
Audio By Carbonatix
The number of new daily confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK has topped 60,000 for the first time since the pandemic started.
According to government figures on Tuesday, the number of people who have tested positive was 60,916.
A further 830 people have died within 28 days of a positive test, up from 407 on Monday.
It comes as England and Scotland announced new lockdowns, with people told to stay at home.
At a press conference at Downing Street on Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said 1.3 million people had now been vaccinated in the UK.
He said 23% of people aged over 80 - some 650,000 people - in England had now had the vaccine.
Mr Johnson was joined by the government's chief medical adviser Prof Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.
Mr Whitty said data showed an estimated one in 50 people in private households in England had Covid-19 between 27 December and 2 January - "really quite a large number indeed".
The number of new daily cases has consistently been above 50,000 since 29 December.
Back in the first peak of the pandemic in the spring, the number of daily confirmed cases never went over 7,000.
However, it is thought the true number of cases then was much higher but not picked up because testing capacity was limited. It was estimated that there were about 100,000 new infections a day at the end of March - but there was not the testing to detect it.
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