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Today's daily government coronavirus conference was led by Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden ahead of the return of the English Premier league this evening. Similar to the conference on Monday afternoon led by Dominic Raab, Oliver Dowden was not joined by any UK medical or scientific advisors.


The culture secretary says there have now been a total of 7,121,976 tests carried out or posted, including 140,359 in the 24 hours up to 9am on Wednesday.

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Key points to take away from today's speech are:​

• There have now been 299,251 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the UK, he adds, including a further 1,115 in the latest round of testing.
  
  

• Mr Dowden says that a total of 5,308 people are in hospital with the virus, which is down from 6,123 this time last week.
  
  

• There have been a further 184 deaths from the coronavirus across all settings in the UK. Making the total now 42,153.
  
  

  

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• He says the return of the Premier League today "marks an important milestone".
  
  

• Oliver Dowden appeals to fans of Premier League teams to watch the games at home and not to congregate outside stadiums.
  
  

• He the campaigning of Marcus Rashford during the pandemic, noting he has made the front and back pages of the newspapers. The government U-turned on free school meals following appeals from the England and Manchester United star.
  
  

• Oliver Dowden says the job retention scheme has kept thousands of people in the arts in jobs. The culture secretary acknowledges it is "exceptionally difficult" for theatres to open consistent with social distancing and government is looking at what more it can do to support the sector.
  
  

• Speaking on the Track & Trace app, he said: "We're seeking to get something going before the winter, but it isn't the priority for us at the moment." He added that the government was not feeling great time pressure over the app, and it did not want to "poison the pool" by rushing something out that isn't "quite right".
  
  

• Oliver Dowden: I would really hope that by the return of the new season, we might be in a position whereby some fans could start to return to stadiums.
  
  

• Asked about the incident involving the prime minister's convoy and a protester outside the Palace of Westminster earlier, Oliver Dowden says Boris Johnson was "wholly unscathed and I believe everyone else escaped safely from that situation".
  

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To read a brief summary of last night's points and important measures click here.

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