UK coronavirus live: George Eustice gives daily briefing as death toll rises by 626

The government has been challenged on revelations that almost 80% of respirators in the national pandemic stockpile were out of date when coronavirus hit the UK.

Channel 4 News obtained detailed stock lists that reveal exactly what was held, on the day coronavirus was declared an international emergency. Around 200m vital pieces of kit – including respirators, masks, syringes and needles – had all expired in the eight months before 30 January.

Asked by Channel 4 News political correspondent, Liz Bates, about the findings, NHS England medical director, Prof Stephen Powis, said any items of PPE which have gone past their original date of expiry are retested to ensure they still meet the right standards and would not be distributed to frontline workers unless they met the standards.

There is not going to be “dramatic overnight change” in the UK’s lockdown measures, George Eustice insisted, as he sought to downplay speculation of a greater lifting of restrictions.

Speaking at the daily Downing Street conference ahead of Boris Johnson’s address to the nation on Sunday, where he is expected to announce some form of ease in lockdown measures, the environment secretary insisted the government would be acting cautiously.

He said: “There isn’t going to be any dramatic overnight change. We will be very, very cautious as we loosen the restrictions we have. As the data that we’re outlining on a daily basis shows, we are not out of the woods, there are still major challenges with this virus for sometime to come. And it’s therefore important to avoid that second peak that could overwhelm our NHS, that we exit and evolve these restrictions very, very carefully.”

The government has been challenged on how it’s Covid-19 contact-tracing app will work for those elderly people who do not have smartphones, as it warned they may be left in danger.

Heidi, a member of the public from Romford, Essex, submitted a question at the Downing Street press conference saying:

How will the contact app work properly when a lot of the older generation do not have smartphones? They are the ones that need to know who has Covid 19 the most, but they won’t know and will still be in danger.”

Answering, Defra secretary George Eustice said: “The work that we’ve done suggests that if you got around 60% of the population on this app then it would become highly effective, but even at lower rates it would be effective. We recognise that some elderly people may not have a mobile phone and may not have an app but also many will have family to help support them to get such an app. And, of course, some of those – particularly the shielded group – may indeed continue to stay at home for longer periods of time to protect themselves.”

It follows the Guardian reporting on signs of a generational divide among the take-up of the app on the Isle of Wight where it is being piloted this week. The app is due to be rolled out to the rest of the country later this month.

The government has failed for the sixth day in a row to meet its 100,000 Covid-19 testing target.

Despite a rise by more than 10,000 in the number of tests carried out, only 97,029 were conducted in the 24 hours to 9am today. It is up from 86,583 the day before but still short of the six-figure target that the health secretary, Matt Hancock, pledged the government would meet by the end of April.

It comes after Hancock was accused of artificially inflating the number of coronavirus tests as he last week hailed the rapid expansion that allowed him to reach a self-imposed 100,000-a-day target as a “national achievement”. It emerged that a third of the 122,347 tests included in the final 24-hour period before the deadline were counted before they had been carried out.

The UK’s coronavirus death toll has reached 31,241 it has been announced, marking an increase of 626 since yesterday.

The environment secretary, George Eustice, gave the new figure, which includes deaths in both hospitals and the community including care homes, as he spoke at the daily Downing Street press conference.

Eustice also announced details of the £16m fund to help support charities feed some of the nation’s most vulnerable people hit by the pandemic.

Charities are set to receive £16m to help provide food to some of the country’s most vulnerable people struggling during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Refuges, homeless shelters and rehabilitation services are among at least 5,000 frontline charities and community groups in England who will benefit from the funds.

It comes after it emerged that the coronavirus lockdown has triggered an unprecedented rise in food bank use as the economy was hit and household incomes dropped.

The fund will cover rural areas in addition to cities and will target those who are struggling to afford food, the government has said. The environment secretary, George Eustice, said:

During this difficult time, our frontline food charities are doing brilliant work amid a significant increase in demand – working in refuges, drop-in services, homeless centres and other places.

It is absolutely vital they have the resources they need and this funding will help the most vulnerable in our society get the food they need at this enormously challenging time.”

The funding is part of the £750m pot announced by the chancellor for charities across the UK during the coronavirus outbreak. It comes after charities reported unprecedented levels of demand for assistance, while facing a drop-off in donations. Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of FareShare, said:

We welcome this support from Defra to obtain vital food supplies, on top of the generosity already shown by the UK food industry. This will enable us to continue to supply much-needed food and drink to the many thousands of frontline charities and community groups across England that are doing the humbling work of getting meals to very vulnerable people during this crisis.”

The programme will provide millions of meals over the next three months delivered via charities, including FareShare, the largest not-for-profit organisation that redistributes food in England and nationwide.

Funds will also be available for smaller food distribution charities, a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirmed, with a Covid-19 food charity grant scheme to be created next week to allow charities that provide food to apply online for funding.

Outdoor swimming pools and leisure centres are capable of reopening “quite easily” within weeks under social distancing measures, the boss of a leading gym chain claims.

The David Lloyd Leisure chief executive, Glenn Earlam, believes there is “prejudice against certain sectors”, arguing that gyms should be allowed to open before shopping centres.

With Boris Johnson due to reveal plans on Sunday to ease the country’s lockdown measures, reports have suggested that gyms and leisure centres may be shut until the autumn as they are feared to be a “hotbed of infection”. However, Earlam told PA:

The evidence suggests that keeping the body fit and healthy could be one of the best things to do to prevent Covid-19, but I think gyms and leisure centres are quite far down on the pecking order of opening things up again, which seems pretty counter-intuitive.

I believe leisure centres and gyms could be safely reopened quite easily, not everything would be the same at the start, there would have to be screens on reception desks, floor markings ensuring members stay two metres away and every piece of equipment would be cleaned after every use, with hand towels readily available. The numbers of people entering could also be limited, with ill people advised to stay at home.”

Claiming his company’s gyms were “incredibly clean” and insisting staff would be given PPE, he said his facilities would be ready to open in the coming weeks. He added:

We’d also be in the position to reopen outdoor swimming pools – all the advice suggests chlorine kills Covid stone dead. Of course we’d have to limit the number of people around the pool and changing rooms would remain closed, but there’s nothing to suggest people can’t safely swim while maintaining social distancing measures.

Boris Johnson has invited Russia to participate in a global vaccine summit next month during a call with Vladmir Putin to mark VE Day.

The prime minister extended an invitation to Putin for the Global Vaccine Summit that the UK will be hosting virtually in June to help strengthen healthcare systems and tackle Covid-19 in some of the poorest nations, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

“The prime minister spoke to President Putin today to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day,” the spokeswoman said, adding:

They paid tribute to the collaboration between British and Russian forces during the second world war, including through the Arctic convoys, and to the heroism and sacrifice of all those who lost their lives.

They also discussed the bilateral relationship between our countries. The prime minister was clear we should maintain dialogue, but that obstacles to further progress remained.

The leaders spoke about the coronavirus pandemic and agreed on the importance of continuing to work together and with other countries to defeat the disease.

The six-week-old baby announced to have died in an English hospital is the youngest victim of the outbreak in the UK so far (see earlier).

PA has this background:

While it is much less likely for children to suffer severely from Covid-19 compared with adults, Friday’s NHS England figures show 12 deaths so far for hospital patients aged 0 to 19 who had tested positive.

Some nine, including the baby, had a pre-existing health condition, while three did not. The youngest victim with no known underlying health issues was Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, who died in March aged just 13.

After his case emerged, one expert called for research into deaths which have occurred outside of patient groups believed to be at higher risk.

Dr Nathalie MacDermott, an academic clinical lecturer at King’s College London, said at the time:

It is essential that we undertake research to determine why a proportion of deaths occur outside of the groups expected to succumb to infection as it may indicate an underlying genetic susceptibility.

Determining if this is the case could help us to learn more about the interaction of the virus with the immune system and subsequently what further treatments may be suitable in patients with severe infection.”

People of all ages with underlying health problems are believed to be at higher risk from the effects of the virus. But a major British study of almost 17,000 patients with severe Covid-19 found that only a very small number of children fall seriously ill.

The study, which examined data from 16,749 Covid-19 patients in 166 hospitals between 6 February and 18 April, found that under-18s accounted for less than 2% of the study sample and under-fives accounted for 0.8%.

Public Health Wales has announced another 28 coronavirus deaths taking the death toll to 1,090 in Wales.

Earlier the first minister, Mark Drakeford, said the Welsh government estimates there will be another 800 deaths in Wales by 7 August if the R number stays at its current level of 0.8. If it increases to 1.1 the death toll would increase by 7,200 by August, he warned.