A record rise in coronavirus cases have been announced by the Government today, with 33,470 people testing positive for coronavirus in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile leading doctors have blasted the UK’s coronavirus death toll as a “terrible indictment” of the Government’s lack of preparation and organisation for the pandemic.
The latest Government data showed that 50,365 people have now died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, making it the first country in Europe to pass 50,000 deaths. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the UK’s death toll was another “grim milestone” in the pandemic.
Meanwhile scientists working on a Covid Symptom Study said the latest data revealed the coronavirus R rate, an average measure of the number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to, is currently below one in the UK.
King's College London epidemiologist Tim Spector, who runs the project, said rates of new disease are “falling slowly” below 36,000 with an R number of 0.9.
