[1andrew1]

A record 33,470 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the UK government's latest daily figure.

It is the highest daily number since mass testing began in the UK, and brings the total number of cases to more than 1.29 million.

...But there is no getting away from the fact the jump in positive cases is worrying.

We've not seen this kind of jump before - it is both 10,000 above Wednesday's figure and the current rolling average.

It's unclear why this is. The government says there was no backlog of tests that were processed which could explain it.

The mass testing in Liverpool is not thought to be feeding into the figure yet.

The number of tests processed has gone up, but that has happened previously without returning such a high number of positive cases.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54908680