Amid lockdown extension, UK's coronavirus death toll surges past 14,500
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Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had said on Thursday that the government has decided to extend the lockdown by another three weeks
After UK declared an extension of lockdown on Thursday, the country reported 847 new deaths in the last 24 hours due to coronavirus as the total number of death toll rose to 14,576 on Friday.
Britain had reported 861 deaths on Thursday, indicating a marginal dip in the number of COVID-19 casualties.
According to the health ministry, 5,599 people had tested positive for coronavirus over the last 24 hours, taking the total number of infections in the country to nearly 109,000.
UK is among the most badly hit countries in the world along with France, Italy Spain and the US who have seen their countries and economy devasted due to the pandemic.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had said on Thursday that the government has decided to extend the lockdown by another three weeks, while asserting that "worst thing we could do right now is ease up too soon".
PM Johnson who was himself hit by the virus had announced a lockdown on March 23 even as the daily death toll from the virus hit nearly 1,000 over the Easter weekend but has been falling ever since.
On the question of relaxing the lockdown, Raab said:"We will only do it when the evidence demonstrates that it is safe to do it," adding, "Now is not the moment to give the coronavirus a second chance."
As the country continued to struggle to combat the virus, Raab said China would have answer tough questions while adding that "we can't have business as usual after this crisis".
"We'll have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and how it couldn't have been stopped earlier," Raab pointed out.