The Government has confirmed the highest single increase in the number of deaths from coronavirus after 381 people passed away in the UK overnight. 

In a daily press briefing at Downing Street, cabinet minister Michael Gove reported that the number of people to have died in hospital with the virus has now reached 1,789.

Gove added that a total of 25,150 people in the UK have tested positive for Covid-19. 

While the rate of coronavirus testing in the UK has increased, Gove said  ‘the UK must go further and faster’. 

“More NHS staff are returning to the frontline, and more testing is taking place to help those self-isolating come back, and to protect those working so hard in our hospitals and in social care.,” he said.

“But while the rate of testing is increasing, we must go further, faster.”

He said despite signs the rate of infection is being flattened "now is absolutely not the time for people to imagine there can be any relaxation or slackening" of lockdown measures.