Covid: Gove 'confident' of UK vaccine supply after EU row

PA Media

Cabinet office minister Michael Gove has said he is "confident" the UK can continue with its vaccine programme.

He said the programme was "on track" to deliver 15 million jabs by 15 February.

It comes after the EU reversed a decision to trigger an emergency provision in the Brexit deal to control Covid vaccine exports from the EU.

Mr Gove said the bloc had recognised it "made a mistake" in triggering the measure, which could have seen checks at the Irish border.

He said he had spoken with European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič and both had agreed "we need a reset" and to put the people of Northern Ireland first.

Mr Gove said Prime Minister Boris Johnson had spoken to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and it was made clear that "supply would not be interrupted so we can proceed with our plans".

On Friday, the EU reversed its decision to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol - which allows the EU and UK to choose to suspend any aspects they consider are causing "economic, societal or environmental difficulties" - following condemnation from London, Dublin and Belfast.

The move came amid a deepening dispute over delays to the production and distribution of Covid vaccines across the EU.

The UK government said a further 1,200 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus as of Saturday, taking the total deaths by that measure to 105,571.

There have been a further 23,275 lab-confirmed cases of the virus in the UK, while 8,378,940 have received their first dose of a vaccine.

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January 31, 2021 at 04:40AM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55873288