The UK reported 95 new deaths from Covid-19 on Thursday, down from 141 a day earlier with fatalities over the past seven days a third lower than the week before.
It is the lowest number of daily fatalities from the disease since 8 October, when 77 deaths were reported, and brings the UK total to to 125,926.
Another 6,303 new cases of the disease were also confirmed - up from 5,758 a day earlier. The seven-day total is down three per cent.to 125,926.
The data showed that a total 25.73 million people have received a first dose of the Covid-19vaccine and 1.88 million people have received a second dose.
More than half of all adults in England have had their first dose of vaccine, the health service said earlier.
It comes as Europe’s medicines regulator has ruled that the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is “safe and effective”.
Thursday’s eagerly-awaited verdict from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) followed an investigation into whether the vaccine is linked to blood clots reported in a small number of recipients.
Concerns over the clotting led more than a dozen European countries to suspend use of the vaccine over the past week, even though the company and the international bodies said there was no indication the shots caused the clotting and recommended continuing inoculations.
“The committee has come to a clear scientific conclusion: this is a safe and effective vaccine,” Executive Director Emer Cooke announced at this afternoon’s press conference in Amsterdam.
“Its benefits in protecting people from Covid-19, with the associated risks of death and hospitalisation, outweigh the possible risks.
“The committee also concluded that the vaccine is not associated with an increase in the overall risk of thromboembolic events, or blood clots.”
