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Coronavirus news you may have missed overnight: First big test for Dominic Raab as he faces questions on how long UK will remain on lockdown as Boris Johnson remains in hospital

Prime minister’s health ‘improving’ as he makes ‘steady progress’

Samuel Osborne
Thursday 09 April 2020 07:59 BST
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Coronavirus 100 days on: What do we know

The coronavirus pandemic continues to spread through the UK and the rest of the world. Here is your morning briefing of news you may have missed overnight.

Dominic Raab is facing his first big test as stand-in prime minister, amid a clamour to come clean on how long the UK will remain in lockdown and after coronavirus deaths reached a new high.

The first positive news about Boris Johnson – he was said to be making “steady progress” and “sitting up in bed” – was blighted by 938 further fatalities, only just short of the peak of 971 in Italy at the height of its epidemic.

Meanwhile, Wales rebelled against the government’s refusal to confirm the lockdown will extend beyond next week, announcing it would not “throw away the gains we have made” by lifting restrictions immediately after Easter.

Mr Raab will chair a meeting of the emergency Cobra committee on Thursday, to try to thrash out an agreed “approach to the review” of the lockdown, due next week.

The foreign secretary will be thrust into the spotlight amid continuing confusion about the extent of his authority and fears of a power vacuum in Mr Johnson’s absence.

Boris Johnson’s condition is “improving” and he is now “sitting up in bed”, the chancellor has revealed.

Rishi Sunak gave the optimistic update, two days after the prime minister was admitted to intensive care when his coronavirus symptoms worsened.

“The latest from the hospital is that he remains in intensive care, where his condition is improving,” he told the daily Downing Street press conference.

“I can also tell you he has been sitting up in bed and engaging positively with the clinical team.”

Charities dedicated to supporting the work of NHS staff and volunteers are appealing for a million people across the country to donate cash alongside their applause for healthcare workers tonight.

For the past two weeks, people across the nation have taken to their gardens, windows and balconies to applaud NHS staff treating those suffering with coronavirus.

Now in a major appeal for financial support aimed at helping those on the frontlines of the fight against Covid-19, the NHS Charities Together umbrella group, which incorporates 150 NHS charities, has called on people to accompany their claps with cash.

The organisation hopes to inspire at least a million people to show their backing for the NHS by texting “clap” along with a message of support and a donation of £5 to 70507.

Donations will then be used to provide supplies and support to NHS staff and volunteers — including food, travel, accommodation and counselling.

Intensive care patients could require physical and psychological help — including for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — after the experience, according to a leading doctor.

Carl Waldmann told The Independent people who have been critically ill may need to have support after their stay in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) as they return back to normal life.

“They may need physical rehabilitation as they are so weak, you lose muscle mass very easily, and also need psychological support,” the board member of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine said.

“Some patients have had nightmares and weird dreams — part of PTSD. As Covid-19 is a new disease, it is too early to say if there will be similar outcomes for these patients.”

The majority of the British public support the police response to coronavirus, but a third think some officers have “gone too far”, new research shows.

Despite controversy over tactics such as the use of drones to record walkers and roadblocks, three-quarters of respondents to a YouGov survey gave their full or qualified backing to police.

Crest Advisory, a consultancy that commissioned the survey, said it showed “broad overall support for the police approach to enforcing the lockdown, albeit with some interesting caveats and hints at the limits of public consent”.

Overall, 42 per cent of people said they fully supported the current police approach and 32 per cent said they supported it “but think in some cases it has gone too far”.

Only 6 per cent said they had been too heavy-handed, while 14 per cent called for tougher action.

As the public turns on sunbathing rulebreakers and ministers consider a ban on outdoor exercise, city-dwellers in cramped housing tell Adam Forrest why parks remain a lifeline.

The UK could become the worst-hit country in Europe during the coronavirus outbreak with up to 66,000 deaths, a study has suggested, though a statistics expert cautioned the model could change dramatically as the outbreak progresses.

Approximately 151,680 people will die across Europe during the “first wave” of the pandemic, researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine said.

Modelling suggested the UK, along with Germany, Norway and Greece, was still in the early stages of the outbreak and would witness a fast-rising death toll through a peak in the second and third weeks of April.

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