COVID-19: UK records another 27,301 coronavirus cases and 376 deaths

Another 27,301 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the last 24 hours – down from Thursday’s record high, according to government figures.

It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 1,317,496.

Meanwhile, a further 376 people have died, bringing the total number of fatalities to 51,304.

On Thursday, 33,470 people tested positive for COVID-19 in 24 hours – the highest figure recorded since the pandemic began, according to government figures.

There were also 563 deaths announced on Thursday – down from Wednesday’s figure of 595, which was the highest since mid-May.

Although experts have warned the daily figures could be “misleading” as testing capacity has also grown since the first wave of the pandemic.

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The latest weekly coronavirus figures show the majority of areas in England have seen a rise in case rates for the seven days to 9 November.

Hull now has the highest transmission rate in England with 1,931 new cases recorded – the equivalent of 743.3 cases per 100,000 people.

It is up from the 545 cases per 100,000 in the seven days prior, according to date from Public Health England.

However, the coronavirus reproduction number in the UK has fallen slightly to a maximum of 1.2, government scientists have said, raising hopes the outbreak is slowing.

The R number is an indicator used to determine how quickly coronavirus is spreading by showing the average number of people each person with the virus goes on to infect.

Nationwide, the reproduction (R) number is now between 1.0 and 1.2 – down from between 1.1 and 1.3 last week, according to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).

It means the number of new cases is increasing by between 1% and 3% every day.

But the group cautioned that while the R has dropped in some areas, case numbers there are still “very high”.

(c) Sky News 2020: COVID-19: UK records another 27,301 coronavirus cases and 376 deaths