UK's death toll surges to 2,352 as study warns 1.8mn could be infected

The number of people with coronavirus who have died in the UK rose by 563 to a total 2,352 by 1600 GMT on March 31, the government said on Wednesday (1).

It added that there were 29,474 confirmed cases of the virus by this morning, up from 25,150 the day before.

Scientists, however, said assessments cannot be made on "curbing the epidemic by a single day’s reported number of deaths".

The government announcement came as a study by Imperial College London said about 1.8 million people in the UK could be already having Covid-19, with one in every 37 infected by virus.

Earlier this morning, a schoolboy from Brixton, Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, died at Kings College Hospital after testing positive for Covid-19.

The 13-year-old's family said: "Ismail started showing symptoms and had difficulties breathing and was admitted to Kings College Hospital. He was put on a ventilator and then put into an induced coma but sadly died yesterday morning."

Meanwhile, some preliminary research findings suggested the lockdown and social distancing measures introduced by the British government may already be working, and the country could soon see the epidemic of infections declining.

Scientists used an online survey to ask 1,300 people in Britain to list their contacts for the previous day - and found that the average number of contacts now is more than 70% lower than before the lockdown.

"If we see similar changes across the UK population, we would expect to see the epidemic to start to decline," said John Edmunds, who led the study at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

He, however, added that the findings were very preliminary and should not be seen as suggesting "job done".

"Rather, they should be used as motivation for us all to keep following UK government instructions," Edmunds said. "It's imperative we don't take our foot off the pedal. We must continue to stop transmission of the virus to reduce the burden on the National Health Service now and over the coming months."

The government maintained that its focus remains on ramping up testing for frontlinee NHS staff.

Downing Street spokesperson for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — who remained in self-isolation after his COVID-19 diagnosis last week — confirmed more than 2,000 NHS frontline staff in England were tested for coronavirus since the outbreak began in a push to get healthy self-isolating medics back to work.

Several makeshift hospitals were becoming functional across the UK as the NHS aimed to boost its bed capacity to cope with the growing number of COVID-19 cases.

The prime example was conversion of London's ExCel Centre into NHS Nightingale—a 4,000-bed hospital facility.

A push for more ventilators was also in place as a new set of manufacturers plan to deliver the first batch by early next week.

"We are doing everything we can to support our NHS staff fighting this battle on the frontline, and it's crucial we get even more ventilators there as soon as possible," said Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

"We have seen a fantastic response from businesses to our call for a national effort — and I'm delighted these companies accepted the challenge to save lives across the country."