Another 28,773 coronavirus cases and 37 deaths within 28 days of a positive test have been reported on Tuesday.

This compares to 27,334 cases and nine deaths reported yesterday, and 20,479 COVID cases and 23 deaths last Tuesday.

It is the highest figure since 29 January, when the UK reported 29,079 new cases of the virus.

Meanwhile another 224,776 coronavirus vaccines were administered on Monday – 76,962 first doses and 147,814 second doses.

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It means the total number of people who have had a first jab now stands at 45,428,681 and 33,874,176 have had a full course of inoculations.

It comes as Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced that, from 16 August, people who are double jabbed will no longer need to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID.

And the school bubble system is being scrapped from the same date, with Education Secretary Gavin Williamson saying contact tracing will be taken over by NHS Test and Trace.

Children who are notified by Test and Trace as being a contact of someone who has tested positive will be advised to take a PCR test.

Mr Williamson added that secondary and college pupils will be required to take two tests on-site at the start of the autumn term and continue to take two tests a week at home until the end of September, when the policy will be reviewed.

Mr Javid also confirmed the UK could see as many as 100,000 cases per day, as the government aims towards a mass ease of government restrictions on 19 July – including removing the legal requirement to wear masks.

He said the “reason we can make the decisions we have made” is because of the vaccine, which he describes as a “wall of defence”.

During a Downing Street press conference on Monday, Boris Johnson announced his intentions for the next step of his roadmap out of lockdown, with a move from “government diktat” to individual responsibility.

England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance had a more sombre outlook – saying the link between cases and hospitalisations and cases was “weakened” but “not broken”.

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