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 2 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 2 June, there have been 4,615,146 tests, with 135,643 tests on 1 June.

277,985 people have tested positive.

As of 5pm on 1 June, of those tested positive for coronavirus in the UK, 39,369 have died. This new figure includes deaths in all settings, not just in hospitals. The equivalent figure under the old measure would have been 31,136.

Tests People tested Positive Deaths in all settings
Daily 135,643 Unavailable 1,613 324
Total 4,615,146 Unavailable 277,985 39,369

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 20,669 Unavailable - - Unavailable
Tests 29,998 69,605 30,357 5,683 135,643
Positive 528 1,085 - - 1,613

Cumulative

Pillar 1 Pillar 2 Pillar 3 Pillar 4 Total
People tested 1,248,046 Unavailable - - Unavailable
Tests 1,731,901 2,489,260 119,088 274,897 4,615,146
Positive 187,238 90,747 - - 277,985

Pillar 2 breakdown of test types

In-person (tests processed) Delivery (tests sent out) Total tests
Daily 24,847 44,758 69,605
Cumulative 1,209,249 1,280,011 2,489,260

Pillar 4 breakdown of test types

In-person (tests processed) Delivery (tests sent out) Total tests
Daily 3,311 2,372 5,683
Cumulative 89,027 185,870 274,897

2 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 4,837 higher than the difference between today’s and yesterday’s cumulative totals. This is due to revisions to historical data for pillar 1 (removing 41 tests) and pillar 2 (removing 4,796 tests).

The daily total for pillar 2 in-person tests is 5,374 higher, and for delivery routes is 578 lower than the difference between today’s 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.

The daily total for cases is 40 lower than the difference between today’s and yesterday’s cumulative totals. This is due to a revision of historical data for pillar 1 in Scotland.

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 2 June 2020 + show all updates

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

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

  3. 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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  56. 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

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

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

  77. Update to the figures for testing in UK

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  79. Updated test result figures.

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

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

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

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  98. Updated Italy advice.

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

  101. Updated lockdown areas.

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  104. Now with regional breakdown

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

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  107. Updated returning traveller advice for Italy.

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

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  144. 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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