LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned on Tuesday that the rapid drop in COVID-19 deaths was largely down to a three-month lockdown, not the vaccination programme, and that cases would rise once again as restrictions ease.
The vaccine rollout also got a boost on Tuesday when Moderna became the third vaccine to be offered in England after AstraZeneca and one from Pfizer-BioNTech.
On Tuesday, NHS England said that people aged 45 or over could now book appointments to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
For those categories already offered a vaccine, it said that 95% of people who were eligible had taken up the offer.
However, in another note of caution to the optimism, the government announced an expansion of so-called surge testing in the south London boroughs of Lambeth and Wandsworth to detect cases of the variant first found in South Africa.