Covid shielding list suddenly grows by 1.7 million in England

Almost two million more people in England have suddenly been asked to shield after a new model was developed to take other risk factors like ethnicity and postcodes into account.

Almost half of them, who haven’t yet received the jab, will now get pushed up the vaccine priority list.

The latest government figures show 799 deaths have been reported in the latest available 24-hour period. The UK total now stands at more than 118,000. There have been another 10,625 new cases in the UK.

Just under 276,000 people received their first dose of the Covid vaccine yesterday. That means 15.5 million people in the UK have now received their first jab.