Britain’s coronavirus death toll jumps by 151 as official number of victims reaches 41,279

Britain’s coronavirus death toll today jumped by only 151 in the lowest increase on a Thursday since March 19 as the outbreak continues to fade.

Department of Health statistics reveal the number of daily lab-confirmed Covid-19 fatalities is just 14 per cent lower than the 176 recorded last Thursday.

The official number of victims now stands at 41,279 — but separate grim figures say the actual death toll has already surpassed 50,000.

Northern Ireland recorded one death today, spelling an end to its four day spell of no coronavirus fatalities.

Figures released today also showed there has now been more than 291,000 cases diagnosed since Britain’s crisis began to unfold back in January. 

In other coronavirus developments in Britain today: 

• A former government chief scientist said if Boris Johnson had triggered lockdown a week earlier, the death toll could have been as low as 10,000. It follows similar comments from ‘Professor Lockdown’ yesterday;
• The contact tracing system has only tracked the contacts of two-thirds of Covid-19 patients, damning figures show, as lead of system says the system is not ‘at the gold standard we want to be’;
• Rishi Sunak has heaped pressure on Boris Johnson to ease the two-metre social distancing rule amid a major Tory revolt. The rule could sink tens of thousands of businesses, the PM has been warned;
• Research from King’s College London suggests cases of Covid-19 in the UK have halved in one week with less than 5,000 new infections per day;

The further 151 fatalities today come as Sir David King, who was the government’s chief scientist from 2000-2007, said the UK’s coronavirus death toll could have been just 10,000 if Boris Johnson had triggered lockdown a week earlier.

Sir David said today: ‘I believe that we could have emerged at this point with no more than 10,000 deaths by just going into lockdown a week earlier.

‘My second point is that I think the government position was made clear a few times. 

‘Once the PM made a speech about how we would ride through lockdown while other countries were going into lockdown, our economy would grow and we would emerge like Superman.

‘What he was referring to was a policy of herd immunity. 

‘I do believe that the government was favouring this idea that we should allow the disease to spread but no more than the NHS could manage to cope with the cases.’ 

The comments, in an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, came after Professor Neil Ferguson, a key figure on SAGE at the beginning of the outbreak, made a similar bombshell claim to MPs yesterday. 

Professor Ferguson, dubbed ‘Professor Lockdown’, said that, in hindsight, tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if the lockdown had come a week earlier.

Mr Johnson imposed the lockdown on March 23 on the back of the Imperial College London scientist’s grim modelling, which predicted 500,000 people could die if the virus was left unchecked.   

At the Downing Street briefing last night, Mr Johnson batted away questions over whether the government had made serious mistakes in the pandemic.

‘At the moment it is simply too early to judge ourselves,’ he said. ‘We simply don’t have the answers to all these questions.’

Professor Ferguson also claimed that Britain missed 90 per cent of its coronavirus cases because it was not screening passengers at airports, in a thinly-veiled jab at the Government. 

The epidemiologist told MPs at a virtual House of Commons Science and Technology Committee briefing.: ‘The epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced.’

Confirmed cases of the virus are nearing towards 300,000.  

The Department of Health has, for the 20th day in a row, been unable to say how many people have been tested in one 24-hour period. It says 197,000 tests were carried out, but not how many of these were repeat tests or for surveillance research.

A total of 1,266 tests came back as positive. But there will be thousands infected every day who either do not show symptoms, or show symptoms but don’t get a test.

Research published today estimates fewer than 5,000 people are getting the virus every day in the UK. It suggests the outbreak has almost halved – down 48 per cent – in one week, considering there were 9,4000 new cases per day last week.  

The estimate from researchers at King’s College London does not include Northern Ireland or care homes, where the virus is still thought to be spreading, meaning the true rate could be much higher.

The figures were based on a sub-group of 1million people who use the COVID Symptom Study app, of whom 12,872 carried out swab tests when they began to feel unwell.

The results of these swabs, taken between May 24 to June 6, were extrapolated to the wider population of 66.6million. 

New infections fell 49 per cent in the North West, where 820 people are being struck down every day — down  from 1,608 last week. The South East has seen a 46 per cent drop (365 from 674), followed closely by a 43 per cent decrease in the South West (162 from 284).  

The North East and Yorkshire is reporting the highest number of new infections per day, while the South West is seeing the least, according to the estimate. 

But the number fell from 1,965 to 1,275 a reduction of 35 per cent, suggesting that the situation is improving across all regions. 

Cases are still lower in London than the north or east of England. Some 790 people are becoming infected per day, a drop of 27 per cent from last week.

And the R rate — the number of people an infected person passes the virus to — was predicted to be below 1 across all regions. 

The estimate is in line with a government-run surveillance sample but is three times lower than Public Health England’s projected figure of nearly 17,000 a day. 

Lead author of the King’s College London study, Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology, said: ‘Whilst the numbers are falling, thousands of cases of COVID are still very much in the population so measures such as social distancing, regular swab testing, wearing of gloves and face masks in public and maintaining high levels of personal hygiene should be followed closely if we want to keep the numbers low going forward.’ 

It comes as damning figures today showed Number 10’s flagship contact tracing system – considered a crucial part of the puzzle for avoiding a second wave – has only tracked down the contacts of two thirds of Covid-19 patients.

Between May 28 and June 3, 8,117 people who tested positive for the coronavirus were referred to the NHS’s flagship scheme. 

Although this is significantly lower than the number of new positive tests announced by the Government during that time – 13,417 – Professor John Newton, director of health improvement at PHE, said this was mostly a problem with the testing figures.

Professor Newton said: ‘There’s quite a lot of double counting in the numbers of positive tests that are reported daily. We are very confident that the 8,000 includes a very high proportion of the new cases.’ 

But shocking statistics show contact tracers could only draw information about close contacts from 67 per cent of them (5,407).

Hundreds did not respond to phone calls or refused to give details of people they had been in contact with, the Department of Health admitted in another blow to the scheme that  has been described as ‘shambolic’ by workers.

Overall 31,794 contacts were identified — the equivalent of almost six (5.8) for every infected patient. Only 26,985 of these contacts — 85 per cent — were tracked down and advised to self-isolate, the statistics revealed.  

Of those people who were reached and asked to provide information about their contacts, just over three-quarters (79 per cent) were contacted within 24 hours of their case being transferred to the Test and Trace system.

Some 14 per cent were contacted between 24 and 48 hours, three per cent between 48 and 72 hours, and four per cent were contacted after 72 hours. 

Finding people fast is vital for the system to work because the plan is for it to find potentially-infected people before they start to show symptoms and pass the virus on to other people.

Baroness Dido Harding — the head of the test and trace scheme — today admitted it wasn’t yet ‘at the gold standard we want to be’. She added: ‘Is it completely perfect? No, of course it isn’t.’

Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Professor Newton said they were happy with how the service has gone so far. 

Professor Newton said the Government was seeing ‘high levels of compliance both from cases and contacts’, and added: ‘In general we’re very pleased to see these data… We’re quite confident that what we’re doing is having a big impact.’ 

Contact tracers try 10 times to reach someone in the first 24 hours after they have been referred to the service, attempting to get through to them by email, phone and text.  

The data comes as feedback from the Isle of Wight suggested that the NHS’s long-awaited coronavirus contact tracing app — which has yet to be rolled-out — could be an effective way to stop the spread of the disease.

Just two new cases of the illness have been discovered on the island since the app’s initial trial ended on May 26 — a noticeable drop on the 45 cases spotted during the trial, suggesting it stopped patients from infecting other people.

Mr Hancock previously promised the app, then considered a vital part of the government’s test and trace strategy, would be ready to be rolled out across the UK by the middle of May.

But repeated delays have meant the app — now considered the cherry on top of the cake — is still unavailable anywhere except the Isle of Wight.

Baroness Harding was also unable to give a date for the launch of the app which will form part of the test and trace programme she leads. 

She said: ‘This is a multi-channel consumer service, it’s online, it’s on the phone, it’s face-to-face in local communities and, in time, it will have an app. 

‘The app “is the cherry on the cake, it’s not the cake itself and what you are seeing today is the first baking of the cake is going reasonably well”.’

It comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces mounting pressure to reduce the two-metre rule from Tory backbenchers.

MPs and businesses warn that keeping the restriction in place could sink tens of thousands of businesses. Campaigners say it stops schools reopening properly while pubs and restaurants fear going bust.

Rishi Sunak has now joined the major Tory revolt – the Chancellor indicated his support for loosening the guidelines as he answered questions from Conservative MPs last night.

Mr Sunak highlighted warnings from business about the dire consequences of the limit, and pointed out dozens of countries have already relaxed it to one metre. 

He said he was ‘sympathetic’ to concerns that sectors of the economy cannot get up and running until the situation changes.

There are increasing signs that the PM is preparing to shift on the crucial issue, with Downing Street sources saying he ‘instinctively’ wants to free up business but fears a second peak.

It is understood several other Cabinet ministers are pushing for an overhaul soon.