Government rebuked over data used to justify lockdown

The prime minister has acknowledged that the public may be “anxious, weary and fed up”, but insisted that four weeks of lockdown in England should be enough to drive down the spread of the virus.

Earlier, the government faced a rebuke from the statistics watchdog, which said that if the public was shown a scientific model, the data behind it should be released.

And there was more criticism from a former health secretary who said the plan to test all NHS staff wasn’t happening fast enough.