Matt Hancock says 10,000 a day contracting Covid-19 as he urges public to download app

Matt Hancock has said nearly 10,000 people a day are contracting coronavirus in the UK as he urged people to download the newly-released NHS tracing app.

He said the 10,000 daily infections were still fewer than the “100,000 per day” estimated during the spring peak.

It comes after infections rose by 6,178 overnight, marking the highest daily rise in Covid-19 cases since May 1.

The Health Secretary told Sky News: “The massive testing capability we’ve got helps to find where the virus is so, if you think about it, yesterday we had a figure that there is over 6,000 people who have tested positive in the previous 24 hours.

“And that is comparable to the highest levels in the peak in terms of the number of people who were tested positive but back then we estimate through surveys that over 100,000 people a day were catching the disease, but we only found around 6,000 of them and they tested positive.

“Now we estimate that it is under 10,000 people a day getting the disease – that’s too high but it is still much lower than in the peak – and through the mass testing we have and the quarter-of-a-million capacity, we found yesterday over 6,000 of them.

“That then allows us to do the contact tracing for everyone who has tested positive and find who they’ve been in contact with.

“In addition, today with the app, if you download the app you will also have that added protection for you and your loved ones.”

Mr Hancock made the comments as he welcomed the launch of the NHS contract tracing app in England and Wales.

The rollout follows months of delay and questions about its effectiveness in the face of mixed results from other countries which have already deployed such apps.

The Health Secretary said: "We're launching today for the first time the coronavirus app in England and Wales.

"It does the core job of ensuring that when you have been in close contact with somebody who has tested positive, then you will be notified.

"It also allows you to click in to a QR code and find out what the rules are in your local area."

Mr Hancock said people needed to “be careful” when it came to having sexual relationships outside of “established relationships” during the pandemic.

Asked about the Government’s guidance that only “established” couples should be having sex, he told Sky News: “In these rules that we have to bring in, there have to be boundaries, to coin a phrase.

“If you’re saying that two households shouldn’t mix, which we are in some parts of the country – in the North East, the North West, in Scotland, in parts of Wales – then you have to then define what is the boundary of that.”

He added: “I think we should stick to the letter of it, which is it is okay in an established relationship.

“It just means that people need to be careful, they need to be sensible. If you’re in a relationship that is well established… what it means is people realising that coming into close contact with people from other households, then that is how the virus spreads.”

The MP for West Suffolk joked that “I know I am in an established relationship” with his wife.

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