Boris Johnson during a visit to the Lakeland Forum vaccination centre in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland
(Picture: PA)Boris Johnson has received his first jab of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine as the UK rollout reached a record high.
The Prime Minister said he “didn’t feel a thing” as he paid tribute to the “wonderful” nurse who administered the jab at St Thomas’ Hospital.
It followed a warning that the delay of the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout in some European countries could see coronavirus deaths increase by “thousands”.
Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, told Times Radio that the decision to pause use of the Oxford jab in some European countries and the “uncertainty” caused by the move will increase the number of Covid-19 deaths by “thousands”.
Meanwhile the R rate - the average number of people each Covid-19 positive person goes on to infect - increased slightly from being between 0.6 and 0.8 last week, to a R number of 0.6 and 0.9 in both the UK and London.
