Britain announces 70 more Covid-19 deaths in preliminary toll

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Britain today announced 70 more Covid-19 deaths in the preliminary toll as the outbreak continues to wane for now.

Department of Health bosses have yet to confirm the final toll, which includes laboratory-confirmed deaths in all settings.

The early count, which only includes a fraction of the deaths in England, is calculated by adding all of the updates from health chiefs in all of the home nations.

NHS England today reported 67 more victims in hospitals across the country. Wales recorded two victims in all settings, followed by one in Northern Ireland and none in Scotland - the first time zero fatalities have been recorded on a weekday north of the border since before lockdown.

Health officials recorded 173 deaths last Friday and only 149 were registered yesterday - with the rolling seven-day average dropping to 119, down from 945 at the height of the crisis in mid-April.

It means the government's death toll now stands at 43,300 — but other grim figures taking into account all suspected deaths shows the actual tally is in the region of 55,000.

Separate promising statistics released yesterday showed the R rate has remained below the dreaded level of one for yet another week and that the number of new cases is still shrinking by as much as 4 per cent each day.

In other coronavirus developments in Britain today:

Britain's biggest shopping centres including Lakeside and the Trafford Centre could have to close as their owner Intu admitted it will likely have to call in administrators;

Boris Johnson warned of the danger of a 'serious spike' in coronavirus infections if people take 'liberties' with social distancing rules;

The risk of dying from coronavirus after being hospitalised has plummeted since the peak of the outbreak, Oxford University statisticians found - dropping from 6 per cent to 1.5 per cent;

Police chiefs warned that a 'pressure cooker is building up' which could erupt into an orgy of violence this summer as lockdown ends;

Men working in factories or as security guards were being killed by coronavirus at more than twice the rate of healthcare staff during the height of the crisis in Britain, shock official data showed;

Sweden's top virus expert said the 'world went mad' with coronavirus lockdowns which 'fly in the face of what is known about handling virus pandemics'.

Department of Health data released yesterday showed 167,023 tests were carried out or posted the day before. The number includes antibody tests for frontline NHS and care workers.

But bosses again refused to say how many people were tested, meaning the exact number of Brits who have been swabbed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been a mystery for a month — since May 22.

Health chiefs also reported 1,118 more cases of Covid-19, the fewest recorded in any day since before lockdown was imposed. Just 643 people tested positive for the life-threatening virus on Thursday, March 19.

The daily death data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours — it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities.

The data does not always match updates provided by the home nations. For example, the Scottish government last Thursday announced two deaths – but the DH recorded nine north of the border.

Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync. Wales is not thought to be affected.

And the count announced by NHS England every afternoon — which only takes into account deaths in hospitals — does not match up with the DH figures because they work off a different recording system.

For instance, some deaths announced by NHS England bosses will have already been counted by the Department of Health, which records fatalities 'as soon as they are available'.