The UK coronavirus death toll rose above 32,000 to the highest in Europe. ONS figures and calculations by Reuters revealed that 32,313 deaths were registered with Covid-19 on the death certificate. However, as the official tally reached 29,427, the government rejected international comparisons due to all-cause excess mortality as well as differences in how individual countries collect and measure their data. Dominic Raab told the daily press briefing: I don’t think you can make the international comparisons you’re suggesting at this stage, at least I don’t think you can make them reliably. The UK’s testing capacity should have been expanded sooner, Sir Patrick Vallance told the health committee. However he said Dr Jenny Harries had been right to say testing on its own does not provide the solution. He said: In the early phases, if we had managed to ramp testing capacity quicker, it would have been beneficial. For all sorts of reasons that did not happen. And I think it’s clear you need lots of testing for this. Reopening all schools at once would create a “very real risk” of an increase in the infection rate and of a second peak, the government said. Raab said the evidence to date suggested the five tests and risk of a second spike were crucial to deciding how and when to reopen schools, and Sage is considering different options for how to do this safely. This came on the same day the Scottish government published a paper outlining that it would not be safe for schools to reopen fully in the foreseeable future. An extract said: Full reopening [of schools] would cause a resurgence in the virus such that hospital capacity in Scotland would be overwhelmed in less than two months ... We are considering a phased approach to returning pupils to school, when it is safe to do so. We do not consider it likely that schools will reopen fully in the foreseeable future. Indeed, we are not yet certain that they can re-open at all in the near future. Virgin Atlantic announced plans to cut 3,150 jobs and end its operation of Gatwick. The airline said uncertainty over when flying will resume as well as “unprecedented market conditions” as a result of the pandemic had “severely reduced revenues”, leaving it to reduce its workforce by more than a third. That’s it from us for today on the UK side. Thank you to everyone who got in touch with a story and to all of you for reading along. If you would like to continue following the Guardian’s coverage of the pandemic, head over to the global live blog for the worldwide picture.