The United Kingdom on Saturday received 300 ventilators from China in a large shipment with other medical supplies, with more expected to arrive in the next few weeks, multiple government sources confirmed.
UK Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove thanked China's support at a daily government briefing on COVID-19 as he touched on the much discussed problem of ventilator shortages.
"We've been buying invasive ventilators from partners abroad, including Germany and Switzerland, and today 300 new ventilators arrived from China. I'd like to thanks the Chinese government," Gove said at the Saturday press briefing.
For Britain's own manufacturing capacity, the cabinet minister said that now the daily output is around hundreds of ventilators, and by next week, the number could reach a thousand each day.
The UK Embassy in China and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also confirmed on Sunday that part of the medical supplies ordered had arrived in the country from China.
Besides the ventilators, other delivered personal protective equipment (PPE) include 33 million masks and 1 million gloves, said the embassy.
"We are working round the clock to procure more. Thank you to our Chinese partners for helping to make this happen," the UK Embassy wrote on Twitter.
As of 5 p.m. on Friday, the UK's Department of Health (DoH) reported 4,313 people had died from the COVID-19 outbreak, 708 more than the day before, marking the biggest daily increase so far.
Gove said that among the deceased, the youngest victim was a 5-year-old child, and seven people were medical workers.
According to the news agency HuffPost, National Health Service (NHS) England Medical Director Stephen Powis said that the death rate will not see a drop "for a week or two," and warned people that it's "not the time to be complacent."
