1.2 COVID-19 vaccination in the UK

You will be covering vaccines later in the course, but at this stage it will be helpful for you to see what was happening with the vaccination programme in the UK at the time of the investigation.

A vaccination programme started in the UK in January 2021 with two doses of vaccine, typically spaced at an interval of 2−3 months. The programme started with medically vulnerable individuals and older people and then worked progressively down through the age groups to younger people.

By the Summer of 2021, all of the adult population over the age of 18 had been offered vaccination. Similar programmes were taking place in many European countries during the early months of 2021, although the UK then delayed immunisation of younger age groups (

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Figure 3 COVID-19 vaccination heat map.

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A heat map showing the percentage of individuals in different age groups that had received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine by the time-points shown on the x-axis. Each bar represents one age group and the colour of the bar shows the percentage who had received one dose of vaccine at the stated time.

Figure 3 COVID-19 vaccination heat map.