Daily death toll falls to just 36

Total is lowest since lockdown began

JUST 36 coronavirus deaths were recorded across the UK in 24 hours – by far the lowest daily death toll since lockdown began.

Some 26 deaths were reported in England, five in Scotland, three in Wales and two in Northern Ireland in the 24 hours to 5pm on Saturday.

It is the lowest daily fatality figure in the 12 weeks since 35 deaths were recorded on March 22, the day before lockdown began.

Experts stress that deaths reported on weekends are always lower than during the week, because it takes a few days for reports of deaths to trickle through. But the figure is significantly lower than on previous Sundays – with 77 reported last Sunday and 113 the Sunday before, both of which were themselves the lowest figures recorded at that point.

At the peak of the crisis in April the daily total was frequently more than 1,000.

Boris Johnson yesterday said the steady decline in coronavirus cases gives the Government ‘more margin for manoeuvre’ in easing restrictions. The Prime Minister said ‘probably’ fewer than one in 1,000 people now have the virus, meaning the chances of coming into contact with someone who was infected were increasingly remote.

Overall 41,698 people have now died after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the nation has made ‘enormous progress’ in driving incidence of the virus down.

‘For the last three months we’ve all been sitting at home we’ve been worried about going out,’ he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.

‘I think it’s important now that people do have that confidence to go out, especially as we start to reopen these parts of our economy like shops tomorrow. And why should people have that confidence?

‘ Well, they can have it because we’ve made enormous progress and that’s thanks to everyone’s sacrifice.’

And Health Secretary Matt Hancock, referring to the new figures last night, said: ‘We are winning the battle against this horrible disease.’

The Office for National Statistics estimated on Friday that roughly 33,000 people in England carried the infection between 25 May and 7 June – about 0.06 per cent of the population. That equates to a 74 per cent reduction from 124,000 a fortnight previously.

Professor Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, said: ‘There is evidence that the proportion of people testing positive for the virus is continuing to fall as time passes, and that falling pattern is statistically significant.’ Crucially,

the figures show no sign of a rise in infections since lockdown restrictions were eased at the beginning of the month, with groups of six people allowed to meet outdoors and some children returning to school.

Professor McConway added: ‘There is no clear sign [of more people] testing positive since the various loosenings of lockdown rules have occurred, though I should add that it would not be easy to detect a small increase from a sample survey of people, even one with a reasonably large and increasing sample like this one.’

‘Confidence to go out’