The peak in the number of coronavirus deaths in England and Wales happened on April 8, according to scientists. Commenting on the death data released by the Office of National Statistics on Tuesday, a panel convened by the Science Media Centre said the death rate had been consistent for the last 13 days.
Today Britain's coronavirus hospital death toll rose to 17,408 after 873 more fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours.
The true toll will be far higher when deaths in care homes, privates homes and hospices - for which there is no official running total - are included.
Prof Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: "From an epidemiological perspective we can say that the