COVID-19: Britain's leading the fight against a 21st century disease - now Europe needs to step up

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It is a phenomenal achievement. Even the government's fiercest critics cannot deny the success of the UK's vaccine rollout.

For three consecutive days records have tumbled.

Some 844,285 combined first and second doses were given on Saturday. On Friday it was 711,157 and on Thursday it was 660,276.

After a while, the numbers can become a bit abstract. But Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, puts it another way when explaining today's effort, which adds context.

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He said: "In just one day we vaccinated the equivalent of the entire adult populations of Liverpool, Southampton and Oxford combined."

The ambitious targets the government set itself are well within sight. At this rate, the 15 April deadline to jab all cohorts in target groups 1-9 is going to be achieved at a canter.

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The only turbulence on the horizon is the anticipated vaccine shortfall in April caused by the delay of five million does of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India.

COVID-19: Britain's leading the fight against a 21st century disease - now Europe needs to step up — Image: The UK secured early access to 457 million doses of eight of the most promising vaccines

Image: The UK secured early access to 457 million doses of eight of the most promising vaccines

It means the vaccination of people aged over 40, due to begin by the end of March, will be delayed.

Existing vaccines will be prioritised for the nine priority high risk groups and second doses.

Despite this shortfall Boris Johnson is confident there will be no lasting impact on the rollout and targets will still be met.

Image: The UK secured early access to 457 million doses of eight of the most promising vaccines

Given the scale and speed of the operation so far, his confidence is not misplaced.

It was the prime minister's appointment of Kate Bingham as the head of the government's vaccine's taskforce that put the country in the position it is today.

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Boris Johnson received the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab in London.

When she was appointed last spring, few could have predicted her success in securing a safe coronavirus vaccine.

Many pointed to the government's mishandling of PPE procurement and its stuttering Test and Trace system.

But Ms Bingham's taskforce helped the government to secure agreements to have access to six different vaccines including Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi and Novavax, as well as the Pfizer vaccine made by BioNTech and Moderna's vaccine.

Her gamble to hedge her bets on these vaccines has paid off. It helped the UK to secure early access to 457 million doses of eight of the most promising vaccine candidates.

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By co-ordinating the expertise of the NHS, the country's GP and pharmacy network, members of the armed forces and an army of volunteers those vaccines have been delivered into the arms of Britons en masse.

A great deal of credit must also go the all of the people who have stepped forward to receive their jab when called.

We have not seen anywhere near the same level of vaccine hesitancy here that has been reported in Europe and France.

Even when European governments raised doubts about the efficacy of the Oxford vaccine, it did not impact the take up of the vaccine here in the UK.

We now need our European neighbours and countries around the world to achieve the same success with their vaccination programmes.

This is a 21st century virus and we have seen how quickly things can change. Nobody is truly safe until we all are.

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