theme music. as the coronavirus has swept across the globe, the ability to know exactly the us government is to fund where it is has become the crucial thousands of hospital beds for coronavirus patients in the hot key to stopping it. spot states of new york, california and washington. meanwhile partisan disputes in the senate have been holding up the approval of a huge stimulus bill we have a simple message for all countries — to help an economy hit hard test, test, test. by the pandemic. some countries have really cracked how to do this. britons have been warned to take south korea, with its drive—through ten—minute tests, is held up advice on social distancing as a model for others to follow. seriously or stricter measures could be imposed. prime minister borisjohnson said a lockdown like those seen in other european countries was being considered and said people ignoring advice were putting lives at risk. but many countries are struggling to test at scale. in the uk, testing is having to be limited — the cost to infrastructure, the time the test takes are all holding up the battle against the disease. the international olympic committee say this year's games in tokyo won't be cancelled now, there are dozens of efforts but could be postponed going on around the world to try in light of the outbreak. and solve this. and jen has been looking at one close to home in west london. shinzo abe a told parliament that a delay might have to be entertained. around the world, companies and increasingly, individuals, are racing to find ways to accurately test people for the coronavirus. the situation is changing some countries say the games should not go ahead as planned. daily, if not hourly.

now on bbc news, we simply don't have mass testing available for the population now it's time for click. and there's a big effort going on to try and get that this week: the race in place as quickly as possible to trace the coronavirus. to be able to manage this. the pop—up groups trying to help us all to get through it. 00:01:16,001 --> 2147483051:37:22,715 and breathe — helping children 2147483051:37:22,715 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 to use their inhalers. we're in negotiations today to buy a so—called antibody test, as simple as a pregnancy test, that can tell whether you have had the disease. there are two types of test being worked on. diagnostic tests, which identify people who currently have coronavirus, and antibody tests — these look for antibodies in the blood to see if a person ever had the virus in their system and if they did, when. the diagnostic tests are primarily based on a technology called is pcr — polymerase chain reaction.

this is a standard molecular technique that identifies the genetic material of the virus from a throat or nose swab. special emergency use authorisation from the american food and drug administration has enabled two companies to ramp up commercial testing efforts in the us. one is swiss company, roche, which uses these machines already in many hospitals across the country to increase the amount of people who can be tested at once. the other is thermo fisher which uses its applied biosystem pcr instruments. the company aims to produce 5 million tests for these machines by early april. but it's notjust big companies getting involved in testing efforts. in west london, a community of open—source scientists, engineers and microbiologists working out of shipping containers in the open cell bio—village are trying to help. there are 70 shipping containers here with labs looking at a range of biotech challenges, from personalised medicine and dna sequencing, to bioelectronics and biomaterials. its shared molecular biology lab has been transformed to experiment with expanding testing capacity while also designing a portable lab solution built out of a shipping container that could be easily transported.

we're trying to use these automative methods to speed up the testing kit because in order to test large populations, we need millions of covid—i9 testing kits. us company opentrons has donated two of its liquid handling machines to the lab for their work. these plates can test up to 96 samples at a time. these are also pcr diagnostic tests, like the ones we saw with other companies. but these are open—source rather than proprietary and they say they would like to get the cost of testing down to £5—£io per test. here in the uk, i think it's really about getting into that nhs pipeline, being able to augment someone‘s existing pathology department. and being able to say, look, here's the molecular biology kit with high throughput. so, the same one person could do 96 tests when they are doing one anyway.

if it receives regulatory approval, the lab could theoretically be set up with just three machines inside a shipping container. as well as being able to augment existing pathology labs around the country, a shipping container set—up could help people in places with far less access to medicalfacilities. it's not only useful for the uk but it will definitely be useful for other countries. and it is also something that can be reused in case anything like that happens again. there's also a long—term value there, really. there are other test being developed in the uk. the university of leicester is working on a face mask test, using money from research england and partnering with the nhs to repurpose a test they were using for tuberculosis. by wearing a face mask for 30 minutes with 3d printed strips inside, it can show whether the person is breathing out the virus. scientists at the university of oxford say they have developed an ultrasensitive test which can work in just 30 minutes.

they say it doesn't need the kind of machines used in the other tests and can be deployed to rural or remote areas quickly. they also say its sensitivity means it can detect when someone is in the early stages of the virus, which could help slow down transmission. detecting the virus in the early stages and in asymptomatic carriers could indeed be game—changing in halting its progress. getting more tests out to as many people as possible as soon as possible could provide the data needed to accurately track the virus. that wasjen and it will be fascinating to see how that story develops. pretty quickly, i would imagine. now, with countries around the world battening down the hatches and locking down huge swathes of the population, everyone is having to make a plan for how they're going to live through this.

technology will play a massive part and stephen beckett has been meeting the pop—up groups who are trying to do their bit. following in the footsteps of china and other countries around the world, many people in the uk are now being asked to stay at home or self—isolate entirely — particularly if they're in an at—risk group. that isolation poses its own challenges, from getting access to the basic necessities, to looking after your mental health. well, last week, pop—up online communities have appeared to try and help solve some of those problems. this is the covid mutual aid network. each one of those pins is a local group pledging to help people in their community isolated by covid—i9. and believe it or not, just a few days ago, none of them existed at all. in less than a week, the movement has snowballed into an entire improvised volunteering infrastructure. i'm so surprised by how much it has grown since then. now there are more than 7,000 or 8,000 local people involved. every single ward in london seems to be covered by a whatsapp group where folks are looking to volunteer or connect with other people who need help, so it's phenomenal.

at the moment, the real heart of all of this is something quite basic, it's groups on whatsapp. these are just a few of the ones i've joined in the last few days and already they've got hundreds and hundreds of messages from people offering their help and trying to get involved. now obviously, this isjust around me but i'm told similar groups are popping up all across london and in some places around the uk. beyond whatsapp, groups are using open access tools like google docs, sheets, and forms to bootstrap a whole volunteering infrastructure out of nowhere. and all of that organisation is essential if the groups are going to reach more people in the community who may not be looking for support online. it's about 9am and i'm in an estate in central london just waiting for a few members of the local group. they're planning to flyer this entire estate, every single house, this morning. and the idea is if anyone needs help, maybe some supplies brought to their door, or even someone to talk to for a bit of support, then they know they have someone they can call.

i think this is a really scary and anxious time but i think the best way forward is everyone coming together. and what an amazing time to discover your neighbours in this time we're going to be shut up in our neighbourhoods. i think it's grown so quickly because, actually, everyone feels a little bit at a loss of what to do and how they can help right now. i think everyone's kind of thinking, well, we feel 0k perhaps, but what about the others who are struggling? social media has pros and cons. this is one massive pro, so we're actually now able to unite online. and given social distancing, we can now co—ordinate and plan remotely and get together and also give each other support. it's really important that we don't feel isolated at the moment, although we are physically. actually connecting via social media and bringing the community together is really helping to combat loneliness.

the wider group are clear to point out that they are not medical professionals, nor is it an official charity. this is a volunteer community effort trying to do small things to help. does that mean the goodwill could be exploited 7 i think it's still a little bit tricky and dangerous at times, because the wrong messages can be sent and we are struggling with that a little bit as well. like some misinformation or fake news being passed around which is just not helpful. it's such early days for projects like this, so it's not clear yetjust how much impact pop—up volunteering communities could have. but done safely, it feels to me like a good idea and some welcome good news. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week amazon stopped stocking all non—essential items from its warehouses following the demand for household necessities during the coronavirus pandemic. apple was served a record—breaking $1.1 billion euro fine by the french competition authority

for anti—trust practices. the company was found to have an unfair agreement to control prices with two french wholesalers. and the us department of health and human services was hit by a cyberattack in an attempt by hackers to slow down its response to the coronavirus pandemic. how would you feel if your favourite social media account called you ugly? it was revealed this week by the intercept that video sharing app, tiktok, instructed moderators to suppress posts created by users it deemed too ugly, poor or disabled. tiktok said its initial goal was to prevent bullying and that guidelines have changed. if you thought gaming and reading were incompatible activities, think again. the uncensored library was created on minecraft by design studio blockworks and contains censored journals and articles

which are banned in several countries as a way of avoiding press censorship. and finally, if you're concerned about who's preparing your lunch, there's a robot to help with that. this robochef in tokyo, japan, has been cooking up noodles for customers. however, the kitchen bot does need a little human help to combine the needles with broth and veggies. ramen to that. over a million children in the uk are suffering from asthma. a recent report suggests that 94% of all sufferers aren't using their inhalers correctly. but it seems there could be some technology that's coming to the rescue in the form of an augmented reality app. i've come to crawford's church of england primary school in suffolk where they've been trialling the app on both pupils who do and don't suffer from asthma. let's press play! the aim of myspira is to create

a fully immersive experience to learn about asthma and the triggers, and at the same time, it gamifies improving inhaler technique. and it's centred around two inhalers here both providing treatment, one of them preventative and the other to be used in the case of an asthma attack. hello! i'm here to talk to you about asthma. someone who has asthma will have symptoms like coughing and wheezing. what we need is a rescue inhaler, otherwise known as a reliever. i was quite enjoying that. but more importantly, i'm joined here by a few of the first users of the app. we've got freddie, jasmine and john. this looks like a game of pairs, what are you learning from this element? so this is — each card will have something that could happen if you don't use your inhaler. so this one says "coughing."

i've learnt how to use the inhaler and what the different inhalers are called, and what can happen if you don't use the inhaler. well done, you found all the cards! the issues with not using inhalers properly is that we see a much higher incidence of emergency admissions with acute asthma attacks, and also chronic infection occurring and actually asthma deaths still happening. how useful do you think this is to somebody who doesn't actually suffer from asthma? well, i think it can be very helpful in case, let's say, you're with a friend, a family member and there's no—one else there, and they have an asthma attack. you could find their inhaler and help them out with it. and how about you, jasmine? because you do have asthma, i know, and how useful have you found it? um, it really helps, if you want to learn how you use your inhalers. if you don't use your inhaler properly, then your chest will go funny. one of the issues is that

children will inhale — if they use the inhaler directly to their mouth — they will inhale it too quickly. if the inhaler technique is poor, effectively, you may as well spray it up in the air and take a big breath in. fa ct! asthma symptoms are often worse at night and also during exercise. john, what do you think of the app? like freddie said, it's great for people with or without asthma because you could get it at any point of your life. so even if you don't have it now, you could have it later. the interactive part of the app is what's key here, and the gamification. we know that children learn through technology now. that's the way it is. during an appointment, we'd love to have more time to be able to spend with them but actually, what they can do with the app is take it home, learn in an environment they're comfortable in and also learn at their own pace. i can't really question how immersive this is because all three of them looked totally glued to the tablets. the knowledge gleaned from this ar game could prove life—saving. i hope you've enjoyed the video!

that's all i have to show you for now! that was lara with a remainder that there are other conditions which also need managing. lest we forget. so, earlier, we looked at how social media was allowing people to come together to try and help us all to get through the covid—i9 outbreak. we have a different tale now of how tech can, in small ways, help chip away at poverty and hunger. david reid has been to mumbai to see an app which is co—ordinating deliveries of free food to the city's poor. mumbai's dabbawalas mastered food delivery almost a century before mobile phones and apps were even invented. they've been studied by business schools and featured in movies. now they're among the lead actors in another story centring on an app to feed mumbai's hungry.

a fascinating enough tale on its own, but for the extraordinary life stories of the other people behind the app. i met up with navin who, eight years ago, had an appalling car accident in hong kong. i had a crash, and i didn't even know i had a crash. he lingered in a coma for months. when he finally woke up, his outlook on life had changed. after spending five months in the hospital, i was given the chance to live again. and i had to ask myself the question, "what is the difference i have made as a human?" navin put his head towards one of the biggest issues of our time — inequality. his aim was to somehow get those with too much to give to those

with not enough. a place like mumbai has very visible disparities of wealth. what is less easy to see is how do you get that oversupply, that excess, into the hands of those who really need it? navin teamed up with someone else who'd cheated death, cancer survivor and app developer darshan. they put together an app that lets people pinpoint a need and find someone to meet it. you find some person who is in need of some food. you go ahead and take a photo of that person or that location. then you can target that location and broadcast that within the group, with people who are in your vicinity. the need can be food, clothes, shelter — anything. the tag also carries other details — local landmarks, how many live at the address, that kind of thing. now, you can meet the need yourself or be like the dabbawalas and find someone on the app who's got something to give.

shree ganesh restaurant cooked a little too much this lunchtime. they've put it on the gift—a—deed app, so food that would otherwise go to waste is picked up by the dabbawalas. they scan the app for someone nearby who needs it, and hit the road. manisha has six mouths to feed. she says they usually eatjust once a day, so she's super happy to have an extra meal today. oh, and she says the kids loved it. incidentally, the geotag for the need can only be removed by someone at that location. so once the need is met, the flag comes down. it's kind of like pokemon go! giving is becoming a game. the gamification starts from the time you start identifying a need.

the app awards points to the users and the dashboard also reflects which are the top taggers in the city. so it's sort of like competitive philanthropy? i wouldn't even call it competitive but i would call it encouraging and rewarding people to see at any time the good they have done, so that they can do more good. to be contagious — goodness can be contagious. the app's onlyjust off the ground but there's already been thousands of meals delivered. the developers envisage tweaking the app to track disaster relief and aid deliveries. if so, with their brushes with death, darsha and navin could end up — even saving — the lives of many others. that was david reid in mumbai. right. who's up for a big dollop of escapism? yeah? uh—huh? i thought so. well, the movie avengers: endgame is pretty hard to beat

in that respect. and we've been behind the scenes with visual effects supervisor matt aiken to see how they brought the film's climactic battle to life. warning — this will contain spoilers. but if you haven't seen it yet, well, i imagine you would be streaming in the next few weeks, actually. thanos did exactly what he said he was going to do. he wiped out 50% of all living creatures. our work on the end battle was — kind of encompassed all the different aspects of modern digital effects work. we had lead digital characters, we had giant battle scenes with entirely digital armies, the battles taking place in an environment that's almost entirely digital. lots of complex simulation work with destruction events and fire and complex — you know, all the superpowers often involve simulation work. digital doubles of, like, 47 lead marvel characters for those wide battle shots. so, you know, a fantastic space to be working in. i think the way that marvel — they way they really make it work is that they keep these vast

battles, they keep them personal. so even though you've got these huge, wide, epic shots of the armies clashing, those are actually few and far between. we don't spend a lot of time in that sort of space and we quickly drill into the individual conflicts, battles, all the emotional lines that are playing out with all of these — these multitude of heroes that are coming together on this battlefield. chunks of it could be blocked out quite early on, but there are pieces of the puzzle that were about tying it all up. the sequence was entirely filmed within the studio. they're being filmed on a green screen stage, but depending on how it plays out, we may or may not keep the set part of the environment and sometimes, what we'll do is we'll end up just keeping the actor's face. we actually welcome the opportunity to replace the environment in that way because it liberates us to take control of the lighting of the scene in many ways. we like to get things through the render farm overnight

but some of those big battle shots, you know, with thousands of digital extras, complex simulation work going on, yeah, there's weeks of rendering if you look at breaking it down, just in some of those shots. but we do have a big render farm, so we got it all through. there was a huge amount of pressure. this was the culmination of 22 films — and not to muck it up was what everyone felt. so there was a huge amount of focus on doing justice to this whole huge arc of storytelling. this is the fight of our lives. this is going to work, steve. i know it is. because i don't know what i'm going to do if it doesn't. well, i don't know about you, but i really needed that! 0h! and that's it for this week. don't forget, though, that you can always find us on social media — more than ever these days, for obvious reasons. and why not get in touch? let us know what you're doing to get yourself through the current situation.

you never know, we might even put some of your suggestions on the air. and if you are stuck for something to do while you're working at home, why not check out our massive back catalogue? it's on the iplayer in the uk and on youtube everywhere. and we're on facebook, instagram and twitter, too, @bbcclick. thanks for watching, be safe, and we'll see you soon. hello there. for this upcoming week, it looks like much of the country will be fine and settled with some sunshine thanks to high pressure over the baltic states. but we will have this weather front affecting the north—west corner of the country,

that's going to bring strong winds and some persistent and at times heavy rain to the north—west of scotland. eventually weakening and sinking southwards across the country on thursday and then introducing colder northerly winds to all areas by the end of the week but for much of this week, it will be dry thanks to that area of high pressure, certainly across england and wales and we will have that rain in the north—west and nights will continue to be chilly as well. now, as we start monday, it's going to be a cold one, thanks to clear skies and light winds, a widespread frost away from the north—west where we'll see more of a breeze and cloud. that frost could be hard in places and we could see mist and fog as well as the winds will lighter. but it does mean it's a chilly start to this morning but there should be plenty of sunshine, certainly for england and wales. for the north—west of scotland, this weather front bringing outbreaks of rain to the northern and western isles and thicker cloud pushing into scotland and northern ireland through the day. it will be windy here as well with local gales, a breezier day further south although you have all that sunshine, which will tend to be

a little bit hazy at times, it shouldn't feel too bad with temperatures reaching highs i2 or 13 degrees, but always cooler around some southern and eastern coasts. as we head through monday night, it stays cloudy, windy, outbreaks of rain across this north—west corner, really piling up across the outer hebrides and the north—west highlands. but here, it won't be a cold night like it will be further south for england and wales. so a bit of a repeat performance for tuesday. england and wales, largely dry with some sunshine, albeit a little bit hazy at times. more cloud generally for scotland and northern ireland and it stays windy, with that rain really starting to pile up across the northern and western isles in particular. we also import some slightly milder air from the south, so we could see temperatures reaching 14—15 degrees in england and wales. the pressure pattern then for wednesday, little change. high pressure keeps things largely fine and settled for england and wales, that weather front bringing generally more cloud to scotland and northern ireland, will start to weaken as it sinks south—eastwards so there'll be some spots of rain on it. further south, again, quite mild, those temperatures around 11—14 degrees.

but the milder air doesn't last. it gets squeezed out as we see a new area of high pressure building over the atlantic. that will bring northerly winds right across the shores down from the arctic. so it will be settling down towards the end of the week but turning colder for all. there will be some sunshine but also some wintry showers across the north of the uk on that northerly wind.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm james reynolds. our top stories: president trump confirms funding for three states worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic — but the senate fails to back a $1 trillion stimulus plan for the us economy. olympics organisers say they may delay this years tokyo games — setting a four week deadline for a decision. spain bars most foreigners from entry for the next month, as restrictions tighten even further across europe. stay apart or face tougher measures — britain's warned a lockdown is looming if social distancing advice isn't taken seriously.