About half of COVID-19 deaths are reportedly in care homes

This would suggest that the daily figures announced by the UK government are vastly under-estimated, as they only include deaths in hospitals where a patient had tested positive for the virus.

Almost two million people worldwide have been infected with the disease and around 120,000 have died after testing positive for it, according to data from US university Johns Hopkins.

On Monday, England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said 13.5% of the UK’s care homes had at least one resident with a confirmed case of coronavirus, up from 9% the previous week.

But the figures from Europe, taken between 6 and 11 April, suggest a higher rate of infection and fatality from the disease.