COVID-19: UK reports 40 more coronavirus deaths and 2,678 cases | UK News

The UK has reported 40 more coronavirus-related deaths and 2,678 additional cases.

This compares to 18 deaths and 2,729 COVID cases registered yesterday.

The latest figures also show that the UK has now administered 33,388,637 first doses of a coronavirus vaccine, against the first total dose of 33,257,651 recorded yesterday.

Some 562,056 vaccinations were given yesterday, with more than 11.6 million people having had two injections.

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The total number of snapshots is now 45,012,308.

The total number of people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for the coronavirus in the UK now stands at 127,385.

And 4,401,109 cases have now been diagnosed since the start of the pandemic.

Previously it was revealed that the The R number in England had increased slightly between 0.8 and 1.

R represents the average number of people infected by a person infected with the virus. When the number is greater than 1, an epidemic can grow exponentially – but it will decrease if it is less than 1.

It comes as India was added to the UK’s red travel list on Friday morning.

A total of 55 new infections with the variant of the coronavirus first identified in the country – which has a double mutation on its spike protein – were discovered in the UK.

India is currently suffering from one of the worst COVID epidemics in the world, with hospitals having to beg for oxygen.

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The double mutation has raised concerns about the effectiveness of current vaccines in controlling the variant.

Dr Julian Tang, a consultant virologist at the Royal Leicester Infirmary and Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Respiratory Sciences, told Sky News that the mutation “suggests that it may well escape vaccine protection.”

“However, background protection from vaccines in general will likely mean that they protect against …