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(Adds vaccine daily record)
LONDON, March 19 (Reuters) - Britain on Friday said it had
given 660,276 doses of COVID-19 vaccine in a single day, a new
daily record, in a boost to the rollout before the country
prepares for a drop-off in the "bumper" supplies of shots.
The single day record for first and second doses comes as
Britain approaches the milestone of giving half their adult
population at least one COVID-19 vaccine.
Israel is the leader in vaccinating its population, followed
by the United Arab Emirates, Chile and then the United Kingdom -
and investors are watching closely to see which economies could
recover first.
Britain's official data showed that 26.264 million people
had received a first dose of the vaccine, and 2.011 million
people had received a second. It also recorded 101 new deaths of
people who had tested positive for COVID-19 within 28 days, and
4,802 new cases of the disease.
Distributed by the state-run health service, Britain's
vaccine rollout has got off to a blistering start but the
government has warned this week of a marked slowdown in April
due to a delay of a shipment from India's Serum Institute and
because a batch in the UK needed to be retested.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is due to receive his own
first vaccine on Friday, said the two issues meant supplies in
April would be lower than they were in March.
Britain has so far relied on vaccines from AstraZeneca
and Oxford University, and Pfizer and BioNTech
.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Alistair Smout; Editing by
Kate Holton)
