France and Germany’s Covid vaccination programmes pick up speed

As daily inoculations hit record figures, warning comes of new delays

• Coronavirus - latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Vaccine rollouts in France and Germany have finally begun to pick up speed, after a slow start and problems with supplies and bureaucracy.

France continues to struggle to contain a third Covid-19 wave, but announced it had hit its 10 million inoculations target a week earlier than expected, while Germany doubled the number of vaccinations, administering a record 720,000 doses on Thursday after the rollout was extended to family doctors.