Yes! Definitely my mistake. The official figure has just gone above 45,000. Very sorry! It is USA that has the 250,000 deaths.
Now England will be locked down on Thursday. Only schools, factories where safe working can be maintained and essential services are to continue operating. The vast majority will conform and even anticipate the deadline. We are meeting friends in a restaurant on Wednesday, but I am not sure that we will go ahead with the date.
The England lock-down is no 'Covid freakout'. Many, probably most, people here think this measure is long overdue. The Government's own advisers (SAGE) has been urging them to take the step. The Opposition in Parliament have been pressing for it for weeks. Trump's egregious denial and Johnson's dithering is costing many lives and making their economies decline more, even while they claim to be acting to ameliorate the situation.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland may well follow suit as their own populations' infection rates are comparable. France and Germany have done much the same. Only in America are grown men and women sceptical of the danger posed by the virus. If American sceptics continue this denial then the death toll and misery will worsen.
Please, wake up to the danger.