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UK Covid death toll rises by 165 as cases continue to fall from latest peak

It is the lowest number of deaths since the week to September 3 (Victoria Jones/PA)

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Barney Davis @BarneyDavisES

28 October 2021

The UK has recorded 165 new Covid-19 related deaths in the past 24 hours - taking the official death toll to 140,206.

Covid cases have fallen below 40,000 for the first time since October 26, with 39,842 new cases reported on Thursday.

In the past week, 295,549 people had a confirmed positive test result - a week-on-week decrease of 9.8 per cent.

It came as the much-maligned Test and Trace scheme said they wouldn’t be able to provide an update on the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England this week due to a “data quality issue”.

Last week’s report said 257,196 people had tested positive at least once in the seven days to October 13 – the highest number since the seven days to July 21.

Meanwhile, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said all seven countries remaining on the travel red list – Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru and Venezuela – would be removed as of 4am on Monday.

In a series of tweets, he said the category would remain in place “as a precautionary measure” in case countries needed to be added back in.

He said: “All seven remaining countries on the red list will be REMOVED from Mon 1 Nov at 4am.

“We can also confirm that from Monday, eligible travellers from over 30 new countries and territories including Peru & Uganda will be added to our inbound vax policy, bringing the total number of countries on this list to over 135.

“We will keep the red list category in place as a precautionary measure to protect public health and are prepared to add countries and territories back if needed, as the UK’s first line of defence.”

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