UK PM Johnson under fire over handling of coronavirus crisis

The novel coronavirus outbreak, the worst health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic, has left governments across the world grappling with stressed populations, a stalled global economy and overloaded health services.

The true extent of Britain's COVID-19 death toll was more than 40% higher than the government's daily figures indicated as of April 10, according to official data that put the country on track to become among the worst-hit in Europe.

The latest hospital death data show 17,337 people had died after testing positive across the United Kingdom.

The Financial Times said an analysis of the latest data from the statistics office showed the outbreak had caused as many as 41,000 deaths in the United Kingdom.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock told reporters that the 40% gap between the daily data and the more comprehensive ONS data was "not an accurate representation of those figures".

On testing too, Britain is far behind some European peers such as Germany.

Hancock has faced questions about the pledge to get to 100,000 tests per day done by the end of this month. So far just over 18,200 tests are being done per day.

The Daily Mirror said in an editorial: "(Johnson's) inept government is plunging incompetence to dangerous depths."

"Those responsible must be held to account if people are dying needlessly," the left-wing newspaper said.