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The UK recorded 981 deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test on Wednesday, the highest number since April 24.
The number of new positive tests reported in the 24 hours to 9 a.m. Wednesday was 50,023, down slightly from 53,135 Tuesday.
Actual numbers are likely higher due to some nations reporting no deaths during Christmas and a delay in reporting from some other places during the same period.
The news came shortly after Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that another 20 million people in England move to Level 4 restrictions in an effort to limit the spread of the virus.
This will mean that 44 million people will be at Level 4 as of Thursday (78% of England’s population), 12 million people will be at Level 3 (22% of the population), while no area will be at the Level 2.
Hancock warned that the new highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus, first reported in the UK, was now spreading across England, adding that cases are “rapidly doubling.”
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said that despite requests that students stay home, most elementary schools will open as planned January 4.
Some elementary schools in areas with the highest rates of coronavirus will not open on that date, he added, although it has not yet been revealed which areas it would include.
Exam-year students will return on January 11, and other high school students will follow on January 18, to allow for student and staff testing preparations.
But there was good news earlier on Wednesday, when the UK medicines regulator announced that it had approved a second vaccine for use.
The University of Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine offers a “route out of this pandemic,” Hancock told Sky News.
