AROUND £12billion in grants for virus-hit businesses is now with local authorities, the latest Downing Street conference has confirmed.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma led a press briefing this afternoon (April 1).

He said: "The coronavirus pandemic is the biggest threat our country has faced in decades.

"And we are not alone. All over the world we are seeing the devastating impact of this invisible killer."

"We recognise the extreme disruption the necessary actions we are asking people to take are having on their lives, their businesses, their jobs, and the nation's economy.

"And, I want to thank everyone across our whole country for the huge effort that is being made collectively."

Mr Sharma said £12 billion in grants for businesses was now with local authorities and urged them to pay it out "as quickly as possible".

"On Saturday, I said we had provided funds to councils in England to provide grants to small businesses," he added.

"As of today, these local authorities have received more than £12 billion.

"This afternoon I held a call with hundreds of local authorities across England and made clear this money must reach businesses as quickly as possible.

"I know businesses across England have already started to receive these grants.

"We are also taking unprecedented action to increase NHS capacity by dramatically expanding the number of beds, key staff and life-saving equipment on the front line."

The chancellor, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority have written to chief executives of UK banks to urge them to make sure the benefits of the Covid Business Interruption Loan Scheme are "passed through to businesses and consumers", Mr Sharma confirmed.

"It would be completely unacceptable if any banks were unfairly refusing funds to good business in financial difficulty," he warned.

"Just as the taxpayer stepped in to help the banks back in 2008, we will work with the banks to do everything they can to repay that favour and support the businesses and people of the United Kingdom in their time of need."

Cabinet minister Mr Sharma said that the new scheme would "not be perfect from the outset" and confirmed Chancellor Rishi Sunak would be announcing changes.

He added: "We are listening all the time.

"And in response to concerns we have heard from businesses, we are looking at ways we can ensure they get the support they need.

"The Chancellor will be saying more on this in the coming days."

Yvonne Doyle is the director of health protection for Public Health England.

She said: "It is slightly concerning.

"It's still too early to say whether the plateau of hospital admissions has ended but we've now seen three days of increases in a row and again, we need to protect the NHS, and the best way to do that is to stay at home, to avoid catching the disease yourself and obviously avoid giving it to anyone else."

On hospital admissions, she said London "is where coronavirus is most advanced", adding: "But the chart shows that the threat is everywhere, we need to protect the NHS everywhere and the Midlands now is obviously a concern as well."

Comparing the UK to other countries, Ms Doyle added: "As things stand it has not been as severe here as in France and we're just tucked in under the USA and obviously Italy on a different trajectory, but... and Spain and the United States, as we've said.

"But there's no reason to be complacent."

Mr Sharma repeated the government's promise that increasing testing capacity is the top priority.

"We're now at 10,000 tests a day, we're rolling out additional networks of labs and testing sites," he said.

"And in terms of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), over the last two weeks 390 million products have been distributed.

"And of course we will continue to do more and work to make sure that PPE is available."

Ms Doyle added: "There is positive news about this. The NHS and PPE committed to make 10,000 tests a day available. We have met that target by the end of March, early April, and we have some more capacity.

"And our commitment is actually to go to 25,000 tests a day and we are confident with our industry partners that we will achieve that."