UK records 6,040 new Covid cases, 158 deaths

London, March 7 Another 6,040 people in Britain have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,213,343, according to official figures released.

The country also reported another 158 coronavirus-related fatalities, taking the national death toll to 124,419. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test, Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

The latest figures were revealed as more than 21.7 million people in Britain have been given at least the first jab of a coronavirus vaccine.

Earlier Saturday, Sharon Peacock, who is in charge of tracking strains of the coronavirus in Britain, said the country is well equipped to "stay ahead" by adapting vaccines quickly to fight the new stains.

"I'm very optimistic that the vaccines will be rolled out, that they'll be effective, and that we'll be in a better place by summer and autumn," Peacock told The Times newspaper.

"I think we've got the capabilities to stay ahead by adapting vaccines, and so I'm an optimist," she said, adding that new variants are "very unlikely to send us back to square one."

However, Ian Diamond, head of the British Office for National Statistics (ONS), warned Saturday that the country is "still not out of the wood."

"I think this lockdown has been a success but at the same time, while we have seen major reductions, we are still relatively high," Diamond told the BBC.

"I'm in very much the view that we should do everything we can not to blow it nationally," he said. "We have done fantastically well in the last couple of months but we are not completely out of the woods yet."

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirmed on Friday that two-fifths of Britain's entire adult population have now been vaccinated, and the government is "on course" to offering a first vaccine dose to all adults by the end of July.

England is currently under the third national lockdown since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country. Similar restriction measures are also in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

( With inputs from IANS )