The government is preparing to make yet another high-profile U-turn, this time scrapping its plans for the NHS contact-tracing app and transitioning to a method backed by Apple and Google.
Meanwhile, the number of people asked to isolate by coronavirus test-and-trace workers has risen by half in the latest figures, with 40,690 advised to stay home in the scheme’s second week, up from 26,985 in the previous period. The number of infected people contacting the scheme in the first place has fallen.
The Bank of England has kept interest rates at 0.1 per cent and pumped an extra £100bn into the economy in a bid to help the UK out of what is expected to be its deepest recession in more than 300 years.
NHSX app 'not ready till winter'
The much-anticipated smartphone app to trace contacts of Covid sufferers may not be ready for national rollout until the winter and “isn’t a priority”, a health minister has told MPs, writes Andrew Woodcock.
Lord Bethell, the minister responsible for the NHSX app, claimed the delay was caused in part by a fear of “freaking out” the public by using technological means to tell them they might be ill, but also admitted that the system had faced “technical challenges”.
The app, currently being piloted in the Isle of Wight, was slated to play a central role in the government’s test and trace system to track down contacts and ask them to self-isolate, with its UK-launch initially pencilled for the end of May.
'We won't have to do that'
Donald Trump has said he will not consider a second nationwide lockdown to tackle coronavirus, despite rising cases in a number of states.
Oklahoma logged a record 259 new infections yesterday - and that's where the president plans to hold a campaign rally on Saturday.
Mr Trump told Fox News: "We won't be closing the country again. We won't have to do that."
Two of the president's senior colleagues - Larry Kudlow, the White House economic adviser, and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin - both said on Wednesday that the US should not shut down its economy a second time.
Mr Trump has made the strength of the American economy the backbone of his re-election campaign, and has scrambled to mitigate the damage done by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Another New Zealand case
New Zealand has recorded its third new coronavirus case this week, just days after Jacinda Ardern declared the country free of Covid-19.
A man in his 60s who flew in from Lahore in Pakistan, via Doha and Melbourne, on 11 June, is now in quarantine.
It comes a day after two women who arrived from London tested positive for the virus after being let out of quarantine early on compassionate grounds.
Ms Ardern has now axed all exceptions to the 14-day sequestration rule and put the military in charge of the policy.
"I know the case of these two women will have upset people. I am certainly upset by it," Ashley Bloomfield, director general of health, told a news conference on Thursday.
"I apologise that we ended up in this position," he added.
Contact tracing is underway for the hundreds of people who may have come into contact with the three new cases.
Russia and China 'using Covid-19 as cover for destabilisation efforts'
China, Russia and Iran are looking to exploit weaknesses created by the coronavirus outbreak, the UK's foreign secretary has claimed.
"We certainly know Russia is engaged systematically in misinformation and propaganda, through cyber and other ways," Dominic Raab told Sky News.
"Others engage in the same too, China and Iran, but I don't think it had any outcome on the electoral process in the UK," he added.
Mr Raab continued: "I certainly think that coronavirus and the challenges that it has created has created a perceived opportunity for various different state and non-state actors through cyber, through other means.
"I think we've seen it in relation to Hong Kong - I think some people are arguing that it is difficult to glean whether it is true or not, that this is something, the national security legislation that is being put forward, is being done at a time when the world's attention has been on coronavirus."
Pressed again, Mr Raab said: "I don't think they've made a material difference to our response in health terms but certainly Russia and other countries and indeed non-state actors see the challenges that Covid has created and are trying to exploit it.
"And we're making sure we have got the resilience, the defence and the capabilities to prevent them from doing so."
Somewhat relatedly, The Independent has previously reported how the NHS has faced a rise in cyberattacks since the pandemic began.
GCHQ, the UK's signals intelligence spy centre, has been helping the health service defend itself.
"They’re not using particularly different techniques to do it, they’re still looking for pretty basic vulnerabilities in our cybersecurity, they’ll still try and use lures to get people to click on the wrong thing, or will look for vulnerabilities where people aren’t backing up properly, or where they’ve got basic passwords and so on," the agency's director Jeremy Fleming said earlier this month.
You can read more about that below:
Thailand figures
Thailand has reported six new coronavirus infections and no new deaths, bringing its total to 3,141 confirmed cases, of which 58 were fatalities.
The new cases were quarantined Thais returning from Saudi Arabia and India, said Panprapa Yongtrakul, a spokesperson for the government's Covid-19 administration centre.
Thailand has recorded no new local transmissions for 24 days in a row.
Many lockdown restrictions have been eased.
UK 'risks legal challenges' with selective air bridges
The UK risks being hit with legal challenges if it seeks out so-called air bridge deals selectively, Dominic Raab has said.
Discussing Emmanuel Macron's visit to London today on BBC Breakfast, the foreign secretary said: "What we are going to look at is how [international travel] can be done safely and responsibly.
"Of course there is a risk of legal challenge if you open up for one country and not others so we want to make sure we can open up - and this is our starting point - as soon as we can safely and responsibly do so."
He added: "If you open up the airports and don't open up the Eurotunnel or if you open up to one country but not in relation to others there is always a risk of legal challenge."
Mr Raab said public health had to be "front and centre" of decision making.
There is something of a spat ongoing with France over Britain's policy of quarantining new arrivals for 14 days. You can read about that below:
Beijing sees drop in new cases
China's capital has reported a fall in new Covid-19 infections, as it implements strict measures to curb a new outbreak.
Officials said there were 21 new cases on Thursday, down from 31 a day earlier.
Elsewhere in China there were just 7 other cases.
'The coronavirus tracking app is set up to fail – as a tech analyst, I can tell you exactly why'
The conversation around the coronavirus test and trace app has gone suspiciously silent, writes Anthony Magee.
Instead, focus has turned to test and trace strategies, begging the question: what’s happened to the tech? After getting my hands on the app, I’m not surprised that attention has shifted – it simply falls short in a number of areas.
Macron to discuss UK's quarantine policy with Johnson
Emmanuel Macron, visiting London to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's "Appel" - a BBC broadcast to occupied France following the Nazi invasion in 1940 - is to discuss the government's quarantine policy with Boris Johnson.
He will call on the PM to revisit the idea, according to reports.
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, said the UK would discuss with France the idea of travel corridors to enable the easing of quarantine measures.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We'll look at conversations with the French and others about the so-called travel corridors and the exemptions to quarantine that can allow that to be done."
Kazakhstan clamps down
Kazakhstan will close shopping centres, markets and parks in major cities on 20 and 21 June to help tackle coronavirus, the government has said.
It will also make additional hospital beds available for Covid-19 patients.
The government said the restrictions were needed due to a worsening of the outbreak there. It also ordered all provinces of the country to broaden their coronavirus testing.
Yesterday Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, president of the central Asian nation, said its coronavirus situation was "challenging" because people were widely ignoring social distancing rules. Nonetheless, he insisted, the government remained in charge.
Also on Wednesday, the speaker of Kazakhstan's lower house of parliament entered self-isolation after contracting the virus.
Act now to save prospects of a whole generation, Charles warns
Young people need help more than ever as they face “potentially devastating” problems with unemployment due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Prince of Wales has said.
In a new video message, the future king highlighted the impact the pandemic is having on unemployed youth and said now is the time to take action to prevent the crisis from “defining the prospects of a generation”.
Germany update
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany has increased by 580 to 187,764, data showed on Thursday.
The reported death toll rose by 26 to 8,856.
Government 'risking lives without effective track and trace scheme'
The government is risking “many unnecessary deaths” by lifting lockdown before an effective system is in place to track coronavirus sufferers, an influential group of scientists has warned, writes Andrew Woodcock.
The Independent Sage group said that the NHS Test and Trace system introduced by Boris Johnson is “not fit for purpose”.
The experts also warned that the prime minister’s current programme of relaxation of restrictions is “premature” while evidence suggests that the Covid-19 pandemic is still growing in some parts of the country and a resurgence of the disease is being reported in China, Germany and South Korea.
Kazakhstan's former president diagnosed with Covid-19
Kazakhstan’s long-time leader Nursultan Nazarbayev has been diagnosed with coronavirus. A press secretary said that the 79 year-old was self-isolating, but insisted it was “no cause for concern”, writes Oliver Carroll.
Mr Nazarbayev nominally stepped down from the position of president in 2019, setting off a transfer of power of sorts.
Nonetheless, he remains Kazakhstan’s pre-eminent political figure as supreme commander-in-chief and head of the country’s security council, with an official title of “leader of the nation”.
Cult of Mr Nazarbayev’s personality also shows no sign of ebbing, with the capital and streets in every city renamed in his honour.
Earlier this week, the US-Russian journalist Mikhail Idov revealed that Hollywood’s autocrat-go-to-director Oliver Stone is in the process of producing a documentary on Mr Nazarbayev’s life.
Infections spread undetected within households, study finds
“Significant transmission” of coronavirus takes place in households before infected patients develop recognisable symptoms, according to new research from China, writes Harry Cockburn.
The findings have prompted renewed warnings from epidemiologists over the vital role of contact tracing in the fight against the contagious disease which has so far claimed more than 445,000 lives worldwide.
The research was carried out in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou during the earlier stages of the pandemic, and uncovered significant infection in households.
Russia figures
Russia reported its lowest daily rise in Covid-19 infections in six weeks on Thursday - 7,790, bringing the nationwide total to 561,091.
Russia's coronavirus crisis response centre said 182 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 7,660.
Make face coverings mandatory in shops, Khan says
Sadiq Khan has written to Boris Johnson, urging him to make face coverings compulsory in shops to limit the spread of coronavirus.
London's mayor said: "It is increasingly clear that face coverings will play a key role in our efforts to stop the further spread of the virus and they need to become a more regular part of our day-to-day life.
"The high level of use on our public transport network has again shown that Londoners are willing to act to protect their community, but the government's current rules are lagging behind other countries.
"With non-essential shops now opening and the public returning to our high streets, I urge the government to follow World Health Organisation guidance and make these coverings mandatory for those shopping in retail outlets and in other spaces where it impossible to keep a safe distance."
Test and trace is key, says WHO official as he warns of potential autumn wave of infections
A leading health official has stressed the importance of a successful test, track and isolate programme for all countries amid concerns of a possible second wave of coronavirus cases in the autumn.
Dr Hans Kluge, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) European regional director, said contact tracing and quarantine were "essential" in the battle against Covid-19.
His comments will be little comfort for the UK government, whose contact tracing smartphone app - previously heralded as a fundamental pillar of the country's response to the pandemic - may not be ready until the winter.
Dr Kluge told a WHO briefing today: "It's well possible that when the autumn starts and we have also the seasonal influenza, there is the possibility of a seasonal effect on the virus - but we're not sure yet - that then we will see a second wave.
"So the lesson is that we have to implement what we know works - at the core of the strategy is to find as early as possible, isolate, test suspected people from Covid, and if needs be treat them without any stigma or discrimination."
Hong Kong Disneyland reopens
The gates are open for the first time in five months.
The park opened its doors to visitors for the first time in nearly five months on Thursday, at a reduced capacity and with social distancing measures in place.
It is the second Disney-themed park to re-open worldwide, after Shanghai's. (AP/Kin Cheung)
