Britain's death toll surge past grim 10,000 milestone

London: Britain's coronavirus death toll surged past 10,000 on Sunday, marking a grim milestone in the country's epidemic. A further 737 people have lost their lives, bringing the total number of fatalities to 10,612 as of Easter Sunday.

Cases also hit 84,279 after an additional 5,288 were diagnosed with the infection following 18,000 new tests, down slightly from yesterday. Only the United States, France, Italy and Spain have officially broken the 10,000-death threshold, making the UK among the worst-hit places on the planet. A top scientist today warned that more people could lose their lives in Britain than any other country in Europe, as the public was braced for further deaths. Amid today's bleak figures, there was a glimmer of good news as Boris Johnson was discharged from hospital after fighting for his life with the disease. More than 75,000 people have died from the coronavirus in Europe, with 80 percent of the fatalities occurring in Italy, Spain, France and Britain, according to AFP. With a total of 75,011 deaths from 9,09,673 infections, Europe is the hardest-hit continent in the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed at least 1,09,133 people worldwide. Europe's most affected country is Italy with 19,468 deaths, followed by Spain with 16,972, France with 13,832 and Britain with 9,875. France's death toll from the new coronavirus outbreak rose to nearly 14,000 on Saturday, but the number of patients in intensive care fell for the third day in a row, raising hopes that a nationwide lockdown is curbing the spread of the disease. The number of people in intensive care units fell to 6,883 from 7,004 a day before, down nearly 2%, while the number of people in hospital virtually stabilised at 31,320, up by just 53 or 0.2%, ministry data showed.

Spain's overnight death toll from the coronavirus rose to 619 on Sunday from a nearly three-week low of 510 on Saturday, the Health Ministry said, breaking a three-day streak of daily declines.