Another 519 die from Covid - a rise of 122 on last week's death toll as total killed by virus goes past 64,000 while a further 21,502 test positive
Another 519 people have died from Covid-19 as a further 21,502 tested positive for the virus.
It means the number of Britons lost to the disease has hit 64,025, with overall infections since March at 1,830,957.
The NHS England figures are up by 122 on last Saturday, when 397 were recorded to have died, as well as yesterday's tally of 275.
Other data for recent Saturdays include 479 on November 28, 341 on November 21 and 462 on November 14.
Patients who died over the last 24 hours were aged between 38 and 102. All except 11, aged between 63 and 93, had known underlying health conditions.
It comes as councils under England's toughest coronavirus restrictions are to roll out quick result community testing programmes in a bid to cut Covid-19 transmission rates this winter.
An initial wave of some 67 local authorities for Tier 3 areas have received Government approval for testing schemes to help put them on a path towards relaxing local measures.
As part of the Government's Covid winter plan, more than 1.6 million rapid turnaround lateral flow tests would be delivered for use this month, the Department of Health and Social Care said.
It means the number of Britons lost to the disease has hit 64,025, with overall infections since March at 1,830,957
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the enhanced testing programmes follow a successful pilot in Liverpool and will be a 'vital additional tool' in finding asymptomatic cases.
Experts have previously suggested relying on rapid tests that give a result in minutes could mean a high proportion of cases are missed with false negative results.
Preliminary data released on Friday by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies suggested the rapid coronavirus tests rolled out in Liverpool missed around 51 per cent of all Covid-19 cases.
A paper considered by Sage on November 26 said two days earlier the Liverpool Health Protection Board had decided to pause plans to use the Innova lateral flow test to allow care home visits because they were not accurate enough.
The Government began sending the tests to England's biggest care homes a week later.
Earlier this month, Dr Susan Hopkins, senior medical adviser to NHS Test and Trace, defended the use of the tests, saying they had helped find Covid-19 infections in people without symptoms that would otherwise have been missed, helping to break chains of transmission.
She said people with a negative test were not being told they did not have the disease.
Dr Hopkins also argued the test would help make planned visits to care homes safer by identifying people who could be carrying high levels of the virus unknowingly and stopping them passing it on.
An evaluation by Oxford University and Public Health England workers at Porton Down previously concluded the test has an overall sensitivity of 76.8 per cent - but it detects almost all cases among patients with a high viral load.