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* UK hits 15 million vaccination target
* Johnson: lockdown exit will be cautious but irreversible
* Vaccine certificates will happen - Johnson
* Johnson to judge this week on lockdown exit
(Recasts headline and lead)
By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton
LONDON, Feb 15 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris
Johnson said on Monday he would plot a cautious but irreversible
path out of the COVID-19 lockdown this week after the
vaccination of 15 million vulnerable people.
With nearly a quarter of the United Kingdom's population now
inoculated with a first dose of a COVID vaccine in a little over
two months, Johnson is under pressure from some lawmakers and
businesses to reopen the shuttered economy.
"We've got to be very prudent and what we want to see is
progress that is cautious, but irreversible," Johnson told
reporters. "If we possibly can, we'll be setting out dates."
"If because of the rate of infection, we have to push off
something a little bit to the right - delay it for a little bit
- we won't hesitate to do that."
Johnson, due to set the path out of lockdown on Feb. 22,
said the rates of infection were still high and too many people
were still dying.
Asked if he would ensure schools reopened on March 8,
Johnson said he would do everything he could to ensure that.
If many people get infected, there would be a high risk of
mutation in the virus and higher risk of it spreading to older
and more vulnerable groups, he said.
The biggest and swiftest global vaccine rollout in history
is seen as the best chance of exiting the COVID-19 pandemic
which has killed 2.4 million people, tipped the global economy
into its worst peacetime slump since the Great Depression, and
upended normal life for billions.
The United Kingdom has the world's fifth-worst official
death toll - currently 117,166 - after the United States,
Brazil, Mexico and India.
VACCINE PASSPORTS?
Britain has vaccinated 15.062 million people with a first
dose and 537,715 with a second dose, the fastest rollout per
capita of any large country. Hancock said he expected vaccine
supplies to increase as manufacturing accelerated.
An influential group of lawmakers in Johnson's Conservative
Party is urging an end to the lockdown as soon as the most
vulnerable nine groups are vaccinated. They want no more rules
beyond May 1.
"We're all filled with sorrow for the people we've lost, the
harms that we've suffered but we don't honour those we've loved
and lost by wrecking the rest of our lives," lawmaker Steve
Baker said. "We've got to find a way to rebuild our society and
our economy and our prospects, our livelihoods."
Britain is speaking to other countries about giving its
citizens certificates showing they have been vaccinated so that
they can travel abroad in the future to countries that require
them, Johnson said.
"That's going to be very much in the mix, down the road I
think that is going to happen," Johnson said, referring to such
certificates. "What I don't think we will have in this country
is, as it were, vaccination passports to allow you to go to the
pub, or something like that."
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton; Editing by
Peter Graff, Nick Macfie and Bernadette Baum)
