A nurse is seen swabbing the occupants of a car at a drive through Covid-19 testing station at Chessington World Of Adventures in Surrey (Picture: Getty)

The UK coronavirus death toll has reached 1,228 after another 209 people were confirmed dead.

The Department of Health updated the toll after 190 patients died in England and Wales recorded ten more deaths. A further six people were confirmed dead in Northern Ireland, while Scotland recorded one more death today.

Today’s leap in deaths is the latest worrying daily increase, which follows a sharp rise of 260 deaths on Saturday – the biggest day-on-day increase since the outbreak began.

A total of 19,522 people in the UK have tested positive for coronavirus, while 108,215 have tested negative.


The UK coronavirus death toll has jumped to 1,228 while 19,522 patients have tested positive for Covid-19

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Boris Johnson chairs the morning coronavirus meeting via a video link after he tested positive for Covid-19 (Picture: Andrew Parsons / 10 Downing Street)

It comes as cabinet minister Michael Gove warned the nationwide lockdown could last longer if people do not stick to the quarantine rules.



He told Sky News: ‘It depends on all of our behaviour. If we follow the guidelines, we can deal more effectively with the spread of the disease.’

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But the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said the public appear to be listening to the advice and staying at home.

He said: ‘At the moment, all the evidence is that people are observing the rules, if you look at the number of people on public transport that has fallen, if you look at footfall in supermarkets and other stores, that has fallen as well.’

Meanwhile, the NHS has received a huge boost from the public after 750,000 people signed up to a volunteer scheme – three times the initial target.

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A temporary halt was being placed on the scheme so the Royal Voluntary Service could process applications and get the scheme up and running.

With the Prime Minister working in isolation in his Downing Street flat after testing positive for Covid-19, Mr Gove insisted the PM remained ‘very firmly in charge’.

He said Mr Johnson would hold another meeting by video conference on Sunday, and confirmed that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is the ‘designated deputy’ if his condition worsened and he could no longer govern.

Mr Gove announced the Government had hit its initial 10,000-a-day target for testing, but he refused to give a timeline for when all NHS and social care workers will be tested

The army is helping set-up the temporary hospital at the ExCeL London exhibition centre (Picture: AFP via Getty)

Soldiers from the Royal Anglian Regiment help build the Nightingale Hospital (Picture: UK Ministry of Defence)

Despite increasing demands, he said that it is hoped to ‘be able to test as many frontline workers at the earliest possible stage’.

But calls were growing for much more extensive testing, with practising A&E doctor and Labour MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan saying it was ‘absolutely urgent’ that health workers had access to testing ‘immediately’.

‘These are the people who are at the frontline, these are people who need to know whether or not they have the virus or not,’ she told Sky.

Meanwhile, an early study of critical care outcomes showed that the mortality rate of patients admitted to intensive care with a confirmed case of coronavirus is close to 50%.



The report, by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC), shows that out of 165 admissions to critical care units in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 79 patients have died and 86 were discharged.

A further 609 patients were last reported as still being in intensive care.

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