UK coronavirus outbreak has reached peak, says health secretary Matt Hancock
Health secretary Matt Hancock confirmed today that that the UK coronavirus outbreak has reached its peak.
Speaking in the House of Commons today, Hancock confirmed that the pandemic had hit its peak in the UK and that new cases were starting to drop.
“As we reach – have reached the peak – and as we bring the number of new cases down, so we will introduce contact tracing at large scale,” Hancock said.
“The introduction of the new NHS app for contact tracing is also in development”.
Some scientists have suggested the the UK could have already passed the peak of the virus. Sir David Spiegelhalter, of the University of Cambridge, told the BBC that the situation was “steadily” but slowly improving.
Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said yesterday that the the virus peaked in the UK on 8 April, the Telegraph reported.
However, on Sunday England’s deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries said it was premature to say the UK had passed the peak, but she added “I do think things are looking to be heading in the right direction”.
The UK’s coronavirus death toll yesterday surpassed 17,000 after a further 823 people died after testing positive for Covid-19. So far, 397,670 people have been tested of which 129,044 tested positive.
The latest figures on coronavirus deaths and infections in UK hospitals will be published this afternoon.