London, SAEDNEWS, Jan. 10: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases recorded in the United Kingdom has now surpassed three million, as the human cost of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to mount amid growing fears about the fast-spreading new variants of the virus.
UK authorities on Saturday announced another 59,937 new infections and 1,035 related fatalities, taking the total death toll to 80,868 – one of the highest in Europe, alongside Italy.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed a third stay-at-home order at the start of the week as alarm deepens that hospitals could be overwhelmed, while London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Friday declared a “major incident” in the capital and said the spread of COVID-19 was “out of control”.
Reporting from London, Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker described the situation as “extremely bad”.
“Before the majority of the population receive the vaccine, there might be a significant impact on how hospitals are able to cope … [as well as] the death toll and the rate of infection,” he said.
To date, more than 1.5 million people in the UK have received coronavirus jabs, with the elderly, their carers and health workers prioritised during the immunisation drive.
The government has launched a new public awareness campaign to get people to better comply with coronavirus restrictions, with Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty appearing in a video advertisement urging people to stay home as much as possible, protect the National Health Service (NHS) and save lives.
Citizens are also encouraged people to not be complacent and act as though they have the virus, or people around them might have COVID-19 (Source: AlJazeera).
UK Receives the First Batch of the Ordered Pfizer-BioNTech Coronavirus Vaccine
