professor peter openshaw, thank you for asj peter openshaw, thank you for as everfor being peter openshawest coronavirus figures show infections continuing to fall, though weekend numbers tend to be lower due to reporting delays. let's take you through the numbers. there were 4,618 new cases recorded in the latest 24—hour period, which means on average the number of new cases reported per day in the last week, is 5,703. there were 52 deaths reported, that's of people who died within 28 days of a positive covid—19 test, which means on average, 145 people died every day in the last week from coronavirus, taking the total to 125,516. those are deaths for any reason. we will go into that figure, whether or not it is directly attributable to the coronavirus of people who have had a positive test within the last month. over half a million people have had their first dose of a covid vaccine in the latest 24—hour period, and as we've heard that means a total of more than 24 million people have now had theirfirstjab, and more than one and a half million, have had both doses, of the vaccine. around

in a moment, we'll speak to professor peter openshaw, an immunologist at imperial college london, but following this story. the deputy chief medical officer in the republic made the announcement this morning in a statement following those reports of thrombolytic events, clots and bleeds and so on made actually across europe. there have been around 30 of these events reported from europe, but that's in the context of around 5 million europeans getting the oxford astrazeneca jab. but as of this morning, ireland hasjoined a list of countries which have either suspended the astrazeneca vaccine or have suspended the use of certain batches of it. that list includes norway, denmark, italy, estonia and several other european nations as well. astrazeneca has been given in the republic of ireland around 110,000 times — that is about a fifth of the vaccines that have been administered. it's been used in the uk more than 11 million times and the regulator here in the uk says there's no evidence of any excess deaths or clots reported in association with it. it's important to say that the european