Data up to 14 May shows that of the 56,018,988 Covid vaccine jabs given in the UK so far, 36,320,867 were first doses.

It is a rise of 204,912 from Thursday.

Some 19,698,121 were second doses, an increase of 379,111, according to the figures.

It comes as it was announced by the NHS that a total of 46,992,750 coronavirus jabs took place in England alone between 8 December and 14 May.

The bodies of Indian people killed by coronavirus have been found dumped in some Indian rivers, a state government letter seen by the Reuters news agency says, in the first official acknowledgement of the alarming practice.

Officials said it might stem from poverty and fear of the disease in remote areas.

Images of corpses drifting down the Ganges river, which is considered holy in Hinduism, have shocked the country as its people endure the world’s worst surge in Covid-19 cases.

Although media reports have linked the increase in the number of bodies found floating in the river and its tributaries in recent days to the pandemic, India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh, home to 240 million people, has until now not publicly revealed the cause of the deaths.

“The administration has information that bodies of those who have succumbed to Covid-19 or any other disease are being thrown into rivers instead of being disposed of as per proper rituals,” a senior state official, Manoj Kumar Singh, said in a letter dated 14 May to district heads that was reviewed by Reuters.

Nicola Sturgeon has told her Glasgow South constituents to get tested amid a rise in Covid infections in the area.

Restrictions will begin to lift in every area of Scotland except Glasgow on Monday, following the discovery of the highly contagious Indian variant in the city.

Two-thirds of adults in Scotland have had their first dose of a vaccine so far, figures show, amounting to more than 66 per cent of the population.

Our chief political commentator writes of yesterday’s Downing Street press conference:

Johnson was defensive when pressed on why he had delayed banning flights from India.

We were more concerned about the South Africa variant at the time, he said, which is not an answer. “Don’t forget everyone coming from India, or indeed anywhere else, had to face very tough quarantine rules,” he said, which isn’t an answer either.

It looks as if that decision fits into a pattern with which we are already familiar: of a prime minister reluctant to act swiftly, and then being forced to do what he has resisted after much of the damage has been done. This is a simplification, but there is enough truth in it for it to have firmly established itself as the story of the British government’s handling of the pandemic.

More than 20,000 people have been allowed inside Wembley Stadium today to watch the FA Cup Final.

All fans had to be tested and show proof of a negative result to gain entry.

It is one of the government’s trial events to assess how large scale venues can reopen when lockdown ends.

Yvette Cooper, who chairs the government’s home affairs select committee, is among the most significant critics of the government’s delay in placing India on its travel “red list” in April.

Citing three other points in the health crisis when she alleged the government had “made major errors on Covid border measures which worsened [the] pandemic”, the Labour MP warned ministers had “still not learned the basic lessons at the border”, citing the more than 1,300 Indian variant cases now identified and renewed talk of local lockdowns as she said: “This was predictable but it was not inevitable.”

Here, she sums up the crux of the criticism being levelled at the government – excluding questions over the PM’s planned trade visit:

Government figures show that as of Saturday, a further seven people died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK. It brings the nation’s total to 127,675.

Separate figures, published by statistics agencies, show there have been 152,000 deaths registered where Covid mentioned on the death certificate.

There have also been a further 2,027 lab-confirmed cases of the virus in the UK, bringing that total to 4,448,851.

Our deputy political editor Andrew Woodcock has more details on Labour’s calls for the Cabinet secretary to investigate allegations against Priti Patel of what the opposition described as a “glaring and flagrant breach” of the ministerial code.

Documents obtained by the Daily Mail show that the home secretary wrote to cabinet colleague Michael Gove after being contacted by a client of twice-former Tory election candidate Samir Jassal over a £20m deal to supply personal protective equipment early in the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020.

Global trade expert and Brexit commentator David Henig is clearly among those who believe Boris Johnson’s trade visit to India in April may have been a factor in the government’s decision over when to place the country on its travel “red list”.

Responding to suggestions from LBC’s Ben Kentish that there are now “huge questions” over the timing of that decision, the UK director of the European Centre for International Political Economy think tank tweeted:

Here is a summary of the prime minister’s response to those questions yesterday:

Scientists say that a universal vaccine that could offer protection against Covid variants, along with a variety of other coronavirus infections, including Sars and Mers, has been found to be effective in monkeys and mice, our science correspondent Samuel Lovett reports.

Across the globe, research is underway to develop a “pan-coronavirus” vaccine which will retain its efficacy in the face of new and emerging variants, and also provide some level of immunity against the distant viral cousins of Sars-CoV-2.

Scientists, including Oxford’s Professor Sarah Gilbert, have been attempting to design a universal flu vaccine for years – but attention is now turning to the coronaviruses, which are similarly capable of mutating and escaping parts of the body’s immunological response.

You can register or subscribe to Independent Premium to read the full article: