we're really proud of all of you, including the nurses, the doctors, the porters, all those who work in care homes and the ambulance teams. let's get your protective equipment and your tests from the government soon. anything to say, girls? thank you! thank you, nhs. from the young and from the older. mark bowden‘s dad jack, 99 years young, has beaten it. i'm clapping very, very loudly for the nhs. i'd like to say a huge thank you for all the nurses and the doctors at royal bolton hospital, in particular ward da. they've been looking after my father jack bowden, who is fast approaching his 99th birthday. he's been in and out of hospital now for the last two weeks, as he tested positive with covid—19. i've heard today that he's doing fantastically well. it looks like he's making a full recovery, and apparently today the nurse said that he was sat up out of bed. we, the staff at lewisham endoscopy theatres, are thanking you for clapping for the nhs.

now we are clapping and saying thank you for staying at home. applause and cheering john maguire with that report. and at eight o'clock this evening on bbc one and the news channel, we'll be live across the country as people applaud the health service staff and those helping to deal with the pandemic. time for a look at the weather. here's tomasz schafernaker. good afternoon. it's pretty quiet on the weather front but this is what's happening over the next couple of days. friday and saturday it's going to be quite chilly, but come sunday, big change on the way. in fact it's going to be turning quite warm across much of the uk. this is the picture from space, the satellite image. you can see the weather front just to the north of the uk. that's been thinking southwards in the last few hours, so this is where our air

is coming from as well and that means the second half of the afternoon will turn quite chilly across scotland, we are still keeping some of the mild weather towards the south. through the course of the night sky in places will clear across scotland and the north of england, apart from the odd wintry shower here and there around the highlands. these clear skies and with the cold wind direction, the temperatures are going to take a tumble so a widespread frost on the cards for scotland and much of northern england. temperatures in towns and cities will fall below freezing, but not the case in tropical cornwall and devon. temperatures will be around 7 degrees or so. here is the forecast for friday. actually quite a lot of cloud. it might start off sunning in the morning but then, in the afternoon, the cloud will build up so afternoon, the cloud will build up so we'll call it a mostly cloudy day tomorrow, with temperatures hovering about 8—i2d. now, high pressure is building through friday night and

into saturday. this glow is also shifting in our direction. the low is also going to be responsible for changing the wind direction during the course of saturday, so rather than a north—westerly, the arrows are coming from the south. that's a much warmer direction. weather will go much warmer direction. weather will 9° up much warmer direction. weather will go up to 14, on saturday in london and on sunday the warmer weather linked to the vortex of low pressure packed to the west of us will send some particularly warm weather our way so the thinking is on sunday with sunshine temperatures will get up with sunshine temperatures will get up to around 20 degrees in london, the high teens throughout yorkshire and in the lowlands of scotland, mid to high teens, but also the chance of showers across northern ireland and the western isles of scotland. also worth mentioning the pollen levels are going to be moderate to high across many parts of the country during the course of sunday. the indication is that monday won't be quite so warm, but we are going to keep at least some of that warmth.

that's all from the bbc news at one. on bbc one we nowjoin the bbc‘s news teams where you are. bye— bye. hello, i'm jane dougall with your latest sports news. we start with rugby and the news that england head coach eddiejones has agreed a new contract which could see him eclipse world cup winner sir clive woodward as the country's longest—serving head coach. the deal will take him through to the 2023 world cup in france. for more i'm joined live by our rugby union correspondent chris jones. chris, what can you tell us about the deal and how it came about? when eddiejonesjoined when eddie jones joined the when eddiejonesjoined the rfu in 2015 he was meant to be a four—year project but it's rapidly turning into eight years. in 2018 he signed an extension to his deal which took him through to august 2021 but

recently it was clear thatjones and the rfu were open to him continuing through to france in 2023 public performances on the pitch recently have been good, england reached the final of the world cup and won three of theirfour final of the world cup and won three of their four matches in the curtailed six nations and on returning from japan at the end of last year, the rfu chief executive made it one of his main priority is to try and tie eddiejones down to another deal. we had a chat after the world cup and the rfu were keen to continue. i had an interest but i wanted to make sure that i could still improve the team. so the six nations for me was an important tournament. i went into the tournament. i went into the tournament wanting to know i could still add value to the team. like anything in life, the longer you are ata anything in life, the longer you are at a place, the more difficult it is

to add value. and so i wanted to make sure i could add value and i think i can. and there's more big news in rugby union, specifically for newcastle fans. a busy day rugby news, notjust of the contract extension for eddie jones but remember, all of the leaks below the premiership have been abandoned, finished early —— the leagues. it left the championship in something of a limbo that the rfu have confirmed today that newcastle are being promoted back to the premiership with a whopping 18 point lead at the top of the championship having won all their matches and the rfu have applied a formula to ensure they finish top of the table. and they finish top of the table. and they will also pass the minimum standards criteria required to play premiership rugby so we can say for sure that as things stand, and who knows how things will develop in the

coming months, but newcastle's promotion to the premiership has been confirmed by the rfu. thank you very much. like football, cricket is amongst the many sports debating how to move forward amid the coronavirus pandemic. england's players haven't been asked to reduce their pay yet, but all rounder chris woakes says he and team—mates know they'll need to play their part in helping the sport. at the minute we have not been asked to ta ke at the minute we have not been asked to take a pay cut but by no means does that mean it won't happen in the near future. as does that mean it won't happen in the nearfuture. as players, we are united as one and we know we are likely going to have to help the game get through this tough period. i suppose time will tell. golf, and organisers of the 149th open at royal st george have denied reports thatjuly‘s major will be cancelled. postponing the event is just one of the options being considered, according to r&a chief executive martin slumbers. he says external factors mean it's taking longer to reach a decision, but that they will aim to provide

an update as soon as possible. now, it might be cancelled for this year, but next year's grand national will have 10,000 nhs workers attending for free. thejockey club has announced they'll donate the tickets for the first day of the 2021 race meeting at aintree. that day will also be re—named liverpool's nhs day in honour of the dedicated nhs staff and volunteers across merseyside, working to care for covid—19 patients. a lovely idea. that's all the sport for now. you can find more on all those stories on the bbc sport website. that's bbc.co.uk/sport. thank you, jane. more sport in the next hour. good afternoon, you are watching the bbc news. i'll be taking you through the main developments of the afternoon as we continue to cover the coronavirus

pandemic. whilst most countries are tackling the virus by boosting health care and preventing social gatherings, the approach to testing differs. germany is one of europe's leading testers, with an average of 160,000 being done a week. on the other end of the scale, sweden has seen some of the most relaxed ruling amid the coronavirus outbreak, with the country running pretty much business as usual apart from precautions for vulnerable people and a limit on social gatherings. earlier, my colleague anita mcveigh spoke to two specialists working in this field, professor peter nilsson, an epidemiologist from lund university in sweden, and professor dr hendrik streeck, who is the head virologist at the university of bonn. she started by asking him about research in an area which has been dubbed germany's wuhan, where a large outbreak occurred. we had a pretty large outbreak after a carnival celebration. from where we believe a lot of transmissions happened

throughout germany afterwards. this is a very small town. the infection rates is actually decreasing right now. what we are trying to achieve right now, i am in a school actually, we are trying to understand how many people are or were infected and did not know about this. so we invited, like in a kind of census—like fashion, we invited the inhabitants of this town to come and give blood and swabs to understand exactly how high the mortality rate is of covid—19. and how many people have been infected and did not know about it. you are studying a group of 1000 people, i understand. to what extent will your understanding that comes from this study be used as a blueprint, a model, for the rest of germany and how to respond and react to further developments in the outbreak? we are actually using who protocol that had been developed to ask

exactly those questions. the thousand individuals that we are studying is basically a micro census of germany overall, a kind of blueprint for the country overall and as we had a few deaths in this area as well, we can not only deduct from this what the mortality rate is in germany for this, but as we are studying the households and studying the transmission, we may have a better sense from the environment of those individuals, what, how covid—19 is being transmitted and what measures are the right ones to stop the spread of covid—19 and what measures may be relaxed in the future because we have some pretty drastic measures right

now and as you know, we have kind of like a shutdown in germany and we would like to understand what we can do to stop the spread of this but maybe loosen some of the drastic measures that we have. let's go to the professor in sweden. listening to your colleague, he is talking about drastic measures in germany. describe for us what they measures are like in sweden in response to coronavirus. we've heard they are quite relaxed in comparison to other european countries and do you think that is the right approach? good morning. the swedish strategy is based on three principles, social distancing, protecting the old and frail and stay at home if you have any symptoms. this is the official strategy of the public health agency

of sweden and i support it. why? sweden had a few weeks to prepare itself and we are now gearing up with testing. we are preparing hospitals, the public health system etc, however, children, young pupils are still at school. why? to make it possible that their parents can go to work especially in the health care sector. we see that as very, very important, not to introduce a full lockdown right now. time will come when lockdown might be necessary, for example, in the greater stockholm area, our only metropolitan area. it might be needed but for a limited period of time. this epidemic cannot be fully stopped, it must be handled in the right way to lower

the so—called peak. if it's going to be handled in the right way to lower the peak, then, is the government essentially trusting that individuals, members of the public, will take heed of what it is telling them to do, that they will actively distance themselves where possible? or will this lockdown that you talk about that we've seen in other places not simply be inevitable in sweden because generally people don't behave in this way unless they are forced to? the prime minister of sweden told that basically he has trust in our experts, this is the difference between sweden and some other countries, experts take the lead. secondly, swedes are told to behave like adults, in a very responsible way. and i hope and i think that it's part of the swedish culture that we show each other respect and we try to behave in an adult way, that has been asked for.

so social distancing is essential. but a total lockdown can backfire because if the lockdown was lifted one day, the epidemic may re—emerge. for example, 100 years ago the spanish flu hit sweden, not only once but in three successive waves and the second wave was even more deadly than the first. we must do everything we can to stop further waves of infection in our country. and this is why i support the current strategy. however, if the situation may change, the strategy may change and i think that if the health care sector is bound to be overwhelmed by cases, there will be original,

temporary lockdown to protect also the national economy for the future. a total lockdown for a very long time period, is not what sweden is about to do. professor, i'd love to go back to you now, on what doctor nielsen, professor nielsen has just said. do you accept his point that if there is a very restrictive lockdown as there is in many european countries, that the virus at the end of that lockdown, or as the measures ease, there may be a bounce back of the virus and do you hope the work you are doing might then really come to fruition in terms of handling the situation at that point, as we move from restrictions into something beginning to approach normal life again? i agree with my colleague in sweden. it can happen.

especially in the fall, if we loosen the lockdown again, it bounces back in a way we cannot control any more. right now, we are seeing the start of a slight decreasing trend of new infections in germany. i think for us it's now the time, a critical moment, to understand the virus better and to create facts, how we can in the long—term, control this epidemic in europe and in the world, that we do not get into a point of a recession or economic crisis because we are on the one hand side trying to control the virus but on the other hand, putting people at risk because of the economy. so it's a very hard balancing act for the politicians and we, as virologist and my colleague in sweden, we have the time and the responsibility to find the facts, how we can deal with this crisis in the future.

a fascinating insight into how the pandemic is being dealt with in sweden and germany talking earlier to us on bbc news. some grim economic news coming from the us in the last few moments, the us labour department putting out the latest unemployment figures and in fact record high is what we are hearing. another 6.65 million us workers filed for unemployment benefits last week and that is the most ever recorded, says the afp news agency. all a knock—on or so much from the coronavirus pandemic, businesses shutting across the country. the statement says, nearly every state handing in its data to washington effectively is citing the virus as a

reason put almost every state as it goes through its unemployment figures is citing the pandemic. a big impact across most industries, particularly says hotels but also manufacturing and retail. the figure for the week ending march 28 was double the number of first—time plications for jobless double the number of first—time plications forjobless benefits registered in the previous week. that is a huge figure, more than 6.6 million people filing for unemployment benefit and doubtless more to come from the states over the afternoon. a reminder of the headlines here on bbc news. the prime minister says coronavirus testing needs to be increased massively after it emerges just 2,000 front line nhs workers in england have been tested. in spain, the death toll from coronavirus passes 10,000. another 950 people died in the past 2a hours. new global guidance is being considered about face masks

after research suggests coughs may project further than previously thought. the salvation army is calling on the government to immediately replace universal credit advance payment loans with grants. in the last fortnight, nearly a million people have applied for the benefit — almost ten times the new number of claims made in a typical two week period. rebecca keating is the salvation army's director of employment plus. good afternoon to you. we will try the correct microphone and hope we can hear you! the correct microphone and hope we can hearyou! can the correct microphone and hope we can hear you! can you hear the correct microphone and hope we can hearyou! can you hear us?|j the correct microphone and hope we can hear you! can you hear us? i can hear you. excellent, thank you for being with us. explain what you are calling for him because we know a huge increase has been in the

applications for universal credit. absolutely, as you said, there has been just over absolutely, as you said, there has beenjust over a million new applications for universal credit in the last fortnight and we know that over 70,000 people within those figures have applied for the bridging loan. we are very concerned that people are not going to be able to pay that back when they receive their first payment after five weeks and so we are calling on the government, if possible, to make that a grant rather than alone so they don't have to repay it when they don't have to repay it when they start receiving their payments. and the bridging loan exists because of the bureaucracy of it all, the full payment is not coming for some time and not surprisingly given what we have been talking about, people need some money right now. absolutely. there is a five—week wait and people, many of whom have never had to rely on state support before, we'll be going into this system. they will need money to feed

theirfamilies system. they will need money to feed their families and to pay bills as of now. we are very concerned that this will result in unnecessary debt for people. we know that people from our previous research that we put out in february this year have been relying on food banks while paying off these bridging loans. we can see this coming down the line and we would much rather it was written off asa grant would much rather it was written off as a grant rather than a loan. have you done any calculations as to what that would cost the government? we haven't but the reality is that this debt that they will accrue will be paid back somewhere and we need to make sure that people are not getting themselves into a situation where they are choosing between eating or paying back the loan. we know this is something in the system that can be done, we know they are able to bring forward the five—week period but as we said, if this is a loa n period but as we said, if this is a loan at the moment, if it can be

made into a grant, it would be helpful. what sort of stories are your hearing? what are your staff and team members telling you about what people are inquiring about and some of the pressing needs are at the moment? obviously there has been a huge uptake in the universal credit system and understandably, the department for work and pensions are absolutely swamped in a situation which they could not have planned for. we know that the telephone lines, there are very long queues for that at the moment, people waiting four or five hours to get there new claim interview appointment so claims can be processed. and obviously people are struggling and panicking really, wondering when they claim will be processed and when the first payment will be received. we are getting calls to us for support on that from new claimants and also people trying to access emergency food parcels. obviously we are still responding up and down the country with food

banks, doing food parcel deliveries to vulnerable people but you can imagine people are very concerned about being able to get money into their bank accounts as soon as possible. rebecca keating from the salvation army, thank you very much. president trump says the us "has to help" two coronavirus—stricken cruise ships approaching florida. on one of them, the ms zaandam, four people who'd caught covid—19 have died. the ships are awaiting clearance to dock in the southeastern state after several countries refused permission. we've been talking to madga glazik, whose father is stranded on the zaandam, as are the parents of andrew rae. their understanding at the moment is they should be able to port and... i have been on twitter speaking to the commissioners over there and gradually they have all been softening their position about this. with trump coming out and speaking, i am very confident they will be

able to land and get home very soon. they are in good health but they are very stressed and upset that they were assured that all measurements were taken to make sure everything would be fine. they have the health correspondents saying that the company has taken care of everything. so, you know, i'm sure you can understand they are extremely stressed now, extremely tired as well being confined to their cabins for so many days. my dad and his wife were e—mailed this morning by the consul in miami, saying that they were working very hard to get them off the ships. and they will be probably tested by medical staff, and put through customs and apparently put on a coach and taken straight to the airport but, you know, that is all theory at the moment. there is no guarantee of anything. all we want at the moment is to basically be able to dock first and that is what we are waiting for, this news, that the florida

authorities have let them dock, so that is the most important thing at the minute. two britons with family members on board that cruise ship heading for florida. much more coming up. now it's time for a look at the weather with tomasz. hello, for most it is cool and cloudy but some big changes are going on in the air in the next few days. this is friday and saturday, it is going to be relatively chilly some morning frost but a big change on sunday, much warmer with temperatures possibly hitting 20 celsius. this is what is happening right now. this cloud you can see from the north, that is a cool front which is introducing colder air to northern parts of the uk and that means that later on this afternoon and into this evening, the skies are going to clear and the temperatures

will tumble and at 5pm, temperatures only 6 degrees in aberdeen and the cold front is just about here, you can see this saddle in the cloud with a few pockets of rain. the skies clearing but occasional showers as well and maybe some wintry ones in the scottish hills. you can see the air frost in that blue colour but to the south, not quite so cold, six or 7 degrees in cardiff and plymouth. this is friday, the best of a sunshine in the morning probably in these eastern areas. the west will be quite cloudy with some showers and generally through the day we will see cloud building up so if you have a sunny morning, you'll have a more cloudy afternoon. temperatures of nine or 10 degrees. friday night into saturday, that is when we see some changes. the isobars pointing from south to north, and that is where the wind is coming from and you can see the arrows following the isobars. that is a warmer source which means temperatures will pick up

on saturday already, some sunshine around as well, 1a degrees expected in london but by sunday, that is when the really warm air will start to arrive from the southern climes with some sunshine. we live in times where we can't really make the most of the weather but at least knowing it is fine out there is quite a cheerful thing to talk about. 20 degrees in london, 17 expected in newcastle on sunday. and also, the pollen levels will be turning quite high in the south, particularly the south—east.

this is bbc news. the headlines... senior health officials say they are ‘frustrated' by a lack of progress in expanding uk coronavirus testing. it comes after mounting criticism of the government's response. the prime minister agrees testing needs to be increased massively. this is the way through. this is how we will unlock the coronavirus puzzle. this is how we will defeat it in the end. the prime minister is showing mild symptoms of the virus and may not come out of south isolation tomorrow as planned. we see the new machine developed

in cambridge which can