London (AFP)

The UK has passed the 15 million mark for people vaccinated against the coronavirus, meeting the government's target of offering a vaccine to the most vulnerable categories of people by mid-February, Boris Johnson and his ministers announced on Sunday .

"Today we have reached a milestone in the UK's national immunization program," the UK Prime Minister tweeted.

"NEW FANTASTIC: more than 15 MILLION people have now received their first vaccine against Covid", greeted on Twitter his Minister of Health Matt Hancock.

Criticized many times for his slowness and hesitation, Boris Johnson thus manages to meet the ambitious objective of offering a vaccine to the four priority categories by this date.

They bring together people over 70, front-line caregivers, nursing home employees and residents and the most vulnerable patients, i.e. around 15 million people out of a total population of 66 million.

This good news comes a week before the announcement, expected on February 22, of his government's "roadmap" to gradually consider the release of confinement - the third in the United Kingdom - introduced since the beginning of the year facing a more contagious variant, which led to an explosion of the epidemic.

The government hopes to be able to reopen schools from March 8 and relax some of the restrictions, to allow meetings between two people from different homes outdoors.

The hardest hit country in Europe with 117,000 dead, the United Kingdom is starting on Monday a new stage of its vaccination campaign, which will extend to people aged 65 to 69.

Against the importation of new variants, from Monday will enter into force the system of compulsory hotel quarantine for British or Irish residents arriving from 33 countries at risk, from which arrivals for non-residents are prohibited.

© 2021 AFP