UK REPORTS HIGHEST DAILY DEATHS SINCE MARCH; BOOSTER VACCINE ‘HIGHLY LIKELY’

Thu 02 September 2021:

The UK recorded its highest number of daily coronavirus-related deaths Wednesday since March as cases continue to rise amid fears of a surge as the new school year begins.

A total of 207 deaths were reported, the highest since March 9, when 231 deaths were registered. Between Aug. 26 and Sept. 1, the number of people who died from the virus totaled 739 — a 0.5% increase compared to the previous week.

The number of daily cases remains high after experiencing a sudden drop last month, and on Wednesday, 35,693 people had a confirmed positive test result.

That figure brings the week’s number of positive tests to 236,279, a 0.2% decrease from the previous week.

Vaccinations across the UK continue to increase, despite Wednesday’s high death count that damped the fatality curve despite the increase in infections.

As of Aug. 31, more than 48 million people had been administered a first dose of the vaccine with an excess of 42 million receiving their second.

There are fears, however, among the scientific community that with children returning to school in an atmosphere of no social restrictions, there will inevitably be a surge in the number of cases and therefore a rise in deaths.

That will be compounded by the highly transmissible Delta variant, which is now the UK’s most dominant form of the virus.

Booster vaccine ‘highly likely’

Prof Anthony Harnden, the deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said careful consideration was going into the timing of a third dose. He said the independent body would hand its advice to the government in the next few weeks.

Speaking on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, Harnden said: “I think it’s highly likely that there will be a booster programme. It’s just a question of how we frame it.

This will be decided over the next few weeks. I can’t definitively say that there will be, because we have not made that decision yet, but it is highly likely.”

“What we don’t want to do is boost people and then find we have a new variant and we can’t boost them again because we’ve boosted them too soon,” he said. “And those people might not have needed the boost in the first place.”

Regarding the extension of the vaccination programme to 12- to 15-year-olds, Harnden said that was still under consideration. “There are many, many arguments for and against giving vaccines to 12- to 15-year-olds, and we’re deliberating on what we think as a committee is best for children,” he said.

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