The Government said that, as of 9am on Tuesday, there had been a further 7,143 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK – the highest daily figure recorded since the outbreak began.
Experts have previously warned that describing the daily figure as a record could be “misleading” as it is not clear how many people were actually infected during the height of the first wave due to a lack of community testing at the time.
The Government also said a further 71 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Tuesday.
This brings the UK total to 42,072.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been nearly 57,900 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
The overall number of cases confirmed in the UK as of 9am on Tuesday is 446,156, according to the Government’s coronavirus dashboard.
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