Coronavirus UK death toll in hospitals alone rises by 881 in one day

The UK death toll for hospitalised coronavirus patients has risen to 7,978, according to the first secretary of state - an increase of 881 from the day before.

Dominic Raab said on Thursday more than 65,000 people had tested positive for Covid-19 to date, while around 16,700 people have been admitted to hospital with coronavirus symptoms.

He said lockdown measures will stay in place, adding: “We are not done yet. We must keep going.”

"It's been almost three weeks and we're starting to see the impact of the sacrifices we've all made," Mr Raab said. "But the deaths are still rising and we haven't yet reached the peak of the virus.

"It's still too early to lift the measures that we put in place."

The government announced a daily death toll of 938 on Wednesday, which was around 150 more than the previous day.

Speaking about the latest figures, which saw a daily rise of 881 in the number of deaths, Professor James Naismith from the Univeristy of Oxford said: "It is a mercy that the number of deaths reported today is lower than yesterday but on its own, a single day’s number is of no value in judging the pandemic."

The director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, a medical research centre, added: "The continuing volatility in daily figure of announced deaths (due to different reporting periods and delays) makes it almost impossible to identify any trend with certainty yet."

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