The UK's latest coronavirus death toll indicates the country is on a worse trajectory than China, according to economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

The country on Tuesday and Wednesday recorded two straight record-high death tolls from the virus, with 944 total deaths in 48 hours.

The Pantheon analysts said this might require a lockdown of three months. The country began a three-week strict lockdown on March 23.

Though there appears to be strong support for the UK lockdown, the economists argued that unrest in Italy indicated it might be politically harder to continue the restrictions for so long.

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The UK is on a much worse trajectory for coronavirus deaths than China, according to economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

The country recorded 381 deaths overnight on Tuesday, which was the country's biggest daily death toll — until Wednesday, when 563 people were announced to have died of the infection. There were 4,324 new cases of infection reported Wednesday, another steep jump upward.

The new numbers were an unwelcome surprise, because in the previous week it appeared that growth in infections was slowing down. That no longer appears to be the case. The UK's stats now show a steeper curve for deaths than that in the US.

The Pantheon economists said that with this rate, a lockdown of three months at least would be needed to bring infections under control. The UK's full lockdown began March 23, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson barred the public from leaving their homes other than for essential jobs and for short supply and exercise trips.

The UK has reported 29,474 coronavirus cases, placing the country behind Italy, Spain, Germany, and France in terms of numbers of infections. But as coronavirus testing is not widespread in the UK, those numbers are likely to be an underestimation.

A chart showing the UK's trajectory on coronavirus deaths over seven-day rolling periods, compared with other affected countries. Pantheon Macroeconomics

"The grim reality is that the U.K. is on a much worse trajectory for deaths than China," the Pantheon economist Samuel Tombs wrote in a report seen by Business Insider. "Britain seems to be charting a dark path no better than that trodden by Italy, with a lag of about two weeks.

"The virus evidently has spread more comprehensively through the population in the UK than in China, implying that deaths will take longer to fall back to levels that might persuade the government to ease the current restrictions crippling the economy."

There appears to be strong public support in the UK so far for the lockdown measures. A snap poll by YouGov conducted shortly after the three-week lockdown plan was announced found that 93% of people "strongly" backed it.

This could be difficult to sustain for three months, however, Tombs wrote. Italy, which has been under lockdown since March 9, is now experiencing unrest, according to Sky News. In some regions, Italians have taken to the streets to beg for food and money. The police have been sent to defend supermarkets after people began stealing food, Sky reported.