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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Jedidajah Otte

Nearly 20m receive first dose of Covid vaccine in the UK

Margaret Keenan, the first patient in the UK to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine
Since 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, more than 20.5m jabs have been administered across the country. Photograph: Jacob King/AP

More than 19.6 million people in the UK have received at least a first dose of coronavirus vaccine, with under 4% of jabs given so far being second doses.

Government data shows that of the 20.5m jabs given in the UK up to 26 February, 19.6m were first doses. About 770,000 were second jabs, an increase of nearly 33,000 on figures released the previous day.

This means just over 1.1% of the UK population have been fully vaccinated with two doses.

A total of 17.25m Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England between 8 December and 26 February, according to provisional NHS England data, a rise of just under 470,000 on the previous day’s running total.

The same data shows a total of just over 2m jabs were given to London’s population of about 9 million between 8 December and 26 February, including 1.98m first doses.

Over 1m doses have been administered across Wales in the 12 weeks since the rollout of the country’s vaccination programme began, and more than one in three of the country’s adult population have received at least one dose, data published by Public Health Wales shows.

In Scotland, by Saturday, 1.57 million people had received the first dose of the Covid vaccine and 72,178 have received their second dose.

More than half a million people in Northern Ireland have received a first jab, and nearly 32,000 have also received a second dose.

Meanwhile, the government said a further 290 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Saturday, bringing the UK total to 122,705.

Seven days prior, on 20 February, 445 further fatalities from the virus had been recorded.

Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 143,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.

On Saturday a further 7,434 lab-confirmed cases were recorded in the UK, the lowest daily rise in cases since 2 October, a sharp drop from the 10,406 cases on the same day a week ago.

• This article was amended on 28 February 2021. An editing error led the introduction to claim that more than 20 million people had received vaccinations. More than 20m doses have been given but, as some of these are second doses, fewer than 20 million people have been vaccinated.

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