More than 400,000 booster and third doses of Covid-19 vaccine were recorded across the UK during the four-day New Year period, figures show.
A total of 34,363,986 extra doses had been delivered as of January 3 – the first time a UK-wide figure has been available since December 30, when the number stood at 33,924,738.
It means 439,248 booster and third doses were added across the four days from New Year’s Eve to January 3.
Around 64% of all adults in the UK have now received a booster or third dose.
The figures were published by the UK’s four health agencies.
They also show that:
– 18,872 booster and third doses were reported in the UK on New Year’s Day, compared with 10,480 on Christmas Day
– The seven-day average for extra doses currently stands at 228,169, after peaking at 886,797 on December 22
– 1.9 million booster and third doses were delivered across the 10 days from Christmas Day to January 3, compared with 7.7 million in the 10 days from December 15 to Christmas Eve
– A total of 51.8 million first doses of vaccine have now been delivered in the UK, along with 47.5 million second doses
The highest number of booster and third doses recorded in a single day was 968,665 on December 21.
People can have a booster if they are three months on from receiving their second dose of vaccine.
Third doses – the other type of extra dose – are available eight weeks after a second dose to people aged 12 and over with severely weakened immune systems.
Take-up of extra doses in recent days is likely to have been affected by the level of Covid-19 infections across the country.
People are not eligible to receive a vaccine within 28 days of having had the virus.
Data published on New Year’s Eve by the Office for National Statistics showed that an estimated 2.3 million people in the UK had Covid-19 in the week ending December 23, up from 1.4 million in the previous week and the highest number since comparable figures began in autumn 2020.
