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Video report by ITV News Health Editor Emily Morgan
Coronavirus deaths in the UK have fallen by 41% in the last week, the health secretary has said, after the vaccination programme progressed to jabbing two fifths of all adults.
Matt Hancock said the dramatic fall in fatalities shows that vaccines work , and that the link between Covid-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths is now breaking .
It comes after data published by all four UK nations showed the vaccination scheme had passed the milestone of giving more than a million people both doses of a coronavirus jab.
Mr Hancock said at least 21.3 million people in the UK had received their first dose of a vaccine.
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, Emily and her team are visiting hospitals across England to witness first hand the pressure the health service is under.
NHS staff have revealed to ITV News the damage coronavirus is having on their mental and physical health, with one nurse admitting she was prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping pills to cope with the stress.
Jess Edwards, a critical care nurse at Walsall hospital, said her profession has left her on the brink both in and out of the workplace.
Ms Edwards said: “It’s getting progressively more difficult as the time goes on.
“We’ve been doing this for nearly 12 months now.”
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In a series of special reports this week, ITV News Health Editor Emily Morgan is visiting hospitals across England to witness first hand the pressure the health service is under.
Army medics and volunteers have been drafted in to help care for seriously ill coronavirus patients at Stoke-on-Trent’s main hospital.
However, this is not a one off.
Some 400 military personnel are now working alongside doctors and nurses in hospitals across London and the Midlands, according to NHS England, with personnel also drafted in to hospitals in Bristol and Weston.
Eighteen members of Armed Forces staff have been recruited at the Royal Stoke University Hospital for the next three weeks.