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| Total death toll from Covid-19 jumps to 233 in UK as dozens of new fatalities confirmed | Total death toll from Covid-19 jumps to 233 in UK as dozens of new fatalities confirmed |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Health officials in the UK have confirmed 53 new deaths from the Covid-19 coronavirus in England. The increase brings the UK’s death toll to 233, and comes as the government races to equip its health system against the illness. | |
| The increase in deaths - the largest in a single day since the deadly virus reached British shores last month - came as the British government scrambled to prepare hospital beds for critical patients. | |
| The National Health Service struck a deal with private hospitals on Saturday that will see 20,000 healthcare staff join the health service’s response to the pandemic. The Covid-19 has infected nearly 300,000 people worldwide and left an estimated number of more than 12,000 people dead since the outbreak in the Chinese province of Hubei before Christmas. | |
| The deal will also see additional hospital beds and thousands of ventilators be made available across the UK, to handle the expected surge in cases. | |
| Britain has been rather slow to implement containment measures, compared to other European nations. A national lockdown was ordered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday, almost two weeks after Italy did the same, and a week after almost all businesses in neighboring Ireland shut their doors. | |
| The UK government also mulled a plan to allow majority of the British population to catch Covid-19 in waves, in an effort to build ‘herd immunity’ to the virus. A similar approach has been taken by the government of the Netherlands. | |
| However, last week the UK secretary of state for health and social, Matt Hancock, said that was not the major policy. |