The UK’s coronavirus death toll has risen to at least 28,321 after 346 more people died in hospitals.

The toll was updated after England recorded another 327 deaths in hospitals, Wales another 14 and Northern Ireland another five. Scotland is yet to release today’s figures.

The UK’s number will rise even further later today, when deaths in care homes and the wider community are announced.

Previously, the Department of Health only included deaths in hospitals in their daily figures. The government began including care home deaths in their figures earlier this week, amid concern it reflected a significant hidden death toll.

The UK now has the third highest number of recorded deaths in the world after the USA and Italy.

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This has been partly blamed on a slow approach to testing and tracing, something which the government aims to change with a new app being tested this week on the Isle of Wight.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps said: ‘The idea is that we will encourage as many people to take this up as possible. This is going to be a huge national effort and we need for this to work 50-60% of people to be using this app.

‘Not everybody has a smartphone, and I appreciate that for various reasons not everybody will download it but it will be the best possible way to help the NHS.’

He stressed the app would be completely confidential.

The app will be central to the Government’s efforts in slowing the spread of coronavirus and will involve alerting people who have been in contact with an infected person and asking them to self-isolate.

Meanwhile, the Office for National Statistics has released an interactive map showing where deaths from coronavirus have taken place.

The highest concentration of deaths is in London, but there were also hotspots in Manchester, Liverpool and other major cities.

More follows.

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