Coronavirus: Britain on course for worst death rate in Europe

But new figures from the Office for National Statistics[ONS] for deaths involving Covid-19 outside hospitals in England and Wales up to April 17 were put at 4,316 with 3,096 in care homes. Another 630 deaths in care homes in Scotland and Northern Ireland have been linked with coronavirus up to mid-April.

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at the University of Cambridge, said he believed more coronavirus deaths were now occurring in care homes and at home than in hospitals.

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Data from the Johns Hopkins University in America suggests the UK’s five-day average for coronavirus deaths, at 598, is now the highest of any major European economy at this point in the pandemic’s curve. Italy’s equivalent number is 559, France’s 509 and Spain’s 423.

The curve in the latest UK Government charts at the daily Downing St briefings shows in “all settings” the UK death rate is rising more steeply than that of France, Italy and Spain.

Matt Hancock, the UK Health Secretary, announced that from now on the daily death rates would include numbers from care homes, saying he was "very glad we are now able to publish this daily data that will keep the focus on what is happening in care homes".

The numbers of deaths in care homes and the community will be released daily from Wednesday to "bring as much transparency as possible" to the death figures.

"This,” explained Mr Hancock, “will supplement the ONS and Care Quality Commission weekly publication and all add to our understanding of how this virus is spreading day by day, and it will help inform the judgements that we make as we work to keep people safe."

Health organisations have been calling for the numbers outside hospitals to be published every day, while experts said they could not say the peak in care homes had yet been reached.

At the press conference, Mr Hancock insisted it was "unreasonable" to be asked to apologise to bereaved families of coronavirus victims over the Government's handling of the pandemic's impact in care homes.

He said supporting care homes was a "top priority" since the start of the crisis, as he was challenged over the availability of Personal Protective Equipment and levels of testing.

"From the start we knew that there was a very significant challenge with care homes, not least because of the frailty of the residents," declared the Health Secretary,

He said it had been "more difficult to get data flowing" from care homes but that was now being done.

Mr Hancock announced a massive expansion of testing with millions more people becoming eligible as the Government tries to hit its 100,000-tests-a day target due Thursday. It followed a similar announcement on extending eligibility in Scotland by Nicola Sturgeon.

The Secretary of State said care home residents and staff together with NHS patients and staff could now get a test, whether they had symptoms or not. All over-65s and those living with them south of the border would also be eligible but only if they had symptoms.

In addition, anyone who needed to go out to work could get a test alongside the people they lived with but again, as long as they had symptoms.

"From construction workers to emergency plumbers, from research scientists to those in manufacturing, the expansion of access to testing will protect the most vulnerable and help keep people safe," declared Mr Hancock.

While some 43,453 people are being tested each day, the capacity is 73,400. This extra unused capacity is enabling the eligibility to be expanded. The Government remains committed to hitting its target of 100,000 tests a day by Thursday midnight but as of Tuesday it is still less than halfway there.

Mr Hancock also said some 41 drive-through centres would be expanded by another 48 by the end of the week.

The availability of home tests - which can be booked via the gov.uk website - was also expanding from 5,000 kits per day to 25,000 a day by the end of the week, he said.

The Army was currently running 17 mobile testing centres which were travelling around the country, but the plan was to increase this to 70 by the end of the week, explained the minister.

Earlier, the First Minister said the Scottish Government had been making "steady progress" in increasing testing capacity, going from 350 tests a day, to the target of 3,500, which ministers hoped to achieve by the end of this week.

Tests for coronavirus are currently done on all Scottish patients in intensive care as well as other hospital patients showing symptoms of the disease.

In addition, people who have been referred by the Covid-19 hubs the Scottish Government set up will be tested, along with people in care homes with symptoms, and those being admitted to care homes.

Key workers and their family members can also be tested with more than 20,000 people in this group having done so.

Setting out why the testing regime was being expanded to hospital patients aged over 70, Ms Sturgeon said: "The virus can have an especially severe impact on older people, so although we don't usually test people without symptoms because the test isn't totally reliable in these cases, we do think there could be a benefit in testing older people, both on admission to hospital and at intervals thereafter."

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In other developments –

*Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office Minister, in a Commons statement defended the Government's stockpiling efforts as he said the UK's supplies were designed for a flu pandemic but that all countries were facing a new virus. It came after Boris Johnson chaired his first meeting of the Covid-19 “war cabinet” after returning to work when he focused on securing more Personal Protective Equipment, which, according to his spokesman, was at the top of his agenda.

*Matthew Gould, Chief Executive of NHSX, the health service's digital innovation arm, told MPs a contact tracing app to help stop the spread of the virus could be ready for deployment in the next three weeks.

*Theresa May, the former PM, urged Boris Johnson to assess the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on domestic abuse when drawing up an exit strategy as MPs passed unopposed the Second Reading of the Domestic Abuse Bill, seeks to give better protection to those fleeing violence by placing a new legal duty on councils to provide secure homes for them and their children.

*There will be an official RAF flypast to mark NHS fundraiser Captain Tom Moore's 100th birthday on Thursday.

*Mr Hancock made clear experts were continuing to investigate an inflammatory disease affecting a small number of children "with great urgency".