The UK's coronavirus death toll has reached more than 18,000 after the death of 763 more people suffering from the disease.
England reported 665 new deaths on Wednesday, Scotland reported 77, Wales had 15 new deaths and six more people died in Northern Ireland.
Today's rise of 763 deaths is the lowest Wednesday increase in the last three weeks, as last Wednesday saw a rise of 904 UK deaths and the week before the figure was 936.
The total death toll is now 18,100 across the UK, as of 5pm on April 21, the Department of Health and Social Care confirmed.
In England, the total number of hospital deaths rose to 16,272 from 15,607 today, health officials said.
The true UK toll will be far higher when deaths in care homes, privates homes and hospices - for which there is no official running total - are included.
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New figures released separately on Tuesday found that coronavirus deaths were 41% higher in England and Wales than the Government's hospital-only figures up to April 10.
Until Tuesday, the UK saw two consecutive drops in the daily number of new coronavirus deaths - from 885 on Saturday to 534 on Sunday and down to 463 on Monday.
Monday's single-day total was the lowest in two weeks since 441 fatalities were reported on April 6.
But then yesterday Britain's coronavirus hospital death toll rose to 17,408 after 873 more fatalities were reported in 24 hours - a huge rise after lower figures at the weekend.
Figures reported from the weekend tend to be lower because many deaths from Saturdays and Sundays are not counted until later, resulting in a spike in the following weekdays.
England's death toll reaches 16,272
NHS England has announced 665 new deaths of people who tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 16,272.
Of the 665 new deaths announced today:
- 119 occurred on April 21
- 254 occurred on April 20
- 108 occurred on April 19
The breakdown by area of where the deaths in England occurred is:
East of England: 70
London: 173
Midlands: 113
North East & Yorkshire: 103
North West: 90
South East: 87
South West: 29
The figures also show 175 of the new deaths recorded took place between April 1 and April 18, and the remaining nine deaths occurred in March, with the earliest new death taking place on March 22.
NHS England releases updated figures each day showing the dates of every coronavirus-related death in hospitals in England, often including previously uncounted deaths that took place several days or even weeks ago.
This is because of the time it takes for deaths to be confirmed as testing positive for Covid-19, for post-mortem examinations to be processed, and for data from the tests to be validated.
The figures published today by NHS England show April 8 currently has the highest total for the most hospital deaths occurring on a single day: 828.
Scotland's death toll rises by 77
A total of 1,062 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, up by 77 from 985 on Tuesday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said today.
The figures are lower than the 1,616 deaths given by the National Records of Scotland as they do not include suspected and probable coronavirus infections.
The First Minister said 9,038 people have now tested positive for the virus in Scotland, up by 366 from 8,672 the day before.
There are 155 people in intensive care with coronavirus or coronavirus symptoms, a decrease of 11 on Tuesday, she added.
There are 1,776 people in hospital with confirmed or suspected Covid-19, down from 1,866 yesterday.
Since March 5, 1,813 patients who tested positive have been discharged from hospital.
Wales confirms the death of 15 more patients
Public Health Wales said a further 15 people have died after testing positive for coronavirus in Wales, bringing the total number of deaths there to 624.
A further 274 people had tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 8,124.
There were 964 tests carried out on Tuesday, with a total of 28,088 now completed across Wales.
Dominic Raab earlier told Parliament that 69 heathcare workers have died from coronavirus.
The First Minister, standing in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, revealed the number in the first-ever virtual PMQs in the House of Commons.
Keir Starmer grilled Boris Johnson’s stand-in Dominic Raab on the huge gap between testing capacity and the number of actual tests performed at his first PMQs as Labour leader.
Mr Starmer said the Government is not making full use of its testing capacity to see if people have Covid-19 - and had been “very slow” to respond.
He added: “The Health Secretary made a very important commitment to 100,000 tests a day by the end of April, but yesterday the figure for actual tests was 18,000 a day and that was down from Monday, which was 19,000 tests a day.
“We’re way behind the curve and the end of the month is a week tomorrow. So, what does the First Secretary expect to happen in the next eight days to get us from 18,000 tests a day to 100,000 tests a day?”
Responding, Mr Raab appeared to indicate the government’s target was to have capacity for 100,000 tests a day, which it is not.
