Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak speaks during a daily news conference on the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak, at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain April 20, 2020.
London, United Kingdom - Health officials say the number of new cases is flat and figures for people in hospital in London, the epicentre of the outbreak in Britain, continue to fall.
Published: Mon 20 Apr 2020, 11:17 PM
Last updated: Tue 21 Apr 2020, 1:23 AM
The British government on Monday said there were "encouraging signs" that the coronavirus outbreak was easing but warned it was too early to lift the lockdown despite new evidence of the economic toll.
Some 16,509 people hospitalised with Covid-19 in Britain have now died, new health ministry figures showed, up by 449 -- the lowest daily toll for a fortnight.
Health officials say the number of new cases is flat and figures for people in hospital in London, the epicentre of the outbreak in Britain, continue to fall.
"There are encouraging signs that we are making progress," Finance Minister Rishi Sunak told the government's daily media briefing.
But "we are not there yet and it is very clear that, for now, what we should focus on is following the guidance, staying home".
Britain went into lockdown at the end of March, with people told to stay indoors except for daily exercise and buying essentials.
Last week the measures were renewed for another three weeks, but there are concerns about the toll they are having on the economy.
Among several initiatives to support firms hit by the lockdown, the government has offered to pay 80 percent of wages of staff who might otherwise face the sack.
Applications for the scheme opened on Monday, and more than 140,000 firms applied for help for more than one million people in just one day.
Sunak said: "The most important thing we can do for the health of our economy is to protect the health of our people."
"The grants ... will help pay the wages of more than a million people - a million people who if they hadn't been furloughed would have been at risk of losing their jobs," Sunak added.
Businesses that apply by Wednesday should receive money before the end of the month, when wages are often due.
Sunak again refused to estimate the total cost of the programme, but the government's budget watchdog said last week it could reach £42 billion pounds (Dh192 billion) in just three months and cover 30 per cent of the workforce.
This is based on the watchdog's projection that Britain's economy will shrink by 35 per cent during the three months to June due to lockdown restrictions.
Sunak said the scheme would help ensure the economy could return to normal more quickly when Covid-19 restrictions end.
Another government programme to underwrite loans to businesses with a turnover of under 45 million pounds had helped 12,000 businesses, Sunak said, up from 6,000 last week, when there was a backlog of more than 20,000 applications.
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Friday that banks needed to speed up lending under the programme and that it would help if the government underwrote 100 per cent of lending to the smallest firms, removing the need for banks' own credit checks.
BoE chief economist Andy Haldane said on Monday this approach had worked in other countries such as Germany, though it was ultimately a political decision as it would increase taxpayers' potential losses if the loans are not repaid.
But Sunak said on Tuesday he was not persuaded, and that Britain's overall support package for businesses - including the wage support programme - was more generous than most other countries'.
"Where they have used loan guarantees that are different to ours they have done it partly because they are not doing some of the other things we are doing for example the furlough scheme," he said.
The UK's daily death toll, which does not include deaths in the community, including care homes, has been lower on Mondays due to weekend reporting delays.
But David Spiegelhalter, chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said separate new data just for England showed a clear improvement.
Data showing the day people died, rather than when deaths were reported, "clearly shows we are in a steadily, but rather slowly, improving position since the peak of deaths 12 days ago".
"But, judging from the experience in Italy, this could be a lengthy process," he said.
Britain is currently one of the hardest hit countries in the Covid-19 pandemic, and there is growing criticism of the government's initial response.
Sunak admitted there were "things that we will learn from this" but insisted the government made the right decisions at the right time, guided by scientific evidence.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is still recovering after spending a week in hospital with the disease. The foreign minister, Dominic Raab, is deputising in his absence.
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