The UK has recorded another 29,520 coronavirus cases, according to the latest daily figures.

A further 93 people have died within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test, daily government figures show – taking the total figure to 130,894 since the start of the pandemic.

On Friday, 32,700 new infections and 100 deaths were recorded – and last Saturday saw 28,612 cases and 103 deaths.

Meanwhile, another 39,047 first vaccine doses and 166,952 second jabs were administered.

A total of 47,254,399 people have had a first dose, and 40,372,981 adults are fully jabbed – equivalent to 76.3% of the adult population.

It comes after England’s R number was found to have fallen yesterday, with the figure now sitting between 0.8 and 1.

This means for every 10 people who have the virus, between eight and 10 more get infected.

Scientists advising the government expect COVID-19 deaths and hospital admissions in the UK to fall for the rest of August, despite the reopening of the economy at the end of last month.

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Projections from modelling committee SPI-M, released by the government on Friday, suggest that deaths and hospital admissions will continue to decline across the country until around 25 August.

The projections, which are based on trends in the data up to 2 August, have a large range of possible outcomes and the scientists on the committee stress they are “not forecasts or predictions”.

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