UK Covid-19 cases surge by 12,872 as 49 more deaths recorded

The UK's Covid-19 cases have surged after more than 12 thousand people tested positive for the virus, the latest figures have revealed.

The government said that, as of 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 12,872 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK. 

It added that a further 49 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus as of Saturday - bringing the UK total to 42,317.

The figure of 12,872 new cases - which puts the UK's total number of cases at 480,017 - is the highest daily rise since the pandemic began, but experts have warned against describing high totals as records.

They say it could be “misleading” to describe a total as a record because 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.

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The government added that due to a technical issue, which has now been resolved, there has been a delay in publishing a number of cases, meaning the total reported over the coming days will include some additional cases from the period between September 24 and October 1.

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.

The number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 is now at 2,428 - still down from April’s high of 17,172.

Data released by the government on Friday shows the R number - which measures how much the disease is growing or shrinking - is between 1.3-1.6, up from 1.2-1.5 the previous week.

An R number of 1.3 and 1.6 means that on average every 10 people infected will infect between 13 and 16 other people.