Another 516 people have died with coronavirus in the UK in 24 hours, government data has shown.
It brings the official UK death toll from Covid-19 to 63,082.
At the height of the first wave, in April, 1,072 deaths were recorded in a single day.
Another 20,964 new Covid-19 cases were also recorded in Britain in the past 24 hours, the largest daily increase since mid-November.
The figure is a significant increase from the 16,578 new infections announced on Wednesday.
Over the past seven days, 113,651 people tested positive, an increase of 12.7 per cent on the previous week, the figures showed.
The daily toll is roughly in line with data on recent deaths within 28 days of a positive test by date reported. On Monday, 189 deaths were recorded, but the number was as high as 616 on Tuesday.
For the second week running, there has been a change in how the number of contacts reached through NHS Test and Trace are calculated and reported.
Last week, it was revealed that under-18s in a household are no longer all being traced individually, and instead a parent or guardian is now asked to confirm they have told their child to self-isolate.
This method has since been extended to cover adults in the same household, who can now be recorded as having been reached via a single phone call.
The change means it is once again not possible to compare historically the proportion of contacts that have been reached each week under Test and Trace.
Under the old system, 60.5 per cent of close contacts were reached in the week ending 18 November.
But under the new system, 85.7 per cent of close contacts were reached in the week ending 2 December.
