Confirmed coronavirus cases across the UK have jumped by 12,872 - nearly double the previous 24 hour record.
The former record was 7,143 however the latest figure includes cases previously missed going back to September 24.
The figures are usually released daily by the Department of Health on its website at 4pm but today they were not made public until 8.45pm.
The Government said that, as of 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 12,872 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK. It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 480,017.
The Government added that due to a technical issue, which has now been resolved, there has been a delay in publishing a number of cases, meaning the total reported over the coming days will include some additional cases from the period between September 24 and October 1.
Experts have previously warned that describing the daily figure as a record could be “misleading” as it is not clear how many people were actually infected during the height of the first wave due to a lack of community testing at the time.
The Government also said a further 49 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Saturday. This brings the UK total to 42,317.
While separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been nearly 57,900 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
