Health Secretary Hancock has set a target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of April, while contact tracing will be restarted to give a more complete picture of the virus' spread The death toll in Britain from the coronavirus outbreak neared 20,000 on Friday as the government faced calls for greater transparency for its exit strategy from stringent social distancing measures.
The health ministry said 684 more people had died in the 24-hour period to 1600 GMT on Thursday, taking the number of deaths for COVID-19 in hospital to 19,506.
The figure is more than the 616 reported the previous day and comes after the government claimed the virus had hit its peak and was trending downwards.