Two members of star for in hospital with the virus, while the home closely monitors the health of everyone who lives and works here.

The government says Another 708 people have died in UK hospital since 5 p.m. On Thursday, the highest number of deaths in a day today.

Cabinet Minister Michael Gove reported startling rises in people being admitted to hospital in particular parts of the country.

The pattern off hospital admissions in England and Wales has regional differences.

In London, the number of admissions fell slightly between the first and second of April admissions a steady in Wales, but in Yorkshire and the North East, they've gone up by 35%.

And in the Midlands, the rate of hospital admissions has gone up by 47% today.

What for General in Hartford share closed its and Ian a covert 19 related critical incident.

A problem with oxygen equipment meant it couldn't take any more patients.

They're waas, some hopeful news.

In some places, hospital numbers have plateau owed in London.

But the medical message waas that the future of the virus is in our hands.

There is reason to be hopeful that some of the changes that we are observing in infections and perhaps in hospitalizations is now reflecting the benefit off the social distancing that everybody is complying with.

But it will still take time for that toe have its maximum effect.

The government said.

Seven health workers have now died of Cove in 19.

In London, there was news that three bus drivers and two controllers have died of the virus.

Their union is calling for transport workers to get protective equipment, while the government has far to go to test people for the virus.

That scale on APP, which crunches information supplied by working age people with symptoms and without has found just under 5% would be positive if tested.

Extrapolating to the whole UK population, the data suggests that in the last fortnight an estimated 1.9 million people have been infected with covert 19 with hot spots in major cities on Dhe South Wales.

Looking at the team's interactive map, the data collected from people in Birmingham suggests 6% have Corona virus symptoms in Liverpool.

Again, it's just over 6% and in Glasgow the data suggests 4% could have the virus.

And when you look at the map and you see what's going on in South Wales, where you know there are peaks that aren't necessarily and where you'd expect right in Cardiff.

But in some of those other areas that don't have much in the way of any chest facilities, so potentially, you know, this would allow people given three weeks grace to try and mobilize things in some of these areas and maybe move them away from other areas.

And also, if you look at a map, you see Liverpool has more problems relatively, the Manchester on DSO that could be helpful to people as well.

In a move to stem the spread of Corona virus in jail, around 4000 selected low risk prisoners in England and Wales are going to be temporarily freed.

Although tagged, the government wouldn't put a date on when the country under lock down.

We'll have a bit more freedom.

The prime minister, after a temperature yesterday, is still behind closed doors.

His fiancee, Carrie Simmons, who's pregnant, has spent a week in bed with symptoms, but says she's now on the mend.

Trended on.

Later in the program, we'll hear from families of prisoners concerned about the spread of the virus inside jails.

Now 212 patients in the Midlands have died after testing positive for Corona virus in the last 24 hours farm or even than London, with hospital admission rates in the region up by almost 50%.

With intense pressure on emergency departments, work to complete The new temporary Nightingale Hospital in Birmingham's National Exhibition Center is being ramped up.

One intensive care consultant in the Midlands is told Channel Four News he feels his team are at greater risk because of a lack of staffing.

All home affairs Correspondent Darkness Sonny has this eerily empty silent streets on what would normally be the busiest shopping day of the week, although not everybody can stay at home, of course, this region has now topped a grim chart ahead of even London.

The latest figures show there are 100 and 27 deaths from Corona virus in London in the last 24 hours in the Midlands, the death rate saw 2 212 nearly doubling that of London, by far the highest in England.

At Birmingham's Any see, they're working on the U.

K's biggest field hospital, which will eventually have more capacity than London's Excel next to the N.

E.

C.

At the airport, work has begun on a temporary mortuary in preparation for unexpected rise in deaths.

The authorities are trying to understand why this region is such a hot spot for transmissions.

There's a real concern that hospitals in the West Midlands will have reached maximum capacity by next weekend.

We've spoken to an intensive care consultant who works inside one of these hospitals treating Corona virus patients.

They've described the situation on the wards as being in a war.

In normal times, the guidelines are you have one intensive care unit nurse For every patient you have up to 12 patients for a consultant, it will end up being up to five patients.

For every I see you nurse and 50 patients for one consultant, this is going to be intensive care that is almost like disaster medicine.

We're going to have a lot of deaths, a lot of mistakes.

A lot of things missed.

This account comes as the latest figures show hospital admission rates are up by 47% in the Midlands.

So why have there been so many cases in this region?

Birmingham is England's second biggest city by population, with 1.1 million residents, so high number of cases is not unexpected.

But some commentators and a local MP have suggested cultural and religious practices could also be playing a part as well as the predominance of multigenerational families here.

Unhelpful speculation, According to one researcher who says, We need more franks, you can't so place out on the fact that there is a high ethical hi ethnic minority population in Burma gone because that minority population in London is so much higher.

Up until the point at which we know the facts of his court, the disease he has died from it, Um, we've got ethnic breakdowns about regional breakdowns, about Britt breakdowns by socioeconomic characteristics.

Comey then start to make so our conclusions about it one in five deaths from Corona virus in England have happened in the Midlands.

The intensive care consultant we spoke to has thes fears.

At some point, we're going to end up having to say no to some patients because the politicians have decided they don't want to take responsibility.

It will rest with frontline staff.

When you're faced with that decision, when you have one ventilator and two patients, who do you pick?

There are no easy answers here.

Public health officials are examining transmission patterns in the Midlands to see if there's anything unusual happening here.

But the results could take weeks or even months.

The fears there of one intensive care consultant speaking to us.

He has been treating intensive care patients infected with this disease.

We did put their concerns to the Department of Health, and we were given a statement in which they said We're working hard to make sure that the N HS has enough capacity to meet this increased demand.

They pointed out, for example, that thousands more ventilators a due to come on board in the next weeks and months.

They also stated that the N HS will receive everything it needs to respond to this virus.

It comes at a worrying time for this region.

As we've seen hospital admissions have gone up by 47% and in the last 24 hours, the number of people dying who have Bean tested positive for Corona virus has surpassed that even of London on we're told, the worst is yet still to come because this epidemic hasn't yet reached its peak.

Thanks very much.

Delta.

Well, those questions over testing continue.

One virologist has been part of a team working on a test in her spare time in conjunction with Hampshire Hospitals and HS Foundations Trust Dr Veronica Fowler and molecular virologist with a background in veterinary health is working on a test, which she says could give a positive result for someone suffering from Cove in 19 within 20 minutes, sometimes as quick as 10 minutes a game changer if the government adopted it.

As part of their task testing strategy, Dr Fowler has spent today developing a workflow to introduce this test into the health service on, she told us Public Health, England are seriously looking at walling this out well.

I spoke to her a little earlier, along with Dr Steven Kid, who's called.

She answered to work on this project.

Okay, so this test is a nice a thermal test, which means that it runs a single temperature.

The existing test that's used in laboratories at the moment requires multiple different temperatures.

So high temperatures, low temperatures, high temperatures, low temperatures, which means you need more sophisticated equipment to be running those tests.

Ours is a nice thermal method, which runs on a constant 65 degrees for 20 minutes, and therefore it's a much more simpler test.

You need less sophisticated equipment so that single temperature reduces the time by how much, quite significantly.

So where Report.

We're able to report with this in 20 minutes.

Where is the standard test that's in the laboratories?

Is an hour and 15 victor.

Are you normally work on doing this testing with animals?

So how have you had to adapt your way of working?

So in my previous research career, I have used this particular test for diagnosing oi listed diseases in research setting.

So those diseases like foot and mouth disease, really there is no adaptation required.

It's so simple to use, you can roll it out into any setting that you wish to use it in, and at the moment we have it running in a laboratory, setting a lot of the skills base, which is in veterinary science.

It is in clinical sciences.

Very transfer transferrable between specialties say people could get trained up for the different varmints very quickly.

Now we believe you're the first in the UK doing this.

Do you think it should be rolled out more widely?

So basically what we have developed as a user friendly, rapid test on which could be used in multiple different formats on that allows us to apply in the bottlenecks of the current testing systems on That allows us to increase the time at which were reporting.

It allows us to increase The number of samples that we are testing on enables us to reduce the amount of critical re agents that were also using in the lab.

So it's a It's a really good way toe be able to be efficient with time and resources.

So if you were to roll this out more widely, how many people could you test in an hour so we can do hundreds in an hour and weaken do thousands in a day?

It's It's a very scaleable technology on that is purely due to the fact that it is simple and that it's very quick, so you know we can have a rapid turnaround in 20 minutes.

Now the government's target is to hit 100,000 tests a day.

Do you then think that's viable?

So I think for us, I think that all hospitals will be looking to ramp up as much as they can.

So every hospital will be doing their best to use the technology at their disposal.

And we'll be using this to add into that number to make sure there's enough tests in the chest as soon as possible.

And how you hoping to share out the testing knowledge that you've acquired more widely across the UK We always like Thio any innovation.

We come up and a lot of innovation is being driven around.

Cove it to the other two scale up.

We always look to share as much as this with whoever needs requires the help.

We're hearing a lot about false negatives from some types of tests.

Is there any concern about that?

With the test that you're working on?

Absolutely.

No.

It would be much more reliable than some of the tests that are out there on the market.

Yeah, the way that we're going to apply it is part of a pipeline.

Andi, Clever.

We very carefully thought out exactly where and when it will be applied on.

We don't anticipate any problems with false positives.

Well, false negatives.

How can you be so certain?

It's accurate.

We've compared to this test or directly to the gold standard that is currently being used on a daily basis.

But do you believe it should be and could be rolled out more widely to members of the public?

Absolutely.

I mean, as I said earlier, this is a technology that can be located wherever you want it to be located.

So is it something potentially we could all be doing at home and then send off the result?

No, no.

It will still be in some form of centralized facility, even if that's a remote, centralized facility.