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June 5 (UPI) -- Britain's new daily COVID-19 cases were down Saturday from Friday's two-month high, but still up from the same day last week, according to government figures. The government reported 5,765 new cases Saturday, down from 6,238 Friday, which was was the highest number since late March. Still, daily cases were up from 3,398 last Saturday.
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Britain also reported 13 new daily deaths Saturday.
The government announced Saturday that over 40 million people, a majority of Britain's population, have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 27 million have been fully vaccinated.
"Thank you to everyone who has been instrumental in getting us here," Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted Saturday, with video highlighting the vaccine's administration to Margaret Keenan, the first person in the country to get a vaccine, along with others. "Please keep coming forward for both doses."
"You're protecting yourself, and you're also protecting those who you love and everybody else in the country," Johnson added in the video.
Vaccines have apparently "broken the chain" between catching COVID-19 and becoming seriously ill, chief of National Health Service Providers Chris Hopson told Sky News.
Though hospitalization numbers have been increasing with the COVID-19 variant first detected in India, "they are increasing slowly," Hopson added. "The levels are significantly lower than we have seen in previous waves."
Since the pandemic began, Britain has reported over 4.5 million cases and 128,099 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins global tracker.
Amid a surge in India, governments in Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Goa extended their COVID-19 lockdowns on Saturday through June 14. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin noted some of the restrictions will be eased from Monday except in 11 districts with a high number of new cases.
India reported Saturday 120,529 new COVID-19 cases and 3,380 new deaths over the last 24 hours, data from the country's health ministry shows.
Since the pandemic began, India has reported the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases worldwide at over 28.6 million cases, trailing only the United States which has over 33.3 million cases, the Johns Hopkins global map shows.
India has also reported the third-highest number of deaths at more than 340,000, trailing only Brazil with more than 470,000 deaths and the United States with more than 590,000 deaths.
Worldwide, more than 170 million people have contracted COVID-19 and more than 3.7 million have died from the disease, according to the global tracker.
Cruise ship travel has been halted more than a year amid early outbreaks and ongoing pandemic, but Royal Caribbean announced Friday a comeback for the summer with sailing from ports in Florida and Texas in July and August. The come back will began on July 2 in Miami with a Fourth of July weekend sailing on Freedom of the Seas to CocoCay island in the Bahamas.
Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley said "rollout of vaccines," has helped the comeback, and thanked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and city and county officials for their support.
