Striving against the spread of Covid-19 variants infection across the country, Britain has given its first shot of vaccination to nearly 5.86 million beneficiaries. As per government data, 478,248 individuals were vaccinated in the last 24 hours to Saturday, which is a daily record in the country.
Witnessing 1,348 deaths on Saturday, the tally of Covid-19 related death has reached near to 100,000-mark standing at 97,329. In addition, 33,532 new cases were identified on Saturday, which is less than that of Friday.
The health ministry also informed that the country has identified 77 cases of South African variant of Covid-19 and 9 of the Brazilian variant. Matt Hancock in an interview to the BBC television said, “They are under very close observation, and we have enhanced contact tracing to do everything we possibly can to stop them from spreading”.
The government is concerned about the South African and Brazilian variants, as the currently used vaccines may not neutralize them as per the advice of Oxford professor Anthony Harnden, deputy chair of a scientific committee on vaccination. Interviewing Sky News the minister said, “The new variants abroad are a real worry. The South African and the Brazilian Amazonian ones, there are hints that there will be vaccine escape”.
During his interview to the Sky News, he also mentioned that, “There is early evidence that the lockdown is starting to bring cases down. But we’re a long, long, long way from that from being low enough because the case rate was incredibly high and you can see the pressure on the NHS (National Health Service)”.