The UK has seen another record number of coronavirus deaths in the pandemic within 28 days of a Covid test.
Today, there were 1,820 deaths recorded in the UK in a single day. It surpasses yesterday's record death toll of just over 1,200 deaths.
The government said a further 1,820 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Wednesday, bringing the UK total to 93,290.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 110,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
Government figures show that 1,110 Covid-19 deaths have now been recorded as taking place on January 12 2021 – the highest number of deaths to occur on a single day since the outbreak began.
The government also said that, as of 9am on Wednesday, there had been a further 38,905 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.
It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 3,505,754.
Earlier, the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser said vaccines are not doing enough "heavy lifting" at the moment and case rates need to drop further before the government can consider easing restrictions.
Sir Patrick Vallance said the country still has a long way to go in battling coronavirus – describing scenes in some hospitals as a “war zone” – but added there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Government data up to January 19 shows of the 5,070365 jabs given in the UK so far, 4,609,740 were first doses – a rise of 343,163 on the previous day’s figures.
Some 460,625 were second doses, an increase of 3,759 on figures released the previous day.
The seven-day rolling average of first doses given in the UK is now 281,490.
Based on the latest figures, an average of 399,625 first doses of vaccine would be needed each day in order to meet the government’s target of 15 million first doses by February 15.
