The UK's coronavirus hospital death toll has increased by 346 to 51,535 in another sign that the peak of the second wave could be levelling off.
England reported 275 fatalities, Scotland had 30, Wales recorded 29 and Northern Ireland had 12 . By comparison, the number of deaths announced on recent Fridays was 354 on December 4, 408 on November 27, 401 on November 20, 342 on November 13 and 270 on November 6.
The lowest toll announced on a Friday was five on August 21, while the highest was 953 on April 10, when the UK was going through the initial peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It comes as Sage says the number of new infections across the UK is shrinking by between zero and 2% every day, but it is not confident that R is below 1 in all