The 海角视频's lockdown has been extended for three weeks to help the battle against coronavirus.
Speaking at today's Downing Street press conference, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed the long-expected news that restrictions on everyday life would continue.
Mr Raab - standing in for Boris Johnson as the Prime Minister continues his recovery from coronavirus - said the Government would keep reviewing the scientific evidence before making decisions on how and when the restrictions would be lifted.
He acknowledged that the lockdown was having a big effect on people and on businesses. But he said that the Government had to avoid lifting restrictions too early, causing a second "peak" in coronavirus cases that would in turn lead to a second national lockdown.
The Department of Health earlier said that a total of 13,729 patients have died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the 海角视频 as of 5pm on Wednesday, up by 861 on the previous day.
Mr Raab said: "There are indications that the measures that we have put in place have been successful in slowing the spread of this virus.
"But Sage (the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) say that it's a mixed and inconsistent picture an in some settings infections are still likely to be increasing.
"Sage assesses that the rate of infection, the so-called R value, is almost certainly below 1 in the community, and that means that on average a person in contact with someone infected will in turn infect less than one other person.
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"But overall we still don't have the infection rate down as far as we need to.
"As in other countries, we have issues with the virus' spread in some hospitals and in care homes, and the clear advice we have received is that any change in our social distancing measures now would be to risk a significant spread of the virus.
"That would threaten a second peak of the virus and a substantial increase in the number of deaths."
Mr Raab added: "It would undo the progress we have made to date and as a result would require a logner period with more restrictive social distancing measures.
Early relaxation would do more damage to our economy over the longer period. The advice from Sage is that relaxing any of the measures currently in place would risk damage to both public health and the economy.
Based on that advice, which we have very carefully considered, the Government has decided that the current measures must remain in place for the next three weeks."