths 
• PM says 1.3million have been vaccinated and pledges Britain can get jabs to the vulnerable by mid-February

Simon Dukes, chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Negotiating Services Committee, asked why the NHS has been ‘scrabbling around’ to find ways to administer the vaccine when his industry has offered their services. 

Ministers have come under pressure to deploy thousands of vaccinators at pharmacies to the national effort in rolling out the inoculations, rather than relying on GPs, nurses and volunteers, but Mr Dukes says his industry has been met with a ‘de facto silence’ despite telling the NHS they are ‘ready, willing and desperate to help’, The Telegraph reports. 

He said that there were roughly 11,400 pharmacies across Britain that administered flu jabs each year, with capacity to vaccinate around 1.3 million people a week against Covid-19. 

And leaked documents show Public Health England decided to not work on Sundays to deliver the Covid-19 vaccines to NHS hospitals, reports claim. 

Next-day deliveries should only be expected from Monday to Friday, providing orders are placed before 11.55am, operating procedures issued to NHS Trusts warn. Reports say that if an order is placed on a Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, it will not arrive until Monday.  

A PHE source told the Telegraph: ‘You need a cut-off point or the whole system would fall over. And we agreed the six-day week with the NHS.’ 

Interim chief executive of PHE Michael Brodie said: ‘We run a seven-day-a-week service and have fulfilled 100 per cent of orders from the NHS on time and in full – with routine next-day deliveries six days a week, as agreed with the NHS and the capability to send orders on Sundays if required.’ 

In relation to Matt Hancock’s comments about the vaccine, a Department for Health source said: ‘As the Health Secretary said on the call, our goal is to have offered priority groups one to four their first dose by the middle of February. That is an ambitious goal but achievable.’

Yesterday, chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said it was ‘realistic but not easy’ to keep to the vaccine timetable.

‘In the case of the Pfizer vaccine, as I think is widely reported, it’s more difficult to handle because of the complicated cold chain model,’ he said. 

‘We also, with both vaccines, wanted to be very careful in the first two or three days that we went a little bit slowly just in case there were some initial unexpected problems.’ 

Mr Johnson has said that 1.3 million people in the UK – including 1.1 million in England – have now had the jab. The figures includes 650,000 over-80s – or 23 per cent of that group.

‘That means nearly one-in-four of the most vulnerable groups will have in two to three weeks a significant degree of immunity,’ the PM said. 

But Tory MP David Davis said: ‘There’s not a hope in hell they’ll achieve this by mid-February. March is optimistic. I suspect it will be sometime in April. We need more vaccines to be rolled out.

‘Anyone who’s run a business would foresee the bottlenecks and issues with production.’

Glass vial shortage and delays in approval – is this why the Covid-19 vaccine drive is being held up? 

By Kate Pickles, Health Correspondent for The Daily Mail 

Britain has vaccinated 1.3million people in just under a month… but the target is two million a week.

That’s the rate needed to protect the four most vulnerable groups by February 15 – including everyone over 70.

Boris Johnson has blamed regulators for the sluggish start, warning that their strict protocols have limited how quickly the vaccine programme can be accelerated.

The Business Secretary, Alok Sharma, had promised in May that 30million doses of the vaccine from Oxford and AstraZeneca would be ready by September. Now, four months on from that deadline, our stocks are still falling short of the target two million a week.

The Prime Minister said of the inoculation drive: ‘The rate limiting the factor at the moment is making sure that we can get enough vaccine where we want it fast enough.

One of the problems as you know is that the AstraZeneca vaccine needs to be properly batch-tested, properly approved before it can be put into people’s arms and this is just a process that takes time to do… but we will be ratcheting it up over the next days and weeks ahead.’

Other serious difficulties include worldwide demand for glass vials. In addition, those hoping to join an army of volunteers to boost the national effort have been tangled up in reams of red tape.

Ministers insist that the NHS has the capacity to deliver two million doses a week – once it receives supplies from manufacturers which have been checked by regulators. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) insists it is capable of batch testing – but has been waiting to receive more doses from manufacturers.

Chief medical officer Chris Whitty told yesterday’s Downing Street press conference that the six-week target was ‘realistic but not easy’. So, as Britain embarks upon the biggest vaccination drive in its history, what are the main hurdles?

Is batch testing too slow?

Each batch must be tested for quality by the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), part of the MHRA. The process can take up to 20 days.

A sample from each vaccine batch – which can contain hundreds of thousands of doses – is biologically tested for quality and safety.

Manufacturers must also carry out their own tests on each batch before submitting results as evidence to the NIBSC. Delays in providing these details – or any failure to meet standards – can slow the whole process down.

Only once both sets of tests have been completed – and the manufacturer’s results deemed acceptable – is a batch released by regulators for use by the NHS.

More doses are now being produced, which increases the workload for laboratories handling quality control. An MHRA spokesperson said: ‘We are working closely with the [Oxford vaccine] manufacturer, AstraZeneca, to ensure that batches of the vaccine are released as quickly as possible.

‘NIBSC has scaled-up its capacity to ensure that multiple batches can be tested simultaneously, and that this can be done as quickly as possible, without compromising quality and safety.’

Some observers have pointed out that the MHRA managed to speed up the process which saw Covid vaccines cleared for use. Critics might wonder why the same can’t be done at this stage, too.

Are there enough vials?

Drugs firms warned about a potential shortage of vials as far back as May, given the massive worldwide demand for vaccines.

The tubes are made from borosilicate glas
s, which keeps vaccines in the requisite stable state during storage and transportation. The glass is chemically inert, meaning there is no interaction between the container and the liquid inside it. This is crucial, as any chemical interference could affect the vaccine. Only a handful of companies make the vials, with Schott in Germany one of the leading producers. 

Industry insiders have suggested that the UK needs to ramp up production itself to stop its reliance on overseas companies. Dave Dalton, chief executive of the trade body British Glass, said the supply chain ‘needs to be strengthened and improved’, adding that the supply of medical glass and vials was something that the industry had raised itself – and is ready to help sort out.

Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, suggested issues with so-called ‘fill and finish’ materials, including glass vials, could hinder the vaccine’s rollout. ‘The only thing that is going to slow us down is batches of vaccines becoming available,’ he said during a Downing Street briefing. ‘Many of you know already that it’s not just about vaccine manufacture. It’s about fill and finish, which is a critically short resource across the globe.’ The Department of Health denies there are any vial shortages.

The UK has manufactured around 15million doses of the Oxford-Astra-Zeneca vaccine so far, with plants in Germany and the Netherlands providing more of the early batches. However, only four million doses have been through the fill and finish process – and are still awaiting MHRA clearance.

Do we have enough people to give jabs?

Retired doctors have complained that red tape has stopped them from returning to the frontline to deliver Covid vaccines.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock vowed to tackle the problem, with some would-be volunteers asked for 21 documents proving they are trained in areas such as counter- terrorism and racial equality.

NHS England says it has ‘tens of thousands’ of vaccinators ready to be called upon when more doses are ready to be administered. The army includes healthcare workers such as physiotherapists, nurse practitioners and paramedics who were given the green light to administer jabs after a rule change this summer.

An NHS spokesman said there were ‘thousands more’ in training, but added that the Health Service was confident it has enough people to staff the vaccination programme as it expands. Medics from the Armed Forces are also set to be deployed.

Are checks too long?

BUREAUCRACY has been blamed for slowing down the actual act of vaccination, too, with patients facing lengthy quizzes about their medical history.

Some say they underwent a 15-minute medical questionnaire over the phone before being asked for many of the same details when they arrived for their jab.

Once vaccinated, patients should be monitored for 15 minutes to ensure they have no adverse reactions – meaning the whole process can take around 45 minutes. Doctors have suggested that this should be streamlined, as it severely limits how many vaccines can be delivered at any given site in one day.

What about the manufacturers?

Pharmaceutical companies have hit back at any suggestion that they are to blame for delays.

Pfizer and BioNTech – producers of the first vaccine approved by the MHRA – said they have now sent ‘millions’ of doses to the UK, with up to 40million expected in the coming months.

AstraZeneca has confirmed it expects to be able to supply two million doses of the Oxford vaccine to the NHS every week by the second half of this month, with at least 20million due by the end of March. The jab has only been available at hospital hubs so far – but GP surgeries will join the rollout tomorrow. 

Double dip recession is on the way: Lockdown 3 is set to cost us £390million a day after Britain shuts up shop… fuelling fears of financial Armageddon

• Today, a think-tank has warned that the country’s first quarter output will be £24.57billion lower than it would have been without the latest national lockdown
• Experts predict if it’s lifted in February it will have cost £390m every working day
• Economists say lockdown will ‘hit economy harder’ than November restrictions
• Pandemic dragged the UK into its first recession for 11 years at the start of 2020 

The UK faces plunging into its first double-dip recession since 1975, with the latest lockdown expected to cost almost £400million per day.

Output in the first quarter of this year will be £24.57billion lower than it would have been without the third national lockdown, a think-tank warned yesterday.

The Centre of Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicts that if the lockdown i
s lifted in mid-February, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson hopes, it will have cost the UK £390million every working day.

Business closures mean that output is likely to shrink by more than 4 per cent in the first three months of the year, according to the forecasting group Oxford Economics.

Although the economy should pick up later as the rollout of the Covid vaccine allows shops and restaurants to reopen, experts have already begun to slash their growth predictions for 2021.

Howard Archer, of the EY Item Club economic forecasting group, had previously pencilled in growth of 6.2 per cent for 2021.

But now, given the grim start to 2021, he doubts output – or gross domestic product (GDP) – will grow by more than 5.5 per cent.

Mr Archer said: ‘With restrictions now in place in most areas of the UK, the EY Item Club expects the economy will have a challenging start to 2021 and will likely see modest contraction in the first quarter. This would result in a double dip recession.’

A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, and a new one would represent the first double-dip recession to hit the UK since 1975, when the banking sector was in crisis and the country was being rocked by a series of strikes.

The pandemic dragged the UK into its first recession for 11 years at the start of last year.

The country had a brief respite in the third quarter as the first lockdown lifted and the Eat Out to Help Out scheme encouraged Britons to spend.

But the economy is expected to have shrunk again in the final three months of 2020 as Covid restrictions were reimposed.

Last month, the Bank of England predicted a 1 per cent decline for the final quarter of 2020. But Mr Archer thinks the fall could be nearer 2 per cent.

Another contraction in the first three months of 2021 will put the UK back in recession.

Allan Monks, an economist at the investment bank JP Morgan, said the third lockdown would ‘hit the economy harder’ than November’s restrictions.

While the drop is lower than the huge GDP fall during last spring’s lockdown, when the economy plummeted by nearly a fifth, it comes as output is still struggling.

Even heading into the third lockdown, the economy is already at around 11 per cent below what it should have been. Concerns over the UK’s lacklustre growth have renewed speculation that the Bank of England could cut interest rates to a minus figure to encourage spending rather than saving.

The Bank’s base interest rate is already at a record low of 0.1 per cent. If it went negative, customers would effectively be paying to keep their money in the bank.

But despite the gloomy forecasts, there are some signs of light at the end of the tunnel. Mr Archer said: ‘We expect the economy to benefit progressively through 2021 from the rollout of the vaccine.’

Mr Monks added: ‘We assume the level of GDP at the end of this year will not be materially lower due to a successful vaccine rollout.’

However, any improvement at the end of the year could come to late for the stationery chain Paperchase, which warned yesterday it was on the brink of collapse, putting 1,500 jobs at risk.

The firm, which has 127 branches, confirmed it had filed a notice to appoint administrators, which gives it protection from creditors for ten working days so it can formulate a rescue plan.

It said the Government’s coronavirus restrictions had put an ‘unbearable strain’ on business, with Christmas closures followed by the latest lockdown proving the final straws.

Paperchase struck a rescue deal with creditors in 2019, but its turnaround hopes were hit by the pandemic. Many stores are in airports and other transport hubs that suffered as commuter numbers plummeted.

The firm’s decision to take steps towards administration follow poor sales in November and December due to widespread store closures.

Those two months alone normally generate two fifths of its annual sales. A rise in online sales was not enough to cushion the blow.

A spokesman said: ‘Out of lockdown we’ve traded well, but as the country faces further restrictions for some months to come, we have to find a sustainable future for Paperchase

‘We are working hard to find that solution. This is not the situation we wanted to be in. Our team has been fantastic and we cannot thank them enough.’

A string of retailers has buckled in the face of the pandemic.

Despite government support of staff furlough, relief from business rates and protections from eviction, Topshop owner Arcadia, department store chain Debenhams and Monsoon Accesorize were among other casualties last year.

Boris Johnson promises daily updates on Britain’s Covid vaccine drive as NHS drafts High Street giants Superdrug and Boots to deliver jabs in stores – but is Prime Minister over-promising again?  

• The Prime Minister pledged to keep the public in the loop about the mass Covid immunisation programme
• Three Morrisons car parks and three Boots stores converting into temporary vaccine hubs from next Monday
• Tesco has offered up its warehouses and lorries to move jabs, while BrewDog has volunteered its closed pubs
• Number 10 has pledged to vaccinate around 13million of the most vulnerable Britons by middle of next month

Boris Johnson tonight promised to update the nation on Britain’s great Covid vaccination drive every day starting next week, as the NHS called on High Street giants to help drastically ramp up the scheme in hopes of hitting the goal of 2million a week. 

Admitting there were still ‘long weeks ahead’ and urging England to persevere with the nation’s third lockdown, the Prime Minister pledged to keep the public in the loop about the mass immunisation programme, which is the only way out of the endless cycle of lockdowns. 

Mr Johnson said in a Downing Street press conference that health chiefs would offer daily updates from Monday ‘so that you can see day-by-day and jab-by-jab how much progress we are making’. 

His pledge comes after Sir Keir Starmer sent a warning shot over his promise, claiming it will be another example of No10 ‘over-promising and under-delivering’ if it fails. The Labour leader said scaling up the programme — which has so far inoculated 1.3million people in a month — would be a ‘struggle’ and that there was ‘no room for error’. 

MailOnline also revealed today that the Government will use Superdrug help vaccinate 13million Britons by mid-February, with stores in Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Guildford and Basingstoke just waiting on delivery of doses to start dishing them out from as soon as next week. 

Tens more sites are on standby across the UK if needed. Each store will be able to inject 1,000 people every week and will operate from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week. Patients will be referred to the clinics through the normal NHS booking service and vaccines will be carried out by trained in-store pharmacists and nurses.

Boots is also turning three of its pharmacies in Halifax, Huddersfield and Gloucester into vaccine clinics to bolster the programme, with more to come. While Morrisons announced three of its car parks will be converted into drive-through vaccination centres from Monday. 

Meanwhile, Tesco has offered up its warehouses and lorries to help move doses quickly around the country and craft brewer BrewDog has claimed it’s in talks with ministers about turning its closed bars into temporary jab hubs. Pub chains are also throwing their weight behind the rollout of the mass vaccination scheme to get life back to normal by spring, with firms such as Young’s, Marston’s and Loungers offering their venues as potential sites.

It comes as England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said scaling up the vaccination programme was ‘realistic but not easy’. He added: ‘The NHS is going to have to use multiple channels to get this out but they are very determined to do this, but that does not make it easy.’    

In the same briefing that Mr Johnson revealed that the spread of the mutant version of the disease made lockdown impossible to avoid, Professor Whitty also delivered a grim message that ‘some’ restrictions could still be needed next winter, as the virus was likely to be in regular circulation like flu.  

Discussing the vaccine roll-out in tonight’s press conference, Mr Johnson said the total numbers for the first four JCVI groups are a little higher than the 13 million target figure previously mentioned.

He said: ‘We’re going to do them as fast as we possibly can. We’ve set the target, as you know, by the middle of February. Yes, it is a huge effort, the biggest vaccination programme in the history of this country.’

Mr Johnson added it will require the combined efforts of the NHS and the Armed Services, and that every part of Government is working ‘absolutely flat out’ on the roll-out.

He said the rate-limiting factor is ‘making sure that we can get enough vaccine where we want it fast enough’.

Further details on the number of vaccinations carried out will be given on Thursday and will be released daily from Monday, he said.

He added: ‘What we will be trying to do is to try to break down some of these figures for people so everybody can see which groups are getting the vaccine and how it’s being distributed across the country.’

He said it is something of ‘massive national interest’ as he committed to being ‘as transparent as we can possibly be’.

No10 has pledged to vaccinate around 13million of the most vulnerable Brits — including care home residents and staff, NHS workers and all over-70s — by mid-February, in the hope of then being able to ease the most draconian curbs. The mammoth target would require vaccinating about 2million people a week.

But there are serious doubts about whether the target is achievable, given it has been slow to get off the ground and the NHS will need to juggle running the biggest immunisation programme in British history with battling the greatest crisis it has ever faced as Covid patients continue to pour into hospitals. 

Record numbers of staff absences and stringent infection control measures are also making the jobs of frontline health workers more difficult.

The NHS has refused to commit to the two million target because of potential vaccine supply shortages, staffing concerns and other logistical hurdles. 

There is also a suggestion that health bosses want to distance themselves from the Government’s arbitrary ta
rgets, given that it has failed to hit numerous goals throughout the pandemic, including ramping up daily swabbing capacity and expanding NHS Test and Trace. 

If it wants to deliver on the 13million promise, the NHS will need to move four times quicker than its winter flu jab programme.  

Figures show only 11.68million people eligible for a free flu jab from their GP in England got one last winter, at a rate of 470,000 per week. For comparison, the speed of the entire UK’s current Covid inoculation drive — which relied on just one vaccine until yesterday — stands at 330,000 per week. 

In order to vaccinate all 13million Britons in the four most at-risk categories by mid-February, the NHS operation must speed up six-fold to 2million a week. Only 1million doses have been dished out so far, which means roughly 12million still need to get their vaccine in the 41 days between now and February 15. 

That is the equivalent of around 290,000 a day. It is crucial people are vaccinated 12 days before measures are relaxed because the vaccines take 12 days to start working. Department of Health statistics dated up until December 27 show 944,539 doses were dished out in the 20 days of it being operational — at a speed of around 47,000 a day. 

Top experts told MailOnline there was ‘no evidence’ to suggest the Government was capable of delivering the two million doses per week and suggested the Government was dangling the carrot of vaccines to soften the blow of the newest lockdown, while MPs said the goal was ‘dubious’. 

There are concerns the programme will be hampered by problems and that the national shutdown could last much longer than ministers have promised. For comparison, the first lockdown in March went on for more than three months, despite Brits being told it would only last several weeks.

Professor Whitty also said tonight that by extending the gap between coronavirus jabs there was an increased ‘theoretical risk’ of an ‘escaped mutant’ of the virus emerging.

‘That is a real worry but quite a small real worry within the system,’ he said.

‘The general view was the size of the increase of the risk is sufficiently small that measured against this ability to double the number of people who actually are vaccinated, the public health arguments are really strongly for doing what we have decided to do.’

He added ‘Clearly, if we had infinite vaccine we might have taken different approaches, but we don’t.

‘At this point in time, for the next three to four months, the number of vaccines we have available is going to constrain our ability to get through the 25 to 30 million people we must do.

‘Whilst this is such a fast-moving virus at this time, our view was very strongly, on the balance of risk, the benefits to the UK for us at this point in the epidemic were in favour of doing this.’

While Sir Patrick Vallance said it is possible the South African coronavirus variant may have some effect on vaccine effectiveness but is unlikely to ‘abolish’ their effect.

The chief scientific adviser told the Downing Street press conference that a possible change in the virus shape in the variant ‘theoretically gives it a bit more risk of not being recognised’ by the immune system.

‘There is nothing yet to suggest that’s the case. This is being looked at very actively,’ he said.

‘It’s worth remembering that when a vaccine is given you don’t just make one antibody against one bit, you make lots of antibodies against lots of different bits, and so it’s unlikely that all of that will be escaped by any mutations. But we don’t know yet.

‘At the moment, you’d say the most likely thing is that this wouldn’t abolish vaccine effect. It may have some overall effect on efficacy but we don’t know.’

Urging No10 to deliver on their vaccine roll-out pledge, Sir Keir told the BBC this morning there was now a ‘race against time’ to scale up the UK’s vaccination programme during lockdown.

The Labour leader has backed Boris’ plans to vaccinate the top four priority groups by mid-February to allow the worst of restrictions to be eased by March, although he said it would be ‘a struggle’.

He added: ‘This is a race against time and we all hope that in that seven-week period this can happen. There’s no room for error from the government here. We can’t have yet more overpromising and under delivering.’

Supermarkets, high-street pharmacies and breweries have all offered to help deliver Britain’s great coronavirus vaccine drive. Three Morrisons car parks will be converted into drive-through Covid vaccination hubs from Monday, with another 47 on standby if ministers need them, according to the supermarket chain’s chief executive.

Boots is turning three of its pharmacies into vaccine sites in Halifax, Huddersfield and Gloucester from next week, and Tesco has offered up its warehouses and lorries to help move doses quickly around the country. Craft brewer BrewDog has also claimed it is in talks with ministers about turning its closed bars into temporary immunisation centres.   

Top epidemiologist Professor Gabriel Scally, from the University of Bristol, told MailOnline he was doubtful the Government will be able to live up to its vaccine promises, adding: ‘I haven’t seen enough detail or proof on how they’re going to do this, for me to be confident.’

He added: ‘There is a rosy glow around the vaccination programme but it has to be organised well. I’m concerned about the lack of local NHS organisation, there are no regional or local health authorities to run these programmen.

‘The lack of local organisation is one of the real problems the Government has had all along and it is why ministers took the easy option of giving Test and Trace to Serco and private companies. 

‘We musn’t forget yesterday the Government had to go into lockdown because there is a crisis wave of cases heading our way over the next few weeks and that is going to be number one priority.

‘The NHS will be battling two fronts [rolling out the jabs and battling Covid] which is hugely risky. Never in a million years would I plan to do it this way. 

‘We’ve known for months and months vaccines were coming, there were over 200 in production and we knew most would need two doses.

‘But we seem to be making up the rules as we go along, all of these issues about the roll out of vaccines, where they will be delivered and who should get them should’ve been worked out and how many doses.

‘It’s a dreadful situation we’re in. It looks as if the Government is making everything up as it goes along, it’s purely in reactive mode with no strategy.

‘If we acted firmer and sooner [with lockdown] we would’ve had the capacity and space in all respects to run a highly efficient, successful vaccine programme.’ 

It came as Michael Gove today delivered a stark warning that lockdown will only start to be lifted gradually in March – and that timeline depends on the government meeting its highly ambitious targets for vaccination.

The Cabinet Office minister admitted there was no ‘certainty’ that the brutal squeeze imposed by Boris Johnson on England last night will be eased at the end of February as hoped.

The PM set a goal of giving first doses of vaccine to more than 13million vulnerable people over the next seven weeks, with doubts already voiced over whether it is possible. 

But Mr Gove cautioned that even in the best case scenario not ‘all’ of the curbs will go, as he braced the weary public for a long haul to combat the fast-spreading new variant of coronavirus.

In a round of interviews, Mr Gove said a review of the situation would happen in the February half-term.

‘We hope we will be able to progressively lift restrictions after that but what I can’t do is predict – nobody can predict – with accuracy exactly what we will be able to relax and when,’ he told Sky News.

‘What we do know is that the more effective our vaccination programme, the more people who are protected in that way, the easier it will be to lift these restrictions.’

The heavy caveats came as Labour swiped that the PM had ‘over-promised’ about the vaccine hopes when made another extraordinary U-turn by plunging the country into a March-style lockdown, saying the NHS risked being overrun within weeks if he failed to act.   

Just a day after he urged parents to send their children back, Mr Johnson declared in a sombre address from No10 that primary and secondary schools will be shut from today, with only the vulnerable and offspring of key workers allowed to go in.

Nurseries can stay open. But university students are being told to stay at home and study remotely, while GCSE and A-level exams will not go ahead as planned. 

Teenagers might not know for weeks how their exams will be replaced, with Ofsted expected to launch a consultation, although government sources said some ‘contingency’ plans had already been considered. 

Under the the new guidance, published overnight, non-essential retail, all hospitality, gyms and swimming pools will be ordered to close – with Rishi Sunak due to lay out another package of support today amid growing fears about the impact on the economy. 

Cafes, bars and restaurants will be allowed to serve takeaway – but in a tightening from the draconian measures last spring, they will not be allowed to serve any alcohol. Vulnerable people are being told to shield where possible.  

The public will once again only be allowed to leave home for one of five reasons: to go to work if essential, shop for necessities, exercise – allowed with one other person from another household, care for someone, or to seek medical help or flee threat such as domestic violence.

Communal worship can continue with social distancing in place. 

Those who break the rules face a £200 for the first offence, doubling for further offences up to a maximum of £6,400. 

The extraordinary third national squeeze will come into effect in the early hours of Wednesday after the regulations are laid today, but Mr Johnson urged the public to adopt the new rules now. MPs will get a vote on them on Wednesday when Parliament is recalled. 

Labour leader Keir Starmer said the crackdown was ‘essential’ and his MPs will support them, effectively guaranteeing their approval in the Commons. But he criticised the government for not changing course sooner and expressed serious doubts about the optimism over distributing vaccines.  

‘The prime minister said seven weeks – that’s to allow the vaccination programme to be rolled out for 13 to 14million people,’ Sir Keir said. 

‘That’s the ambition of the prime minister. I hope he is not over-promising. It’s going to be a struggle and we need to make this work.’

Senior Tory MPs had joined the Opposition in calling for the introduction of another national lockdown. But the idea of hardening the restrictions sparked fury from other Conservatives, who insist the country’s experience of the pandemic shows that lockdowns do not work and are crippling the economy. 

There are claims that at least two MPs have now sent letters of no confidence in the PM to Conservative backbench chief Sir Graham Brady – although the numbers are nowhere near the threshold to put his position in doubt. 

With his hands clasped together and seated behind a desk in Downing Street last night, Mr Johnson made clear there is no chance of them being lifted for at least seven weeks – and possibly longer if the vaccine rollout does not go well.

‘Our hospitals are under more pressure than at any time since the start of the pandemic. It’s clear we need to do more.. while our vaccines are rolled out,’ he said.

He said it would not be ‘possible or fair’ for exams to go ahead this summer as normal.

‘The weeks ahead will be the hardest but I really do believe that we are reaching the end of the struggle,’ he said, pledging that by mid-February the top four categories on the vaccine distribution list will have had their first jabs. 

There are 13.2million people in the top four groups on the vaccination list – care home residents and the over-80s, frontline healthcare workers, the over-70s and the clinically vulnerable. 

But the Prime Minister admitted that he could only give assurance that the situation will improve assuming that ‘our understanding of the virus does not change again’.  

He said: ‘By the middle of February, if things go well and with a fair wind in our sails, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the four top priority groups identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

‘That means vaccinating all residents in a care home for older adults and their carers, everyone over the age of 70, all frontline health and social care workers, and everyone who is clinically extremely vulnerable.

‘If we succeed in vaccinating all those groups, we will have removed huge numbers of people from the path of the virus.

‘And of course, that will eventually enable us to lift many of the restrictions we have endured for so long.’ 

Mr Johnson said he was left with no option after being confronted with catastrophic figures about the burden on the NHS by science chiefs today. 

Hospital patients with coronavirus had risen by 40 per cent over a week, and are now higher than at the peak of the first wave. 

Rishi Sunak today announced another £4.6billion of bailouts for lockdown-stricken businesses as economists warned of the ‘colossal’ hit from the surging pandemic.

The Chancellor declared that venues hammered by Boris Johnson’s dramatic decision will get one-off grants of up to £9,000 to keep them afloat over the next seven weeks.

Some 600,000 premises across the UK are set to receive the cash, while another £594million is being pumped into a ‘discretionary fund’ to support other firms affected.

Mr Sunak also pointedly refused to rule out extending the massive furlough scheme again beyond the end of April, merely saying he would ‘take stock’ at the Budget in March.

However, businesses warned that the package is not enough, amid pressure for VAT and rates relief to be kept in place to stop a wave of bankruptcies.  

The latest huge intervention came amid fears that the lockdown will slash GDP by up to 10 per cent in every month it is imposed – although the respected IFS think-tank said this morning that the impact might be lower as businesses have adapted since the first squeeze in March.

It will also raise alarm at the state of the government’s finances, with IFS director Paul Johnson saying the scale of the economic damage was the worst ‘in the whole of history’. Public sector borrowing could hit £400billion this year, with Mr Sunak already having warned of a reckoning later to balance the books.

In his speech to the nation, the Prime Minister said the previous tiers would have been enough to cope with Covid as it was originally, but the new variant – which is 50 per cent to 70 per cent more transmissible – was spreading in a ‘frustrating and alarming’ manner.

‘As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic,’ he said.

Mr Johnson said that in England the number of Covid patients in hospitals has increased by nearly a third in the last week to almost 27,000 – some 40 per cent higher than the first peak in April.

On December 29 ‘more than 80,000 people tested positive for Covid across the UK’, the number of deaths is up by 20 per cent over the last week ‘and will sadly rise further’.

‘With most of the country, or maybe under extreme measures, it’s clear that we need to do more together to bring this new variant under control while our vaccines are rolled out,’ he said.

‘In England we must therefore go into a national lockdown which is tough enough to contain this variant.’

Mr Johnson said parents ‘may reasonably ask why’ decisions on schools were not taken ‘sooner’.

‘The answer is simply that we’ve been doing everything in our power to keep schools open because we know how important each day in education is to children’s life chances,’ he said.

‘And I want to stress that the problem is not that schools are unsafe for children. Children are still very unlikely to be severely affected by even the new variant of Covid.

‘The problem is that schools may nonetheless act as vectors for transmission, causing the virus to spread between households.’