Britain has been secretly flying tens of thousands of coronavirus tests to America as it struggles to lift the daily testing rate over 100,000 a day in the UK, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

The Department of Health admitted last night that 50,000 test samples were sent to the US last week as problems were reported in laboratories in the UK. The samples were airlifted across the Atlantic in chartered flights from Stansted airport.

The Government insisted that "all results will be returned to patients as quickly as possible".

The UK has failed to hit the hundred thousand a day target for testing for each of the past seven days, and only hit the 100,000 a day target by the end of last month by mailing 40,000 testing kits to people at home.

The Government admitted on Thursday that there had been a problem in a lab in Northern Ireland, but made no reference to shipping tens of thousands of tests to America.

Many people are still...

Boris Johnson will ask the country to “stay alert, control the virus and save lives”, as he unveils a new Covid-19 warning system as part of his road map to gradually unlocking the economy.

In an address to the nation tomorrow evening, the Prime Minister is to call on workers and businesses to stay alert by following strict social distancing rules, as the Government encourages those who cannot work from home to begin returning to offices and factories.

A new five-tier warning system, akin to the scheme used to publicise terror threat levels, will be used to flag up the virus risk and encourage public adherence to the rules.

Alerts will range from level one (green) to level five (red). Mr Johnson is expected to say that England is on the verge of moving from four, the second highest level, to three, which would indicate that the infection rate is not increasing significantly.

The system will be administered by a Joint Biosecurity Centre, which...

Boris Johnson will ask the country to “stay alert, control the virus and save lives”, as he unveils a new Covid-19 warning system as part of his road map to gradually unlocking the economy.

In an address to the nation tomorrow evening, the Prime Minister is to call on workers and businesses to stay alert by following strict social distancing rules, as the Government encourages those who cannot work from home to begin returning to offices and factories.

A new five-tier warning system, akin to the scheme used to publicise terror threat levels, will be used to flag up the virus risk and encourage public adherence to the rules.

Alerts will range from level one (green) to level five (red). Mr Johnson is expected to say that England is on the verge of moving from four, the second highest level, to three, which would indicate that the infection rate is not increasing significantly.

The system will be administered by a Joint Biosecurity Centre, which...

Social isolation is as damaging to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, an academic advising the Government on lockdown has warned.

As the nation remains cut off from family and friends, fears are growing over the physical and psychological impact of stringent social distancing measures.

Studies have found that being isolated can increase your risk of death by up to 30 per cent, similar to the impacts of obesity or smoking.

Professor Stephen Reicher, who is part of a group of behavioural scientists advising the Government, told The Telegraph: “The problem with lockdown is isolation; being cut off from people is bad for you psychologically and physically. It is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

“Human beings are social animals. Being connected is remarkably important not just for your mental health but for your physical health.”

The Professor of Social Psychology at the University of St Andrews said that as distancing...

It was a seemingly innocuous comment that appeared to simply confirm speculation that the Government would ask members of the public to begin wearing face coverings in some settings.

But Boris Johnson's remark, on Thursday, that such devices could be required both for "epidemiological reasons" and to give "people confidence that they can go back to work" hinted at a major hurdle that he was aware could scupper his attempts to gradually ease some of the lockdown restrictions currently in place.

Despite clamour by many MPs and business leaders, an ORB International poll shows how the public appears to overwhelmingly fear the idea of lifting the current measures too quickly - seemingly sharing the Prime Minister's own concern, revealed in this newspaper last month, about the possibility of a significant "second peak" of infections, which in turn could lead to a second lockdown.

Nightingale hospitals are largely empty after Government modelling miscalculated how many people would need intensive care treatment for Covid-19, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

Doctors and researchers at Oxford University believe ministers became overly reliant on the ‘crystal ball gazing’ and worst-case-scenarios from Imperial College and have continued ramping up capacity while ignoring what is actually happening on wards.

Projections released on March 16th, by a team led by Professor Neil Ferguson, suggested that almost a third of infected over-80s would be hospitalised with coronavirus, 71 percent of whom would need critical care.

The following day NHS trusts were asked to prepare to postpone all non-urgent elective operations from mid-April for at least 3 months to free up critical care capacity.

Six days later Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, announced the...

Primary schools are due to reopen as soon as June 1, as part of Boris Johnson’s blueprint for gradually “unlocking” Britain, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

The Prime Minister is expected to unveil the Government’s “roadmap” out of the coronavirus lockdown in an address to the nation next Sunday, after ministers take stock of a study showing the rate of the virus’s transmission in the UK.

One of the plans being discussed to help to reopen workplaces across the country is to ask companies to routinely test asymptomatic staff as part of a national effort to track the disease and isolate those who could be infectious.

Based on the current, reduced infection rate, Mr Johnson is hoping to put teachers on three weeks’ notice to reopen primary schools to all pupils on June 1, Whitehall sources said.

Year 10 and Year 12 pupils are then expected to form the first wave of secondary pupils returning to school at a later point, if such a move would be...

Boris Johnson has told friends that he owes his life to doctors and nurses at St Thomas’ Hospital, where he was treated in intensive care for coronavirus.

The Prime Minister said his care had been “exemplary”, adding: “I can’t thank them enough.” Now well enough to sit up and read in bed, Mr Johnson has been revisiting the Tintin books, which he first devoured as a child.

The Telegraph understands that the books were sent to the Prime Minister’s bedside by his family, as Carrie Symonds, his pregnant fianceé, wrote to him daily, when he was still too unwell to read texts and WhatsApp messages. She included the latest scan of the couple’s unborn baby and printouts of pictures of NHS staff across the country wishing Mr Johnson well.

On Saturday, No?10 said that Mr Johnson continued to make “very good progress” in hospital after leaving St Thomas’ intensive care unit on Thursday. 

The Prime Minister was admitted to hospital last Sunday but...

The number of vulnerable children "out of contact" as a result of the lockdown is causing alarm among ministers studying the cost of the measures designed to halt the spread of coronavirus, the Telegraph can disclose.

Ministers fear that the "usual oversight" available to youngsters at risk of abuse is absent, with as many as nine in ten vulnerable children having been kept home from school before the start of the Easter holidays.

The Government ordered the closure of schools three weeks ago, until further notice, as part of its attempts to slow the spread of the virus.

The dramatic effect of the closures is being studied by ministers amid concerns that negative impacts of the lockdown, including rapidly rising unemployment, may ultimately prove more damaging than coronavirus.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, announced a campaign to provide support for those at risk of domestic abuse. The initiative, You Are Not Alone, will involve sharing a...

He is the fictitious journalist from Belgium who may have inspired an aspiring Brussels correspondent from Britain. It seems fitting, then, that it was Tintin to whom Boris Johnson turned once again as his condition began to improve in intensive care last week.

The Telegraph understands that Mr Johnson began re-reading tales of the boy journalist from Belgium that he first read as a child, as he became well enough to sit up in bed on Wednesday.

The books were sent to St Thomas' hospital by the Prime Minister's family. Mr Johnson was the Telegraph's Brussels correspondent in the Nineties, and last year a copy of The Blue Lotus, an early Tintin adventure, in its original French, was pictured in his car during the Tory leadership campaign.

The fact that Mr Johnson was able to sit up and read was the news that those closest to him, including his pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds, desperately needed.

The Prime Minister first developed coronavirus...

Britain is facing a shortage of the gowns required to protect medical staff against coronavirus, with NHS hospitals resorting to flying in their own stocks from China.

Senior health officials disclosed that major NHS hospitals have been forced to try to source protective equipment from China and commission flights back to the UK in an attempt to boost their supplies.

The disclosures emerged alongside a new Government plan to tackle dangerously low supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), with any company that can produce such kit now asked to sign up.

The strategy says that current NHS stocks are propped up by donations of 1.2?million goggles and masks from companies such as B&Q. On Saturday, the Health Secretary announced that 19 healthcare workers had died after contracting coronavirus, after he came under fire for the failure to provide sufficient equipment.

The medical workers include a consultant who had appealed to the Prime...

Tech giants are facing calls from ministers to halt the spread of "crazed conspiracy theories" about 5G after mobile phone masts were set alight and telecoms engineers abused by people peddling "nonsense" linking the digital technology to the Covid-19 outbreak.

This week, Oliver Dowden, the Digital and Culture Secretary, will ask social media companies to crack down on misinformation fuelling "criminal behaviour" as the NHS warned that activists were targeting the infrastructure being used by emergency services combating the coronavirus.

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, described conspiracy theories blaming 5G masts for the spread of Covid-19 as "dangerous nonsense".

The Government's intervention came after masts in Birmingham and Liverpool were feared to have been targeted by arsonists inspired by social media videos showing 5G towers on fire and urging people to destroy the new communications technology.

Ministers and Whitehall officials insist they want to avoid a "blame game" for the UK's apparently under-powered efforts to carry out mass coronavirus testing to date. But the remarks that follow such claims tend to involve implicit or explicit criticism of Public Health England, the quango responsible for protecting the nation from health emergencies, such as pandemics.

A recent, official survey of PHE's own staff found that confidence in the organisation's leadership was lacking from within as well. Less than half (49 per cent) of the body's employees, 81 per cent of whom took part in the survey, said they had confidence in the decisions of senior managers.

In Downing Street too, confidence appears to have been lacking in recent weeks both in the Department of Health and PHE, with an acknowledgement that more should have been done earlier to roll out mass-testing, particularly of NHS staff unable to work because they or members of their household had...

The Queen will urge Britain to rise to the unprecedented challenge of coronavirus, telling the country she has faith this generation will prove themselves just as strong as any that have come before.

The Queen, who has recorded a special address to be televised on Sunday evening, will share her hopes that the British people will be able to “take pride in how they responded”, drawing on the characteristics of “self-discipline, quiet good-humoured resolve and fellow-feeling” she still sees in her country.

Filmed at Windsor Castle, under unique conditions to protect the 93-year-old from unnecessary risk, it will be the first time the Queen has given an address at a moment of such national peacetime crisis and is intended to lift spirits when it is most needed.

In a deeply personal message, which will reflect the Queen’s long experience living through other difficult times, she will say of the impact of Covid-19 already: “I am...