<p class="bodytext">Britain reported 1,564 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test for Covid-19 on Wednesday, a record daily toll, meaning more have died in the second wave of the pandemic than the first wave last year, a health official said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The reported daily number of deaths exceeded the 1,325 recorded on Jan. 8 and comes as Britain battles a new, more transmissible variant of the virus. The government figures showed there were another 47,525 cases, up from 45,533 new cases on Tuesday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">There have now been almost 85,000 deaths in Britain - the fifth-highest figure globally - and 3.2 million have tested positive for Covid-19.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"With each passing day, more and more people are tragically losing their lives to this terrible virus, and today we have reported the highest number of deaths on a single day since the pandemic began," Yvonne Doyle, the Medical Director for Public Health England, said on Twitter.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Although the number of deaths reported daily continues to rise, the number of new cases reported daily over the last week has been below a high of 68,053 also recorded on Jan. 8, suggesting lockdown measures were beginning to take effect.</p>.<p class="bodytext">However, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there were about 32,000 Covid-19 patients in hospitals, about 70% more than during the peak of the first outbreak last April, and he said the risk of intensive care units being overwhelmed was substantial.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"(Health workers) now really are fighting very, very hard to contain this pandemic after months and months in which they've really been working flat out and I think the strain is colossal," he told lawmakers.</p>
<p class="bodytext">Britain reported 1,564 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test for Covid-19 on Wednesday, a record daily toll, meaning more have died in the second wave of the pandemic than the first wave last year, a health official said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The reported daily number of deaths exceeded the 1,325 recorded on Jan. 8 and comes as Britain battles a new, more transmissible variant of the virus. The government figures showed there were another 47,525 cases, up from 45,533 new cases on Tuesday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">There have now been almost 85,000 deaths in Britain - the fifth-highest figure globally - and 3.2 million have tested positive for Covid-19.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"With each passing day, more and more people are tragically losing their lives to this terrible virus, and today we have reported the highest number of deaths on a single day since the pandemic began," Yvonne Doyle, the Medical Director for Public Health England, said on Twitter.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Although the number of deaths reported daily continues to rise, the number of new cases reported daily over the last week has been below a high of 68,053 also recorded on Jan. 8, suggesting lockdown measures were beginning to take effect.</p>.<p class="bodytext">However, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there were about 32,000 Covid-19 patients in hospitals, about 70% more than during the peak of the first outbreak last April, and he said the risk of intensive care units being overwhelmed was substantial.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"(Health workers) now really are fighting very, very hard to contain this pandemic after months and months in which they've really been working flat out and I think the strain is colossal," he told lawmakers.</p>