The Government has announced that, as of 9am on Tuesday, there had been a further 60,916 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK – the highest daily total reported so far.
It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 2,774,479.
The Government said a further 830 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Tuesday, bringing the UK total to 76,305.
60,916 new #COVID19 positive cases, and 830 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, have been reported today across the UK.
— Public Health England (@PHE_uk) January 5, 2021
More here: https://t.co/XhspoyTG79 pic.twitter.com/WO61DLtcrp
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 92,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
READ MORE: Covid: Scottish fire stations piloted as new sites for Covid-19 testing
Yvonne Doyle, medical director for Public Health England, said: “The rapid rise in cases is highly concerning and will sadly mean yet more pressure on our health services in the depths of winter.
“That is why if we can, we must stay at home, reduce contacts and do everything possible to break the spread of this virus.
“It is by no means easy, but now more than ever we must all do our part to protect the NHS and save lives.”
Meanwhile in Scotland, 2,529 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in the last 24 hours - as well as 11 deaths.
READ MORE: Cases, deaths and hospital admissions: The latest coronavirus data for your area
According to the First Minister, the new variant is responsible for around 50 per cent of the cases.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel