Coronavirus: UK cases soar to 590 as death toll grows

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK has increased to 590, officials have announced, a rise of 134 in a day.

Separately, NHS England has announced two more patients have died, bringing the total death toll from coronavirus in the UK to 10.

One patient, an 89-year-old woman, was being treated at Charing Cross Hospital.

A spokesperson for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust said the lady was very unwell with underlying health conditions adding: “The patient had tested positive for coronavirus. Our thoughts and condolences are with the patient’s family.”

A second woman, in her sixties, died after testing positive for coronavirus at Queen’s Hospital in Essex.

Tony Chambers, interim chief executive, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust said: “We can confirm that a patient, who was in her sixties, and who tested positive for COVID-19 has sadly died at Queen's hospital. She had been very unwell with significant other health conditions.

“Our thoughts and condolences are with the patient’s family at what is undoubtedly a very distressing time.

“We ask that the family’s privacy is respected”.

The latest increases and deaths come as the government faces pressure to take more drastic action to prevent the epidemic from spreading.

Last night former regional director of Public Health England Professor John Ashton said the government should have started putting measures in place a month ago.

He said: "We’ve got a complacent attitude, it feels wooden and academic, and we’ve wasted a month when we should have been engaging with the public.

"If this now spreads the way it looks likely to spread, there will not be enough hospital beds and people will have to be nursed at home. We should have gotten a grip on this a month ago."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee today where he was expected to approve a shift from “containment” to “delay”.

More than 126,000 people have so far been infected across the world, and 4,600 have died after contracting the disease.