Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is deputising in the Prime Minister’s absence but appeared reluctant to say whether he would be prepared to take a decision to break with Mr Johnson’s strategy while he was still in hospital if he believed a change of direction was necessary.

It’s still not clear who is running the country

Piers Morgan

And questions still hang over the UK’s coronavirus strategy after Mr Raab suggested a review of the lockdown announced by the Prime Minister when he set out the restrictions would not go ahead next Monday as scheduled.

GMB presenter Mr Morgan said the country needed to know who was in control at such a crucial stage of the crippling coronavirus crisis.

He tweeted: “It’s still not clear who is running the country.”

He continued: “Bottom line: who currently has the authority to authorise a nuclear strike?

“Boris Johnson? Dominic Raab? Or someone else?

“And before you say ‘that will never happen!’ – none of us thought any of this would happen three months ago.”

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Mr Raab said “normal Cabinet collective responsibility” would apply while the Prime Minister was incapacitated.

He said was “confident” Mr Johnson would pull throught after being spending two nights in the intensive care unit at St Thomas’s hospital after his coronavirus symptoms worsened.

Updating the nation on the Prime Minister’s condition, Mr Raab said he remained stable and had not required a ventilator but had received “standard oxygen treatment” while breathing without assistance.

He said: “I’m confident he’ll pull through because if there’s one thing I know about this Prime Minister, he’s a fighter and he’ll be back at the helm leading us through this crisis in short order.

Mr Raab insisted ministers would not “blink or flinch” from following the instructions Mr Johnson had set out before he was admitted to hospital.

He said: “He’s asked me to deputise for him for as long as is necessary, but the normal Cabinet collective responsibility and principles that inform that will apply.”

But there are growing concerns about when the lockdown measures will be reviewed after England’s chief medical officer admitted the UK has “a lot to learn” from Germany’s expansive testing scheme.

Mr Raab stressed the Government could not consider easing the lockdown restrictions until it was clear the peak of the epidemic had passed and it could be “responsibly done”.

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Downing Street later insisted the review would take place after the three-week mark originally committed to.

But the emergency legislation laid before Parliament three days after the PM’s announcement states that a review must take place every 21 days, with the first deadline being April 16.

Sir Patrick said there were signs that the rates of new infections and new hospital admissions for COVID-19 were “flattening off”.

But he added it would be another “week or so” before they could be sure, indicating lockdown measures would not be eased before then.

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