The UK is just days away from experiencing a similar trajectory in coronavirus death rates as Italy, experts have warned.

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, from Cambridge University, said Britain could face the same problems because cases are doubling roughly every three days.

Boris Johnson has urged people to stay at home to enable "thousands of lives" potentially to be saved.

The prime minister has also said he fears the NHS could become "overwhelmed" like Italian hospitals have.

Image: Statistics from World in Data show the percentage increase in deaths for the UK is slightly higher than Italy over a 12-day period

The number of infections in the UK currently stands at 5,061, and the number of deaths is 281 following a rise of 48 in a day.


Professor Spiegelhalter said a technique called Poisson regression showed that the daily increase in deaths in the UK was almost the same as in Italy.

He said: "To compare rates of exponential growth early on in the epidemic, it is best to fit a line to the logarithm of the observed number of deaths each day, using a technique called Poisson regression.

"This reveals that, over the 12 days following each country reaching five deaths, the daily increase in underlying death rate in the UK (37%) was only marginally higher than that of Italy (35%).

"A difference this size could easily occur by chance, were the countries following a similar underlying trajectory."

Image: The number of cases of COVID-19 in the UK over the past month

Italy reported 793 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, the largest one-day number of fatalities so far reported in any country since the outbreak started.

On Sunday, it was announced by Italian authorities that a further 651 people had died.

There has been a total of 5,476 deaths and 59,138 infections in the country.

The prime minister, Mr Johnson, said of the UK figures: "The numbers are very stark, and they are accelerating. We are only a matter of weeks - two or three - behind Italy.

Sky's Ashish Joshi takes us through which areas of the UK have been most affected by COVID-19.

"The Italians have a superb healthcare system. And yet their doctors and nurses have been completely overwhelmed by the demand. The Italian death toll is already in the thousands and climbing.

"Unless we act together, unless we make the heroic and collective national effort to slow the spread - then it is all too likely that our own NHS will be similarly overwhelmed.

"That is why this country has taken the steps that it has, in imposing restrictions never seen before either in peace or war."

:: Listen to the Daily podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker

Meanwhile, Sky News has analysed figures published by Public Health England.

Image: Daily fatalities in London are increasing at a faster rate than other regions

They reveal that London has four times as many cases as anywhere else in the UK with 1,965 cases.

The boroughs with the highest number of cases include Southwark (134 cases), Lambeth (118 cases), Westminster (110 cases), Brent (108 cases) and Wandsworth (107 cases).

Image: London has four times as many COVID-19 cases as anywhere else in the UK

In the South East, the most populous region, has the second largest total with 499 cases, an increase of 82 on Friday.

In the West Midlands, Wolverhampton recorded the biggest increase in cases with 45. This is almost twice that of any other authority in the region.

Hampshire in the South East has the most confirmed cases of an local authority area in the UK with 138.