Here a brief overview of the latest key developments: The toll of reported hospital deaths in the UK has passed 10,000, up from 9,875 the previous day. The daily rise of reported hospital deaths has thus slowed down, but as always, a delay in the reporting as well as delayed test results for those who have died prevent clear-cut insights into the behaviour of the curve. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, was discharged from hospital today and released a video address the nation, in which he thanked NHS staff for saving his life. The PM mentioned two immigrant nurses in particular, who had monitored him round-the-clock for 48 hours in the ICU. He said the NHS “is unconquerable. It is powered by love.” The health secretary, Matt Hancock, refused to apologise over the delay in providing NHS frontline staff with PPE, after the Royal College of Nursing said that, as a last resort, staff might have to refuse treating patients if they did not have appropriate protection. Hancock announced the development of a new contact-tracing app that would let people enter their personal health data, recent contacts and coronavirus symptoms, as the government got under increased pressure to announce plans for an exit strategy from the lockdown. The Scottish government is set to publish data on the deaths of elderly care home residents from Covid-19 after disclosing more than a third of Scotland’s care homes have had coronavirus cases. This is all from me, and this blog will now wrap up. For more updates, please head over to our global coronavirus blog. Thanks for reading and writing in, be well. 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 Liberal Democrats have called for “transparency” over how data in the new NHS coronavirus app the health secretary Matt Hancock announced earlier will be used. Acting party co-leader Ed Davey said: “Proposals laid out today to allow people to voluntarily provide data through an NHS app to improve contact tracing are likely to be crucial in enabling the UK to move out of the lockdown at some point in the future. This is therefore a welcome step to protect public health. “However, there must be complete transparency around how the data will be stored and used, coupled with watertight guarantees that data will be anonymised, kept for the shortest possible time, and won’t be shared between government departments. “Any proposal on the use of mobile phone data or other technology to track people must also be scrutinised properly by MPs before a final decision is made, further strengthening our argument that parliament should be recalled urgently.” There will be enough drugs to treat critically ill patients in intensive care despite fears of drug shortages, senior medics have said, but also warned that people should obey social distancing rules in order to reduce the burden on NHS resources. Amid reports that key medicines at some intensive care units were in short supply, intensive care consultant Ron Daniels told the BBC that quality of care for all patients – not just coronavirus sufferers – would “likely be lower” as a result. But Alison Pittard, dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, said that the NHS was not going to run out of medicines to treat patients and that care will not be compromised. She told the PA Media news agency that medics have been issued new guidance telling them to use alternatives which were “perfectly safe for patients”. Pittard added: “We are not going to run out of drugs to treat patients, that’s the bottom line. “We may do things differently, but patient care won’t be compromised because we have to change the choice of drug.” Labour leader Keir Starmer reacted with an emotional tweet to the news that more than 10,000 people had died from Covid-19 in the UK and appeared to be urging the government to “remember the people behind the numbers”. Jeane Freeman, the Scottish health secretary, has announced that social care workers in Scotland would receive this year’s pay rise of 3.3% immediately, and backdated to 1 April, instead of waiting for protracted negotiations with ministers and local authorities. She said the increase for staff providing direct adult support would reach at least the real living wage rate of £9.30 per hour, including any hours worked for sleepovers. Extra funding would be provided to charities and independent care providers to ensure staff had sick pay or were self-isolating. In more uplifting news, Michael, a reader from Warwick, wrote in to report a somewhat unorthodox interpretation of the new police powers. “I and my family were minding our own business during our daily exercise session when two tough looking police, without warning, forcefully thrust an Easter egg into my grumpy toddler’s hands. Suffice to say her mood improved. Many thanks to Warwickshire police,” he wrote. Reacting to the death toll update from No 10, James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute and University of Oxford, emphasised that the lowered rise in deaths reported today were likely down to delayed reporting. “Based on experience of previous weeks, today’s lower number could well arise from reporting delays due to the weekend and bank holiday,” he said. “If so there may be higher daily numbers next week as delayed reported deaths end up in future announcements. “The UK, with over 10,000 deaths, is one of the worst-hit countries in Europe. Even this number is an underestimate due to lags in reporting and counting only hospital deaths. We are not in a macabre competition with other countries, every death, here or elsewhere, leaves a grieving family. We are only approaching the end of the beginning.” Naismith added that, he expected the government, before it was taking the next steps, “to take and share the most up to date advice from a range of experts across all relevant fields, to identify what we can do better and to see what lessons from elsewhere can be applied here in time to make a difference.” The Scottish government is to publish data on the deaths of elderly care home residents from Covid-19 after disclosing more than a third of Scotland’s care homes have had coronavirus cases. Jeane Freeman, the Scottish health secretary, sought to douse a secrecy row over the data by confirming the Care Inspectorate had been told of Covid-19 cases in 406 adult care homes, 37% of the total. The inspectorate, the government agency responsible for inspecting the sector, came under fire from Labour and the Conservatives on Saturday after telling the BBC it had to file a freedom of information request if it wanted detailed figures on deaths and suspected infections at care homes. Under new emergency laws introduced by the Scottish government, backed by the Scottish Greens and the Scottish information commissioner, public agencies now have up to 60 working days to reply to FoI requests – three times the previous legal limit. There has been growing anxiety about a surge of Covd-19 deaths in care homes, with several homes experiencing significant outbreaks involving multiple deaths, amid continuing rows about their access to protective equipment and GPs refusing to visit. More than 50 care home residents, many of whom have serious underlying health conditions, are thought to have died from Covid-19. Speaking after disclosing that 566 people had now died in Scotland from the virus, with 24 further fatalities in the last 24 hours, Freeman said more detailed figures on care homes would now be published this week. “We’ve always said we are determined to make sure that the information we have is shared with you as transparently as we possibly can. But it’s really important that we’re confident about the robustness and accuracy of that information,” she said. The latest national figures for Scotland, which will be revised after further cases are confirmed following the Easter bank holiday, showed a total of 5,912 positive cases, up by 322 from Saturday, and 221 people in intensive care, up by nine. Predictions regarding deaths “are not possible”, Hancock and Doyle say, as it all depended on the behaviour of the British population. Asked whether the government would have to ask itself whether it had the right policies in place in terms of NHS staffing and funding but also immigration after the crisis, Hancock says his party had brought in the NHS visa, and wanted to “pay tribute” to immigrants who have “given their lives working in the NHS”. “I’m delighted we went into this crisis with record numbers of people and record numbers of funding in the NHS,” he adds. Pressed on whether the UK’s response to the crisis and the ordering and distribution of PPE and other vital equipment have been too slow, Hancock says he doesn’t “quite agree with that”. “We had the stockpiles, we went into this with the stockpiles”, he said, adding the challenge was distribution, and that now used up stockpiles had to be “replenished”. Hancock says it is “incumbent” on the government “to learn everything we can so we can better protect people in the future.” He says there is currently no advice on how long the PM will need to recover fully and that the government is working “incredibly efficiently” in the meantime. Pressed on testing in care homes and asked whether he can guarantee the care sector that they can get regular tests, Hancock says he can, “that is coming”. “This is an area of incredibly high importance,” he says. He added that one of the things the country has succeeded in in this crisis is that people have recognised that care staff are on the frontline as much as NHS staff. Answering a follow-up question on testing in care homes and the timescale of testing becoming available to them, Hancock says the testing was being rolled out “right now”. Asked whether he wants to apologise to healthcare staff in light of calls by the Royal College of Nursing to refuse treatment to patients if no appropriate PPE is available, Hancock says the government is “working night and day” to ensure they “get this right”, but does not apologise. Asked about the delivery of PPE, Hancock says “we won’t rest” until everyone gets the necessary PPE delivered, and praised procurement experts. Asked about reports that the UK could have the highest death toll in Europe, Hancock responds that “the future of this virus is unknowable”. Doyle adds that every single one of the over 10,000 deaths is “an absolute tragedy”. Doyle starts out by sharing some data on the reduced use of transport and motor vehicles. In terms of new UK cases, 838 NHS staff had tested positive yesterday and today and, she said. The rate of people in hospital beds in London is stabilising, Doyle said, but in other regions such as the North West and the North East trends were worsening now, she said.