People are heeding the advice to stay at home to keep pressure off the NHS, and there are early signs that it is working, the UK's chief scientific adviser has said.

Sir Patrick Vallance told a news conference that social distancing measures are "making a difference".

Transmission of coronavirus in the community is thought to be decreasing, which could mean fewer infections.

Hospital admissions data suggests cases are not rising as fast as feared.

There are currently 9,000 people in hospitals in England with coronavirus, up from 6,000 on Friday.

This amounts to about one in ten of all hospital beds in the country.

The latest number of deaths announced in the UK of people with the virus has reached 1,408.

The deaths include a further 159 people in England, six in Scotland, 14 in Wales and one in Northern Ireland.

Sir Patrick said the NHS was seeing around an additional 1,000 patients a day and described this daily rise as "stable".

"That shows that it's going up not in an increasing amount but in a constant amount, which may suggest that we're already beginning to see some effect," he said.

After the daily number of deaths fell for the second day, he also cautioned against paying "too much attention" to day-to-day fluctuations in figures, explaining "we need to look over time and see what's happening".