More than 150,000 people in the UK have lost their lives after testing positive for Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.
The grim milestone comes as cases continue to surge across the country.
A further 146,390 lab-confirmed cases of the virus were recorded in the UK as of 9am on Saturday, the Government said.
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The UK Health Security Agency announced a further 313 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus - bringing the total to 150,057.
Today's numbers are a sobering reminder of the toll the pandemic has had on British lives since it was declared in March 2020.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show the true number of covid-related deaths to be much higher.
There have now been 174,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, the ONS say.
The UK is the seventh country in the world to pass 150,000 deaths after the US, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico and Peru.
Omicron is continuing its grip over the nation as case rates continue to rise.
Areas such as the North West and North East of England are now seeing the most "concerning" rates of the strain, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M) has said.
Dr Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick, told Times Radio that cases are "slowing down" in London but scientists need two weeks to see if this continues.
He added: "Most other parts of the country are about two to three weeks behind where London is in their epidemic profile.
"Particularly concerning is the North East and the North West – if you look at hospital admissions in those two regions they are going up, also the Midlands, where I live, that’s also a little bit concerning, so it is a worry.
"On the slightly more positive side, so it doesn’t sound all doom and gloom, what we are seeing from hospital admissions is that stays in hospital do appear to be on average shorter, which is good news, symptoms appear to be a little bit milder, so this what we are seeing consistently with the Omicron variant."
Hospitals in the North West - and particularly in Greater Manchester are currently battling large numbers of admissions alongside high levels of staff sickness.
More than 21,000 days were lost in Greater Manchester hospitals last week, as scores of staff were sick or forced to self-isolate due to the coronavirus wave unfolding across the country.
There were 7,543 staff absent for any reason on January 2, the equivalent of one in eight members of staff being for Covid, as well as other sickness and stress.
On January 2, 89.3 per cent of the 5,427 beds open across Greater Manchester hospitals were full.
Anything above 85 per cent is 'extremely uncomfortable', Greater Manchester health chief, Sir Richard Leese, has warned in the past.
