UK coronavirus death toll rises by 489 as more than 28,000 test positive for virus

April Roach @aprilroach2818 December 2020

The UK has recorded a further 489 coronavirus deaths with more than 28,000 new confirmed cases of the virus.

The daily death toll figure is higher than the 424 deaths reported by the Government last Friday.

It brings the official death toll to 66,541. But separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies suggest there have now been 82,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.  

The Government said that, as of 9am on Friday, there had been a further 28,507 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.  

It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 1,977,167.

Meanwhile the coronavirus death toll in England hospitals rose by 317 on Friday, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 45,783, NHS England said on Friday.

Patients were aged between 35 and 100. All except eight, aged between 60 and 97, had known underlying health conditions.

The deaths were between November 4 and December 17. Twenty-six other deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.

Coronavirus: Celebrities who have been vaccinated

1/10

It comes after figures published by the Government Office for Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) estimate the figure to be between 1.1 and 1.2.

Last week, the R number was between 0.9 and 1.R represents the average number of people each Covid-19 positive person goes on to infect. When the figure is above 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially.  

An R number between 1.1 and 1.2 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 11 and 12 other people.

Deaths from coronavirus in Wales have now passed 3,000, according to Public Health Wales.

The agency’s latest figures, published on Friday, show another 38 deaths were reported in the previous 24 hours, taking the total during the pandemic to 3,011.

A further 2,801 cases of Covid-19 took the country’s total to 117,367.

Scotland recorded 36 deaths from coronavirus and 744 positive tests in the past 24 hours on Friday, said Health Secretary Jeane Freeman.

It brings the death toll under this measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – to 4,239.

Speaking during the Scottish Government’s daily briefing, Ms Freeman said 110,040 people have now tested positive in Scotland, up from 109,296 the previous day.

Another 12 people with Covid-19 have died in Northern Ireland, bringing the region’s toll to 1,166.

Department of Health figures have also recorded another 510 new cases of the virus. The hospital occupancy rate is 102 per cent.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in