UK’s new deadline on lockdown

Ministers will commit the UK to weeks more coronavirus lockdown today as Dominic Raab chairs a Cobra crisis meeting for the first time with Boris Johnson still in intensive care.

Hopes of the curbs being eased this month are set to be dashed after experts warned the UK has not yet reached the peak of the killer outbreak. The daily death toll surged to almost 1,000 yesterday.

Amid alarm that Britons could take to beaches and parks over a sunny Easter weekend, police are even urging tighter restrictions such as barring people from driving long distances and making it illegal to exercise more than once a day.