UK Live Updates

• The UK is preparing to collect the blood from COVID-19 survivors to investigate if convalescent plasma transfusions could improve a COVID-19 patient’s speed of recovery and chances of survival.
• “NHS Blood and Transplant is preparing to collect COVID-19 convalescent plasma from people who have recovered from this illness,” a spokeswoman said. “We envisage that this will be initially used in trials as a possible treatment for COVID-19.”
• Britain will review its approach to the coronavirus pandemic to learn what it could have done better, Culture Minister Oliver Dowden has said, following criticism that the government was too slow to react.
• “When we’re dealing with an unprecedented crisis like this we’re not going to have perfect 20:20 hindsight vision on this,” he told BBC TV. “Of course we will need to look back and see the things we could have done differently.
• Britain’s Queen Elizabeth has asked that there be no gun salutes to mark her birthday on Tuesday, ITV reporter Chris Ship said on Twitter, adding that it would be the first such request had been made in her 68-year reign.
• The UK and EU should “not add to uncertainty” from coronavirus by refusing to extend the period to negotiate a post-Brexit trade deal, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.
• This morning Prof Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College epidemiologist whose coronavirus research directly led to the government introducing the lockdown, said that even when it starts to relax, “we will have to maintain some form of social distancing, a significant level of social distancing, probably indefinitely until we have a vaccine available.”
• The UK government is expected to announce a three-week extension to the coronavirus lockdown later today.
• Britain’s lockdown, which is set to expire on Monday, will continue until the government decides on parameters for formally lengthening restrictions. That decision is expected to come later in the week.
• The country’s death toll surpassed 10,600 this weekend. And while officials warned that Britain was still days away from a peak of new cases
• British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is making steady progress while being treated in intensive care for COVID-19, his office said.”The Prime Minister continues to make steady progress. He remains in intensive care,” a Downing Street spokeswoman said.
• As of 9 am on 5 April 2020, a total of 92839 people have been tested positive, of which 8078 are in the Death toll.
• In a rare broadcast to the nation, Queen Elizabeth thanked healthcare workers on the front line and urged a united effort to overcome the crisis, vowing “we will succeed”.
• British PM Boris Johnson was still in hospital on Monday suffering persistent coronavirus symptoms 10 days after testing positive for the virus, though Downing Street said he remained in charge of the government.
• As of 9 am on 31 March 2020, a total of 143,186 people have been tested, of which 25,150 were confirmed positive.
• As of 5 pm on 30 March 2020, of those hospitalized in the UK, 1,789 have died.
• Deaths in the UK rose 381 to 1,789, a 27 percent day-on-day increase, highest in the daily death toll.
• The Home Office announced “Nearly 3,000 migrant doctors, nurses and paramedics plus their family members are to have their visas extended for a year to assist the fight against coronavirus”
• The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has said “too many people are not staying at home” when he was asked about photos showing crowded Tube platforms at rush hour.