The UK's COVID-19 death toll has passed 100,000, one of the worst in the world

• The UK's COVID-19 death toll exceeds 100,000, according to official data issued Tuesday.
• It follows a recent spike in hospitalizations and deaths, fueled in part by a new variant of the virus.
• The UK has been one of the nations hardest hit by the coronavirus.

The number of people who have died with COVID-19 in the UK since the pandemic began now exceeds 100,000, data from the UK Office for National Statistics shows.

The figures from the UK's statistics authority are based on the number of people who have died with COVID-19 infections recorded on their death certificates, and don't overlap exactly with other measures.

New figures from the ONS based on figures from England, Wales Scotland, and Northern Ireland reveal that 7,766 virus-related deaths were recorded in the UK in the most recent week, up to January 15.

In that week, of the 7,245 deaths in England and Wales where COVID-19 was recorded on the death certificate, 90% had the coronavirus recorded as the underlying cause of death.

More than three quarters of those deaths were among people aged 75 or over.

The data differs from that in the UK government's daily figures, which are tallied on the basis of people who died after having a recent positive COVID-19 test.

By that measure, the UK death toll as of Tuesday was 98,531.

The UK is one of the nations hit hardest by the coronavirus, with a more contagious strain emerging in the winter that has placed a severe strain on health services.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last week that the new strain could also be more deadly.

According to data compiled by BBC News, the UK has the fifth-highest number of deaths in the world, behind the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.