Thank you for joining us for today's daily briefing on Corona virus.

I'd like to update You'il on the government's plan to defeat the virus on dawn.

The latest developments I'm joined once again by our chief medical officer, Professor Chris Witty, and the chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Balance.

From the very beginning of this crisis, I followed the advice of our world leading scientists to defeat Corona virus by taking the right measures at the right time.

What everybody needs to recognize is that our n hs, like any world class health service, has only limited numbers of doctors, nurses and specialist equipment.

So the more people who become sick at any one time, the harder it is for the N HS to cope.

And so it's vital to delay the spread of the disease on dhe, reduce the number of people needing hospital treatment at any one time.

That's why we've given the clear instruction that people must stay at home unless they have one of the reasons we've set out on DDE.

With your help, we will slow the spread of the disease.

I want to thank everyone who's being following the clear rules that we set out on Monday, and I want to thank everyone in the N hs, the front line of the fight against Corona virus.

And of course, our public service is our teachers and our school staff, the transport workers, police officers, everyone who's keeping this country going.

But I also want to offer a special thank you everyone who has now volunteered to help the N hs.

When we launched the appeal last night, we hoped to get 250,000 volunteers over a few days.

But I can tell you that in just 24 hours, 405,000 people have responded to the call.

They will be driving medicines from pharmacies to patients.

They'll be bringing patients home from hospital.

Very importantly, they'll be making regular phone calls to check on and support people who are staying on their own at home.

And they will be absolutely crucial in the fight against this virus that is already in one day as many volunteers as the population of Coventry and so all of you into allover former N hs staff who are coming back now into the service.

I say thank you on behalf of the entire country.

Now I want to take some questions.

But finally I want to remind everyone of cool policy, Stay at home, protect the n hs and save lives.

Thank you.

I think we'll go straight to questions.

Now, on Dhe we are going to hear.

First of all, I think from Laura Kuhns Burg of the BBC.

Laura, are you that?

Thank you, Mr.

Yes, Prime Minister, can you honestly say that the government is coping?

There aren't enough tests.

People are struggling to make ends meet, and some people are being forced to go to work when they don't feel that they're safe.

Is that coping?

And can I ask the medics as well?

If we already had the kinds of numbers of tests that you would like to see, How much of a difference would it have made to your ability to fight the disease off?

First of all, Laura on the on the tests out a huge national program of testing is being rolled out.

But our hand over to Patrick into Chris to say a little bit more about testing and how we're we're going to do it.

But on the the National effort to protect those who whose jobs whose livelihoods threatened.

I think everybody understands the challenge that the whole country now faces, but we have to get through this together, and we are getting through it together with an unprecedented program of support for not just for businesses but for workers of all kinds across the country.

Never in our history has the government put it zones around people in the way that we are doing now to help them get through this difficult time.

And yes, it is absolutely true that the measures to support people in employment are exceptional, and an extraordinary 80% of your salary up to £2500 per month were standing behind.

We're also in the course of the next couple of days you'll be hearing more from Rishi Soon.

Act the Chancellor tomorrow about what we're doing to help the self employed.

And I think people do understand that the complexity of their working arrangements a snow has been harder to come up with the right tailored program for the self employed as well.

But that is coming forward tomorrow on dhe.

Yes, I do think that when you look at the sheer scale of what the government is doing to get this country through.

We will torto question directly.

We will cope, and we are coping very well indeed under the most challenging possible circumstances.

But the most important thing to enable us to get through it well together and to come out well together is I think we can, if I know we can, is that we all follow the instructions that the government has given a stay at home.

Protect the n hs on That's the way to save lives.

But on testing, perhaps Chris, would you like to say something in terms of testing their variety of different things, You use testing for some of which we have tests available for and have done throughout, some of which we do not.

So I'm gonna run through them because they're different answers to depending which you're talking about.

Starting off with the Auntie Jen testing, which is testing the people who currently got a disease.

We initially were using that to help screen people who came from high risk countries when that ceased to be a sensible policy.

We've moved on to testing people in intensive cares and in hospitals, and we have sufficient tests for that.

At the moment.

The system for that is working fine and is being scaled up so that side of testing is in place and is working well.

So if the patient gets us far as a hospital, we're confident on the testing and on the scale up the thing we would like to do next, which would certainly make a difference less to the disease.

But definitely the HSE is being able to test N hs and other critical workers who are self isolating, who currently are not being tested as we do not have sufficient testing.

This is a global problem because basically every country is wanting this new test, which for a disease that wasn't actually being tested for anywhere at 33 months ago.

So everybody wants this.

So there is a global shortage, and that's a bottleneck for us.

But the next priority is to get critical workers back to work or to say to them, you have got this, so we definitely would like that not to fight the disease but support the N hs.

Once we have more testing than we need for that capacity, then we want to go out to test a much wider range of people with mild symptoms, some people already having it as part of our surveillance system.

But we were obviously like to go wider.

But that's the prioritization list.

And then separately, they're all the tests, which we will want tohave, which are not yet absolutely evaluated but are going to be critical once you've got them.

That can tell someone whether they have had the virus.

So this is the antibody test.

You can't do that in the first few days after someone had a fever.

But after a few a few weeks, possibly as short as one week on that will allow us to be able to say to N.

H s workers.

Do other workers.

Look, you've had this infection, at least for a short time, on possibly for quite a long time.

We think it's like you're protected against this and you can go back to work and be confident you get another coffin fever that is not going to be Corona virus, but that's that's a sort of technology that's quite close but and is being evaluated this week.

But when it's not there on the 1st 1 are.

Bottleneck is largely global shortages, which we are obviously doing our level best to free up because it would make it a lot lot better for us to be able to test healthcare workers are now for sure, testing is crucial.

It's absolutely crucial.

And yes, we need more of it, a cz, Krista's said on.

The other thing that's gonna be important with the antibody test is to be able to work out how many people have had the disease, a symptomatically, and that's gonna be important to understand what to do next.

So these tests are crucially important.

We need more of them on.

People are working very hard to get them in place.

But one thing I'm finding out, I think, is the one thing that's worse than no test is a bad test?

Yes, so Senate telling someone inaccurately other they have had it or not had it could lead to dangerous mistakes being made, So we do not want to go ahead with testing until we're confident off the technology and that that that is so important, that if it means a delay to get there, that delay is worth having.

Because that is as Chris said, if you tell someone it's okay.

You haven't got it.

They have got it.

That is not a good position to be in.

If you tell somebody they're immune from it and they're not, that is not a good position to be in.

So we must make sure that we get the quality of this absolutely right on the just.

Patrick on the numbers of people who have the disease a symptomatically.

There was a study I saw quoted from some Oxford academics saying a CZ, many as 50% may have had it asymptomatic your I think a lot of people have seen that, uh, that story.

How'd you How'd you evaluate that?

At this stage?

We simply don't know at the moment.

And there.

That's why the antibody test is so important.

So there are estimates that up to 80% or more people in Wuhan weren't detected.

Their estimates that of those who are positive.

So that's a small percentage of the population who tested positive.

Quite a number of them were asymptomatic in a town in Italy.

But we haven't We don't know what a general population level.

That's why it's so important to get this test in place.

Thank you, Beth.

Three b Sky News.

Thank you, Prime Minister.

Just a couple of questions.

You said earlier.

You're not closing down the whole of the UK economy.

But other countries such as Italy, a country you said we were two or three weeks behind have now introduced a very strict, locked down lock down.

Wouldn't you save more lives if you did keep all non essential workers at home?

And if I may, a question on testing CMO ests ph e England has said today 3.5 million testing kits could be available showing whether you've had grown a virus or not as early as next week.

In practical terms, who will get those tests and how on in broader terms?

How transformational do you think this will be in terms of Fighting Corona virus?

Thank you.

Well, thanks very much, Beth.

In in terms of the epidemiological value of what we're doing in asking people to stay at home, I think possibly the most part I can say just repeat the basic message, which is that if you can stay at home, then you overwhelmingly should state, and that's all our most important advice.

If it's absolutely necessary for you to to goto work a place of work, then it's vital that your employer follows the rules as set out by public health England, and ensures that you have the protection that you need in the proper rules.

On on social distancing, I do apply.

But I wondered whether I could could ask either are witnesses to comment on on the value of what we're doing in terms of the Beth US recently enough about not closing down the whole UK economy, which we're not doing.

But we're simply asking people to stay at home.

It really won't like it.

I can certainly give given answer.

Patrick might want to add to this.

I mean, the first thing is that the modeling every country does this slightly differently, and every country has got a slightly different epidemic epidemic pattern at this point in time.

So that's entirely reasonable on All of us, of course, are dealing with a new infection and therefore having to take the science from quite a low base very fast up in terms of at the advice to give.

But the modeling we have done here, which Patrick and talk about in more detail, was based on the idea that some, quite a lot of people would have to go to work as part of this and that the mark that is the basis on which the modeling is done.

But we absolutely need people to avoid anything that is in any way discretionary, where people can choose whether they do it or not.

So that's why all other social activity, all other mixing routine households has to stop is to allow these absolutely essential things to continue.

So that's that's the basis of doing this.

There is an additional reason, which is We have to remember that this is these Many of the things we have to do are going to be have to be sustained for a reason.

The long period of time on dhe broadly, the more difficult you make it for people, the less easy it is to sustain.

So there is some degree of trade off between those two things.

In terms of testing, I want I want to be really clear about what we can and can't do.

We certainly have a acquired for the U.

K.

A lot of tests, but I'll go back to my previous answer on Patrick's previous answer.

The key thing for us to do is now to evaluate.

Are these tests accurate enough to be used by the general public on dhe?

If Theo answer is they're all incredibly accurate, then we will work out right the most quick and effective way to release these.

If it turned out none of the more accurate, we would not wish to release any of them because inaccurate testing isn't it is something which we really should be avoiding.

So the thing we are going to really fast is the evaluation and then, based on that evaluation, will be able to decide what to next.

Then we're perhaps you want to add anything on the modeling side?

Well, you never know reemphasizes.

What we're trying to do is to break the transmission of virus from one household to another.

We're trying to break the transmission of virus in society.

To do that, we need to keep separate on.

The clearest way to keep separate is to stay in your house, and that's why that's the core message.

There are people who have to goto work in some jobs who cannot stay in the house all day.

The most obvious one is in the N.

H s, but there are others as well.

And then it's important to break the transmission where possible, to stay two meters apart.

And that's what we need to keep focusing on trying to stop the transmission of this virus between people between households and break that chain in terms of whether it's transformational in the long run.

The answer is it will completely transform what we can do in the short run.