Boris Johnson today announced that the deaths of 181 NHS workers and 131 social care workers have ‘sadly been reported involving Covid-19’.

That is an increase of 37 NHS staff who have lost their lives to coronavirus in the past week.

The Prime Minister is holding his final Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons today ahead of a two-week parliamentary recess, with many questioning whether the break should go ahead during the current crisis.

He told MPs: ‘I know the thoughts of the whole House are with their families and friends.’

According to government figures, the UK’s coronavirus death toll stands at 35,341. This includes deaths in hospitals, care homes and the wider community.

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However the Office for National Statistics has said this is likely to be an underestimate, with statistics on excess deaths suggesting the true number of UK coronavirus deaths is just under 55,000.

The ONS statistics include any death with Covid-19 on the death certificate, whether or not a test has been carried out, but have a lag of about a fortnight.

The prime minister is being grilled by MPs on care home deaths and how ethnic minorities have been disproportionately affected by the virus.

Mr Johnson said he has asked for a ‘rapid review’ on why BAME communities are more likely to die from Covid-19 and said that review is currently taking place.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said that government claims that they threw ‘a protective ring around our care homes’ were ‘flatly contradicted by the chief executive of Care England’.

He said that government advice up to April 15 was that negative tests were not required before patients were discharged form hospitals to care homes.

‘What’s protective about that?’ Sir Keir asked.

The PM claimed ‘no one was discharged into a care home without express authorisation of a clinician’.

He added: ‘The number of patients discharged into care homes was 40% down in March compared to January.’

Mr Johnson also said that hundreds of thousands of care home staff and residents have been tested for coronavirus and that testing will increase across the country to ‘200,000 tests by the end of this month’.

‘This country is now testing more than virtually any other country in Europe,’ the prime minister said.

Sir Keir pressed the PM on plans to track and trace the virus, with Mr Johnson saying that 24,000 trackers have been recruited in the UK, and that number will rise to 25,000 by June 1.

People recruited as tracers ‘will be able to track 10,000 new cases a day’, the PM said.

Meanwhile, Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle told Health Secretary Matt Hancock off for advising the PM in the Commons chamber.

The speaker said he would be ‘more than happy’ for Mr Hancock to leave the chamber and be replaced with someone else.

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