The daily UK coronavirus death toll announced by the government each afternoon has been steadily growing in recent weeks.
The country has seen in excess of 9,000 deaths and cases nearing 70,000 as lockdown measures continue to be imposed.
Across the world, Covid-19 deaths are also soaring, with the figure now reaching more than 100,000 as almost two million cases are reported globally.
In parts of the world, including the UK, the so-called 'Tuesday effect' appears to have taken hold - in which the number of recorded deaths appears to rise sharply on this day.
Financial experts have suggested this could be for a number of reasons - including a 'weekend lag' in which official figures take longer than the usual 24 hours to be processed.
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In the NHS, a death is only officially registered when family members are told - and processing this communication to loved ones could be slower on a Saturday or Sunday.
Statistics writer for the Financial Times, John Burn-Murdoch wrote on Twitter : "Every Sunday and Monday, reported deaths are lower than Saturday. Every Tuesday, they rise sharply.
"My theory: we know these numbers are allocated to a day based on when they can be reported, not when the person died.
"We also know they are deaths that occurred before the day of reporting. NHS England only reports a death once family members have been informed.
"Hunch: NHS either make fewer attempts or find it harder to get through to relatives over the weekend (or some other bit of processing slows at weekends.
"So despite deaths occurring on Saturday and Sunday, fewer get processed over the weekend, depressing the reported numbers on Sunday and Monday."
He added: "And then on Mon, that processing/informing bottleneck is cleared, resulting in a glut of deaths in Tuesday’s report."
Other countries have recorded similar patterns in their death figures announced each Tuesday.
Replying to John Burn-Murdoch's tweet, Professor Jakob, from Germany said: "We see the exact same behavior in Germany. Sunday/Monday are the dips, followed by the Tuesday spikes.
"One possible explanation is that local health authorities do not work on Sundays. If anything, this shows the usefulness of the 7-day method."
And another replied: "Something similar happens in Spain. In the media they called it "the Tuesday effect".
"Since there are people who don't work on weekends there's a delay on the information specially in areas outside of big cities (at least is what the media is telling here in Spain)."
Other theories proposed included the fact registry officers are not always accessible at weekends - as well as an unfortunate rise in people flouting lockdown measures at weekends.
This weekend, the government issued warnings for Brits to stick to lockdown measures and stay at home and save lives - despite the predicted glorious Easter weather.
The military and police may also take to patrolling beaches and beauty spots to ensure people are not gathering.
One police chief even warned his force was only “a few days away” from imposing roadblocks.
The Devon & Cornwall force said it would be patrolling the M5 motorway on the Somerset and Devon border to keep tourists away from the area.
Military Defence Police, based in Portsmouth and Plymouth, will be operating along the coastlines in Dorset, Devon and Cornall to ensure people 'do not gather unnecessarily', reported i news on Thursday evening.
Dominic Raab, standing in for Boris Johnson, said the Government would not even begin re-assessing the lockdown until the end of next week and he urged the public to think “long and hard” about the impact on heroic NHS staff if they ignored the rules.
“After all the efforts everybody has made, after all the sacrifices so many people have made let’s not ruin it now,” Mr Raab said.
“Let’s not undo the gains we’ve made, let’s not waste the sacrifices so many people have made. We mustn’t give the coronavirus a second chance to kill more people and to hurt our country.”
Apologising that people would not be able to spend time with their families over Easter he added: “The deaths are still rising. It’s too early to lift the measures that we put in place.”
Ministers launched a Stay at Home This Easter publicity drive designed to make sunseekers think twice.
And stars from sport, and music backed the message. England and Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford, and Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder joined key workers to record clips for a video released by Greater Manchester Police.
The rate of new infections appears to have slowed and officials are confident lockdown is working.
Sources say they now believe Brits with Covid-19 are infecting on average less than one person each.
