More than 7,000 people in the UK have tested positive for coronavirus for the second day in a row, with a further 71 deaths from the disease.
On Wednesday the Department of Health said there had been 7,108 new cases confirmed. It is the second highest daily total since the pandemic began, after 7,143 new infections were reported on Tuesday.
However, 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.
According to Government figures 42,143 people have now died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus.
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.
Earlier on Wednesday NHS England said there had been a further 43 Covid-19 deaths in hospitals across the country.
