The number of people in the UK who have died after testing positive for Covid-19 has passed 60,000. 

It comes after the deaths of 414 people were reported on Thursday, bringing the UK’s death toll to 60,113. 

The grim milestone comes less than nine months after the first UK death from Covid-19 was reported, according to official figures. 

Of the deaths added to the government’s coronavirus dashboard on Thursday, 328 were recorded in England, 51 in Scotland, 24 in Wales and 11 in Northern Ireland. 

Meanwhile, another 14,879 coronavirus infections were also reported in the UK.

The news comes the day after it was announced that the UK’s medicine regulator had approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

The government said the jab – which data has suggested has an efficacy rate of 95% – would be made available from next week. 

The UK has already ordered 40m doses of the free jab – enough to vaccinate 20m people, or a third of the population.

Care home residents and staff will be among the first to be given the vaccine, along with people over the age of 80 and frontline health and social care workers.