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LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - The United Kingdom on Wednesday
recorded its second highest daily death toll from COVID-19 since
the start of the pandemic as the government battled to speed up
vaccination delivery.
With a highly transmissible new variant of the virus surging
across the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has
shuttered the economy and is rushing out vaccines faster than
the country’s European neighbours in a bid to stem the pandemic.
The United Kingdom has the world’s fifth-highest official
death toll from COVID-19 and reported a further 1,725 fatalities
within 28 days of a positive test.
Britain has been hit hard by the latest wave of the
pandemic, with deaths routinely above 1,000 people a day and
hitting a record 1,820 on Jan. 20.
On Tuesday the total deaths figure passed the 100,000 mark,
the first European state to reach that figure, leading to
questions about the government's handling of the
crisis.
It rose to 101,887 on Wednesday.
The country recorded a further 25,308 cases of the disease
on Wednesday, up from 20,089 the day before.
However, the vaccine roll out has begun well. The data
showed that 7,164,387 people have now been given their first
dose of the vaccine, with 311,060 receiving it in the last 24
hours.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, writing by James Davey)
