The Department for Health and Social Care has published the latest coronavirus hospital death figures for the UK.

There have been 847 new deaths, taking the total to 14,576.438,991 tests have concluded, with 21,328 tests on 16 April. 341,551 people have been tested of which 108,692 tested positive.

In this afternoon’s press conference, the Business Secretary Alok Sharma said that the government has set up a vaccine taskforce to find a coronavirus vaccine.

The taskforce will be led by Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan van Tam, will support efforts to rapidly develop a coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible by providing industry and research institutions with the resources and support needed. This includes reviewing regulations and scaling up manufacturing, so that when a vaccine becomes available, it can be produced quickly and in mass quantities.

Representatives from government, academia and industry are coming together to form the Taskforce. Its members will include government life sciences champion Sir John Bell, as well as AstraZeneca, and the Wellcome Trust.

Sharma said: “We should be under no illusions. Producing a vaccine is a colossal undertaking. There are no guarantees, but the government is backing our scientists, betting big to maximize the chance of success.”

The Treasury has announced the extension of the UK’s job furlough scheme, which will now run an extra month until the end of June to “reflect continuing social distancing measures”

During this morning’s Health Select Committee meeting, Professor Anthony Costello from the UCL Institute for Global Health said “we could see 40,000 deaths” in the UK.

He warned that we were a long way of “herd immunity” and this was only likely to be reached naturally if we have five or six waves of cases.

The Health Secretary Matt Hancock told MP’s that there were shortages of personal protective equipment and said gowns in particular were a “pressure point”.

He could not guarantee that hospitals would not run out this weekend. He said this was due to “global challenges” and that while the government is working hard to address issues, there is “no magic wand” he can wave.

Asked whether we are likely to see more deaths from disruption to medical services than from the coronavirus itself, the Health Secretary said that he thought this was unlikely, but added that he was very concerned that there has been a significant drop off in first presentations for cancer patients

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