The government's deputy chief medical officer has said it could be 'some time' before the country returns to normal.

Dr Jenny Harries, told a Downing Street press conference this afternoon that people should not expect to get back to 'normal life' for six months or even longer.

Dr Harries said people should not be viewing the coronavirus crisis as something that will blow over soon.

She also said it would not be clear if the 'social distancing' lockdown is working for another two or three weeks - after Easter - with deaths set to rise further.

But even if the lockdown does succeed in 'squashing' the peak of the outbreak, reverting to a 'normal way of life' immediately would probably lead to a large new spike in infections.

Dr Harries said people had taken 'quite some time' to get used to social distancing, but there was now evidence people are obeying the rules.

She said: "The issue of the three weeks is for us to review where we are and see if we've had an impact jointly on the slope of that curve.

"But I think to make it clear to the public if we are successful we will have squashed the top of that curve, which is brilliant, but we must not then suddenly revert to our normal way of living that would be quite dangerous.

"If we stop then all of our efforts will be wasted and we could potentially see a second peak."

The official UK coronavirus death toll rose by 209 in 24 hours from 1,019 to 1,228 today.

The increase is the second biggest rise in cases nationally, but is 51 fewer than yesterday.

The number of coronavirus infections across the country has risen from 17,089 yesterday to 19,522 confirmed cases.

England saw the majority of cases and deaths, with 190 dead aged between 39 and 105, with all but four having underlying health issues.

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