The death toll for coronavirus patients in UK hospitals has risen to 7,978, an increase of 881 from the day before.

Dominic Raab said more than 65,000 people had tested positive for Covid-19 to date, while around 16,700 people have been admitted to hospital with coronavirus symptoms.

The foreign secretary, who is standing in for Boris Johnson while the prime minister is in intensive care with the virus, said lockdown measures would need stay in place, adding: “We are not done yet. We must keep going.”

“It’s been almost three weeks and we’re starting to see the impact of the sacrifices we’ve all made,” said Mr Raab at the government's press conference on Thursday. “But the deaths are still rising and we haven’t yet reached the peak of the virus.

“It’s still too early to lift the measures that we put in place.”

The government announced a daily death toll of 938 on Wednesday, which was around 150 more than the previous day.

Speaking about the latest figures, professor James Naismith from the University of Oxford said: “It is a mercy that the number of deaths reported today is lower than yesterday but on its own, a single day’s number is of no value in judging the pandemic.”

The director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, a medical research centre, added: “The continuing volatility in daily figure of announced deaths (due to different reporting periods and delays) makes it almost impossible to identify any trend with certainty yet.”

Mr Raab – who is standing in for Boris Johnson while the prime minister is in hospital with coronavirus – said 243,421 people have been tested for Covid-19 as of Thursday.

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The government's chief scientific adviser said were "making a difference" on the infection rate.

"We know that the social distancing is working and we know that people are doing what they're supposed to do and we need to keep doing that," Sir Patrick Vallance told the press conference.

"The reason we need to keep doing that is because it stops the transmission of the virus in the community and we know that that is already happening."

He added: "The message is clear which is the social distancing we are doing is breaking transmission, it is stopping the hospital admissions ... it is preventing more people going into intensive care and it will prevent deaths."

The UK has been in lockdown for several weeks as it battles the Covid-19 outbreak, with people told to stay at home unless it is essential and all non-essential stores ordered to shut.

The government has also banned public gatherings of more than two people in a bid to curb the spread of the disease.