Coronavirus vaccine to be given to ‘vast majority of adults’ by end of May, leaked letter to No 10 reveals

, he said the vaccine programme was the most important job of his career.

This comes after ministers boasted that ALL over 50s - and half of the UK population - will have been vaccinated by the end of April.

Thirty-two million jabs for the over 50s and the vulnerable had been promised by the "Spring" - but the Cabinet Office confirmed today that means “by May”.

The admission came as they confirmed local elections would take place that month despite some restrictions likely to be in place.

They said: “The UK’s vaccination programme is planned to have reached all nine priority cohorts by May, meaning that the Government can commit to go ahead with these polls with confidence.”

 

The UK vaccinated another 469,016 people on Wednesday, meaning nearly 10.5 million Brits have now received their first dose of the jab.

Deaths have also dropped by a quarter with 915 recorded yesterday and 20,634 daily infections.

Experts from University College London say the R rate is already down to 0.75 — the lowest it has been since the first lockdown.

Yesterday, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said Britain will be able to massively ease restrictions once all over-50s have been offered the jab "by late spring".

And Mr Zahawi was “confident” the country will hit its target of offering a jab to all 15 million of the most vulnerable by mid-February.

He said: “We want to reopen schools, reopen our economy, get our lives back, but never have to go back into another severe lockdown like the one we’re all experiencing and suffering from at the moment.

“You’ve got to make sure that your vaccination programme has protected the top nine categories in phase one — that is 99 per cent of mortality.” The Government has vowed to do this by “late spring”.