UK coronavirus death toll rises by 181 to 41,622
Nearly 300,000 people test positive during pandemic
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Your support makes all the difference.Another 181 people with coronavirus have died, new government figures show.
It brings the official tally of UK deaths to 41,662.
However, the real figure, calculated from adding together figures from the Office for National Statistics and health authorities in the four UK nations, is thought to be much higher, around 52,000.
The UK has the world’s third-highest death toll, after the US and Brazil.
The Department of Health and Social Care said that as of 9am on Saturday, there had been 6.6 million tests, with 188,794 tests on Friday, and 294,375 people having tested positive since the start of the pandemic.
However, the department could not say how many people had been tested. The 6.6 million tests includes those sent out, and some people may have been tested more than once.
The head of England’s test-and-trace programme has admitted the system is not yet “gold standard”, as new figures showed that a third of people testing positive failed to provide details of their recent contacts.
The average daily deaths this week now stand at around 187, down from 230 last week.
Thousands of hooligans and protesters defied pleas to stay away from London and other cities to avoid spreading the virus on Saturday, many of them travelling on public transport to get there.
On Monday it will become compulsory to wear face coverings on public transport.
A leading scientist who advised the government on how to implement lockdown said deaths from the pandemic could have been halved if restrictions had been introduced sooner.
Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, said thousands of lives could have been saved with earlier action.
He said: “The epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced.
“So, had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half.”
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