Total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in UK passes 500,000

A member of staff collects a completed test kit from a visitor at a Covid-19 testing centre in Southwark (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The total number of lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK has now passed 500,000, as it emerged that thousands of cases were not included in daily reports due to a technical issue with the British government’s Covid-19 dashboard.

Public Health England (PHE) said its investigation into the technical issue identified that 15,841 cases between September 25 and October 2 were not included in the reported daily Covid-19 cases.