GRIM TALLY
Britain now has the highest Covid death rate in the world with 935 fatalities a day, study finds
THE UK now has the highest death rate from coronavirus in the world, a new study has revealed.
Britain has overtaken the Czech Republic, which had seen the most Covid deaths per capita since January 11, according to the latest data.
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The University of Oxford-based research platform Our World in Data found the UK is now in the top spot.
And with an average of 935 daily deaths over the past week, this equates to more than 16 people in every million dying each day.
The three other countries with the highest death rates are Portugal (14.82 per million), Slovakia (14.55) and Lithuania (13.01).
The US, Italy, Germany, France and Canada all had lower average death rates than the UK in the week leading up to January 17.
'DON'T BLOW IT'
Panama is the only non-European country in the top-10 list, with Europe suffering a third of the total global deaths during the pandemic.
The UK has seen more than 3.4milion infections - the equivalent of one in every 20 people - with another 37,535 new infections reported today.
There were another 599 more coronavirus deaths confirmed across Britain on Monday.
Official statistics now show that 3,433,494 people have caught the virus in the UK since the pandemic began last year.
The total death toll has now reached 89,860.
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But the UK is vaccinating at double the rate of any other country in Europe, Matt Hancock revealed tonight - as he warned the nation: "Don't blow it now".
Te Health Secretary announced more than 50 per cent of over 80s have been given a jab - and half of those in care homes as jabs hit 4million today.
A total of 4,062,501 vaccinations were made in England between December 8 and January 17, according to official data.
In a rallying cry to the nation he warned: "Don't blow it now, we are on the way out."
He said the UK was "vaccinating more than double the rate per person, per day than any other country in Europe".
Ten more mass vaccination centres opened to the nation this morning, bringing the number of super hubs to 17.
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Mr Hancock said today to anyone worried their invite might have been lost: "We will reach you, you will have your invitation to be vaccinated within the next four weeks."
He also thanked The Sun and our Jabs Army - after we smashed out target to recruit 50,000 volunteers to help dish out the vaccine.
Mr Hancock said tonight The Sun had been "smashing the target in the battle against this disease."
He added: "I want to thank each and everyone of you and the Sun news paper for leading this effort."
Earlier today, vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi said lockdown could start to be "gradually eased" in early March, after the top four most vulnerable groups of Brits have been vaccinated.
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Mr Zahawi told BBC Breakfast: "If we take the mid-February target, two weeks after that you get you your protection, pretty much, for the Pfizer/BionTech, three weeks for the Oxford AstraZeneca, you are protected.
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"That's 88 per cent of mortality that we can then make sure are people who are protected."
Schools would be the first thing to reopen, and the tiered system will be used to relax restrictions across the UK, depending on how high infection rates are.
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Fears of Covid vaccine postcode lottery as some over-70s get jabs before higher risk groups in other parts of country