UK lockdown 'was too late'
More than half of Britons believe government measures were not taken on time
MORE than half of Britons believe the government's enforcement of social distancing measures were taken too late, a poll has found.
In an address to the nation on March 23, Boris Johnson said people would only be allowed outside to buy food or medication, to exercise alone once a day or to travel to work if absolutely necessary, along with a ban on gatherings of more than two people.
However, in a poll of 1,072 people aged between 18 and 75, 56% indicated their belief that the measures were not put in place early enough.
A total of 35% of respondents said they thought the measures were taken at the right time while only 4% said they were taken too soon.
Despite a majority of those polled saying they thought the measures were enacted too late, the poll also suggested the steps taken by the government have been effective.
As many as 79% of those who responded said they are now avoiding leaving their homes - a significant increase on the 50% who said they were doing so before the lockdown was enforced.
Meanwhile, 82% said they are washing their hands (up from 77% a week ago), 36% (up from 35% over the same period) are working from home and 27% are using online banking (up from 24%).
Family of 13-year-old victim 'devastated'
The family of a 13-year-old boy, the first known child to die in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus, said they have been left "beyond devastated".
Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab's loved ones said to their knowledge he did not have any underlying health conditions.
His death was reported at King's College Hospital in London.
Numbers in the UK are now increasing rapidly - the number of cases has increased by more than 4,000 since Tuesday, according to the Department of Health and Social Care, and so has that of deaths.
Yesterday (Thursday), the figure of cases stood at just under 30,000 and over 2,300 deaths - a third of which are in London.
Cabinet minister Michael Gove on Tuesday described the sharp rise in UK deaths from coronavirus as "deeply shocking" but said he could not say exactly when the peak of the epidemic would come.
NHS England's medical director Professor Stephen Powis warned that while there are "green shoots" signs that the rate at which people are becoming infected with Covid-19 is slowing, the country is still "very much in the woods".
Prof Powis said the rate of hospital admissions was still increasing, as was expected at this stage of the epidemic.
However, he said if the number of infections started to drop, then in the next few weeks the "hope" was that the number of admissions would also begin to fall.
National Express suspends coach services
National Express is to temporarily suspend all coach services in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
The transport firm said it is halting its national network of scheduled coach services from midnight on Sunday March 5.
It said it had kept a limited network of services running to help people with essential travel but it is "no longer viable to continue to do so".
Meanwhile, nearly 950,000 people have applied for Universal Credit in the past fortnight amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said it had seen a surge in benefits claims, with almost 950,000 new claims since March 16 - up from around 100,000 in a normal twoweek period.
Around a quarter, 70,000 out of around 270,000 Universal Credit applications in one week, applied for an advance payment.
It comes as one charity warned that advance payments must be given as grants, not loans, to prevent a "coronavirus debt crisis".
Claimants wait five weeks for a first payment after applying for the benefit but can take out an advance loan to help during this time.