THE PRIME Minister has declared that the UK is officially past the peak of coronavirus infections.

Boris Johnson gave the latest daily coronavirus briefing for first time since his return to work after overcoming coronavirus and becoming a new father.

He said: “"I want to thank everybody who has been doing such a good job in my absence, and I want to thank the NHS for so much - including getting me back here and, I might add, a very much happier hospital visit yesterday.

“Families every day are continuing to lose loved ones before their time, we grieve for them and with them, but as we grieve, we are strengthened in our resolve to defeat this virus to get this whole country back to health, back on its feet."

Mr Johnson sympathised with the difficulties the public has suffered during "enforced confinement" where they have not been able to see friends and family while worrying about jobs.

"Your effort and your sacrifice is working and has been proved to work," he said.

"At no stage has our NHS been overwhelmed, no patient went without a ventilator, no patient was deprived of intensive care, we have five of the seven projected Nightingale wards," he said.

"It is thanks to that massive collective effort to shield the NHS that we avoided an uncontrollable and catastrophic epidemic where the reasonable worst-case scenario was 500,000 deaths.

"I can confirm today that for the first time we are past the peak of this disease. We are past the peak and on the downward slope."

Mr Johnson acknowledged the "frustrations" in expanding the number of coronavirus tests and the difficulties getting sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE).

"I'm not going to minimise the logistical problems we face in getting the right protective gear to the right people at the right time, both in the NHS and in care homes," the PM said.

"Or the frustrations that we've experienced in expanding the numbers of tests.

"But what I can tell you is that everyone responsible for tackling these problems, whether in Government or the NHS or Public Health England or in local authorities, we're throwing everything at it, heart and soul, night and day, to get it right - and we will get it right and we're making huge progress.

"And I will not underrate the work and achievement of those who are dealing with global shortages in a global pandemic - they are rising to a challenge we've never seen in our lifetimes."

The Prime Minister said he would set out a "road map" for easing lockdown restrictions.

Mr Johnson said: "What you are going to get next week is really a road map, a menu of options - the dates and times of each individual measure will be very much driven by where we are in the epidemic, what the data is really saying and we are getting in a lot more data every day now and in the course of the next few days."