The United Kingdom has recorded 1,295 new COVID-19 deaths and 41, 346 new cases of the coronavirus.
The daily figures released by the Government show the number of Covid deaths is above 1,000 for the fifth consecutive day.
The deaths announced on Saturday, which came within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, bring the official UK total to 88,590.
Figures released earlier showed the UK’s coronavirus hospital death toll has increased by 926 in the highest daily rise since April.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 104,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
The further 41,346 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus bring the total number of cases in the UK to 3,357,361.
The figure is the lowest number of daily injections announced by the Government since Christmas Eve, giving hope that the national lockdown is having an effect.
It comes as a Government expert said the lockdown must continue further as easing restrictions in February would be a “disaster”.
Sage scientist Professor John Edmunds today warned if Boris Johnson lifts shutdowns too soon, the NHS will face “enormous pressure”.
He told the BBC: “I think it would be a disaster if we removed restrictions in, say, the end of February when we have gone through this first wave of the vaccination.”
Separate data released by the Government on Saturday shows more than 3.5million people in the UK have now been given their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
The figures published on Saturday show a rise of 324,233 from Friday’s figures, meaning 3,559,179 have now had their first dose.
The total number of jabs administered in the UK, including both first and second doses, is 4,006,440.
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