More than 405,000 people have signed up to volunteer with the NHS effort against the coronavirus in 24 hours, the Prime Minister announced today. 

During this evening's daily confrence, Boris Johnson said the volunteers would be an "absolutely crucial" part in fighting the virus in order to relieve some of the pressue currently facing the NHS. 

He said:"When we launched the appeal last night, we hoped to get 250,000 volunteers over a few day".

The volunteers wiill be delivering food and medicines to vulnerable people, driving patients to appointment and calling those who are self-isolating for any assistance. 

This comes after thousands of former medics returned to the health service alongside more than 24,000 final year student nurses and medics.

Chief Medical Advisor, Chris Witty says there is a global shortage of testing equipment causing a "bottleneck" for the UK. 

He said: "Once we have more testing, we want to test wider range of people with symptoms. 

"We are doing our level best to sort out global shortages".

The UK has currently tested 97,000 people with more than 8,000 testing positive for Covid-19.

He added that the modelling of the lockdown is based on the idea that quite a lot of people would still have to go to work.