A further 828 people in the UK have died after testing positive for coronavirus, the Department of Health have confirmed.

The country has recorded another 18,262 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 3,929,835.

Cases are down significantly compared to the 70,000 daily infections at the start of January, suggesting lockdown measures have made a significant impact.

The Government’s official death toll, counting people who have lost their lives within 28 days of testing positive, now stands at 112,092.

Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies, including deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, puts the figure at 129,000.

It comes after two postcodes in Worcestershire were added to the list of areas being given door-to-door testing after the South Africa Covid variant was detected.

There are now thought to be 11 parts of the country affected by the highly infectious strain of coronavirus.

With the UK’s second wave subsiding and nearly 11.5million people now having had at least their first dose of the vaccine, Boris Johnson is facing calls to lift lockdown measures.

Outdoor socialising and sports are expected to be allowed again once schools re-open fully on March 8, assuming everything goes to plan.

Ministers are also considering allowing pubs to serve takeaway pints from April and then fully reopen in May, according to the Sun.

Dismissing a report in the Telegraph that pubs could reopen in April but without selling alcohol, a senior Government source said: ‘We are not going to open pubs that can’t sell booze. What would be the point of that?’

The Prime Minister has committed to setting out a ‘road map’ later this month for easing lockdown.

But in a video posted on Twitter yesterday, Johnson warned it was ‘still early days’ and urged the public to continue following the rules.

He said: ‘I want to stress that it is still early days and we have rates of infection in this country (that are) still very, very high and (have) more people – almost twice as many people – in our hospitals with Covid now than there were back at the peak in April.’

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