England reports 397 new COVID deaths with over 15,000 new cases

LONDON: Britain reported 15,539 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday and 397 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test result, both fall on the previous day’s figures.

It may be noted, as reported earlier, Britain hopes that milli

ons of doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine will be delivered by the end of the year but the total will depend on how quickly it can be manufactured, Britain’s business minister Alok Sharma said on Friday.

Britain approved Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, jumping ahead of the rest of the world in the race to begin the most crucial mass inoculation programme in history.

Last month Britain said it expected 10 million doses of the shot in 2020, but the government has said the pace of roll-out will be dependence on delivery. It has ordered 40 million doses in all, enough to vaccinate 20 million people.