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The prime minster is set to return to Downing Street as the UK coronavirus death toll tops 20,000. 

According to the latest figures published on Sunday: 

• A further 413 UK hospital deaths of patients who had tested positive for coronavirus have been recorded in 24 hours, bringing the total to 20,732. 
• The number of people who have tested positive in the UK has reached 152,840.

Here’s the latest: 

PM back in Downing Street

Prime minister Boris Johnson has arrived back in Downing Street after recuperating from Covid-19 at his country home Chequers, a Downing Street source said.

He is due to resume work tomorrow and will chair the morning meeting of the government’s coronavirus “war cabinet” – three weeks after leaving Downing Street for hospital.

The PM first said he had tested positive for Covid-19 on March 27 before entering his mandatory period of self-isolation at home.

Due to his symptoms persisting, Johnson was taken to St Thomas’s hospital on April 5. Just hours later, he was admitted to intensive care.

He spent two nights in the intensive care unit at before finally being released from hospital on April 12 to continue his recovery at Chequers. 

On his return to work the PM faces a radically altered situation. When he was admitted to hospital the nation’s death toll stood at 4,934, but as of 5pm on Friday evening, that number had more than quadrupled and now exceeds 20,000.

As the country enters yet another week of lockdown the PM faces mounting pressure to answer questions about a potential exit plan from the situation.

Despite originally setting a review date of April 13, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said on April 16 that the shutdown would be extended for at least three more weeks, with the situation to be reviewed once again on May 7.

At the Downing Street briefing on Saturday, home secretary Priti Patel refused to comment on what the Government’s exit strategy was, saying it would be “irresponsible” to get people’s hopes up.

The row over inadequate levels of PPE and a relatively low number of tests being completed each day also continues to rage, with health secretary Matt Hancock’s target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of April looking unlikely.

The home secretary said on Saturday that 28,760 tests had been carried out on Friday. 

NHS chief warns of second coronavirus surge

British people need to carry on social distancing or risk losing the benefits of the lockdown by causing another surge in coronavirus cases, NHS England’s medical director has said. 

Stephen Powis said that despite the death rate, infections and hospital admissions decreasing, now is not the time to say “we’ve done a good job” and stop complying with the restrictions.

He spoke as government data showed signs that people might be flouting the stay-at-home measures in increasing numbers, with data suggesting a “slight uptick” in the number of people driving and requesting walking and driving directions on Apple maps.

Powis said the number of infections had started to decline “not by luck” but because of social distancing.

There is now also a “very definite trend” of fewer people being hospitalised with Covid-19, particularly in London, and there has been a decline in the number of critical care beds used for virus patients.

He told the Downing Street daily briefing: ”My fear, as the fear of all of us is, is that those curves won’t continue to go on a downward trend, but will start to go on an upward trend.

“We’re not at the point that any of us can be absolutely confident that that’s not going to be the case.

“We want to avoid a second peak, we want to avoid a rise.”

Troops to operate testing facilities across the UK 

The military is to begin operating mobile coronavirus testing units which will travel to care homes, police stations and prisons across the UK.

The new units will test essential workers and vulnerable people in areas where there is “significant” demand, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.

The mobile facilities can be set up in less than 20 minutes and allow for hundreds of people to be tested each day.

Specially-trained members of the armed forces will collect swabs at the mobile sites before they are sent to “mega-labs” for processing, with results available within 48 hours, the DHSC said.

As of Sunday, there are eight mobile units carrying out tests across the country, in areas including Salisbury, Southport and Teesside.

However, the DHSC said “at least” 96 will be ready to be deployed by the start of May.

More than 10m key workers and their households are now eligible for Covid-19 tests, which can now be booked online through the Government’s website.

Coronavirus vaccine ‘not likely to come to fruition this year’ says Dominic Raab 

A coronavirus vaccine this year is “not likely to come to fruition” Dominic Raab has warned. 

With the first human trials of a vaccine taking place this week, hopes had been raised about the prospect of a potential solution by the end of 2020. 

A vaccine has long been touted as the only solution to fully ending lockdown, but there have been a number of warnings about the likelihood of this being achieved any times soon. 

The foreign secretary told Sky’s Sophy Ridge: “We’re looking at the possibility of a vaccine. That’s not likely to come to fruition this year, but it could be very important if we get multiple waves of coronavirus globally down the track.” 

Meanwhile, former former deputy chief medical officer for England Professor Gina Radford told Sky News that people should be “realistic” about the prospect of a vaccine. 

She said: “Firstly we haven’t at the moment got a vaccine so we are having to start from scratch.

“We haven’t got a hugely good track record with vaccines for this particular virus, coronavirus, the family of viruses.

“But having said that everything is being thrown at it, there are researchers all over the world trying to identify a vaccine.

“We have never seen anything like the effort that is being put to discover this vaccine.”

 

Global death toll tops 200,000

More than 200,000 people have now died worldwide after contracting coronavirus, according to an official count maintained by John Hopkins University. 

The total number of people confirmed to have been infected with Covid-19 has surpassed 2.7m, but without widespread testing in many countries the true number is thought to be far higher. 

Of those 200,000 deaths, the UK has recorded more than 20,000 fatalities – becoming the fifth nation to surpass the grim milestone. 

The US currently holds by far the world’s highest death toll, with more than 54,000 deaths and almost a million confirmed cases. 

France and Spain announce plans to ease some lockdown restrictions 

France and Spain have announced changes to coronavirus restrictions, after weeks of lockdown designed to halt the deadly spread of Covid-19.

French PM Edouard Philippe is set to present the government’s plan to unwind the country’s coronavirus lockdown to parliament on Tuesday, followed by a debate and vote, his office said in a statement.

The lockdown ordered by president Emmanuel Macron has been in place since March 17 and is due to be lifted on May 11.

Macron is aiming to ease some of the lockdown measures with schools reopening first, although the government has yet to finalise how it might work in practice.

France has also offered retailers some relief by saying it wants them to reopen on May 11, though some restrictions could remain in certain areas to delay a new wave of the coronavirus.

The death toll in France from the coronavirus now stands at 22,614, the health ministry said on Saturday.

Meanwhile in Spain children are preparing to go outside for the first time in six weeks as changes to the strict lockdown conditions were announced. 

From Sunday they will be allowed one hour of supervised outdoor activity per day between 9am and 9pm, staying within one kilometre of their home.

Adults can accompany up to three children, who will not be allowed to use play areas and must adhere to social distancing guidelines, remaining at least two metres from other people.

Spain’s PM Pedro Sanchez also said the nations’s residents will be allowed out to exercise alone from May 2 if the coronavirus toll continues to fall. People living together will be permitted to take short walks together.

Trump skips daily media briefing 

US president Donald Trump skipped the daily White House media briefing on Saturday evening, blaming “lamestream media” hostility for his absence. 

Trump has come under fire in recent days after suggesting during a televised press conference that injecting people with disinfectant could act as a potential cure for the virus, as well as facing criticism for other bizarre moments during press conferences.

The president has been widely ridiculed for his comments, with household cleaning brands forced to speak out and urge the public not to ingest or inject cleaning products and warning that following the president’s suggestion could lead to serious illness or death. 

Despite being absent from his usual position in front of reporters Trump still found the time to tweet, blaming the “lamestream media” for his absence. 

He wrote: “What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately.

“They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!”

Meanwhile, reports from the White House suggest that leaders are preparing to replace the country’s Health and Human Service (HHS) secretary Alex Azar as the government fields accusations that too little was done to prevent more than 50,000 deaths nationwide. 

Talks to potentially remove Azar from his post are happening after weeks of growing tension between the HHS secretary and other administration officials.

Just this week, Trump’s former 2016 campaign adviser Michael Caputo was installed as a top spokesperson for HHS ― a move reportedly made to give Trump more control over Azar, Politico reported earlier this month.

Father of thirteen tests positive for Covid-19 

The father of one of Scotland’s largest families has tested positive for Covid-19, forcing his entire household into a 14-day quarantine. 

Roy and Emma Hann, from Dundee, have thirteen children aged five to 28 – ten of whom still live at home. 

Roy’s positive diagnosis, tested after he was found to have mild symptoms, has meant that his home has effectively gone into lockdown with everyone in quarantine for two weeks apart from Roy, who is self-isolating for seven days.

The 50-year-old nurse practitioner told the BBC that despite his type 2 diabetes, he was already keen to ready to get back to work on the front lines of the fight against the virus. 

He said: “My life hadn’t really changed, I just get to see my children more. I’m actually glad I’ve had it, it makes me feel more confident about going back to work.

“There’s so many in our house, we joke we’re going for herd immunity.”

Meanwhile, his wife Emma told the broadcaster about the difficulties she’d experienced feeding her family under lockdown, particularly when dealing with the restrictions imposed on item limits in supermarkets.

“The fact that we’re a big family means social distancing guidelines are challenging for us,” she said.

“To go to the shop and only buy three of an item means we need to go more often which exposes us more. To me it’s quite a daunting situation.”