UK coronavirus deaths to decline faster in couple of weeks - adviser

The death rate in Britain for the new coronavirus will only start to decline quickly in another couple of weeks, the country's chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said on Thursday.

"Although the number of patients in intensive care units is coming down slowly, the deaths remain at a plateau, coming down slightly, not coming down fast," he said. "I would expect that to continue for another couple of weeks and we will then see a faster decline," he added during a news conference.

In terms of hospital cases, he said: "You can see in nearly all areas this is flat or on the way down. So this speaks to the point that as we've radically reduced the number of infections in the community, this has turned into a reduction in the number in hospital. We are still ... coming through the peak but you can see it is headed very much in the right direction"