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The number of people with the coronavirus disease Covid-19 who had died in hospitals by the beginning of the week, Sunday 19 April, was 15,464, compared with a total of 9,875 a week earlier. Two days later it was 16,509. But the number of people in London in hospital with Covid-19 fell for seven consecutive days and there were plenty of empty beds. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, was reported by colleagues to be worried that relaxing lockdown measures too soon might lead to a second spike in the outbreak. Supplies of personal protective equipment were reported to be falling short; a delivery of 84 tons, including 400,000 gowns, from Turkey was delayed. As work continued to develop a vaccine, Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said: ‘The truth is we don’t have another vaccine for any other human coronavirus.’
On the first day that they could, 144,000 companies applied for grants under the government job-retention or furlough scheme, estimated to cost £50 billion.
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