weather forecast for some areas during the upcoming weekend, matt hancock warns people to stay at home, telling them this is an instruction "not a request". the queen holds the first virtual meeting with the privy council. 4 april it is announced that a five-year-old has died from the virus, believed to be the youngest victim to date. the results of the 2020 labour party leadership election and the 2020 labour party deputy leadership election are announced, in which keir starmer is elected as the leader of the labour party, succeeding jeremy corbyn, and angela rayner is elected as deputy leader of the party. the results are released by email after a public event to announce the results was cancelled due to the pandemic. 5 april queen elizabeth ii makes a rare broadcast to the uk and the wider commonwealth, something she has done on only four previous occasions. in the address she thanks people for following the government's social distancing rules, pays tribute to key workers, and says the uk "will succeed" in its fight against covid-19 but may have "more still to endure". prime minister boris johnson is admitted to hospital for tests after testing positive for covid-19 ten days earlier. matt hancock says the goal for the number of ventilators has been reduced to 18,000 and that the nhs has between 9,000 and 10,000 available. 6 april the death toll from covid-19 in the uk exceeds 5,000. the total number of reported cases is nearly 52,000. prime minister boris johnson is taken into intensive care at st thomas' hospital. it is announced that first secretary of state dominic raab will deputise for him. national express suspends all its long-distance coach services. 7 april patrick vallance, the government's chief scientific adviser, says that the number of cases are not accelerating as had been predicted but that it is too early to tell whether the outbreak is peaking. 8 april the resolution foundation, using figures from the british chambers of commerce, reports that more than nine million workers are expected to be furloughed under the government's job retention scheme, with an estimated cost to the taxpayer of between £30 and 40bn. 9 april dominic raab says the uk is "starting to see the impact" of the restrictions but it is "too early" to lift them, and urges people to stay indoors over the upcoming easter weekend. with warm weather forecast again for easter, this message is echoed by police and tourist destinations. johnson was moved out of intensive care, but remained in hospital. at 8pm the nation stages a third round of applause for nhs staff and other key workers. 10 april jonathan van-tam, england's deputy chief medical officer, tells the uk government's daily briefing the lockdown is "beginning to pay off" but the uk is still in a "dangerous situation", and although cases in london have started to drop they are still rising in yorkshire and the north east. matt hancock tells the briefing a "herculean effort" is being made to ensure daily deliveries of personal protective equipment (ppe) to frontline workers, including the establishment of a domestic manufacturing industry to produce the equipment. fifteen drive-through testing centres have also been opened around the uk to test frontline workers. 11 april queen elizabeth ii makes her first ever easter message to the nation, in which she states "covid-19 will not overcome us" and that "we need easter as much as ever." after some nhs workers say they still do not have the correct personal protective equipment to treat patients, home secretary priti patel tells that day's downing street briefing she is "sorry if people feel there have been failings" in providing kit. the number of people in london hospitals for covid-19 reaches its peak, according to week-on-week change data; elsewhere in the country, patient numbers continue to increase, although the rate of increase is slowing. occupancy of critical care beds in england peaks at around 58% of capacity. occupancy in the month of april for scotland and wales will only briefly exceed 40%, while northern ireland reported a peak of 51% early in the month. 12 april prime minister boris johnson is discharged from hospital after being treated for covid-19 and will continue his recovery at chequers. the number of people who died in hospital with covid-19 in the uk passes 10,000, after a daily rise of 737 to 10,612. matt hancock describes it as a "sombre day". 13 april dominic raab tells the downing street briefing the government does not expect to make any immediate changes to the lockdown restrictions and that the uk's plan "is working we are still not past the peak of this virus". 14 april the office for national statistics indicates that covid-19 was linked to one in five deaths during the week ending 3 april. more than 16,000 deaths in the uk were recorded for that week, 6,000 higher than would be the average for that time of year. several uk charities, including age uk and the alzheimer's society, express their concern that older people are being "airbrushed" out of official figures because they focus on hospital deaths and do not include those in care homes or a person's own home. responding to these concerns, therese coffey, the secretary of state for work and pensions, says that hospital figures are being used because "it's accurate and quick". mobile operators report a further twenty attempted arson attacks on mobile phone masts over the previous weekend. 15 april health secretary matt hancock announces new guidelines that will allow close family members to see dying relatives in order to say goodbye to them. hancock also launches a new network to provide personal protective equipment to care home staff. the 2020 love supreme jazz festival, scheduled for july, is cancelled. 16 april a 99-year-old war veteran, tom moore, completes 100 laps of his garden, eventually raising over £25 million for nhs charities together, with over a million people donating via his justgiving page. foreign secretary dominic raab announces a three-week extension to the nationwide lockdown measures as the number of confirmed covid-19 cases in the uk surpasses 100,000. the nhs nightingale hospital birmingham, at the national exhibition centre, is officially opened by prince william. the uk stages a fourth round of applause for nhs staff and key workers at 8pm. a spokesperson for princess beatrice of york and edoardo mapelli mozzi confirms that their wedding, scheduled for 29 may, will be held on a later date. 17 april matt hancock confirms covid-19 tests will be rolled out to cover more public service staff such as police officers, firefighters and prison staff. chancellor rishi sunak extends the subsidised wage scheme for furloughed workers for another month, to the end of june. later analysis of death registrations (all causes) in england and wales by the office for national statistics finds the highest total this week, which at 21,805 is 207% of the five-year average for the same week. covid-19 is mentioned in 8,730 cases. 18 april imran ahmad khan, the mp for wakefield, secures a shipment of 110,000 reusable face masks through his connections with charity solidarités international and the vietnamese government for mid yorkshire hospitals nhs trust to help tackle the shortage of ppe. unions representing doctors and nurses express their concern at a change in government guidelines advising medics to reuse gowns or wear other kit if stocks run low. speaking at the downing street daily briefing, robert jenrick, the communities secretary, says a further 400,000 gowns will be arriving from turkey the following day. (in the event, the shipment was delayed by several days, and was said on 7 may to be unusable). care england, the uk's largest care homes representative body, estimates that as many as 7,500 care home residents may have died because of covid-19, compared to the official figure of 1,400 released a few days earlier. jenrick announces a further £1.6bn of support for local authorities, on top of £1.6bn that was given to them on 19 march. jenrick says that the virus appears to be having a "disproportionate impact" on the black, asian and minority ethnic (bame) communities, while stephen powis says he has asked public health england to investigate what may be accounting for the increased risk within these groups. jenrick says that parks and cemeteries must remain open during the lockdown. 19 april the number of recorded deaths increases by 596 to 16,060, a lower increase than previous days. dr jenny harries says the lower number of deaths is "very good news" but cautions against drawing conclusions from the figures. after a sunday times article suggests schools could reopen on 11 may, gavin williamson, the secretary of state for education, tells the downing street daily briefing he cannot give a date for when this will happen, and that the focus will be on helping children to learn at home, with lessons made available online and free loans of laptops for disadvantaged children. bbc one airs a uk version of the together at home concert, a virtual global concert staged to celebrate healthcare workers and featuring musicians playing from home. the two-hour broadcast includes highlights of the us version and features stories of frontline workers along with extra footage of british artists. 20 april online applications for covid-19 job retention scheme are opened, with 67,000 claims registered in the first 30 minutes. nhs blood and transplant asks those who have survived covid-19 to donate blood for trials of a treatment that will involve giving the blood plasma of survivors to patients ill in hospital with the disease. prof dame angela maclean, the uk's deputy chief scientific adviser, says the number of confirmed cases is "flattening out". the number of people in hospital for covid-19 has begun to fall in scotland, wales and every region of england, with significant falls in london and the midlands. 21 april a further 823 deaths are recorded, taking the total to 17,337, a sharp rise on the previous day, but many of these relate to deaths that occurred in previous days and weeks, and some date back as far as march. prof sir david spiegelhalter, of the university of cambridge, says the figures suggest the uk is past the peak and in a "steadily" albeit slowly improving position. figures released by the office for national statistics indicate deaths in england and wales have reached a twenty year high, with 18,500 deaths from all causes in the week up to 10 april, about 8,000 more than the average for that time of year. the deaths include those in care homes, where the 1,043 year-to-date deaths related to covid-19 is a jump from the 217 reported a week ago. matt hancock says the government is "throwing everything" at developing a vaccine as he announces £42.5m for clinical trials being conducted by imperial college london and the university of oxford. parliament reconvenes after the easter recess with mps approving a new arrangement with some in the house of commons chamber and some attending via video link. fundraiser captain tom moore is the guest of honour at the opening of nhs nightingale hospital yorkshire and the humber in harrogate. 22 april the health protection (covid-19, restrictions) (england) (amendment) regulations 2020 (si 447) come into effect, correcting errors in the original lockdown regulations and allowing some visits to burial grounds and gardens of remembrance. figures show that uk inflation fell to 1.5% in march, largely because of falls in the price of clothing and fuel ahead of the lockdown. parliament holds the first virtual prime minister's questions with dominic raab standing in for boris johnson, at which raab confirms the target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month. in a commons statement matt hancock tells mps "we are at the peak" of the outbreak but social distancing measures cannot be relaxed until the government's five tests have been met. professor chris whitty, the government's chief medical adviser, tells the downing street briefing the uk will have to live with some social distancing measures for at least the rest of the year, and that it is "wholly unrealistic" to expect life to suddenly return to normal in the short term. 23 april the first human trials of a covid-19 vaccine in europe begin in oxford.