Coronavirus news – live: UK joins fifth of entire world living under unprecedented lockdown as 200,000 cases confirmed across Europe
Britain is on police-enforced lockdown after Boris Johnson said families should stay at home to counter the spread of coronavirus – and the government followed up with a mass text message on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak has said that creating a package of aid for self-employed and gig economy workers is very difficult and that he had no new measures of that kind to announce.
It came as the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned the Covid-19 pandemic was accelerating, having taken 67 days to reach 100,000 cases worldwide but just four to go from 200,000 to 300,000. However, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted that “we are not helpless bystanders” and that “we can change the trajectory of this pandemic”.
