Coronavirus has now claimed 20,000 lives in UK hospitals, with the government facing “significant questions” over the credibility of its decision-making after it emerged Boris Johnson‘s chief adviser Dominic Cummings was allowed to take part in meetings of Westminster’s scientific advisory group.
Downing Street also failed to deny the UK’s united coronavirus response could “fracture”, saying only that it has held “so far”, dismissing suggestions from Scotland and Wales on how to potentially ease lockdown restrictions – a step one former chief constable warned would make police “very nervous”.
Ministers are still under pressure over testing, after the initial supply of home tests for key workers ran out within just 15 minutes of their being made available online.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has claimed his “dangerous” suggestions that injecting disinfectant into the human body could work as a potential Covid-19 treatment were sarcastic, before storming out of an unusually short White House briefing in which he spoke for only six minutes, without taking any questions. On Saturday evening the wordwide death toll passed 200,000, around 107 days after the first fatality was reported in Wuhan, China.
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Boris Johnson will be back at work on Monday, Downing Street has confirmed tonight.
The Prime Minister has been recovering at his official country residence in Chequers after being released from St Thomas' Hospital in London.
He is understood to have held a three-hour summit meeting with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab - who has been deputising for him - and Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Friday ahead of his return.
Boris Johnson back to work on Monday to halt growing criticism of leadership vacuum
Prime minister’s recovery, three weeks after entering hospital, will raise Tory hopes that plan for easing the lockdown will followThe Cerne Abbas Giant has been given a face mask in recognition of the coronavirus lockdown.
It is thought the addition was made to the 55m high chalk figure of a nude man on Friday.
Photographer Kevin Knight tweeted a picture of the hillside monument and said: "Great to see Cerne Abbas Giant practicing social distancing, wearing his face mask and keeping up villagers' morale".
Almost half of the British population believes that coronavirus is a “man-made creation”, according to polling that reveals the extent of conspiracy theories about the disease.
Research seen exclusively by The Independent ahead of its release suggested that 8 per cent of people think that 5G technology is spreading the virus, and that many more have seen claims that Covid-19 is a Chinese weapon or created by the “New World Order”.
Almost half of Britons believe coronavirus is ‘man-made’ as conspiracy theories spread
The IndependentExclusive: Poll finds that 8 per cent of population believe 5G technology is spreading the virusFrench parliament to debate lockdown-easing plan on Tuesday
The government's plan to relax France's coronavirus lockdown will be presented in parliament on Tuesday.
It will then be debated and voted upon, according to a statement from the office of prime minister Edouard Phillipe.
France's lockdown, which began on 17 March, is due to be lifted on 11 May.
The government has not yet finalised the details but reports suggest president Emmanual Macron aims to open schools first.
France's reported earlier today that its death toll from coronavirus had risen to a total of 22,614.
Wildlife lovers are calling on the government to cancel the badger cull during the coronavirus crisis because independent monitoring has been suspended, prompting fears of a rise in animals suffering.
Natural England staff are not going out into the countryside during the lockdown, but the cull is continuing, and is due to be expanded this year. But contractors could pose a risk of spreading the disease, according to the head of the Badger Trust.
Dominic Dyer is writing to environment secretary George Eustice, also warning that any cull protests could take up police resources.
"To reduce the risk, cull contractors would require scarce personal protection equipment and use tens of thousands of body incineration waste bags. They would also have to undertake thousands of non-essential journeys to carry out their culling activities and to dispose of badger carcasses at incineration facilities," the letter warns.
Halting the badger cull "would be in the best interests of common sense, public health, animal welfare and efficient use of police resources, particularly at a time of unprecedented national health and economic emergency", it adds.
The government has not given any indication the culls would stop during the lockdown, and Natural England is considering 18 new licence applications, Mr Dyer said.
One of the government's five criteria which have to be met before the lockdown can be relaxed is ensuring the supply of tests can meet demand.
On the evidence of today's figures, which showed some 28,760 tests were carried out on Friday, and the rapid exhaustion of its new test booking site for the second day in a row, we are still some way off.
Here's Andy Gregory with more details:
Less than a third of UK's coronavirus testing target met despite 46,000 attempts to book on new website
Thousands try and fail to book tests as all key workers made eligibleMinisters accused of sowing confusion with mixed messages over travel
A government adviser has accused ministers of confusing people by urging them to stay at home while also quietly allowing more staff back to their workplaces.
Susan Michie, a health psychologist who sits on the advisory Sage committee, said ministers were creating “a real problem” with their “mixed messages”.
In recent days, the government has sanctioned a growing numbers of businesses, including DIY stores, construction firms and take-away food chains, to reopen.
Global death toll passes 200,000
The number of deaths linked to the coronavirus around the world has passed 200,000, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
More than half of the fatalities have been reported by the United States, Spain and Italy.
The first death linked to the disease was reported on 10 January Wuhan, China. It took 91 days for the death toll to pass 100,000 and a further 16 days to reach 200,000, according to Reuters.
By comparison, there are an estimated 400,000 deaths annually from malaria, one of the world's most deadly infectious diseases.
More than 50 new deaths in Irish Republic
Another 52 people have died with Covid-19 in Ireland, bringing the total to 1,063.
Health officials noted 377 new confirmed cases, meaning a total of 18,561 confirmed cases of the virus in Ireland.
Dublin has the highest number of cases, followed by Cork.
About 1,000 people gathered in Berlin to protest against restrictions caused by the coronavirus, defying social distancing rules.
News agency DPA reported that police repeatedly called on participants to leave and a few people were detained before the crowd dispersed.
Although Germany recently loosened its restrictions slightly by allowing small shops to reopen, rules still call for people to keep 1.5m apart in public.
Authorities can allow gatherings of up to 20 people, although that permission wasn't granted for today's protest.
Healthcare visa surcharge for overseas NHS workers under review, says Patel
The government is reviewing visa surcharges for healthcare workers who have come to the UK and are fighting the coronavirus pandemic, the home secretary says.
Workers coming to the UK from outside the European Economic Area must pay the fee to be able to use the NHS.
But asked by a journalist at the Downing Street press briefing whether it was time to scrap the charge for doctors and nurses working during the Covid-19 crisis, Priti Patel said it was under review.
The home secretary bowed to pressure to look again at the fees in the light of people's 'extraordinary contribution':
If you want a job doing, get NASA to do it.
The space agency has developed a ventilator for coronavirus in just 37 days. It’s now passed medical tests and looks set to be given final approval for manufacturing early next week, writes Colin Drury.
“We’re rocket scientists and engineers, we know how to land on the moon and Mars,” said Leon Alkalai, a technical fellow at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “But building a medical device is new. We were humbled by that challenge to do something we’ve never done before for a good cause.”
The prototype device has been tailored to be more flexible and easier to maintain so it can be used more effectively in the field hospitals currently being set up in conference centres and hotels across the world.
"Our instruction remains clear, people should stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives," she said.
"We know that people are frustrated but we are not out of danger. It is imperative that we continue to follow the rules."
The home secretary is giving Downing Street's daily press briefing, issuing a warning to those seeking to "exploit and capitalise" on the pandemic.
Overall crime is down from the same period last year, Ms Patel said, but warned "the most sophisticated" criminals are still operating.
"Our world class law enforcement is also adapting and they are on to you," she said.
The Department of Health figures show 28, 760 tests were carried out on Friday - the day the government made all key workers eligible for tests.
Some 46,000 people tried to book a coronavirus test on Friday, but the daily allocation of 5,000 home tests ran out within two minutes and the applications website was closed just a few hours later after more than 15,000 slots at drive-through centres were also taken up.
Earlier today, NHS England medical director Stephen Powis said capacity on Saturday was at 50,000.
A leading US scientist, who was dubbed the ‘godfather of biodiversity’, has said the illegal wildlife trade and humanity’s “persistent and excessive intrusion” into nature is what led to the coronavirus pandemic, Kate Ng reports.
Thomas Lovejoy, a conservation biologist who coined the term “biological diversity” in 1980, said scientists are discovering between two to four new viruses every year that emerge as a result of human interference in the natural world. He said any one of those had the potential to turn into a pandemic.
He told The Guardian that the pandemic was “the consequence of our persistent and excessive intrusion in nature and the vast illegal wildlife trade”. “Wildlife markets, the wet markets, of south Asia and bush meat markets of Africa” were particularly key players.
Dominic Cummings' attendance at meetings of the government's scientific advisory group, Sage, without the public knowing his level of involvement could taint the advice the body has given so far, according to Dr Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the university of East Anglia.
Senior civil servants invited to attend, including the government's chief medical officer Chris Whitty, are permitted to ask questions but must submit them in writing in advance.
Dr Hunter, who also sits on a number of World Health Organisation (WHO) committees, said it was not clear if Mr Cummings was subject to the same restraints.
"If he wasn't and he was contributing to the discussion, then that means we need to be very cautious about the conclusions of Sage," he said. "Because whether or not he did influence the outcomes we can't know for certain, and therefore the validity of the advice coming out of the committee might be flawed.
"It has been pointed out quite a lot in the press that a lot of the advice and policies that we have had over Covid-19 has differed quite markedly from advice from international agencies.
"We need to be sure there wasn't undue political influence at the point those decisions were being taken."
