You can tell the government is anxious when the prime minister gets out of his self-isolation bunker, looking pretty rough, to record a video message reassuring the nation.

Some people might know that the number of coronavirus deaths will rise exponentially until the lockdown measures have time to work but that doesn’t mean they aren’t shocked and worried when it happens.

Sky News has taken a deep dive into the COVID-19 figures, to see what’s really happening.

UK deaths

563 people were added to the total of those who have died in the UK with COVID-19 – now 2,352.

It was just a 31% increase on the previous day’s rise but a full 383 people more than on Monday.

86% of deaths reported on Wednesday (486) took place in England where the NHS says 2,137 people have now died but Wales recorded by far its biggest increase in deaths since the outbreak began – 29, more than twice its previous record daily total of 14 which it reported on Monday.

98 people in Wales have now died with COVID-19 and we can expect it to pass the 100 mark today. Scotland also reported a record increase – 16 deaths – to take its total to 76, and Northern Ireland added two deaths to take its tally to 30.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) compiles the death figures from data supplied by the health agencies of the four nations (NHS England, Health Protection Scotland, Public Health Wales and Public Health Agency NI).

The data has to be validated, and each nation works to a slightly different timescale, so the UK figure released by the DHSC does not always match the sum of the published national figures.

This was again the case on Wednesday with the government reporting 11 more deaths in its figures than the nations themselves. The Public Health England (PHE) dashboard is reporting 29 more deaths in England (2,166) than in the NHS figures on Wednesday and it still has Scotland on 60 deaths and Northern Ireland on 28, instead of 76 and 30 respectively.

We can expect those 29 extra deaths in England and the missing deaths in Northern Ireland and Scotland to appear in today’s figures.

London still accounts for a third of deaths in England with 706 in total with the West Midlands (299) and the south East (280) both expected to pass 300 deaths on Thursday.

Only the North East is still in double figures (64 deaths). London with 6.4 deaths per 100,000 people and the West Midlands with 4.1 deaths per 100,000 people are the only regions above the UK average of 2.7 on this measure.

Within Wednesday’s death figures for London was the 13-year-old boy who died on Monday at King’s College Hospital Trust. That trust reported 19 new deaths on Wednesday but two others in London (Hillingdon and London North West Healthcare) reported 20 deaths each.

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