The UK has reported more than 7,000 new cases of COVID-19 for a second day in a row, according to government data.
7,393 infections were recorded in the last 24-hour period, along with seven other coronavirus-related deaths.
The figures are to be compared with 7,540 cases and six deaths announced yesterday, and 5,274 cases and 18 deaths reported around this time last week.
Wednesday marked the highest number of daily infections for four months.
It comes as Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the Delta variant, first detected in India, now accounts for 91% of cases in the UK.
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Meanwhile, government data also showed that another 176,559 people received their first dose of a COVID-19[female[feminine vaccine Wednesday, while 316,258 had their second vaccine.
The number of people fully vaccinated now stands at 28,857,102, while 40,886,878 people have received at least one vaccine.
The latest figures come the day Mr Hancock was questioned by the health and social care committee and the science and technology committee.
Mr Hancock told MPs that a lockdown earlier last year would have gone against scientific advice and would have revealed a “reasonable worst-case scenario” calculated at the end of January 2020 predicted more than 800,000 deaths.
The Health Secretary was questioned two weeks after Dominic Cummings, the former chief assistant to the Prime Minister, claimed Mr Hancock “should have been fired for at least 15-20 things, including lying”.
Mr Hancock hit back at the commission hearing, saying the government has improved since the former No.10 adviser left.
Mr Cummings had alleged that the Health Secretary’s claim that he put a “shield” around nursing homes at the start of the pandemic was “complete nonsense”.
He said Mr Hancock told the Prime Minister “categorically in March that people will be tested before they return to care homes”.
But Mr Hancock told the committee: “We set a policy that people would be tested when tests were available, and then I set about building …
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-06-10 13:48:00
