Evening summary The UK experienced its deadliest day of the pandemic yet with a record 980 more deaths – exceeding that of Italy at its peak of 969 deaths on 27 March – and bringing the total number of deaths in hospital of patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 to 8,958. The public has been told the country remains “in a dangerous phase” of the outbreak and has not yet reached its peak – so physical distancing this Easter bank holiday weekend remains crucial and people must stay at home. Boris Johnson is now “able to do short walks” as his condition during his coronavirus recovery “continues to improve”. The prime minister is back on a ward at St Thomas’ hospital after being discharged from the intensive care unit. The health secretary Matt Hancock said that from next week every NHS hospital will receive a supply of PPE on a daily basis. Over the next three weeks, he said an online portal will be rolled out allowing primary care and social care to request PPE from a central inventory, so demand can be tracked and deliveries made according to need. Downing Street said it was “confident” the housing secretary Robert Jenrick had complied with physical distancing rules after he came under fire for driving 40 miles to drop off food and medicine to his elderly parents. Nicola Sturgeon pledged a bailout for Scottish universities, a day after St Andrews revealed it had lost £25m and faced its worst financial crisis in recent history. And in a difficult day for police forces, Cambridgeshire police caused a stir online after a now-deleted tweet appeared to suggest that officers were checking “non-essential aisles” in a local supermarket, while South Yorkshire police apologised after a man was reprimanded for using his own front lawn. This came a day after comments by a chief constable from another force – in which suggested officers could search shopping trolleys if people kept flouting social distancing rules – were deemed “not appropriate” by Priti Patel, the home secretary. A huge thank you to everybody who got in touch today with a story and to all of you for reading along. That’s it from us here on the UK side, but you can head over to our global live blog where our worldwide coverage of the coronavirus pandemic continues. The latest episode of Anywhere but Westminster went up today and it’s an especially eye-opening one. John and John speak to families who are on the brink, grappling with the everyday experience of living in confinement, dealing with everything from autism to living in small houses and properties without outdoor space. In these extraordinary times, the Guardian’s editorial independence has never been more important. Because no one sets our agenda, or edits our editor, we can keep delivering quality, trustworthy, fact-checked journalism each and every day. Free from commercial or political bias, we can report fearlessly on world events and challenge those in power. Your support protects the Guardian’s independence. We believe every one of us deserves equal access to accurate news and calm explanation. No matter how unpredictable the future feels, we will remain with you, delivering high quality news so we can all make critical decisions about our lives, health and security – based on fact, not fiction. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. The NHS coronavirus volunteer scheme is taking longer than expected to implement, according to officials. The extraordinary willingness of the British public to help out has been considered one of the few bright points of the crisis, but only a few thousand tasks are being carried out around the country so far. Neil Churchill, an NHS England administrator working on the volunteer team, posted on a Facebook group for volunteer helpers on Friday morning, explaining “why it’s taking time for you to get your first tasks”. The official said there were “a lot more [identities] to check” than initially expected – and it was only after that that “we ask people in the NHS to make referrals”. But NHS staff have also been slow to call for the volunteers to assist. Churchill said: It just takes time for info to get through to every GP practice, every pharmacist and every discharge team. Referrals are in the thousands right now and we expect they will be in the tens of thousands soon. Volunteers are registered on the Good SAM app and when signed in wait for an alert indicating a job needs doing. But Facebook groups for volunteers are full of people expressing disappointment that they had waited hours without being tasked. Melanie Westell, 41, from Kent, said she had signed up to volunteer two and a half weeks ago and last Friday she was told she had been accepted. She added: I have been on duty for 87 hours over the last week and have not had anything come through. The only thing I can put it down to is that when doctors or pharmacies, for example, refer vulnerable people to the service they have to fill out a form for all the services they may need. Hancock said there is still a “lot of work” needed to reach the target he set of 100,000 daily Covid-19 tests by the end of April. Asked how he expects to achieve this, he said: We have had a huge number of offers from people who have come to us and said: ‘We can turn this facility, which hasn’t been a coronavirus testing facility, into a coronavirus testing facility’. Hancock said some of the centres that had been offered included ones the government did not know about. We are working 24/7 to hit it [the target]. Everyone can see the daily trajectory, which has almost doubled since I set it, and we’ve clearly got a lot of work to get to our 100,000, but we are on track. Asked about reports that he has been holding meetings of between 10 and 20 people in person, Hancock said he works from home when he can and is making use of video-conferencing. He said that when he does come into the office he follows social distancing guidelines. Van-Tam was asked about oxygen supplies and he said: This disease is unlike anything I’ve seen in my almost three decades in medicine. It is really, really unusual in that the requirement for patients who are hospitalised to have oxygen is very high. And sorry to go back to the hosepipe analogy, but if everyone in a certain area turns on their sprinkler in the garden at the same time, the water pressure will go down for a while. He said it is a “logistic and engineering challenge” to create thousands of extra intensive care beds with ventilators, and also secure the oxygen supply that goes behind them. Now, I do know that there has been absolutely enormous logistic work 24/7 behind the scenes to keep hospitals supplied with oxygen. But you’re right, we have seen one or two reports of where something has gone slightly wrong with an oxygen supply. And that’s partly about the stress on the whole engineering system of a hospital, that is required to produce the oxygen demands for double the number of ventilators, and we have to learn as we go along, and our engineers have to adapt. And you are going to see these isolated incidents and we’ll learn from them. But oxygen supply – you’re right to flag it, it’s an unprecedented demand with this virus. May called it “frustrating” that people were continuing to flout physical distancing rules. She said: The reason that is frustrating is because there’s also still occasions where my colleagues are getting abuse from their neighbours for driving off to work. Sam, a nurse in a mental health organisation in the east of England, had grief from her neighbours because she was travelling to work. Our nurses, our healthcare staff, need to be able to get to work, it’s right and proper they do, but I ask of everybody: please stay at home, save lives and protect my staff. Van-Tam said scientists had been clear that closing borders “would not work” as a measure to prevent the ingress of coronavirus into the UK. I understand the point you’re making and I see where you’re coming from, in terms of when we get this under control, doesn’t that change the situation? But [it] won’t go from a position of widespread community transmission amongst our own people to a position of zero transmission amongst our own people, which of course was the case back in December 2019. We will likely go back to low levels of transmission and the virus will continue to be here, in and around us in our communities, I suspect, for a very long time, even if we can keep the levels right down. They are taking questions from the media now. On the issue of face masks, Hancock said the government will “follow the science”, which he says states they “don’t have a material impact outside of those settings which Public Health England have set out”. He added: But also here we are following the international evidence too. The World Health Organization have themselves looked into this very recently, and came to the conclusion that face masks should be saved for those in health and care who really need them. So it is not a risk-free option to have face masks, for everybody to wear face masks, because that means that it’s harder to get hold of face masks for the people where the science says that they’re needed. The number of deaths is broadly in line with what is happening in other countries, Van-Tam says. With the number of people in critical care, the overall trend has remained the same, says Van-Tam. There may be some signs that the curve is beginning to bend but it’s premature, absolutely, to say that we’re at a peak. The push that we’re making with social distancing has to continue. With the number of people occupying hospital beds who have been diagnosed with Covid-19, the curve is “bending”, says Van-Tam. It’s impossible to say that we have peaked. London has gone down in the last day, but the north-east and Yorkshire have gone up. The curve is beginning to bend and your hard work is beginning to pay off, but this needs to continue. The number of new cases is at a high level and the number is varying day by day, says Van-Tam. We are in a dangerous phase still and I must reinforce to you that this is not over. Van-Tam is speaking now. Transport use has stayed at low levels in all forms. This must keep going – “this is not over”, he said. We need to take the pain now to make the gain in a few weeks’ time.