LONDON (Dispatches) - Britain reported 146 new deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test, the highest daily total since March 12, as the impact of last month’s surge in cases fed through into fatalities.
The number of new cases reported fell to 23,510 from 25,161 on Monday - less than half the peak of 54,674 recorded on July 17, shortly before most social distancing measures were removed in England.
But coronavirus cases have begun to creep up again, with 196,047 Britons infected with Covid-19 in the past week, 7 per cent more than the week before and the highest rolling seven-day total this month.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government went ahead with easing Covid-19 restrictions in England owing to a broad vaccination campaign that he said had largely broken the link between infections, hospital admissions and death.
Three quarters of British adults have now received two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, and 89 per cent have received at least one.

France Warns of ‘Extremely Serious’ Covid-19 Crisis
France’s President Emmanuel Macron said that overseas territories, in particular the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, are being hit hard by Covid-19.
“The situation is dramatic,” Macron said as he opened a virtual meeting with his senior cabinet ministers to discuss the epidemic.
France’s government had on Tuesday warned of an “extremely serious” Covid-19 crisis in the country’s overseas territories, especially in the Caribbean, saying that infection rates had climbed to levels unprecedented on the mainland.