I am not sure I understand why people were expecting a high number today. 2-day weekends were followed by a high number on Tuesday, a 4-day weekend is more likely to be followed by a high number on Thursday? 

I still expect a number well above 1000 tomorrow.

Just ~reasonable guessing of course.

Once again the Dept of Health UK total is lower than the sums of England, Scotland, Wales, NI (761 vs 801).

Has this ever been explained?

I'm very surprised but surely its the numbers tested and those positive that count along with admissions??

761 new deaths in the UK down slightly from 778 yesterday.

I’ve just read the theory is they strip out the non hospital deaths from Scot / NI.

Seems a bit odd, if the data is available, why not include it?

Yes I'm happy (and surprised) to see a lower figure for today but it's hard to feel too optimistic given the total clusterfudge that is our daily stats.

Part of me genuinely thinks our daily figures are being carefully  massaged for the benefit of the public's mental health so we don't pass the unwelcome 1000 milestone. 

It can't be that as Scotland only reports hospital deaths daily - that's why they got a big jump in the total when they added in care home deaths

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52292001

"The NRS figures provide a wider picture of the impact of the virus on Scotland than the Health Protection Scotland statistics which are announced each day.

The HPS figures, which only reflect cases in hospitals where a positive test has been recorded, placed the death toll at 566 on 12 April."

Argentina took this seriously and locked down before the UK.  Brazil on the other hand has a clown in charge.

I have to say I agree. Our stats have been a shambles from the start. Changes in timings, and how we measure has made it difficult to follow.

I think it's just a manpower / bureaucracy issue. Only certain people can officially declare a cause of death (rather than declare death itself), and the test itself will take time and the official recording will need someone else. That makes a bottleneck above which the number of official deaths can't go

Obviously if the death toll tomorrow is 3,000 I'm talking out my rolf harris

My hope is that at today's Daily Briefing, however "encouraging" these raw figures appear to be, there's no "haven't we done well" statements. There have obviously been a lot of failings and we haven't any evidence to suggest "we've turned the corner" either.

Keep it simple and say the measures seem as if they may be working, but it's too early to tell. Answer questions about protective measures for care home workers and front line NHS staff directly and finally don't get into lengthy exchanges with journalists desperate to tell an invented exclusive on tomorrow's front page.  

Be interesting to see how this fits into Q's model if he's around. Gut feel is the high number of positives and relatively low number of tests is a concern.

Well I didn’t want to be the first to say it, but that thought had crossed my mind. They can give us any figures they like and we’d never be able to tell the difference. 
We’ll only get the true story in a public inquiry in 5 years time!

I've just got home from work and it's the first drive out I've had in a couple of weeks. I was quite surprised by the increase in both traffic and the number of people out and about. Driving through Headingley on the way home there were loads of people about, many of them in groups and mostly young people.

It did make me wonder if we should lift the lockdown by age range - the under 30's first and let them crack on with building some herd immunity. Then the under 40's and so on. 

Why and how should herd immunity be the policy when we don't even know if having had the virus gives you immunity and, if it does, how long it lasts for?

Well we don't know that it doesn't give you immunity either. In any case the lockdown can't continue indefinitely, it makes sense to allow the age group least in danger from the virus to be the first to begin restarting the economy - and it may be that herd immunity is a by product of that.

On Easter Monday, I saw two separate groups of teenagers/young adults congregated. It actually made my blood boil at the time.

Exactly right , we probably will never see the 1,000 deaths reported , that really wouldn't go down well

And yes, we don't have a clue really just how many 

Are we supposed to be locked down indefinitely. Herd Immunity is the way out of this, as after catching it, you have antibodies for a while, but the body also makes a copy of this antibody and stores it away for later use, so if you do get it again, then this should be a far milder version.

There is no getting away from the fact that unless we all shut ourselves away for 3 to 4 weeks completely and I mean completely no going out at all, this is not going away.