ALMOST 40 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the latest figures show.

Public Health England has recorded 39 new lab-confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, in areas including Reading, Bracknell, Wokingham, West Berkshire, Slough and Windsor and Maidenhead.

These figures, correct as of Saturday, March 22, at 4pm bring the latest total for the county to 57,259 cases.

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The local breakdown for the past 24 hours as follows:

  • Bracknell Forest - 1 case, 7,119 total
  • Wokingham - 17 cases, 8,338 total
  • Reading - 5 cases, 11,049 total
  • West Berkshire - 5 cases, 6,516 total
  • Slough - 7 cases, 15,668 total
  • Windsor and Maidenhead - 4 cases, 8,569 total

There have now been 4,460,446 people across the UK who have tested positive for Covid-19 - a daily increase of 2,694.

The latest seven-day rate per 100,000 people locally are as follows:

  • Bracknell Forest - 6.5
  • Reading - 30.3
  • Wokingham - 15.2
  • Slough - 22.7
  • West Berkshire - 34.1
  • Windsor and Maidenhead - 10.6

Deaths

The Government said a further six people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Saturday, bringing the UK total to 127,716.

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Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have been 152,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

Vaccines

Bracknell News:

More than 50 million Covid-19 vaccination doses have now been given in England, latest figures show.

Government data up to May 21 shows that of the 59,798,421 jabs given in the UK so far, 37,726,924 were first doses – a rise of 208,310 on the previous day.

South East: 5,153,001 first and 3,027,463 second doses (8,180,464)

In today's national Covid news 

Bracknell News:

The Pfizer coronavirus vaccine is 88% effective against the Indian variant after two doses, a study by Public Health England (PHE) has found.

Both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs were found to be almost as effective against symptomatic disease from the B1617.2 strain as they are against the Kent variant after the second dose.

Dominic Cummings has said the Government originally intended to let coronavirus spread through the community in an attempt to build “herd immunity”.

Boris Johnson’s former top adviser said that when the disease emerged in early 2020, the plan had been to develop resistance in the population in the months leading up to September.

In a series of tweets he said that it was only abandoned in early March after Downing Street was warned that it would lead to a “catastrophe”.