Boris Johnson urges Britons to celebrate Mother’s Day remotely on Skype

Boris Johnson will today urge Britons to celebrate Mother’s Day remotely by using video calls – as he admits the NHS is on the brink of being ‘overwhelmed’ by the coronavirus outbreak.

The Prime Minister’s warning that ‘the numbers are very stark and they are accelerating’ came as the UK death toll soared to 233 – up 56 in a day.

Doctors warned that a ‘tsunami’ of severely ill patients was about to engulf them, describing near-apocalyptic scenes amid chronic shortages of basic equipment and fears that unprotected medics could either become desperately ill themselves or become carriers and infect others.

As hospitals raced to convert operating theatres into intensive care wards and begged vets to hand over ventilators normally used for pets, Mr Johnson pleaded with the public to reduce social interaction, even with their mothers.

In a powerful ‘letter to the nation’, he writes: ‘The best thing is to ring her, video call her, Skype her, but to avoid any unnecessary physical contact or proximity. And why? Because if your mother is elderly or vulnerable, then I am afraid all the statistics show that she is much more likely to die from coronavirus… We cannot disguise or sugar coat the threat’.

In a chilling reference to Italy, where the death toll rose by 793 yesterday to 4,825, the Prime Minister said that without a ‘heroic and collective national effort to slow the spread’, it was likely that ‘our own NHS will be similarly overwhelmed’.

The UK had 5,018 confirmed cases of Covid-19 by 9am yesterday, up more than 1,000 from the previous day. Officials said almost 73,000 people have been tested for the virus so far.

To combat the threat, the Government yesterday signed a landmark deal with private hospitals to supply an extra 8,000 hospital beds across England, almost 1,200 more ventilators and 20,000 more staff, including 10,000 nurses and more than 700 doctors.

During another day of dramatic developments:

• It emerged that a senior NHS doctor is fighting for life after being infected with coronavirus – possibly during a routine appointment with a patient;

• NHS England national medical director Stephen Powis said panic buyers ‘should be ashamed’ of themselves for stripping supermarket shelves, adding that taking greater responsibility ‘can save lives’;

• Tesco boss Dave Lewis pleaded with shoppers to search their conscience and ask themselves: ‘Do I need everything in my trolley?’;

• Environment Secretary George Eustice insisted there was no shortage of food – but refused to directly rule out rationing;

• Plans are being drawn up to recruit 30,000 students and people who have been laid off to pick fruit and vegetables because migrant labourers will not be able to travel to the UK;

• Ministers announced plans to write to Britain’s 1.5 million most vulnerable citizens with advice on how to secure vital food and medicines; Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said the Army would help with a challenge ‘on a scale not seen since the Second World War’;

• GPs were told to stop seeing patients in their surgeries and replace consultations by phone calls and home visits;

• The public will be invited to stand on their doosteps and balconies to applaud NHS workers at 8pm on Thursday;

• The Government was poised to step back from plans to introduce emergency Covid-19 laws that would last two years after Tory MP David Davis demanded a fresh Commons vote on the plans within 12 months;

• Plans were being drawn up for the Government to buy shares in struggling British airlines with train companies also in line for a potential rescue;

• No 10 said negotiations were under way for the Queen to give a rare televised address to the nation;

• ITV was plunged into crisis as TV presenter Fiona Phillips, who is married to This Morning boss Martin Frizzell, tested positive for Covid-19;

• High Street chain John Lewis was among a string of retailers closing stores;

• Revellers defied a request by the Prime Minister to stay off the streets after he announced the closure of pubs, restaurants and clubs;

• Police were warned to avoid arresting suspects who may have coronavirus;

• Callous criminals exploited the pandemic to rob the elderly and vulnerable by posing as NHS workers and sending a blizzard of fake emails.

After London’s Northwick Park Hospital briefly ran out of intensive care beds on Friday, doctors voiced concerns that many more will crumble under the pressure of sick patients.

One told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Northwick Park will invariably happen in each hospital, one by one. We are expecting this because of what’s happened in Italy and Spain.’

In a chilling report from the front line, one NHS doctor writes in this newspaper today: ‘I thought I had seen everything there was to see. But nothing could have prepared me for the terror that coronavirus would unleash.’ There is particular worry over a lack of personal protective equipment such as gloves and masks with former Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt last night joining calls for the Government to ‘sort this out’.

Hailing the deal with the private sector, NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said: ‘We’re dealing with an unprecedented global health threat and are taking immediate and exceptional action to gear up.’

Europe is firmly at the epicentre of the coronavirus crisis with the death toll exceeding 5,000 and a steep rise in new infections, totalling more than 13,000 across the UK, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany.

Spain’s death toll went up by 285 to 1,378 while Belgium’s almost doubled yesterday and now stands at 67. In Germany 77 people have died, three more than in Switzerland.

Globally, nearly 300,000 patients have tested positive and more than 12,000 have died.

In America, Vice-President Mike Pence, who heads the White House coronavirus task force, said he will be tested after a member of this team tested positive.