and you can find out more about the symptoms of coronavirus and how to protect yourself on the bbc news app and on our website bbc.co.uk/news. we woke capture a lot of sunshine gci’oss we woke capture a lot of sunshine across the uk today and the weather is not looking bad for most of us this afternoon however the weekend is looking mixed and most of us will get at least a bit of rain fell from time to time. there will be some sunshine in the forecast as well. we are between weather systems but you can see low are between weather systems but you can see low pressure are between weather systems but you can see low pressure is starting to approach our neighbourhood and to the south—west of us, the size of ireland and the south—west of england, clouds are starting to increase. also across other parts of the country but a few spots of rain. once again the vast majority of us this afternoon the weather is

looking absolutely fine. notice the band of weather moves across cornwall and many of us through this evening and overnight will see increasing amounts of cloud and a bill of rain. not too cold with temperatures above zero across the uk. maybe cold enough for a bit of snow across the scottish hills and mountains. on saturday we have a weather system approaching and that is going to introduce some stronger winds so it is going to be a blustery day after a calm and sunny start for some of us may be in the very far east of the country the clouds increase it looks as if the middle part of the day the weather may be fine so sunshine for cardiff and liverpool before more rain comes on in the afternoon. you can see how split the weather is on saturday. in the afternoon we have the rain in the afternoon we have the rain in the west. central and eastern areas have sunshine. bad weather front

moves have sunshine. bad weather front m oves a cross have sunshine. bad weather front moves across during the course of saturday night and sunday morning we still have some rain around moving across central parts of the uk. it is going to be quite changeable so at times you will have sunshine, at times rain, and this will happen at different times of the day and we can depending on where you are. temperatures on sunday around 12 degrees, 9 degrees in glasgow. the indication is that sometime next week the weather will start to come down. we will have this area of high pressure building from south—west. closer to the north, scotland and northern ireland, the weather is likely to be a little more unsettled and it is going to be about 13 degrees. quite changeable. a reminder of our top story:

all english and scottish football matches are suspended — because of the impact of coronavirus that's all from the bbc news at one — so it's goodbye from me — and on bbc one we nowjoin the bbc‘s news teams where you are. hello, i'm holly hamilton with your latest sports news. you've been hearing about the suspension of the premier league, scottish premiership, the efl, and uefa suspending all european matches next week. it's notjust football, of course — a major move from formula 1 today — the season is set to be suspended until may because of the virus. the decision to cancel the australian grand prix was made in the early hours of this morning after a mclaren team member tested positive in melbourne. the bahrain grand prix was due to be

held behind closed doors later this month, but has now been called off completely. and the vietnam grand prix on 5th of april has also been suspended. it follows last month's decision to cancel the chinese grand prix, as well. meanwhile, england's test series against sri lanka has been postponed. all players and staff will return to the uk as soon as possible following the decision which the ecb said has been taken in "unprecedented times". the two—test series was due to begin next thursday. i think it's important to stress that none of the players are ill at all. in fact, they seem to have got through this last two weeks in sri lanka very easily. it is just more of the issue of spectators coming over and there are 2,000 of those who will come. just the thought of anybody in either of the team hotels going down with coronavirus would have meant everybody in that hotel probably having to be quarantined. the chance of that, i suspect, was pretty high. that is why this tour has been postponed.

and the players championship in florida has been cancelled after one round — the remainder of the tournament was due to continue today without fans but a decision has been made to postpone the tournament completely. organisers say it was "the right thing to do" in order to safeguard against the spread of the virus. there is also doubt over whether the masters will go ahead with all tournaments postponed until the start of april — when the masters was due to get under way. in the midst of these cancellations and postponements, one event continues today. that is of course the cheltenham festival, with the gold cup later. lizzie greenwood hughes is there for us. we know thousands of people are in attendance they are today, lizzie, certainly not put off by the coronavirus? no. incredibly, holly, we are going on here, racing at cheltenham. this is the big one in jump cheltenham. this is the big one in jump racing so many people relieved, because i think many thought the

whole they would have been of today would be of or behind closed doors, as is racing in ireland at the moment. that will be with no spectators for the rest of the month. racing has been hit by this coronavirus, but not cheltenham. we are going ahead. we havejust had the first race, the jcb are going ahead. we havejust had the first race, thejcb triumph title, the top race for the champion hurdle is of the future. it has been an incredible race actually because leaving until the last harder,, the leader —— the leader until the last hurdle, somehow though ryderfell off, so willie mullins has had his first win of the day, and of course he is happening to when the big one. albion photo hoping to become the first first to back gold cup since 2004. we first first to back gold cup since 200a. we will find out about that one later. not quite loud as it is normally, the cheltenham roar. we know a few people haven't —— we know a lot of people haven't come and the numbers have been down all week but

as we say everyone looking towards the big race at the 30 pm. i've met plenty more to come this afternoon, they say. thank you very much. —— and there is plenty more still to come. lizzie, thank you very much. many events affected or cancelled because of the coronavirus. we've compiled a full list on the bbc sport website — it's being updated all the time so do keep checking — that's at bbc.co.uk/sport. and more from the bbc sport centre throughout the day. bye from me. many thanks, holly. the government is facing questions over whether its latest health measures will do enough to slow the spread of coronavirus. from today, people with a new persistent cough or high temperature are being told to self—isolate for seven days. unlike many countries, the uk hasn't closed schools or banned large gatherings of people. earlier carrie gracie spoke to saffron cordery, the director of policy and strategy at nhs providers, which represent nhs trusts, about how prepared the health service was for the outbreak. trust leaders are telling us about the preparations

that they are making. we know that the nhs plans for situations like this, although we are in uncharted territory. but this is about how we make sure that hospitals are ready to receive more patients, how our community services are ready to go out and help people who are stuck at home. and also how ambulances are really managing with that extra demand in quite difficult circumstances. so people really are making plans and also making plans for the fact that many staff may become or will become unwell. so it's about finding that real supply of staff as well. i mean, each one of those points that you've raised, we could spend five minutes talking about. absolutely. i mean, just to put this in the context of some of the things that were said in that number 10 downing street press conference yesterday, four weeks behind italy, possibly 10,000 cases out there at the moment that we just don't know about. and i suppose one of the worries

for everybody will be, can the nhs cope, even with flattened peak, as everyone talks about? can the nhs cope with an italy situation? the nhs is going to do everything it can. i mean, i can't predict the future. we don't know whether the nhs will cope. but it is putting every single plan in place. and i think that this whole issue about where the peak comes or whether we flatten the peak is actually really, really important. because if we can flatten out how people come into hospital and when they need critical care, that will really help us. because if you have x thousand people coming in needing it at the same time, that's much more difficult to provide than if you have people over a consistent period. so there is method behind this approach and there is thinking behind it. so when we talk to trust leaders, they are thinking about how they scale—up their critical care. they know that they can do that. we've got 4,000 critical care beds at the moment.

we can increase that several—fold so that there is more capacity there. just stop on that thought, because lorna was saying in edinburgh, you know, scotland's got 200, it's going to double it. it's got plans to double it. how do you kind of increase the number of critical care beds so fast? so you basically stop doing some things and start doing other things. so we aren't in the situation yet where we are cancelling elective operations — so routine treatments, routine operations that aren't life critical or time critical. but we may get to that point where we cancel routine operations. that means that we are clearing out people who would ordinarily need critical care beds. so that's how you create some capacity. and the other way is basically you get to the point where if you're not performing operations, then you have additional space which is already kitted out to provide that kind of very intensive critical care treatment. so, you know, there are plans in place to expand that.

and, you know... you also mentioned kind of deploying of ambulances. and i'm just interested in that because, you know, having watched the first secretary of scotland yesterday explain in some detail why she intended to ban gatherings of 500+ people, not because of infection spread, but because she wanted to leave ambulances available to deal with the epidemic, not to be dealing with large—scale events. so what do you think nhs trust providers in england, in wales and in northern ireland feel about having to do both things at once? so i can only comment on behalf of england — i don't know what's happening in wales and northern ireland — but i think that at the moment they are pushed, but they are coping. so we know that it requires — a visit to someone who may have suspected coronavirus requires additional equipment and it requires a clean—out of the ambulance once they've conveyed them to hospital.

but i think at the moment we're in a situation where they are coping. we have not heard that they are concerned about those kind of incidents, but it may come to that. and i think that is, you know, this is where we have to wait and see, essentially. that was saffron cordery from nhs providers. borisjohnson has come under criticism for not taking the decision to close schools yet. liz rymer is the headteacher of whitefield school, a secondary school in barnet, north london — she told the bbc she and her colleagues had been taken aback by the government's decision to keep schools open. i think we were surprised. i think we thought that we would get the information that we were going to shut. i think we were planning on probably going to be closing next week, but bearing in mind what has gone on in italy i thought they might pull that forward, so, yes, we were surprised with that. and, in the meantime, what is the mood among your staff and students? are they worried, anxious? or are they calmlyjust getting on with it?

i'm very proud to say they are calmly getting on with it. i think there is a lot of people that are very anxious about what is happening, and a lot of the children are very worried about the fact that if we do shut, what will happen to them, to their education? so at the moment it's calm concern, i think, would be the best way to describe it. and the concern‘s obviously justified both in terms of now and what lies ahead because there was a fairly clear signal at that news conference in downing street that although the school closure is not from today, it may come within the coming weeks, when we get closer to the peak. yes. and that worries me because obviously it is getting closer and closer to examination time. so, from our point of view, the biggest concern — well, two main ones. one is of the exams and the future of those students taking gcses and a—levels this year, then the biggest concern for me really is the children who need looking after, the support that the school gives them, the social support and safeguarding support — so those are the two real

big concerns for me. can we just take those two separately? in the case of the exams, what can you do to allay the concerns of students and their parents about that, and to prepare to somehow conduct those, even if remotely? well, i think reassurance, really. i think the children are worried so the parents are concerned, so it is about reassuring, it's about making sure we provide lots of work they can do at home, remotely, which isn't always easy. some of my children don't have access to the internet so it's all very well saying online learning, but that might not be possible for all my children. and what can you do for those children for whom that is not possible? well, i think there's quite a large number of children where it might not be possible. in some schools it will be as high as 50% of children won't be on the internet.

so we need to be aware of this. for us, it's not quite as high as that, but we will be sending material home for them, sending packs home with them, sending reading books home with them, exam papers home for them. but, yeah, all of this comes at a cost, as well. we are having to do an awful lot more photocopying and preparing resources and preparing packs the children can take away with them. and then coming to the second point you mentioned a moment ago, the safeguarding issues — can you amplify that a bit and explain your concerns there? well, where to start with that one, carrie? for a lot of our children in particular, school is a safe place. we have children that might be on child—protection registers. i'm very worried about those children. i have lots of very vulnerable children, children who really need... basically need the free school meal that we give them every day. so there's lots of issues there, and it is also about their own well—being — the well—being of the children, but also the well—being of my staff. it's a lot of extra work

at the moment, so i have staff that are very worried about what will happen with the children, but also worried about everything else they have to do in order to prepare for this closure. head teacher liz rymer speaking there earlier to carrie. the headlines on bbc news... the premier league and english football league will suspend all matches until the 3rd of april at the earliest — as the coronavirus spreads. all professional football games in scotland have been suspended until further notice. the government defends its approach to slowing the spread of the coronavirus as new official measures come into place. the latest advice is for anyone with a new persistent cough or high temperature to self—isolate for seven days. as the rest of the world begins to lock down, new coronavirus cases in china have almost slowed to a halt. just eight new cases were reported in friday's daily briefing —

with five in wuhan, the original centre of the outbreak. this special report from wuhan by vincent ni. this is what life is like in a city under lockdown. two filmmakers from wuhan recorded their lives to show the world the impact of the quarantine. they shared their footage exclusively with the bbc. the first is tai kaohai. he and his wife li ting, a nurse, live in the city centre. he describes the moment he had been dreading. with his infected wife staying at home, tai has to be careful, but it's hard.

after a few days, li's condition gets worse. crying almost two weeks later, li is finally admitted into hospital and that's when things start to change. li is now recovering and will soon be discharged. li wenhua is another filmmaker. he has a special permit

to work as a driver. he is putting himself at risk for those in need. he also has to pay a personal price for quarantine.

the peak may have passed in china but the rest of the world is just starting to confront the idea of lockdowns. soon, stories like these will no longer be unique to wuhan. vincent ni, bbc news. you may be wondering how to keep your smartphone clean from the coronavirus, as some substances can damage the device. dr lena ciric, a microbiologist from university college london, says you can effectively clean your phone using just household soap and water. while washing your hands is vital, if you're worried about germs on your phone you can clean it effectively with simple soap and water. hi, i'm dr lena ciric, i'm a microbiologist at university college london,

and i'm going to show you how to clean your phone. unplug your phone, turn it off and remove the case. all the major phone—makers warn against using chemicals, hand gels and abrasive wipes on your device, as this can damage the screen's protective coating. dampen a microfibre cloth with water and simple household soap. gently rub the surfaces of the phone with a damp cloth. take care not to get moisture in any of the openings because even water—resistant phones lose their protection over time. finally, dry your phone with a clean microfibre cloth. even just using soap and water can effectively remove bacteria and viruses from your phone, and we can test that by using this little device and these swabs. the device gives a reading of relative light units — or rlus — and that is a measure of the microbial activity on the phone. the higher the number, the more gems are present. we tested all of these phones and their cases before and after cleaning with soap

and water, and they were all significantly cleaner afterwards. on a surgical surface, we want to get a figure of 50 or less, and all of our phones and cases had readings lower than that. if you have an iphone, apple says you can safely clean it with 70% isopropyl alcohol wipes — these are the ones that you can get from computer shops or online. there are also devices that you can use to sterilise your phone using ultraviolet uvc radiation. these shouldn't harm your device but some phones or cases could be discoloured over time. just remember, with all of these methods, as soon as you touch your phone you're going to get germs back onto it, so make sure that you keep washing your hands regularly and thoroughly. some useful advice there. some breaking advice from our business unit to are reporting the chief executive of british airways, alex cruz, has sent a video message to staff warning about job cruz, has sent a video message to staff warning aboutjob losses as a result of the impact of coronavirus. the message was called the survival of british airways and in it he said, we could no longer sustain our current level of employment and jobs will be lost, perhaps for a short term, perhaps for a longer term. he is also said to have said that the

airline was suspending routes and parking planes in a way they never had to do before. so a stark and sobering message they are from the chief executive of british airways. —— there from the chief executive of british airways. well, tom hanks says he and his wife rita wilson are taking it "one day at a time" after they were both diagnosed with the virus. the oscar—winning actor shared an update on social media revealing the pair remain in isolation and joked that "there is no crying in baseball". access to mount everest has been closed for the rest of the expedition season because of the coronavirus outbreak. nepal's government says it will cancel all climbing permits from tomorrow until the end of april and stop giving out tourist visas. china has also blocked access to everest from its side of the border. black, asian and other minority ethnic communities have a more than average risk of experiencing poor mental health — but are less likely to be able to access the right kind of care. that's according to research commissioned by nhs england, which found that these groups face a wide range of inequalities when it

comes to mental illness. our community affairs correspondent adina campbell has this exclusive report. loop the loop. tie shoelaces. perfect bunny ears. can't afford to trip now... for harun khan, poetry is a positive way of maintaining his mental health. but it hasn't been easy, after the years of feeling let down by public services. from the age of about five i've experienced sort of prolonged bouts of sadness and depression, and it was only my late 30s when i decided to go to a doctor and get treated for it, and i ended up with a misdiagnosis of borderline personality disorder, which from what i've now realised is a common misdiagnosis for black and minority ethnic patients. music, playing at the correct pitch... harun is not alone. a new report by the charity the race equality foundation has found big differences

in mental health care in england. it looked at evidence over the last ten years. people from african and caribbean backwards are 3—5 times more likely to be diagnosed or admitted into hospital for schizophrenia than white patients. and there's a greater chance of ethnic minorities overall being offered medication rather than talking therapies for mental health conditions. they are also at a higher risk of ending up in crisis care rather than accessing support sooner through a gp. the department of health and social care says it's committed to ending the unequal treatment of people from ethnic minority backgrounds with mental illness, and is investing £2.3 billion a year to transfer mental health care. but the report also found evidence of discrimination from doctors and other health care workers. there

does seem to be some sort of prejudice in the way services are allocated, with preconceived ideas about certain people and what kind of treatment is offered to some groups compared to other groups. there isn't any kind of sensible logical explanation for that. it's kind of a reflection of the prejudices that go on generally in society. these groups are also more likely to be detained, something that happens to this man five years ago. there was almost kind of persecution complex. i felt the world was against me and there are aspects of paranoia as well. they diagnosed it as psychosis. eche's now recovered and works full—time as a teacher but the inequalities for these communities are still stark, often leading to being excluded or detained. adina campbell, bbc news. now it's time for a look at

the weather with tomasz shafernaker. hello. we've got some decent weather out there at the moment. some of us greeted with clear blue skies first thing in the morning. the weekend, however, is looking a little mixed. we have rain and wind in the forecast but also some sunshine, so it's not all bad this weekend. in fact, on saturday, saturday and sunday we see two weather systems moving across the uk, so the weather is going to chop and change a little bit. this is what it looks like right now, so you can see areas of cloud there across much of the country, but this larger area of cloud now approaching south—western areas and that does spell a wet afternoon for places like cornwall, devon — the rain is going to reach wales, too — but ahead of that you can see a lot of fine weather there, friday afternoon. and then friday night into the early hours of saturday, this weather front will be moving across the uk. most of the rain will be patchy, it will come and go. certainly doesn't look like it's going to be raining all through the night. still mild in the south, around 7

degrees, but in the north there, particularly around the scottish hills and mountains, cold enough for some snow. so the weekend, you can see those weather systems moving through. one dies away and i think by the time we get to sunday, the next weather front moves through. so i think both saturday and sunday will bring some rain. so here's saturday's forecast in the morning. you can see the patchy rain crossing the uk and then from lunchtime onwards for many of us, saturday is actually looking very decent, so expect a lot of bright if not sunny weather. however, later in the afternoon the rain will return to western areas and actually early in the day it will be raining in belfast anyway. and then saturday night, most of that rain actually moves to western areas. on top of that we'll see some heavier rain and wind also reaching the far south—west of the country very early on sunday. and then you can see through sunday itself, again, a repeat performance. so a spell of rain and then later on there will be some sunshine. so you get the message — the weekend is looking very, very changeable, but there will be some sunshine, certainly an opportunity to go out and enjoy some of that sunshine. now the following few

days into next week, they look relatively decent. those temperatures also picking up a little bit in the south, up to around about 14 degrees or so. that's it from me. have a good weekend.

hello, you're watching afternoon live — i'm martine croxall. today at two... still premier league champions, manchester city. all professional english and scottish football matches are suspended — because of the impact of coronavirus. no games will be played until april 3rd, as some players and staff are affected by the illness. gary lineker calls the suspension inevitable and unprecedented in our lifetime. the latest official advice — self—isolate for seven days if you have a cough or fever. a top adviser says their tactic is to protect the nhs from overload. at the worst case scenario, the nhs would not cope with the number of ventilator beds that were required, nor could any health care system. across europe, the outbreak curtails travel, shuts schools,