Britain says 31.9 million people given COVID vaccination

Reuters

Published Apr 09, 2021 16:31

Updated Apr 09, 2021 17:15

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Friday it had given 545,511 COVID vaccine doses on April 8, the highest daily total since April 1, while a further 60 people had died within 28 days of a positive test for the disease, raising this death toll to 127,040.

The number of people in Britain who have received two vaccine doses rose to 6.541 million and the number who have received at least one dose increased to 31.903 million, more than 60% of the adult population according to government daily figures.

Some 3,150 people were reported to have tested positive for COVID-19 in the daily data published on April 9, taking the number of cases over the past 7 days to 19,804, 32% lower than the week before.

Health officials also said they had revised down some cumulative data after positive cases detected by rapid lateral flow tests later turned out to be negative. In 8,010 cases the lateral flow tests were followed within 3 days by a gold-standard PCR test and found to be negative.

Cheaper and faster lateral flow tests are increasingly being used to reopen the economy and some scientists have raised questions about the volume of false positives they can produce.