U.K. ramps up vaccine rollout

Health secretary: Country ‘on track’ to inoculate all adults by fall

LONDON — Britain’s health secretary said Sunday that every adult in the country will be offered a COVID-19 vaccine by the autumn as the U.K. ramps up its mass vaccination program amid a huge surge of infections and hospital admissions.

More than 600,000 people age 80 and over will begin receiving invitations this week to get the coronavirus shot at new large-scale vaccine centers around England. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that officials were “on track” to reach its target of inoculating about 15 million people in the most vulnerable groups by the middle of February.

The vaccination drive comes as the U.K. sees a steep increase in infections and record numbers of COVID-19 patients being hospitalized, with many experts warning that the situation is more dire than it was when the country went into its first lockdown last spring. The Office of National Statistics estimated that 1 in 50 people in England had the virus in the most recent week.

Daily reported deaths hit a record high Friday, at 1,325, and in total, around 81,000 people have died after testing positive for COVID-19. That’s the highest in Europe and comes just behind the U.S., Brazil, India and Mexico.

Hancock said that more than 200,000 people are being vaccinated in England every day, and that by autumn, the entire adult population should have been offered a jab.

“We’ve got over 350 million doses on order — they’re not all here yet. We’re rolling them out as fast as they get delivered,” he told the BBC. “But we are going to have enough to be able to offer a vaccine to everyone over the age of 18 by the autumn.” In other global developments:

Africa passed the milestone of 3 million confirmed cases COVID-19 on Sunday, including more than 72,000 deaths, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

South Africa, with more than

1.2 million reported cases, including 32,824 deaths, accounts for more than 30 percent of the total for the continent of 54 countries and 1.3 billion people. The high proportion of cases in South Africa could be because the country carries out more tests.

South Africa is battling a variant of the virus that is more contagious.

More than 380 people have tested positive in a growing COVID-19 outbreak south of Beijing in China’s Hebei province.

Hebei health authorities said that 40 new cases had been confirmed Sunday morning, bringing the total to 223. Another 161 people tested positive but showed no symptoms. China does not include such asymptomatic cases in its official tally.