this is bbc news, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm rich preston. there are now more than a million confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world. 50,000 people have died. ten million americans have lost theirjobs in two weeks, as the economy shuts down to slow the spread of coronavirus. as the death toll reaches almost 3,000 in the uk, and after days of criticism, the government announces plans to significantly increase coronavirus testing. clapping and applause and applause rings out from homes across the nation to show the immense gratitude to nhs workers, britain's carers and all those helping to keep the country going.

hello and welcome to bbc news. the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world now stands at over one million people. experts say over 50,000 people have died, with the number of reported cases doubling in the last week. italy's death toll has passed 13,000 and spain's reported over 1,000 deaths in a single day, taking its total to 10,000. the united states is the world's third worst hit country with over 5,000 fatalities. there are nearly 250,000 confirmed infections in the us. half of the country's deaths have been in new york. here in the uk, the health secretary has announced plans to carry out 100,000 tests every day in england by the end of the month. it was also announced that 569 more people have died in the uk in the past 2a hours,

bringing the total number of deaths to 2,921. global health correspondent tulip mazumdar has this report on how medical staff are trying to cope with the number of infections. a milestone that nobody wanted to reach. it is believed the outbreak started here, at a wholesale seafood market in wuhan, in china, at the end of last year. by early january, the country confirmed it had identified a new coronavirus and cases there started to soar. it didn't take long for covid—19, as it was later named, to then spread all around the world. it took more than two months from the first reported case in china for the number of infections to reach 100,000. then, just two weeks later, cases double to 200,000. now, in the last week alone, the number of infections have

jumped from 500,000 last friday to more than1 million now. so a million is obviously a huge number, and presents an important milestone. but i think what we need to remember is that these are the numbers of diagnosed cases. and in fact the unknown, the amount of people who haven't had a test to know that they're infected, is obviously likely to be much greater than that. so my worry, really, is what this means globally. and we're keeping an eye on many other countries around the world, especially for example africa, where some of the case numbers are really beginning to creep up. we have seen what happens when this virus hits countries with relatively strong health systems. in europe and the us, medics have been overwhelmed. there are grave concerns about what will happen in countries with far weaker healthcare facilities. south africa currently has the largest outbreak on the continent, with more than 1,400 known cases.

smaller outbreaks are also under way in countries including burkina faso, cameroon and senegal. elsewhere, there is some very early, very cautious optimism. china says it has largely stopped the spread of the disease there, with parts of wuhan now reopening. south korea has also seen cases fall in the last couple of weeks. but it's still extremely unclear how this pandemic will play out, as cases globally continue to rise. tulip mazumdar, bbc news. the virus is striking at the heart of the us economy — a record 6.6 americans filed for unemployment benefits in the last week. the scale of the economic disaster is stunning, as the us shuts down to contain the virus. here's our north america editor, jon sopel. it's a perfect spring day in washington, and this is one of the cities busiest shopping streets —

except it's not. the stores are closed, the streets empty, nobody is buying. and this is what that looks like in graph form — years of unemployment going up a couple of hundred thousand here and there, but 10 millionjobs have gone in the last two weeks. these workers in california are among the many who've suddenly found themselves out of a job, victims of coronavirus. we still have to pay rent, we still have to pay bills, that's a lot of stuff that we still have to pay, and with nojob, what are we going to do? the us is closed for business, more or less literally. the old saying goes that when america sneezes the rest of the world catches cold — maybe not the right phrase to use in the midst of a global pandemic, but this is going to hit the global economy. but the president is confident the rebound will be swift. nobody‘s ever seen anything like this. the entire world has shut down.

you go from having the most powerful economy in the world, and from other countries that are doing well, to being everything is shut down. it's very sad but, we're going to get it going and we're going to be stronger than ever. that is tomorrow's battle. the fight against covid—19 is the immediate concern and in new york, the governor says they will run out of ventilators soon. right now we have a burn rate that would suggest we have about six days in the stockpile, but we have extraordinary measures in place that can make a difference if we run into a real ventilator shortage. america is adjusting to a new reality — queueing forfood, unemployment soaring. the most powerful country in the world somewhat powerless in the face of this invisible enemy. jon sopel, bbc news, washington. peter bowes is our north america correspondent, and joins us now.

peter, lots of talk about face masks in the press conference that president trump held earlier? americans have been getting some mixed messages about facemasks. people in los angeles and new york city have been advised that they should wear one, not ordered to wear one, but local officials saying they should, whereas donald trump, asked about this in the daily briefing, and again he said that people wouldn't the order two, some people didn't wa nt order two, some people didn't want to, and he said one of his chief scientific adviser ‘s, doctor deborah birx, said that she was worried some people might geta she was worried some people might get a false sense of protection if they were wearing a facemask because they'd been ordered to. she said you can still get the virus and be infected even if you're wearing a facemask. you might touch something then touch your eyes, for example, not protected by a facemask so you wouldn't be

100% protected. she said the main purpose of a mask is to protect others from you if you've got the virus, but not necessarily to protect you from others. and in his press conference there was discussion from president trump about increasing the numbers of respirators and ventilators available from the federal government? yes, we've been hearing so much from hospital workers and governors around the country still about the shortage of supplies, ventilators, respirators or protective clothing. the president said 100,000 ventilators were ordered to be made, and they will be distributed to the states. there's been a stand—off between the federal government and local authorities in terms of who perhaps ultimately is responsible for any stop files of ventilators, but the clear message from president donald trump is these pieces of

equipment are on the way and those patients who required and will be getting them soon. the worrying message from new york city is there's only a six day supply of ventilators left. peter, thanks for joining supply of ventilators left. peter, thanks forjoining us. peter bowes, our north american correspondent. here in the uk, the british government has announced plans to significantly increase coronavirus testing in the uk. the health secretary, who has just returned from self—isolation after contracting the virus, said he hoped that 100,000 tests could be carried out every day in england by the end of the month. after days of intense criticism, he admitted there had been big challenges with testing from the beginning. here's our political editor, laura kuennsberg. will there be enough? not a pleasant process, but a vital one. this is horrible, and i can only apologise for it. because health workers are desperate to know if they have the virus, so they can be, if they can, where they belong, treating patients on the front line. i just can't see that this is right.

we're both keen to work, we're both desperate to work, and as with most gps, we would work through a minor illness. we don't take time off lightly. after days of accusations of missing targets and mishandling, the health secretary, just back at work after the virus himself, is trying to show the government is getting a grip. i understand why nhs staff want tests, so they can get back to the front line, of course i do. but i took the decision that the first priority has to be the patients for whom the result of a test could be the difference in treatment that is the difference between life and death. privately, the government admits they have been too slow, so now, with help from business, and a huge new push, they are setting a vast new target. i am now setting the goal of 100,000 tests per day by the end of this month.

that is the goal, and i'm determined that we will get there. can you give us a firm date by when any nhs staff that needs a test will get a test? because in a fast—moving crisis like this, the end of the month is still a long time away. i will, over the coming weeks, seek to ensure that every nhs front line staff member who needs a test gets one. would you put a date on that? would you give it a deadline? because people are very worried about this right now. well, they are, and i'm glad that we're able to speed it up. it will absolutely be before the end of the month. but we are — and i'm saying, over the coming weeks. remember, there are two kinds of test, one to show if you've had the virus after recovering, but the one these nhs staff are queueing up for at a superstore car park turned testing drive—through, records if you have the virus right now.

if the drivers of these cars are negative, they could get back onto the desperately—stretched wards as doctors and nurses. that's why it is so urgent now. it is so frustrating. we should be the first so that we can look after our patients. i'm very sad. it is quite efficient and it allows us to go back to work as soon as we could, really, so that is the best thing we could possibly do for nhs staff, to be honest. testing has become the most acute political problem in this crisis, with senior labour mp dawn butler, who lost her uncle to the disease, in grief and anger, insisting the government needs to test everyone who works in hospitals without delay. we're going to need a strategy for community—based testing for really the majority of the population over time, because that is the route out of lockdown. but a former cabinet secretary, no stranger to managing crises, suggests there might be deeper roots to the problem. does it seem to you, though, that the government was too slow? i think when we look back

on it, and i think all of us should take a share of the blame here, pandemics, even in my time, was top of the risk register. did we do enough to build spare capacity? did we do enough to think that through and actually get materials in hand? have enough ventilators, have enough protective equipment, probably not. but let's not worry too much about the mistakes of the past. even if testing centres become a familiar sight, with no cure, no government can make coronavirus go away. but the actions they take can make a difference to how it affects us all. laura kuenssberg, bbc news. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: "thank you" — millions of ordinary people join together to thank the uk's key workers.

the accident that happened here was of the sort that can, at worst, produce a meltdown. in this case, the precautions worked, but they didn't work quite well enough to prevent some old fears about the safety features of these stations from resurfacing. the republic of ireland has become the first country in the world to ban smoking in the workplace. from today, anyone lighting up in offices, businesses, pubs and restaurants will face a heavy fine. the president was on his way out of the washington hilton hotel, where he had been addressing a trade union conference. the small crowd outside included his assailant. it has become a symbol of paris. 100 years ago, many parisians wished it had never been built. the eiffel tower's birthday is

being marked by a re—enactment of the first ascent by gustave eiffel. this is bbc news. the latest headlines: the number of people around the world who have been diagnosed with coronavirus has passed 1 million. over 50,000 of them have died. more than 10 million american workers have lost theirjobs in the last two weeks alone, as the economy shuts down to slow the spread of coronavirus. let's have more on that story. joining me now is thea lee, president of the economic policy institute, a think tank based in america. thank you very much forjoining us. thank you very much forjoining us. quite remarkable figures. have we seen anything like this before? we have not. we saw 6.6

million people apply for unemployment insurance just last week. around 10 million in the last two weeks. this was equivalent in two weeks to what we had in the first six months of the great recession. it is absolutely unprecedented in speed and in scale and impact. we've never seen anything like this. it's obviously an incredibly painful time for those facing unemployment, going through the challenges that this has brought. what is the government about this? well, the government is stepping up, thank goodness. and there was a pretty major set of response and relief bills that have been passed, allowing paid sick leave for many workers, not enough workers, but also putting $2.2 trillion into relief efforts. and a number of different things, both expanding the unemployment insurance system in the united states very dramatically, both in eligibility, in duration, and in the level of payments. it is

also providing much—needed aid to state and local governments. and cash payments to households, and some relief for small business, and some industry bailout loans for larger businesses. so it is $2.2 trillion. that enough to make a dent stop it probably won't be enough, and it has not hit every single needy area that it needs to. many people will have the short term in mind. the checks in the mail that we have heard so much about. what about the country ona about. what about the country on a longer term scale? well, that's. .. we have on a longer term scale? well, that's... we have certainly learned a lot through this crisis about some of the vulnerabilities and the inequalities that have been building in the united states for a couple of decades. so we do know that our social safety net is dramatically inadequate. we know that our healthcare system isn't working for a lot of people. and we know that we don't have enough emergency preparedness, that our supply chains are fragile. so if anything good comes out of the crisis, it will be that we learned some lessons from this, and that we put in place some

structural reforms that will leave us better prepared for the next crisis. what are the best apps for the government to ta ke best apps for the government to take an hour? well, we are not out of the woods at all. as i said, this is a catastrophic economic impact that we are seeing already, and we are just in the early weeks right now. so we will need more aid from the government, from the federal government, and we want more aid for state and local governments. we need to make sure that the unemployment insurance payments are reaching everybody and that they go on as long as the crisis goes on. this is an unusual recession in the sense that the government has essentially caused the recession. there is a public health crisis, we are telling people to stay home, we are telling businesses to close, and it is the government's responsibility in this instance to make sure that the economic damage is mitigated, is reduced as much as possible. thank you very much forjoining us, thea, from the economic policy institute in the us. let's get some of the day's other news: the us navy has removed the commander of an aircraft

carrier who raised the alarm about an outbreak of coronavirus on board his ship, the uss theodore roosevelt. a navy statement said relieving captain brett crozier of his post was in the best interests of the navy and the nation. in a letter that made headlines earlier this week, captain crozier appealed for help and said several sailors needed to be quarantined. president putin has extended the paid time russians have off work because of the coronavirus pandemic until the end of april. mr putin acknowledged the outbreak still hadn't reached its peak, but he didn't announce any new measures such as a lockdown. in the last 2a hours, russia announced its highest number of deaths caused by covid—19. global oil prices have surged after president trump said he expected saudi arabia and russia to end a feud that has driven the price of crude to 18—year lows. mr trump said he thought the two countries would agree to cut supply by at least 10 million barrels. authorities around the world are reporting a huge spike in domestic violence cases as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

some countries are providing hotels for victims, whilst others have set up hotlines or created special code words for women to get help. the australian prime minister, scott morrison, says his country has seen a 75% increase in online searches for domestic violence help. for more on this, i'm joined from melbourne by deb parkinson, who is a researcher with the monash university's disaster resilience initiative. thank you very much forjoining us. thank you very much forjoining us. tell us what is behind this spike. our research after the black saturday bushfires showed a very similar response. i think what happened then is the same as what has happened with covid—19. so people living with financial uncertainty, they are unemployed, they have perhaps lost money on the stock market 01’ lost money on the stock market or the property market, and you add to that things like a 24—hour lockdown, so people are living together, in a really

unusual circumstances. the children are mostly there as well. there's a sense of grief and loss. all the supports that people had, social infrastructure, extended family, they aren't there because people aren't able to go and talk to their friends. what is australia doing about this problem? the prime minister, scott morrison, announced a $150 million package, which is a really great start. initially that has gone to crisis lines for women and four men. in addition to that, there's an enormous recognition that this is happening, which is new, and very welcome. and what we know about how this might be playing out in other countries the world ? out in other countries the world? it's definitely happening right across the world. so we've seen increases in france and italy. china reported a threefold increase.

spain, very sadly, reported the first domestic violence murder in the covid context. that was bya man in the covid context. that was by a man murdering his wife in front of the children on 19 march. france providing hotel rooms for women who feel they are in danger, and men, of course, and it is setting up a codeword system for pharmacies, that women can in and use this codeword to get help if they feel they need it. what are some of the practical measures that countries can put in place as support mechanisms for victims of domestic violence? yes, i think it is a really great use of empty hotels, to repurposed them. in this country, in some states, we have a situation where the perpetrator is removed from the home and the women and children can stay. that is what i would recommend. where that is not possible, it is great to have hotels available, and to make sure that they are safe, not just from dv, but also from

covid—19 infection. in addition to that, we clearly need a good and effective legal response and effective legal response and longer term housing options for people. for family, and longer term housing options for people. forfamily, family members who are worried about someone members who are worried about someone in their family or friends, they can keep in regular contact with people, and often that is going to be methods of texting or e—mail, because women don't want to talk about the violent situation in front of the man, or even in front of the children. thank you very much for joining children. thank you very much forjoining us. thank you. the italians have their singing, and the british a more reserved polite applause. for the second week in a row, people across the uk have emerged from their homes to show gratitude to health workers, those saving lives and those keeping the country going. david sillito reports. applause felixstowe. cheering and applause east london. bagpipes glasgow.

pontypridd. applause leeds. applause for the carers, and also supermarket workers. applause this is for delivery drivers, shelf stackers, care workers, child minders, refuse workers, everyone who is helping to keep the show on the road while we stay at home. people like the grounded airline crews, who are now volunteering to offer refreshment and moral support to the nurses and doctors at the whittington hospital. it's lovely how people have come together and working as a team, as a community, and helping support us, to try to keep us hydrated and well fed, so we can give the best care to our patients.

indeed, the heart of this is, of course, the health workers. this road in bath, now lit in nhs blue, sits in the shadow of a hospital on the coronavirus front line. my mummy works at the... nhs. ..nhs. as someone in the community and someone who works in the nhs, it means a huge amount that everyone is clapping and showing support. by coming out, we're showing them we appreciate what they're doing. downing street, islington, newark, and everyone with the same message. thank you. it is a national thankyou. david sillito, bbc news. a reminder of our top story. coronavirus pandemic has continued to spread rapidly with more than 50,000 people

having died from the outbreak. there are more than 1 million people infected worldwide, double number from this time last week. you can reach me on twitter. i'm @richpreston. hello. temperatures topped out at 15 degrees celsius in hampshire on thursday. they'll take a step backwards, those temperatures, on friday, but then into the weekend they're on the up. a frost for some of us, as friday starts, especially across the north and east of the uk. plenty of cloud to follow, but sunnier skies arrive at the weekend. and yes, those temperatures are heading up, but with a strengthening wind. high pressure pretty much in control of things, so still a lot of dry weather around for the next couple of days. low pressure gathering in the atlantic, though, as the weekend goes on will strengthen a southerly flow coming into the uk, and that's why those temperatures are going to be heading up.

and we could well see across parts of south—east england by sunday as high as 20 celsius, the first time we've reached that high since last october. but we're not there yet, and there will be a frost across scotland, parts of eastern england to start friday, maybe —5 in rural aberdeenshire. and a few wintry showers in scotland, to relatively low levels in the north, continuing on and off during the day. a lot of cloud in the west to begin the day. there'll be a few showers around here, and cloud increasing. where we had that cold start to the east, that cold, bright start to the east, still maybe the odd shower. but most places will be dry. sunny spells returning later in the afternoon to south wales, south—west england, those temperatures around 8—12 degrees. that's why it's a little bit of a backward step compared with thursday. now, overnight and into saturday morning, an area of rain and hill snow pushes north into scotland, edging further north. the clearer skies will be the further south you are in england and wales, and there could be a few fog patches around. still a touch of frost in places, so it is rather patchy in nature, that

frost, as the day begins. and looking at saturday, the flows are starting to come in from the south, and temperatures gradually edging up on saturday. it's a slow process, though, and still a lot of cloud around in scotland. the rain and hill snow clearing from the north. for northern ireland, rather cloudy, and northern england too. elsewhere in england and wales, there will be sunny spells, and those temperatures are creeping up. more places in double figures on saturday. the breeze, though, starting to pick up. and then for part two of the weekend, on sunday, a lot of sunshine around. but it will be windy, and particularly in the west, and here it will be clouding over. we could well see some outbreaks of rain moving in the best of the sunshine across the eastern side of england, this is where we're going to see those higher temperatures, but higher pollen levels too.

this is bbc news, the headlines:

the coronavirus pandemic has continued to spread rapidly, with more than 50,000 people now having died from the outbreak. there are also now more than a million people infected worldwide, that's double the number from this time last week. the united states accounts for about a quarter of all cases. 10 million us workers have lost theirjobs in the last two weeks, as the country's economy shuts down due to the spread of the virus. the weekly figures are the highest in american history. treasury secretary steven mnuchin says assistance payments should reach individuals within two weeks. in europe, spain has seen the biggest daily increase in deaths anywhere in the world, but its infection rate is slowing. in the italian city of milan, the main crematorium has closed its doors to deal with a backlog of coronavirus victims. now on bbc news, click.