The UK official coronavirus death toll has risen by 134 in the past 24 hours to reach 37,048.

The Department of Health's daily update reinforces the trend of the virus curve flattening, although there can be a reporting lag for deaths over Bank Holiday weekends.

As of 9am 26 May, there have been 3,681,295 tests, with 109,979 tests on 25 May.

The Department announced that 265,227 people have tested positive.

Earlier NHS England revealed another 116 people had died in hospitals and, of those, only one - a 71-year-old - had no underlying health conditions.

In the North West 30 people died, 18 in the North East and Yorkshire, 23 in the Midlands, 15 in the East of England, 14 in the South East, ten in London and six in the South West.

The official death toll has topped 37,000 (
Image:
Getty Images)

While the official death toll now stands at just over 37,000, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said that the total is actually 10,000 higher.

The true number of deaths is now more than 47,000, according to the ONS, which also revealed the lowest weekly total in six weeks.

Excess deaths during the UK's outbreak are now just under 60,000, the ONS figures show.

For the first time, deaths in care homes accounted for more than half of the total number of fatalities with Covid-19.

In further grim news, it was reporter earlier today that the UK now has the highest coronavirus death rate per capita in the world.

The UK now has the highest rate of confirmed deaths from Covid-19 worldwide

Although cases are declining overall, the UK had 4.54 deaths per million residents per day on a rolling seven-day average, according to figures from the Our World in Data website.

It is slightly higher than Sweden's rate of 4.51, the researchers found.

Britain and Sweden are followed by Brazil (4.4), tiny San Marino (4.21) and the US (3.52) based on data for the week up to Monday.

Excluding San Marino, given its small population of 34,000, Belgium still has the highest per capita death rate over the entire course of the pandemic, followed by Spain, Italy, the UK, France and Sweden.