A further 589 people in the UK have died after testing positive for coronavirus.
Today's grim update takes the UK official total of deaths from the virus to 18,797.
While harrowing, today's increase of reported deaths is lower than yesterday’s increase of 763 and the rise of 828 on Tuesday.
The death toll update includes 514 further deaths registered in England, 58 in Scotland and 17 in Wales.
Northern Ireland is yet to release its latest data.
NHS England released the following statement with today's sad update: "A further 514 people, who tested positive for the Coronavirus (Covid-19) have died, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 16,786.
"Patients were aged between 31 and 100 years old. 16 of the 514 patients (aged between 37 and 92 years old) had no known underlying health condition.
"Their families have been informed."
As always, we are being told not to read too much into fluctuations in the daily numbers of deaths - with lags in reporting often the reason why we see sudden rises or falls from day to day.
Last night, Chief Medical Adviser had some difficult words of warning for the country and its near future.
He said that while we may be moving through the peak of the virus epidemic, social distancing will need to be in place in the UK for some time to come.
He told reporters at the daily Downing Street press briefing that some social distancing measures would need to stay in place until there was a vaccine or drug which reduced the severity of coronavirus.
