UK coronavirus death toll approaches 100,000 as new cases continue to fall

Watch: UK death toll at 98,531

Almost 600 more people have died after contracting Covid in England as new cases continue to fall.

The Government said a further 592 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Monday, bringing the UK’s official death toll to 98,531.

The Government also said that, as of 9am on Monday, there had been a further 22,195 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK. This is the lowest number of new cases since December 15.

It comes as Boris Johnson said England’s schools would reopen “as fast as possible” as he faced pressure from within his own party to set out a timetable for pupils to return.

The Prime Minister said the Government would be “looking at the potential of relaxing some measures” as England’s lockdown restrictions are reviewed on February 15 but could not guarantee that pupils would return to classes before Easter.

“There’s nothing I want to do more than reopen schools, I’ve fought to keep schools open for as long as I possibly could,” Mr Johnson said.

“We want to see schools back as fast as possible, we want to do that in a way that is consistent with fighting the epidemic and keeping the infection rate down.”

The Prime Minister faced pressure to set out a timetable for pupils to return to class – currently only vulnerable children and those whose parents are key workers are attending school, with home learning for all others.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the Government would examine the data “and that will inform what we may or may not be able to ease from (February) 15 onwards”.

He added: “It has always been our intention to ease restrictions where we can from that point on the 15th, and schools are obviously our top priority.”

The Prime Minister was speaking on a visit to a vaccination site at Barnet Football Club in north London as the latest figures showed 6,573,570 people in the UK have received a first dose of vaccine – a rise of 220,249 on the previous day’s figures.

Watch: PM will consider relaxing Covid measures in mid-Feb

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