The UK's coronavirus hospital death toll has increased by six - the lowest increase on a Tuesday for five months. - taking the country's total to 34,104.
England reported five new deaths on Tuesday and Northern Ireland recorded one. It was the lowest total on a Tuesday since four deaths were announced on March 10, two weeks before the lockdown began.
No deaths were reported by Wales or Scotland, which last reported a fatality more than a month ago.
New official figures show the UK's true toll is now more than 57,000 - almost 16,000 higher than the Government's total - based on death certificates mentioning Covid-19, including suspected cases.
The latest death figures were announced after Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirmed Public Health England is being scrapped and many of its functions will be merged with the widely-criticised contact tracing service to create the National Institute for Health Protection.
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NHS England reported five new deaths, taking the total number of fatalities in hospitals in England to 29,465.
The victims were aged between 64 and 86, and all five had known underlying health conditions.
Three of the deaths occurred in the North West, while London and the South East had one each. Another two deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.
Northern Ireland's death toll increased by one to 559. It also reported 41 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, bringing its lab-confirmed count to 6,471.
No new coronavirus deaths have been reported in Scotland in the last 24 hours, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.
A total of 2,491 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus.
Speaking during the Scottish Government's daily briefing, the First Minister said 19,407 people have tested positive for the virus in Scotland, up by 49 from 19,358 the day before.
Some seven of these new cases are in the Grampian health board area, 12 in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, six in Lanarkshire and 16 Tayside.
There are 254 people in hospital with confirmed or suspected Covid-19, an increase of six in 24 hours.
Of these patients, three were in intensive care, no change from the previous day.
After announcing the figures, Ms Sturgeon said a rise in the number of pupils contracting Covid-19 is inevitable.
The First Minister spoke about the clusters of the virus across the country, including those affecting schools, at the Scottish Government's coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh on Tuesday.
She stressed the importance of keeping schools open as the harms of children losing out in an education are "considerable".
"But we will inevitably I think see more cases which involve school pupils in the weeks and months ahead," she said.
"In those cases, as has happened in the ones that I've mentioned today, contact tracers will identify if other students or staff at schools need to isolate and will let them and their parents know."
Public Health Wales reported no new deaths. Its toll remains at 1,589.
The number of confirmed cases has increased by 24 to 17,599.
Meanwhile, new figures from the Office for National Statistics show England and Wales recorded their lowest weekly coronavirus death toll since the lockdown went into effect in March.
In the week up to August 7, only 152 fatalities mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate, the lowest seven-day total since the week ending March 20 (103 deaths) - four days before the shutdown began.
The number of coronavirus fatalities decreased or remained the same in every region in England except the North West.
Week-on-week deaths in Wales more than doubled, however, with 24 in the seven days up to August 7 compared with 10 in the previous week.
Just over 57,000 deaths involving Covid-19 have now been registered in the UK.
Figures published on Tuesday by the ONS show that 51,935 deaths involving Covid-19 had occurred in England and Wales up to August 7, and had been registered by August 15.
Figures published last week by the National Records for Scotland showed that 4,213 deaths involving Covid-19 had been registered in Scotland up to August 9 while 859 deaths had occurred in Northern Ireland up to August 7 (and had been registered up to August 12) according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.
Together, these figures mean that so far 57,007 deaths have been registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, including suspected cases.
