Almost 1.5 million people have been vaccinated against COVID-19, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday, vowing to quickly expand a programme to inoculate the most vulnerable in Britain by mid-February.
After recording 52,618 new COVID-19 cases and 1,162 deaths within 28 days of a positive test for the virus, Johnson told a news conference that the government was increasing the number of places where people could get vaccinated and the number of people who could give the vaccination.
On Wednesday, Britain had recorded 62,322 new coronavirus infections and 1,041 deaths.
The data also showed that 1.3 million people had received their first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in figures for the week ending Jan 3, before Johnson provided the updated figures.
(Reporting by William Schomberg and Michael Holden; Editing by Alistair Smout and Elizabeth Piper)
