ANOTHER 6,968 people have tested positive for coronavirus overnight – as the total number of infections reaches 467,146.
And 66 more people have lost their lives to the deadly bug in the UK.
Cases remains stubbornly high across the country, with the other two highest number of cases taking place on Tuesday (7,143 cases) and Wednesday (7,108 cases).
It takes the total number of positive tests in the UK to 467,146.
Experts have warned the daily figures during the first wave could be misleading as it is unclear how many people were infected during the first wave due to a lack of testing capacity in the community at the time.
Deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test rose on Friday to 66, up from 59 on Thursday but a slight decrease on the 71 deaths recorded on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
Number of new coronavirus cases recorded in 24 hours to 9am on Friday
The number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 is now at 2,376, but is still down from April’s high of 17,172.
Testing capacity is at 310,288, while only 264,979 tests were processed in the same 24 hour period until 9am on Friday.
This is still below the 500,000 tests Boris Johnson had pledged to be carrying out each day by the end of October.
Separate data released by the government on Friday shows the R number – which measures how much the disease is growing or shrinking – is between 1.3-1.6, up from 1.2-1.5 the previous week.
An R number of 1.3 and 1.6 means that on average every 10 people infected will infect between 13 and 16 other people.
