The government has "much more to do" to help care homes combat the coronavirus pandemic, Matt Hancock has admitted under sustained questioning at the latest Downing Street briefing. It came as he announced that all care home staff and residents in England were now being tested for Covid-19.
Earlier today No 10 confirmed that lockdown restrictions could be lifted in different areas of the UK in stages, following research which claimed Covid-19 could be wiped out in London within two weeks.
The infection rate in the capital has fallen to less than 24 cases a day and the number of cases is halving every 3.5 days. However, there is rising concern over the number of deaths in UK care homes as new data from England and Wales has revealed more than 23,000 excess deaths up to 1 May this year, with 12,500 linked to Covid-19.
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Why it might not matter if the government ends lockdown
Mobility data from Apple has revealed that the coronavirus outbreak was already having a significant impact on people's behaviour long before the government imposed lockdown restrictions, Anthony Cuthbertson reports.
In the weeks before the UK entered lockdown on 23 March, companies began to introduce measures like working from home in order to help contain the spread of the virus.
This trend, combined with people's own changing attitudes toward social events and large gatherings, resulted in travel dropping by more than 50 per cent before the lockdown began, according to requests made on Apple Maps for car and public transport directions.
The UK’s R rate of coronavirus infection has increased across the UK, potentially as high as the key 1.0 level, scientists have said.
Last week, the virus’ reproductive rate - the number of people, on average, to whom an infected person transmits Covid-19 - was thought to be between 0.5 and 0.9.
Now, the Government Office for Science has estimated it is between 0.7 and 1.0.
Experts have suggested the increase is being driven by outbreaks in care homes.
More on this story can be found below:
Unions call for more answers over safety of schools reopening
Teachers' unions are calling for more answers from the government over whether children and staff will be safe if schools reopen in England following a meeting with chief scientific advisers.
One leader of a teachers' union said the scientific evidence presented at the briefing with the government's chief medical officer and other experts on Friday afternoon was "flimsy at best".
Education unions say they have been left with many unanswered questions about the evidence underpinning the decision to reopen England's schools to more pupils from 1 June.
It comes as the chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) said that the Government should not consider reopening schools in England until the case numbers are "much lower".
There has been no agreement yet between EU countries on how much of the bloc's proposed new coronavirus recovery fund should be handed out as grants to member states and how much in loans, a senior EU official has said.
The EU executive in Brussels has pushed back the unveiling of its new proposal for the bloc’s next long-term budget, and the accompanying Recovery Fund, until 27 May.
“The jackpot question is what is the size and what will be loans and grants,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
“Here there is a lot of work to do... This process is an extremely fragile one.”
They added that all the EU's 27 member states agreed the European Commission would raise money on capital markets for the recovery fund.
“The question of loans or grants is not quite there,” the person said, adding that some of the northern EU countries continued to oppose handing out money in grants.
The mother and father of three children who fled Isis, both died within a few weeks of each other, after contracting coronavirus, James Crump reports.
Nada Ayram, who was 46 years old, died 21 April and her husband, 52-year-old Nameer, passed away from coronavirus earlier this week.
The couple left behind daughters, Nadeen, who is 18 years old and 13-year-old Nanssy, as well as son Nash, who is 20 years old.
Prince Charles has said he is sad and frustrated to learn that most, if not all, of Scotland’s traditional Highland Games are to be cancelled for 2020 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Fifty out of the 60 scheduled events, which date back almost 1,000 years, have been axed.
Slovenia has become the first European country to declare an official end to its coronavirus epidemic, as it lifts some of the border controls put in place during the outbreak.
The nation's government believes the disease has been brought under control after health authorities confirmed less than seven new coronavirus cases each day for the past two weeks.
France death toll rises by 104
French health authorities have reported 104 new coronavirus deaths today, bringing the total to 27,529 and making it still the fourth-highest in the world.
In a statement, the ministry added the number of confirmed cases had risen to 141,919, up from 141,356 on Thursday, which is also a rise of 0.4 per cent in 24 hours.
Priti Patel has sparked anger by refusing to cut or axe the huge fees paid by foreign healthcare workers to help fund the NHS – just three weeks after promising to “review” the controversial charges.
The home secretary raised expectations when she hinted at concessions for migrants working in the NHS themselves, as she praised their “extraordinary contribution” during the Covid-19 crisis.
But The Independent has now learnt there will be no changes to what ministers consider the “important” principle that everyone coming to work in the UK contributes extra for the NHS.
Deputy political editor Rob Merrick explains:
Research suggesting the UK’s coronavirus infection rate varies significantly in different regions in England has sparked speculation over whether the government could lift lockdown restrictions at different times across the country, Conrad Duncan reports.
A study by Public Health England and the University of Cambridge‘s MRC Biostatic Unit found the rate of Covid-19 infections (R value) in England was on average 0.75 overall, but varied in different regions.
This was most clear in London, which had an average R value of 0.4 — meaning for every 10 people who become infected with the virus, four other people will become infected.
Analysis: How Europe's economies have been impacted by lockdowns
Germany is officially in recession after the country’s statistics agency reported its economy contracted by 2.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2020.
But the first quarter decline in German economic activity was only half of the declines seen so far in France and Italy.
Does that tell us something about how severe the economic impact is likely to be in different countries across Europe?
How Europe's economies have been impacted by lockdowns
Analysis: The impact of measures to halt the spread of coronavirus across the European continent has so far been uneven. Ben Chu considers whether there are lessons that can be drawnA journalist asked what the government plans to put in place to mitigate the "double pressure" for businesses in Northern Ireland who have both the coronavirus lockdown measures and border checks after Brexit to contend with.
Hancock says the prime minister had a "positive discussion" with the Taoiseach this afternoon and they "intend to meet all the commitments made in terms of delivering on the result of the referendum".
"There is an awful lot of work to do in each individual school to make sure that that is done in a way that is safe."
She told the daily briefing: "It's not simply about a bit of kit - it's actually about how you manage groups.
"So in many ways managing them more as if you were a family where you wouldn't think about putting on PPE or handling in different ways, but you keep in those groups, you can distance within a school.''
Asked what the government considers an acceptable level of risk for reopening schools, and the consequences schools could face if they refuse to reopen their doors, Dr Harries warned of longer-term health risks to children who do not get a good, basic education.
She told the press conference: "Children who have been invited back to school are at key points of their education and their longer-term health risks of not getting good, basic education, which then takes them into work, employment in adult life and gives them a prevention opportunity from long-term conditions is really very important."
He told the daily briefing: "I didn't know about that and it's certainly something that I'd like to look into because our overall approach in this is that transparency is the best way forward.
"We've asked the CQC and now the ONS to come in and do more to be transparent about the impact of coronavirus.
"Unlike many countries we put the deaths of people, whether they die in a care home or in the wider community or in hospital, into our overall figures.
"We've taken an approach of maximum transparency."
She added: "If currently we have, say, two or three in a thousand of our population with infection, in the proposed time frame coming forward in the next couple of weeks that's likely to halve.
"There's a lot of anxiety I think around this but people need to think through in an average infant school with 100 children, the likelihood of anybody having this disease is very small and diminishing with time, so I think we just need to keep that in perspective."
Dr Harries added: "Prioritisation at the start was clearly we need to manage risk, that's how we approach all clinical risk and the different elements of risk were there so care homes and particularly a very, very stark variation in risk for the elderly, particularly 70, 80 and 90.
"So it's really quite stark in comparison to all other variables."
