COVID-19: Number of Britons vaccinated reaches 45 million – as daily cases drop slightly to 27,125 | UK News

The number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 in the UK has reached 45 million, while the number of reported daily cases has declined slightly.

The 27,125 new infections are down from the 27,989 added to the government COVID dashboard Thursday – which was the highest daily figure since the end of January.

Friday’s total, however, is well above that of last week, when there were 15,810 new cases. 27 other deaths have also been reported – up from 22 yesterday and 18 last Friday.

On the vaccination front, 45,013,503 people across the UK have now had their first vaccine – 85.5% of all adults.

There were 152,525 first doses given on Thursday and 193,066 second doses, meaning that 33,241,265 people are now fully vaccinated against coronavirus (63.1% of adults).

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the deployment was a “phenomenal achievement”, saving “over 27,000 lives”, and praised the young people for “coming forward so quickly for their jabs” during the last stage of the campaign.

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Although this week saw the highest daily number of new cases in five months, the latest estimates suggest England’s R number slightly decreased between 1.1 and 1.3.

Last week it was listed as between 1.2 and 1.4.

An R-value – or reproduction number – of between 1.1 and 1.3 means that on average, 10 people infected with COVID-19 will infect between 11 and 13 other people.

But an expert warned the UK remained threatened by its “own form of a Mexican COVID wave”, as infections move from west to east.

Professor Tim Spector, co-founder of the ZOE COVID Symptom Study, said …