Deaths fall for second day in a row

THE coronavirus death toll and new infections both fell yesterday, raising hopes that social distancing measures are finally working.

A total of 439 patients died in the latest 24-hour period, compared with 621 on Sunday and 708 on Saturday.

The number of new infections also slowed, with 3,802 additional cases yesterday against 5,903 the previous day.

But government officials warned this could be because of the ‘weekend lag effect’ which sees fewer deaths and cases reported on Saturday and Sunday. This in turn results in an apparent fall when the numbers are published on Monday.

Officials are concerned that the cases will go up again today. The Government anticipates that the peak of the outbreak will occur this Easter weekend and sources said it would be ‘surprising’ if numbers had started to level off already.

A total of 5,373 people have died in the UK, although this excludes deaths in the community, including care homes.

Today, the Office for National Statistics will publish its latest report on community deaths. Last week, it was 25 per cent higher than the Government’s data. The Government is due to review the lockdown measures this weekend but last night the Chief Medical Officer suggested it would be a ‘mistake’ to lift them too soon.

Professor Chris Whitty said: ‘ The key thing is to get to the point where we are confident we have reached the peak and this is now beyond the peak.’

Professor James Naismith, an expert in structural biology at Oxford University, said: ‘The experience of the last ten days has shown that the daily number of deaths are highly volatile and one day on its own gives no insight into our progress.

‘Once the number of new cases and hospital admissions begins to fall in the UK, as it has everywhere else these (social distancing) measures have been implemented, we will have reached the end of the beginning.’

Yesterday a senior doctor warned that intensive care units in London were severely short of staff and lacking vital equipment.

Professor Daniel Martin, the head of intensive care for serious infectious diseases at the Royal Free hospital, warned that training had ‘fallen by the wayside’ with employees ‘learning on the job’.

he said nurses in most intensive care wards in the capital were now looking after six critically ill patients whereas normally there is one nurse for every patient.

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