A further 708 people – including a five-year-old child – have died in UK hospitals in the past 24-hour period after contracting coronavirus, bringing the country’s death toll to 4,313.
The latest figure, which covers 5pm on Thursday to 5pm on Friday, is just the latest record daily rise in fatalities, in line with a continuing upward trend.
A total of 684 people died over 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday.
As of 9am on Saturday, a total of 183,190 people were tested for the virus, of whom 41,903 were positive, Department of Health officials said.
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A five-year-old child was among those who had tested positive and later died, NHS England said. Minister for the cabinet office Michael Gove opened Saturday’s daily press conference by paying his respects.
He said: “Our thoughts today are also with the family of the five-year-old child with underlying health conditions who’s tragically died.”
The oldest patient in England was 104, and 40 patients aged between 48 and 93 had no known underlying conditions.
Data compiled by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre showed more than half of those admitted to intensive care with Covid-19 are dying.
Of a sample of 690 patients whose care outcomes were known, 346 (50.1 per cent) had died, while 344 were discharged.
By way of comparison, just 22.4 per cent of patients admitted to intensive care with non-Covid-19 viral pneumonia between 2017 and 2019 died of the disease.
Worldwide, there are now more than a million confirmed cases and 58,955 Covid-19-related deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Systems Science and Engineering.
However, that is likely to be a significant underestimate due to a lack of testing, people having the virus without symptoms, and suspicions some countries such as China and Iran may be concealing the extent of their outbreaks.
A scientist advising the government on Saturday warned the coronavirus infection rate will remain high for “weeks and weeks” if people flout social distancing rules this weekend.
Asked what would happen if people flout the rules, Professor Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, told BBC Radio 4: “That moves us to a slightly more pessimistic scenario.
“We still think things will plateau but we'll be at quite high levels of infection for weeks and weeks rather than seeing quite a rapid decline as the type seen in China.”
He said he was “hopeful” that some of the intense social distancing measures could be substituted with rapid access to testing and contact tracing in a few weeks' time – once case numbers are lower.
“We want to move to a situation where at least by the end of May that we're able to substitute some less intensive measures, more based on technology and testing, for the complete lockdown we have now,” he explained.
On Friday, UK government ministers issued an order to members of the public to stay at home on what is expected to be the hottest weekend of the year so far to help protect the NHS from a continuing upsurge in coronavirus cases.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, warned any relaxation of social distancing will cost lives, declaring that the regime imposed by Boris Johnson two weeks ago “is not a request, it is an instruction”.
“We cannot relax our discipline now,” Mr Hancock said. “If we do, people will die.”
