The Department of Health has revealed new figures for COVID-19 related deaths in hospitals, care homes and the community.
Another 539 people in the UK who have tested positive for COVID-19 have died, bringing the total number of fatalities to 30,615.
The Department of Health’s figures are for those coronavirus-related fatalities that have occurred in, hospitals, care homes and within the wider community, as of 5pm on Wednesday.
The previous total number, announced yesterday, saw the UK surpass 30,000 deaths after a rise of 649 fatalities, the first country in Europe to do this.
Experts have been urging not to make international comparisons in regards to these figures, as nations record COVID-19 deaths differently.
“It is difficult to make international comparisons with certainty today, there will be a time for that,” Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said at yesterday’s daily coronavirus briefing.
“That’s a hard calculation to do with accuracy today.”
In the past 24 hours, there have been 383 new deaths in hospitals in England,bring the total number of deaths to 22,432.
There have been a further 59 fatalities in Scotland, where the total number of coronavirus-related deaths has now reached 1,762.
This comes after the First Minister of Scotland revealed that the country’s current lockdown restrictions would remain in place for at least another 3 weeks.
Wales has had another 18 people die in the country after having contracted the COVID-19,which brings the number of fatalities to 1,062.
Northern Ireland has seen a further 4 deaths in the country as a result of coronavirus, which brings the total number of lives lost to 422.
There have now been 1,534,533 tests carried out in the UK, of which 206,715 people have tested positive for COVID-19, with 86,583 tests carried out within the last 24 hours, up from 69,463 the day before.
In the week since the deadline, tests have hit the target of at least 100,000 tests daily just twice. Deputy Chief Medical Officer says there was a technical issue with testing over the weekend that has now been resolved.
On testing, Boris Johnson has said:
“We’re working on that, we’re running at about 100,000 a day, but the ambition clearly is to get up to 200,000 a day by the end of this month and then to go even higher.”
He said this in reply to Government Opposition accusing them of manipulating these numbers in order to reach their target of 100,000 tests per day.
