UK coronavirus death toll now almost double government's 'best case scenario' after increase of 176

The UK's official coronavirus death toll is now almost double the government's best case scenario of 20,000 deaths.

The death toll jumped again on Thursday with 176 more people dying in the UK after testing positive for Covid-19.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said 39,904 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Wednesday, up by 176 from 39,728 the day before.

It comes after NHS England announced 115 new deaths of people who tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 27,159.

Of the 115 new deaths announced on Thursday, 24 occurred on June 3, 49 occurred on June 2, and nine occurred on June 1.

The figures also show 25 of the new deaths took place in May, seven occurred in April, and the remaining one death took place on March 20.

NHS England releases updated figures each day showing the dates of every coronavirus-related death in hospitals in England, often including previously uncounted deaths that took place several days or even weeks ago.

This is because of the time it takes for deaths to be confirmed as testing positive for Covid-19, for post-mortem examinations to be processed and for data from the tests to be validated.

The figures published on Thursday by NHS England show April 8 continues to have the highest number of hospital deaths on a single day, with a current total of 899.

Meanwhile, Scotland's daily death toll dropped to single figures for the first weekday since just after lockdown began in March.

Nicola Sturgeon said 2,395 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, up nine from 2,386 on Wednesday.

The R number, which measures how many people an infected person passes Covid-19 on to, has reduced from between 0.7 and one to between 0.7 and 0.9 in a week.

Public Health Wales said a further eight people have died after testing positive for coronavirus, taking the total number of deaths in Wales to 1,379.

Another 35 people have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 14,238.

One more person with coronavirus has died in Northern Ireland, taking the total recorded by the Department of Health – a toll primarily accounting for hospital deaths – to 535.

There have been another 33 confirmed cases of the virus, bringing the total since the outbreak began to 4,773.​

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