Boris Johnson said the vaccination programme continued to “power past” the targets set for it but warned it was not the time to ease up on efforts to tackle the virus.
The Prime Minister told a Downing Street press conference: “This is an unprecedented national achievement but it is no moment to relax.
“In fact, it is the moment to accelerate because the threat from this virus remains very real.”
Although more than 90% of over-70s had been vaccinated, some 60% of hospital patients with Covid-19 were under that age.
The PM said there were “grounds for confidence” that vaccines were helping to curb the spread of coronavirus, not just in protecting those who received the jab.
He said: “Although the vaccination programme is going well, we still don’t have enough data about the exact effectiveness of the vaccinations in reducing the spread of infection.
“We have some interesting straws in the wind, we have some grounds for confidence but the vaccinations have only been running for a matter of weeks.
“While we are learning the whole time, we don’t, as I talk to you today, have all the hard facts that we need.
“And the level of infection remains very high.”
