Britain has announced less than 100 deaths in one day, as 77 more victims are recorded in the preliminary tally.
It’s the lowest since March 23, when 74 deaths were recorded before the crisis in the UK spiralled out of control. However, there is always a dip in figures at the weekend.
Department of Health bosses, who promise to release a daily Covid-19 update at 2pm ‘or shortly after’, have yet to announce the final tally.
It may push the daily count over 100 because the preliminary count, calculated by adding up all of the individual countries’ updates, is often lower.
But in signs of progress, health chiefs at Scotland reported no new deaths – the first time since March 20 – and Northern Ireland dipped to zero after days of reporting one or two deaths.
NHS England today recorded 72 more deaths in patients who tested positive for the virus in hospitals only, while Wales recorded five more over all settings.
It brings the total to 40,430 – a figure which a scientific advisor to the Government today said could have been far lower had the lockdown been implemented sooner.
In other coronavirus developments today:
- A member of Sage, Professor John Edmunds, said Britain should have gone into lockdown earlier and waiting until March 23 ‘cost a lot of lives’;
- Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to reduce the two-metre social distancing rule to one metre in order to save 3.5million jobs in hospitality;
- Public Health England did refused to do mass coronavirus testing in the community for months until the job was handed to the Office for National Statistics, it has been revealed, which left ministers making ‘decisions in the dark’;
- Patients face a two-year wait for elective surgery even if there is no second spike in coronavirus cases, a study has found.
One of the Government’s top science experts said today Britain should have gone into lockdown earlier and failing to impose restrictions sooner ‘cost a lot of lives’.
Professor John Edmunds, who attends meetings of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said he regretted that ministers had not acted quicker to impose draconian curbs on the nation.
He also warned the coronavirus crisis is ‘definitely not over’ and that there is still ‘an awful long way to go’ before the disease is defeated. He said the nation could not yet ‘relax’ and if people do then the ‘epidemic will come back very fast’.
Asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show what he regretted about the action taken during the outbreak, he said: ‘We should have gone into lockdown earlier.
‘I think it would have been hard to do it, I think the data that we were dealing with in the early part of March and our kind of situational awareness was really quite poor.
‘And so I think it would have been very hard to pull the trigger at that point but I wish we had – I wish we had gone into lockdown earlier. I think that has cost a lot of lives unfortunately.’
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the same programme that he disagreed with Prof Edmund’s view on the timing of lockdown.
‘I think we took the right decisions at the right time and there’s a broad range on SAGE of scientific opinion and we were guided by the science which means guided by the balance of that opinion – as expressed to ministers through the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser,’ he said.
The Government is now in the process of easing lockdown rules as the number of new cases in the UK continues to fall.
Boris Johnson is pushing to reduce social distancing from two metres to one metre under plans to accelerate the reopening of the economy after he was warned millions of jobs could be lost.
Mr Johnson is believed to be keen to slash the distancing rule if the science shows it is safe to do so.
A group of six senior ministers – dubbed the Save Summer Six – has been set up to figure out how to get the UK back to something approaching normal life by July.
The group believes changing the social distancing rule is the key to restarting the economy and that if two metres remains the standard it will prevent many businesses from being able to reopen.
Business Secretary Alok Sharma is said to be speaking to his counterparts in other European nations like the Netherlands and Denmark to see how they moved to 1.5 metres and one metre respectively. The World Health Organisation recommends a one metre minimum.
Mr Sharma reportedly told Mr Johnson in a meeting last week that if the hospitality sector is unable to get back up and running it could cost 3.5million jobs, prompting the PM to blurt out: ‘Christ!’
As a result the PM is believed to have resolved during a meeting with Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Friday to quicken the easing of lockdown with one Cabinet source saying the premier wants the country to be ‘back to normal or as near as possible to it by the summer’.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed lockdown could have been easier had health chiefs not refused to start mass testing for months.
Public Health England would not take on a community testing programme despite scientists pressing its importance, minutes from a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies show.
The work had to be picked up by the Office for National Statistics but did not come until April 17 – three weeks after lockdown on March 23.
There had been warnings as early as February 18 PHE would not be able to track and track more than five Covid cases a week.
The agency has insisted this is untrue but has refused to divulge what its capacity was.
It comes after it emerged yesterday Britons diagnosed with coronavirus are handing over fewer than two close contacts to the Government’s track and tracers.
A leaked document revealed just 10,000 close contacts were provided by 8,000 people who were diagnosed with coronavirus in England last week.
Experts said yesterday the results were ‘somewhat surprising’ and ‘somewhat disappointing’ and suggest people are still hesitant about handing over phone numbers of friends and family.
Another theory is people are having very few close interactions with other people because of social distancing rules.