The Government missed last week’s vaccination target, 94,000, by 12,346 doses after a dismal performance over the weekend.
Between Monday the 1st and Sunday the 7th of March we administered 81,654 doses of vaccine, compared to 83,442 the week before. Only 10,285 doses were administered over the weekend, the lowest number since GPs became involved in the vaccination programme.
This was the third consecutive week the Government has missed its vaccination target.
The total number of doses administered, as of the 8th, was 536,617, with 382,528 of those being the 1st dose, and 154,089 of those being 2nd doses.
At current trends we will fail to hit the Government’s target of administering 1,250,000 doses by the end of March by a substantial amount. This week’s target is 84,000. That gives us slightly more than two weeks, March 15th to 31st, to administer more vaccines than have been administered over the entire length of the vaccination programme to date. Doing that would require us to administer 38,235 doses a day on all 17 days, more than three times the current rate.
The Government has said that targets are being missed due to issues with vaccine supply, particularly the AstraZeneca vaccine. However, the Government had previously said that delays in the AstraZeneca supply had been accounted for when determining the target. It also appears that we will miss the target by a far-greater amount than could be explained as being due to delays with AstraZeneca.
The average number of doses administered per day, over the last seven days, is now 11,923. The average number of doses administered per day has slightly more than doubled since the it first became possible to put together 7-day vaccination averages on the 9th of February.
Monday the 15th saw GPs begin to administer vaccines to people aged 85 and older, who are part of “Cohort 3” in the Government’s vaccination schedule. The CSO estimates that there are 490,000 people to be vaccinated in Cohort 3, which also includes those 70 and older who are not in long-term residential care. 100,613 of these had received their first dose as of the 8th of March.
Daily reporting of vaccinating numbers only goes back to the 3rd of February, meaning that the 9th of February is the earliest day from which we can show total doses administered over a seven-day period. On the 9th of February, the daily average number of doses administered was 5,642, with 39,495 doses having been administered between the 3rd and the 9th.