For the second day running the UK has recorded a huge increase in new coronavirus cases - this time even larger than yesterday. 

However, the government has said results from the last two days are "artificially high" due to a previous error. 

The daily update was once again late from the government, this time not coming in until 9.23pm - far later than the usual 4pm. 

It shows that in the past 24 hours there have been 22,961 new positive test results registered in the UK, bringing the total number of cases to 502,978 since the start of the pandemic. 

Yesterday saw 12,872 new cases reported - almost double on the previous day.

However, the government website states: "An issue was identified overnight on Friday, October 2 in the automated process that transfers positive cases data to Public Health England. It has now been resolved.

"The cases by publish date for October 3 and 4 include 15,841 additional cases with specimen dates between September 25 and October 2 — they are therefore artificially high for England and the UK." 

In Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly there has been a rise of 44 cases, bringing the total to 1,481 cases.

This represents a rate of 259 cases per 100,000 people, which while slowly rising is still low compared to many parts of the country.

The latest information from NHS England was updated earlier, showing that nationally a further 28 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 30,166.

Their families have been informed.

No deaths have been recorded in the south west over the last 24 hours.

No deaths relating to coronavirus in Cornwall were registered in the most recent weekly period, latest Office for National Statistics figures reveal.

The figures from the ONS, which has been collating data for deaths in all settings, including hospitals, care homes and the wider community, relate to the week of September 12 to September 18, but were registered up to September 26.

It means that Cornwall's overall coronavirus death toll remains at 210.

In today’s coronavirus-related news:

Cornwall welcomed two million visitors since lockdown restrictions were lifted in July - but tourism businesses still face a battle to survive.

That was the message from Visit Cornwall boss Malcolm Bell when he addressed a meeting of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) this week.

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