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Britain's daily Covid cases have breached 30,000 for the first time since January when the second wave was still raging, and deaths have more than doubled in a week.

Department of Health figures shows there were 32,548 new infections in the past 24 hours, up by a quarter on last week and the highest number since January 23, when there were more than 33,000.

Ministers are pressing on with Freedom Day on July 19 despite the fact cases are doubling every nine days and are expected to rocket past 100,000 by August. The highest number of positive tests in a single day was 68,000 on January 8.

Another 33 Covid deaths were also registered overnight, which was more than twice as many as last Wednesday when there were 14. 

There is roughly one death per every 1,000 cases in Britain at the moment, down from one in 100 in previous waves, but officials expect the ratio to get even lower as more people get vaccinated.  

Latest figures on hospitalisations show there were 386 Covid admissions on July 3, an increase of about 45 per cent on the previous week.

Hospital admissions now appear to be growing exponentially but the vaccine effect means there are still 10 times fewer patients being hospitalised each day now compared to late January when cases were last this high.