More than 350,000 pings were sent through the NHS Covid-19 app in the week to 30 June, telling users to self-isolate, according to the latest contact tracing figures.
This represents a 62 per cent increase over the previous week and marks the highest number of alerts sent through the app since January.
The chancellor has suggested that strict self-isolation rules for people alerted by the app could soon be relaxed, taking into account the number of people who have been vaccinated.
Worldwide, at least 4 million deaths from Covid-19 have been recorded worldwide, but that is likely to be an underestimate, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the “world is at a perilous point” in the pandemic, with far too many countries in every region of the world experiencing sharp spikes in cases and people admitted to hospital because of variants.
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