UK coronavirus live: up to six months to see if measures have 'squashed' virus, says deputy chief medical officer – as it happened

That’s it from us here on the UK side. Head over to our global live blog for all the latest worldwide coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

• Normal life will not resume for at least six months, according to the chief deputy medical officer (see 4.51pm) as she warned the coronavirus death toll was expected to increase “for the next week or two”.

• Dr Jenny Harries described the first confirmed death of a frontline NHS worker with coronavirus as “worrying”, as Amged El-Hawrani’s family paid tribute to the “much-loved husband, son, father, brother, and friend” (see 4.07pm).

• The UK death toll from coronavirus increased by 209 people in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths in the UK to 1,228 so far (see 2.05pm). The figure was lower than Saturday’s record rise of 260, which may bring some hope that the rise in deaths could stabilise soon.

• NHS workers should not be asked to work without protective equipment, said the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick. Directly appealing to frontline workers, he said the government “will not stop” until healthcare staff are provided with the equipment they need as he outlined the vast amounts of stocks which are in the process of being received around the country (see 4.19pm).

• A 108-year-old woman and survivor of the 1918 Spanish flu is thought to have become the oldest victim of coronavirus in the UK. Hilda Churchill died in a Salford care home on Saturday, hours after testing positive for Covid-19 and just eight days before her 109th birthday.

• 19,522 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the UK, after 127,737 tests, the Department of Health confirmed; while 95 people in Scotland are in intensive care with confirmed or suspected Covid-19, with the figures for England, Wales and Northern Ireland unknown.

• The UK’s biological security strategy, published in 2018 to address the threat of pandemics, was not properly implemented and a lack of resources was to blame, according to Prof Ian Boyd, a former government chief scientific adviser.

• Government does not rule out mass repatriation flights, with Britons stranded around the world struggling to return from places where a lockdown has been imposed (see 5.07pm).

• Labour deputy leadership candidate Richard Burgon said criticism of China’s response to the coronavirus outbreak by ministers represented a “Trump-style” ploy to distract from government failures (see 3.31pm).

• Evictions from private rented accommodation and social homes are to be banned in Scotland during the coronavirus outbreak under emergency legislation (see 3.22pm). It comes after the UK government was accused of breaking a promise to renters when proposed laws only extended the notice period that landlords must give tenants before they can evict them from two months to three.

• The nationwide lockdown is allowing animals to roam paths which they usually shy away from. “We have annual visitor numbers in excess of 1 million and suddenly, in the peak of breeding season, they are not going to be here,” said the conservation manager of the largest national nature reserve in England. “Nature is just going: ‘Ahhh, it’s all to ourselves now.’”
  

Harries said she expected the coronavirus death toll to increase “for the next week or two”.

But then we anticipate that if we keep doing what we’re doing … we do anticipate that those numbers will start to drop.

Asked about death figures she said it “lags behind our impressions on the rate of increase of infections”.

So, we just need to watch it carefully, hold tight for a week or two, keep doing what we’re doing and then come back and ask me the question again and I think hopefully we will be on the way down a little bit.

Jenrick said that the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, had been working “extremely hard” with British missions worldwide to bring those stranded abroad back to the UK.

He has spent this weekend speaking with his counterparts in a range of countries, where there are citizens who we want to get back safely to the UK as soon as possible.

On arranging further rescue flights for those still abroad, Jenrick said:

We haven’t ruled out repatriation flights and we are doing those in some cases. There is a flight ongoing at the moment, for example to Peru, to bring back a group of British citizens who have been in a difficult situation there.

If we need to do more steps of that kind in the days ahead, then we will of course do so. We want to get those British citizens back safely to the UK.

Robert Jenrick said that he had heard the news shortly before the briefing that Dr Amged El-Hawrani had “very sadly passed away”.

The deaths we are reporting daily at these press conferences are very sobering. Every death is a tragedy. We don’t want to see any unnecessary death.

Dr Jenny Harries said as a medical professional she usually would not comment on an individual case but added she was “very saddened” that a professional colleague had passed away.

It clearly is a worrying event, it is worrying for the nation because it is another death in our statistics, it is another loss to a family. And it will be a loss to an NHS family as well.

It is in no-one’s interests that we lose our colleagues.

The Muslim Council of Britain has highlighted that Amged El-Hawrani is the third doctor of the Islamic faith to have died from confirmed or suspected coronavirus.

Directly appealing to frontline workers, Jenrick said the government “will not stop” until healthcare staff are provided with the equipment they need.

We simply cannot and should not ask people to be on the frontline without the right protective equipment. To NHS and social care workers, all those who rely on this equipment, and to their families and loved ones watching this afternoon. We understand and we will not stop until we have got you the equipment you need.

I’ll continue to post the full quotes from the presser as we get them.

When asked whether the country would be on lockdown for the next six months, Harries said:

We actually anticipate our numbers will get worse over the next week, possibly two, and then we are looking to see whether we have managed to push that curve down and we start to see a decline.

This is not to say we would be in complete lockdown for six months, but as a nation we have to be really, really responsible and keep doing what we’re all doing until we’re sure we can gradually start lifting various interventions which are likely to be spaced – based on the science and our data – until we gradually come back to a normal way of living.

She said the government would review lockdown measures in three weeks’ time.

The issue of the three weeks is for us to review where we are and see if we’ve had an impact jointly on the slope of that curve. But I think to make it clear to the public if we are successful we will have squashed the top of that curve, which is brilliant, but we must not then suddenly revert to our normal way of living that would be quite dangerous.

If we stop then all of our efforts will be wasted and we could potentially see a second peak. So over time, probably over the next six months, we will have a three-week review.

The press conference has now concluded.

The Guardian’s Kate Proctor asks whether the scale of the repatriation package for Britons stranded abroad will equal that of Germany’s €50m (£45m) package. Jenrick says the foreign secretary has been working “extremely hard” with British embassies around the world.

He adds that Britons have been advised to return on commercial flights where available and that repatriation flights – such as those under way from Peru – would come if necessary.

We are the world’s leading country in supporting vaccine research, Jenrick adds.

He recognises there will be lessons to be learned, in the UK and elsewhere, but that the current focus is on saving lives.

Harries confirms that the large rises of deaths in recent days have been expected and reiterates deaths are expected to continue to rise.

On whether further social distancing measures have been modelled, Jenrick says he hopes the current policies will be sufficient.