Guidance

Number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and risk in the UK

The latest number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and risk level in the UK.

Published 24 January 2020
Last updated 3 June 2020 — see all updates
From:
Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England

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Number of cases and deaths

As of 9am on 3 June, there have been 4,786,219 tests, with 171,829 tests on 2 June.

279,856 people have tested positive.

As of 5pm on 2 June, of those tested positive for coronavirus in the UK, across all settings, 39,728 have died.

Tests People tested Positive Deaths in all settings
Daily 171,829 Unavailable 1,871 359
Total 4,786,219 Unavailable 279,856 39,728

Breakdown of testing by testing strategy ‘pillars’

  • Pillar 1: swab testing in Public Health England (PHE) labs and NHS hospitals for those with a clinical need, and health and care workers
  • Pillar 2: swab testing for the wider population, as set out in government guidance
  • Pillar 3: serology testing to show if people have antibodies from having had COVID-19
  • Pillar 4: serology and swab testing for national surveillance supported by PHE, ONS, Biobank, universities and other partners to learn more about the prevalence and spread of the virus and for other testing research purposes, for example on the accuracy and ease of use of home testing

See the government’s national testing strategy for more information on the different pillars.

Read our testing methodology document about reporting statistics on testing.

Daily

Pillar 1 Pillar 2 Pillar 3 Pillar 4 Total
People tested 19,053 Unavailable - - Unavailable
Tests 38,163 94,735 36,013 2,918 171,829
Positive 585 1,286 - - 1,871

Cumulative

Pillar 1 Pillar 2 Pillar 3 Pillar 4 Total
People tested 1,267,099 Unavailable - - Unavailable
Tests 1,770,451 2,582,681 155,344 277,743 4,786,219
Positive 187,823 92,033 - - 279,856

Pillar 2 breakdown of test types

In-person (tests processed) Delivery (tests sent out) Total tests
Daily 34,526 60,209 94,735
Cumulative 1,242,284 1,340,397 2,582,681

Pillar 4 breakdown of test types

In-person (tests processed) Delivery (tests sent out) Total tests
Daily 2,918 0 2,918
Cumulative 91,945 185,798 277,743

3 June notes

Reporting on the number of people tested has been temporarily paused to ensure consistent reporting across all pillars. This is due to a small percentage of cases where the same person has had more than one test or tested positive more than once for coronavirus in pillar 2. Corrections will be made to any figures if they have subsequently been found to have an error.

The daily total for tests is 756 higher than the difference between today and yesterday’s cumulative totals. This is due to revisions to historical data to:

  • add 387 tests to the pillar 1 total
  • remove 1,314 tests from the pillar 2 total
  • add 243 tests to the pillar 3 total
  • remove 72 tests from the pillar 4 total

The daily total for pillar 2 in-person tests is 1,491 higher, and for delivery routes is 177 lower, than the difference between today and yesterday’s cumulative totals. This is due to revisions to historical pillar 2 data following further information being made available to support data processing.

Testing capacity as of 2 June

At 9am on 2 June, testing capacity was 220,213.

Pillar 1 Pillar 2 Pillar 3 Pillar 4 Total
Lab capacity 63,213 116,000 40,000 1,000 220,213

Coronavirus tests are processed in several separate labs. Projected lab capacity is an estimate of each lab’s constrained capacity each day based on the staff, chemical reagents and other resources it has available. These estimates are made locally by the labs themselves.

Further information on the methodology of how capacity is reported is available in the testing methodology document.

Time series

Correspondence with the Statistics Regulator about testing data

The Chair of the Office for Statistics Regulation wrote to us about presentation of statistics about testing.

Read the letter from the regulator.

Read our response, published on 27 May.

General notes

Data on UK tests, positive cases and deaths is updated on this page daily at 2pm or shortly after. The figures for test results and for deaths are compiled from different sources. This is why the figures for deaths are reported from an earlier point in time than the figures for test results.

Daily totals reflect actual counts reported for the previous day. Each day there may be corrections to previous reported figures. This means that previously published daily counts will not necessarily sum to the latest cumulative figure. It also means that today’s cumulative count may not match the previous day’s cumulative count plus today’s daily count.

Notes on deaths figures

From 29 April, figures for deaths include all cases where there is a positive confirmed test for coronavirus. The figures include deaths with lab-confirmed COVID-19 in all settings, not just those in hospital, and this provides us with a single figure on an equivalent basis for the whole of the UK.

These UK figures are compiled from validated data provided by each of the four nations of the UK. Figures from Health Protection Scotland, Public Health Wales and the Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland) have always included tested cases outside hospital. Figures for England from 29 April onwards are provided by Public Health England and draw together several different data sources, including data from NHS England and Improvement, to produce this broader measure.

This approach allows us to compile deaths data on a daily basis using up-to-date figures across all settings. The data includes deaths with lab-confirmed COVID-19 reported as at 5pm the previous day. The amount of time between occurrence of death and reporting in these figures may vary slightly and in some cases could be a few days, so figures at 5pm may not include all deaths for that day.

The PHE method draws on data from 3 data sources and individual records of deaths are included in the figures as soon as they are available in any of these 3 sources.

As announced previously, from 1 June we have stopped publishing a separate count of deaths in hospital as our daily count now provides a count of deaths in all settings. Figures for deaths in hospital in England continue to be published by NHS England.

In addition to these figures, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes weekly counts of deaths in which COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. This publication is issued every Tuesday, starting on 31 March 2020. The ONS series includes cases in all settings, and also includes some cases where COVID-19 is suspected but no test has taken place. ONS detailed data covers England and Wales only, but from 28 April their publication includes a headline summary of registered deaths in the whole of the UK. Their report each Tuesday covers deaths registered up to 11 days before publication.

Joint DHSC and ONS transparency statement about COVID deaths figures

Material published by PHE

PHE updates a daily dashboard to show trends in UK data on positive tests and deaths and to provide confirmed cases in each local authority and NHS region in England.

Risk level

The risk to the UK is high.

Published 24 January 2020
Last updated 3 June 2020 + show all updates

  1. Updated figures.

  2. Corrections have been made to the table 'Pillar 4 breakdown of test types'.

  3. Updated figures and added new table: 'Pillar 4 breakdown of test types'.

  4. Notes about testing data sources and methodology have been moved to a new page: 'Coronavirus (COVID-19): testing data methodology'. Figures will be updated later today.

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  7. Updated figures and added pillar 3 definition under testing capacity

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  10. Added new information about testing and capacity times series

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  15. Updated the daily figures for number of cases and deaths. Due to technical difficulties with data collection we cannot provide people tested figures today.

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  36. Updated on 2 May with daily figures

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  39. Updated with figures reported on 29 April, including deaths in all settings, and updated notes on reporting of deaths figures. Figures for 30 April will follow later today.

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  57. Changed the total number of tests concluded from 352,974 to 350,575. The updated figure only includes tests carried out under pillars 1 and 2 of the government’s national testing strategy

  58. In breakdown by pillar section, corrected total people tested figure in cumulative table

  59. Updated figures

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  61. Updated figures and included breakdown of people tested under pillars 1 and 2 of the government's national testing strategy.

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  71. Added information on how figures for deaths are compiled and reported.

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  77. Updated figures. From today, 26 March 2020, recorded deaths will be as of 5pm the previous day.

  78. Update to the figures for testing in UK

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  80. Updated test result figures.

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  83. Updated figures on test results.

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  91. Update on case numbers, those who have tested positive and those who have sadly died.

  92. Updated numbers.

  93. Updated test result figures.

  94. The UK risk level has been raised to high.

  95. Added new guidance for people with symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19).

  96. Updated test result figures.

  97. Update to figures.

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  99. Updated Italy advice.

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  101. "to be determined" figures corrected - from 22 to 20.

  102. Updated lockdown areas.

  103. Regions updated.

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  105. Now with regional breakdown

  106. Update on stats and switch to 7am to improve reporting. Regionalised data to be published later today

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  108. Updated returning traveller advice for Italy.

  109. Added updated figures for test results, including number of cases in each NHS England region.

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  119. Updated advice for returning travellers.

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  133. Updated figures for those tested in the UK.

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  136. Fourth case of coronavirus in England

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  138. Updated figures for coronavirus checks and removal figures of passengers returned from Wuhan as all are outside the incubation period.

  139. Updated advice from the Chief Medical Officer.

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  143. Added link to FCO travel advice for British nationals.

  144. Updated test figures – no further positive cases.

  145. Added Northern Ireland contact number for those who have returned from Wuhan or Hubei Province in the last 14 days, or from elsewhere in China and have developed symptoms.

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