Britain is "past the peak" of its coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday, despite recording another 674 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 26,711.
The country is now the third-most affected in the world behind the United States and Italy on cumulative deaths, after changing its reporting to include community as well as hospital deaths on Wednesday.
But PM Johnson, making his first appearance at a daily government briefing since his own battle with COVID-19, said there were reasons for optimism.
"For the first time, we are past the peak of this disease... and we are on the downward slope," he told reporters.
"We are coming through the peak or rather we are coming over what could have been a vast peak, as though we have been going through some huge Alpine tunnel.
"And we can now see the sunlight and the pastures ahead of us. So it's vital that we don't now lose control and run slap into a second and even bigger mountain."
The government's chief scientific advisor, Patrick Vallance, said the rate of transmission was now below one, with fewer hospital admissions and people in intensive care.
That was having an effect on overall deaths, he said.
"The R (rate of transmission) is below 1. We think it's between 0.6 and 0.9 across the nation. Maybe a little lower in some places, a little higher in others but it's below 1 across the country," he added, referring to the number of people infected by one person with COVID-19.
PM Johnson's return to work has coincided with increased pressure to lift a lockdown that was imposed in late March to cut close contact transmission of the virus.
He said a "roadmap" would be published next week about the government's plan to ease restrictions, after concerns about the economic effect of the social distancing measures.
"The dates and times of each individual measure will be very much driven by where we are in the epidemic," he added.
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