United Kingdom coronavirus update: 12,872 new Covid-19 cases recorded

The United Kingdom has almost doubled its previous single-day record with 12,872 new Covid-19 cases adding that the sharp rise was caused by a technical issue

The United Kingdom has almost doubled its previous single-day record with 12,872 new COVID-19 cases, the Department of Health and Social Care said on Saturday, adding that the sharp rise was caused by a technical issue.

Saturday's rise is a significant increase from the previous single-day record of 7,143 new cases, which was set on Tuesday. According to the department, the latest figure includes cases that were identified from September 24 to October 1 and not included in previous updates.

"Due to a technical issue, which has now been resolved, there has been a delay in publishing a number of COVID-19 cases to the dashboard in England. This means the total reported over the coming days will include some additional cases from the period between 24 September and 1 October, increasing the number of cases reported," the Department of Health and Social Care said.

A total of 480,017 coronavirus cases have been reported in the UK so far, the department said.

A further 49 individuals in the UK have died due to complications from the coronavirus disease over the past 24 hours, raising the total number of people in the country who have died within 28 days of a positive test to 42,317, public health officials said.

Earlier in the day, the UK government introduced a series of tougher social distancing measures, including a ban on people from different households meeting indoors, in parts of northern England deemed to be COVID-19 hotspots.