Boris Johnson remains in intensive care but is "improving" and "sitting up in bed" engaging with doctors, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has said.

The prime minister was moved into intensive care at St Thomas' Hospital in London on Monday night - more than a week after he tested positive for coronavirus - when his health deteriorated.

Mr Johnson was initially admitted to hospital for tests on Sunday night after continuing to display COVID-19 symptoms.

'PM is sitting up in bed' - Rishi Sunak

Speaking at Downing Street's daily coronavirus briefing on Wednesday, Mr Sunak said the prime minister was receiving "excellent care" from his NHS team.

"The latest from the hospital is the prime minister remains in intensive care where his condition is improving," the chancellor said.


"I can also tell you that he has been sitting up in bed and engaging positively with the clinical team.

"The prime minister is not only my colleague and my boss but also my friend, and my thoughts are with him and his family."

Mr Sunak said the prime minister's situation "reminds us how indiscriminate this disease is".

He added: "We'll all trying our absolute best, none of us are superhuman and impervious to getting sick during this process.

"And that's what makes this whole thing so awful for all of us."

Responding to the update on the prime minister, Health Secretary Matt Hancock posted on Twitter: "So good that the PM is sitting up and his condition is improving.

"He will fight through!"

Downing Street later said Mr Johnson "continues to make steady progress", with Number 10 having earlier described the prime minister as remaining in "good spirits" after spending his third night in hospital.

Mr Johnson was responding to treatment and no longer working, his spokesman said.

The prime minister has received oxygen support but is breathing without any other assistance.

Speaking alongside Mr Sunak at Wednesday's press briefing, the government's deputy chief scientific adviser Professor Angela McLean said the spread of coronavirus in the UK was "not accelerating out of control".

NHS England's national medical director Professor Stephen Powis said the UK was "beginning to see the benefits" of lockdown measures in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

But he warned now "is not the time to become complacent" and appeared to admonish Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho for holding a training session with one of the football club's players.

Prof Powis said: "It's not the time to think that the job is being done.

"This is the time to continue... whether you're me, whether you're a member of the public, frankly if you're a football team, to continue to keep with social distancing and ensure that the hard work - and the hardship that everybody is no doubt encountering - leads to those benefits."

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Mr Sunak revealed there will be a meeting of the government's emergency COBRA committee on Thursday, to be chaired by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and involving the leaders of devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

They will discuss how to review the UK's lockdown measures, which Mr Johnson had committed to look again at once they had been in place for three weeks, a period which ends on Easter Monday.

Mr Sunak said: "We committed there would be a review in and around three weeks, that review will be based on the evidence and data provided by SAGE [the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] which will only be available next week.

"But I think rather than speculate about the future, I think we should focus very seriously on the here and now and the present."

There is an expectation that ministers will likely decide to rollover the lockdown measures and keep stringent social distancing guidance in place for longer, with the government having said it is unclear when the coronavirus outbreak will peak in the UK.

Mr Raab - who is now deputising for Mr Johnson - chaired the daily morning meeting of the government's coronavirus "war cabinet" for the third day in a row on Wednesday.

As of 5pm on Tuesday, 7,097 people had died in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus in hospitals.