Top scientists to review impact of UK coronavirus lockdown
The government’s top scientific advisers will meet today to review the impact of the UK coronavirus lockdown.
They will pass their findings to the government, though ministers have said it is unlikely the coronavirus lockdown will ease soon.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab yesterday ruled out any change to the UK coronavirus lockdown “until we’re confident…that any such changes can be safely made”.
His comments came after Prime Minister Boris Johnson was discharged from hospital over the Easter weekend. He is now convalescing at Chequers with his pregnant fiancee, Carrie Symonds.
Johnson has praised the NHS and said “things could have gone either way” for him. The PM spent three days in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Meanwhile, the UK coronavirus death toll jumped by 717 yesterday to hit 11,329.
Raab said there were positive signs the UK was beating the Covid-19 outbreak.
But chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said he expected the number of daily deaths from coronavirus to continue to rise this week.
The UK death toll will then plateau for up to another three weeks before beginning to decline, Vallance said.
“In the meantime, the government will continue to redouble all our efforts,” Raab said.
UK lockdown ‘will beat coronavirus’
“If we keep up this incredible team effort, we will beat the virus and come through this national test. Our plan is working, please stick with it and we’ll get through this crisis together.”
But the government faces criticism for only recording hospital deaths from coronavirus.
The Labour party and critics say this figure ignores older people who die in care homes during the lockdown without being tested for coronavirus.
“The current figures are airbrushing older people out like they don’t matter,” Caroline Abrahams, director of charity Age UK, said.
Labour has pressed the government to publish daily figures of deaths in care homes to show the “true scale” of the coronavirus impact.