A national booking service for vaccine appointments in England will be launched to help hit ambitious targets, Boris Johnson has said, as he pledged to immunise every elderly care home resident by the end of the month. As Jessica Elgot and Heather Stewart report, the prime minister said everyone would be able to get a vaccination within 10 miles of their home and that GP-led vaccine sites providing jabs would increase to more than 1,000 by the end of next week, and hospital sites to 223, delivering hundreds of thousands of vaccines a day by 15 January.
Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, has said the health service is facing an “incredibly serious situation”. Speaking at a No 10 press conference alongside the PM, Stevens said there were 50% more Covid patients in hospital now than at the peak of the first wave. And numbers were “accelerating very, very rapidly,” he said. He went on: We’ve seen an increase of 10,000 hospitalised coronavirus patients, just since Christmas Day. That’s the equivalent of filling 20 acute hospitals with extra coronavirus patients ... And that is, of course, all happening at what is traditionally the busiest time of year for hospitals and the wider NHS. The UK has recorded 1,162 further coronavirus deaths - the second highest daily total on this measure. (See 4.51pm.) Boris Johnson has said Donald Trump was “completely wrong” to cast doubt on the result of the US presidential election and encourage his supporters to storm the Capitol. In his most critical comments as PM about Trump, a pro-Brexit ally who once boasted about Johnson being a British version of himself, Johnson said: Insofar as he encouraged people to storm the Capitol and insofar as the president consistently has cast doubt on the outcome of a free and fair election I believe that that was completely wrong. I think what President Trump has been saying about that has been completely wrong. I unreservedly condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way that they did in the Capitol. And all I can say is I’m very pleased that the president-elect has now been duly confirmed in office and that democracy has prevailed. A third Covid vaccine is likely to be approved for use in Britain next week but it will not be available until April because the UK is no longer part of the EU. Homelessness campaigners have demanded an urgent reboot of the government’s “Everybody In” scheme to provide safe shelter for thousands of rough sleepers as the UK enters another lockdown, with winter temperatures expected to plummet. The founder of Clap For Our Carers and Clap For Heroes has distanced herself from tonight’s event after getting abuse and threats from “a hateful few on social media channels”. That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.