The prime minister’s address to the nation has been delayed again – this time until 6.30pm.

Boris Johnson is expected to be joined by professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance in a press conference from Downing Street, following a meeting of his Cabinet earlier in the afternoon.

The press conference was originally scheduled for 4pm this afternoon, before being pushed back until 5pm.

Mr Johnson has so far resisted pressure to introduce nationwide restrictions, opting instead for a localised tier system, but he is reportedly considering closing everything except essential shops and education settings for a month from Wednesday.

According to The Times everything will close apart from essential shops and “educational settings”.

The press conference comes on the same day that the same day that government data revealed there had been more than 1 million lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus recorded in the UK since the start of the outbreak – including a further 21,915 reported today.

The government also said a further 326 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Saturday. This brings the UK total to 46,555.

Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 62,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.