UK reports lowest number of Covid deaths since September
Just four people died of coronavirus in the UK today, the lowest such figure since September, the Department of Health and Social Care reported this afternoon.
Death total are often lower of Mondays due to a lag in reporting data over the weekend, but the figure is yet another sign that Britain’s third lockdown has been a success.
There have not been so few reported deaths as a result of the virus since 1 September, when there were three fatalities.
In addition, it was announced that 10m people in the UK have now had two doses of a coronavirus vaccine. Nearly 33m have had a single dose so far.
This afternoon Matt Hancock said that the UK would give people booster Covid-19 vaccine jabs later this year to counter new variants.
The health secretary told MPs that the UK had procured enough vaccine doses to provide booster shots to everyone in the country and that the government would work with suppliers to “work out which vaccines will be effective as a booster shot and to design new vaccines specifically targeted at the variants of concern”.
There were 2,963 new cases of the virus detected.