Back from COVID-19, Johnson urged to reveal UK lockdown exit strategy

Deaths in the community and in nursing homes are slower to arrive, meaning that the overall toll is likely to be significantly higher.

Stephen Powis, medical director of the National Health Service in England, said the “very definite” downward trend in the number of coronavirus cases in hospitals demonstrated that social distancing was reducing virus transmission and spread.

Raab said the government was following medical and scientific advice, and that there would not be a sharp easing but a gradual progression to a “new normal”.

Later, at the government’s daily briefing, farming and environment minister George Eustice said the lockdown would next be reviewed “in a couple of weeks”.

Labour leader Starmer said in his open letter to Johnson that the government was falling behind the rest of the world by refusing to say more.