Britain's coronavirus death toll passed 10,000 after another 737 people died from the virus in the latest count, the health ministry said on Sunday.

The country has now recorded 10,612 deaths in hospitals from COVID-19.

The increase was lower than the nearly 1,000 fatalities recorded on each of the previous two days but means Britain still has one of the highest COVID-19 daily death rates globally.

According to the Wellcome Trust, Britain could be "one of the worst, if not the worst affected country in Europe," with its director Jeremy Farrar telling the BBC that government experts were expecting a second and third wave of infections.

Farrar said that though a vaccine could be available by autumn, it would take longer to ramp up manufacturing to the scale required to vaccinate many millions of people.