Covid-19 Daily Briefing - Rate of infection doubling every 3-4 days

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove leads the daily coronavirus press conference alongside Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer for England and Simon Stevens the CEO of NHS England. It was revealed today that Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock have both tested positive to Coronavirus and that Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, was self-isolating after displaying symptoms but he has not tested positive yet.

Michael Gove reveals that 113,77 people have so far been tested for Covid-19 with 14,543 testing positive, and increase in the last day of 2,885. The rate of infection has been doubling every three to four days and of those who have contracted the virus, 759 have died.

A new alliance of businesses, research institutes and universities have come together to concentrate on boosting testing capacity for frontline workers. The purpose of this is 'antigen' testing, which reveals whether people who currently might be self-isolating have the disease so that they can return to work if the test is negative. This will be trialled immediately with hundreds being carried out over the weekend and the number increasing dramatically next week.

Two new NHS Nightingale Hospitals are going to be built in Birmingham, at the NEC, and Manchester, at the CCC, to complement the already announced NHS Nightingale Hospital being built in East London at the Excel. There are currently 6,200 confirmed positive Covid-19 patients in hosptial at the moment across England and NHS England is reconfiguring hosptial services to make sure that 33,000 hospital beds are available. There are plans for further such hospitals to follow.

Mr Gove concluded that everybody needs to do their bit by following the advice from Public Health England and that the disease does not discriminate. He confirmed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be continuing to lead The Government's response to coronavirus and will be chairing meetings remotely.