The UK’s vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, says a new daily record of 873,784 jabs were administered on Saturday.

In England at one point a jab was administered every 27 seconds.

Sir Simon Stevens, head of the NHS, said:

The speed and precision of the NHS vaccination campaign has been on full display this weekend, and yesterday NHS staff across England administered a remarkable 27 jabs a second. In just one day we vaccinated the equivalent of the entire adult populations of Liverpool, Southampton and Oxford combined.

More than 27.6 million people in Britain, well over half the adult population, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, official data showed on Sunday, after a daily record of 873,784 doses were administered the previous day.

More than 2.2 million people have had both doses of a vaccine, the data showed.

“This mammoth team effort shows the best of Britain,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted, hailing the second daily record number of doses administered in as many days.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged everyone to accept a vaccine when invited to receive one.

The daily release of COVID-19 data in the United Kingdom showed that 33 new deaths were recorded on Sunday, the lowest figure since October and down from peaks of well over 1,000 deaths per day in January and February.

The seven-day total number of deaths was 640, down by 37% compared with the previous seven-day period.

New infection numbers were also down, with 5,312 cases reported on Sunday and a seven-day total of 38,145, down by 4% on the previous seven days.