UK records highest daily rise in the number of deaths
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563 people have died in one day the UK after testing positive for coronavirus – bringing the total number of deaths to 2,352. This was the highest daily rise in deaths registered since the outbreak of the pandemic in Britain.
In a tweet, the Department of Health and Social Care said that as of 9am 1 April, a total of 152,979 people have been tested of which 29,474 resulted positive.
The NHS confirmed that 20 of the people who lost their lives in the previous 24 hours had no previous known health conditions. Around a third of deaths happened in London.
There were a number of conflicting messages on the status of the pandemic in the country in the past few days. While Stephen Powis, Medical Director of the NHS noted that there were “green shoots of hope” indicating that distancing measures were working, the deputy chief medical officer responsible for England, Jenny Harries said she was anticipating the number of deaths to increase significantly over the next week or two.
Meanwhile the British Government came under fierce criticism on the fact that little swabbing was being made available to healthcare professionals. Out of over half a million NHS frontline staff, just 2,000 have been tested so far. In a statement, Downing Street indicated that a clear instruction was provided to hospitals to decide themselves how to split tests between workers and patients.
