After Boris Johnson had spent a third day at St Thomas’s in London, his spokesman reported on Thursday that “the Prime Minister had a good night and continues to improve in intensive care”.

Some papers have said Boris has been able to telephone his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, who is expecting their baby and who herself has been in self-isolation after experiencing symptoms of coronavirus though hers were less serious.

Speaking at the daily Downing Street news conference on Wednesday, the chancellor Rishi Sunak had said that Boris was receiving “excellent care” and that “the latest from the hospital is the Prime Minister remains in intensive care where his condition is improving.

“I can also tell you that he has been sitting up in bed and engaging positively with the clinical team.

“The Prime Minister is not only my colleague and my boss but also my friend, and my thoughts are with him and his family.

The news about the PM reminds us how indiscriminate this disease is.

“Nearly everyone will know someone who has been affected — friends, family, neighbours, colleagues. This is a terrible virus that respects no boundaries of status or geography or vocation.”

Of the news of Boris’s improvement, the health secretary Matt Hancock tweeted: “So good that the PM is sitting up and his condition is improving. He will fight through!”

Earlier in the week, people across the UK clapped for the Prime Minister in a show of support. Boris was last seen in public a week ago when he emerged from the front door of 10, Downing Street, to join in the national applause for NHS and other frontline workers.

He had then clearly looked unwell.

On Thursday, the culture secretary said that Boris was “reasonably well”.

Asked about whether the PM will be able to make a decision himself on whether to extend the lockdown next week, Dowden told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “He’s in a stable condition, he seems to be doing reasonably well, he was sat up and engaging with medical staff.

“But we have a well-established mechanism for the first minister Dominic Raab to take the Prime Minister’s place in chairing such meetings, he will chair Cobra and he will chair the relevant decisions.

“This is just about going through a proper process, that’s why we’re waiting for next week.”

Questions have been raised about the home secretary Priti Patel, who has so far not fronted a Downing Street news conference. There are suggestions she has been kept out of sight because of bullying allegations levelled against her. Dowden told Sky News: “I really can assure you the home secretary is across all of this and is engaged on an hour-by-hour and day-by-day basis. I see this every day myself. She’s 100 per cent engaged.

“She’s in the home office pretty much every day, as far as I know, that’s where I’ve seen her every day. I really don’t think there’s an issue with respect to the home secretary.”