There has been another record rise in the number of daily Covid cases in the UK, with 183,037 reported on Wednesday.
It is the first time since 24 December that data on daily case numbers has been made available for all four UK countries.
According to data released by the Scottish government, 15,849 people been reported to have tested positive for Covid in the last 24 hours, the highest daily total since the start of the pandemic, surpassing the previous record of 11,030 on 26 December. However the data comes with a warning that the figures include a backlog from before Christmas.
The daily figure for England also broke records, with 138,287 cases reported on Wednesday compared with 117,093 on Tuesday.
The figures refer to the number of cases by date reported, rather than by the specimen date, and reflect infections that are picked up through testing.
Experts have noted it could be several days yet before the impact of infections caught over Christmas becomes apparent in the data. Reinfections are not included in the figures.
Wednesday’s total for the UK surpasses the 138,831 cases reported the day before for Scotland, Wales and England combined – itself a record even with data for Northern Ireland missing – although the figure for Wales in Tuesday’s tally represented the combined number of cases that would have been reported on 25 and 26 December.
A total of 22,972 new cases were reported for Northern Ireland on Wednesday – which included a five-day backlog over Christmas – while 5,929 cases were reported for Wales.
Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said “It is reasonable to assume that we will continue to see steep increases in cases in the days and indeed possibly in the weeks ahead”.
