UK's Health Minister Matt Hancock said that with two million inoculations a week, the country would be able to cover the most vulnerable by the middle of February.

All four nations of the United Kingdom are facing dire warnings, with high levels of infection and hospitals struggling under the strain.

"Of course we are all exhausted of restrictions, but we must find the collective strength to get through this critical stage and save as many lives as we can", England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty wrote in the Sunday Times.

More than 1.9 million people have been infected so far, with nearly 17,000 new cases in Germany since Saturday.

People must take lockdown seriously as "we are now in the eye of a storm", an expert has warned, amid record hospital admissions for Covid-19.

The ministry underlined the need to investigate further whether people who have been vaccinated can still transmit the virus and how long vaccines last before another shot is needed. The centres, which include one at the site of the London Nightingale Hospital and Manchester's Etihad Stadium, are planned as a convenient alternative to under-pressure general practice (GP) and hospital services and can each deliver thousands of vaccinations every week. "Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff make up around a fifth of the NHS workforce and have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, so it's crucial they take up the offer of a vaccine when offered", she said.

Nadhim Zahawi, the minister in charge of vaccine deployment, said the plan will "set out our ambitions for the coming weeks and months as we continue to expand our programme at breakneck speed, with strategies to underpin every commitment". "We are seeing the ambulance handover delays at a scale we haven't seen before".

In Scotland, the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab is available in more than 1,000 locations from Monday.

Professor Susan Michie and Professor Robert West, both of whom participate in Independent Sage which has called for tougher measures at various points in the pandemic, described the current lockdown as not strict enough compared to the first in March.

Separate figures published by the UK's statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 97,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.

Matt Hancock did not rule out strengthening current restrictions and told the BBC's Andrew Marr the NHS was under "very serious pressure".

The UK on Sunday announced a major expansion of COVID-19 tests being made available more widely to asymptomatic people as part of efforts to control the rapid spread of a new coronavirus variant, which has led to Britain hitting the grim milestone of 80,000 deaths from the virus.

Coronavirus testing is also due to ramp up across England this week, with asymptomatic people who can not work from home set to be prioritised for quick turnaround tests made available to every local authority as part of the community testing programme.