this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. as governments around the world battle to slow the spread of the coronavirus, a clear warning for people to stay indoors this weekend. we cannot relax our discipline now. if we do, people will die. scaling up coronavirus testing remains a worldwide priority, but the english health secretary admits that meeting but the british health secretary admits that meeting a target of 100,000 a day is a ‘huge undertaking'. queen elizabeth will address the commonwealth on sunday, delivering a message on the outbreak, in a rare special broadcast. new york sees the highest single rise in deaths from coronavirus in a day as the governor andrew cuomo says the state needs urgent help from outside.

new york is in crisis — help new york. and then, pick up, decamp, and then go to the next place as this rolls across the country. the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 40,000 people in europe, more than three—quarters of them in italy, spain and france. we're covering all the latest coronavirus developments here in britain and globally. first, the uk's health secretary has issued a stark warning that more people will die if the public doesn't adhere to government measures to prevent

the spread of the virus. people in the uk have been urged to stay at home this weekend over fears that a warm and sunny weather forecast could tempt people to go outside. almost 700 more people have died in the uk after becoming infected with covid—19. the uk's newest and largest hospital facility is preparing to open its doors to take in coronavirus patients needing intensive care treatment. the nightingale hospital — based at the excel exhibition centre in london — was constructed injust 9 days. new york, the us state worst hit by the coronavirus, has suffered its deadliest day yet. the state's governor andrew cuomo said the number of victims had gone up by more than 500 to nearly 3000. spain has overtaken italy as the european country with the most cases. the total number of confirmed coronavirus deaths in the country has now reached almost 11,000. we'll have much more on all that news from around the world but our first report tonight on the situation in the uk comes from hugh pym. amy o'rourke, one of two nurses

who lost their lives after contracting covid—19. tributes were paid today for their bravery, including at the downing street press conference, and there was this warning to the public from the health secretary. we cannot relax our discipline now. if we do, people will die. so i end with the advice we all know. this advice is not a request, it is an instruction. stay at home, protect lives, and then you will be doing your part. earlier, there was an unusual official opening of the newest nhs hospital, the key players keeping their distance on fixed marks, the moment marked by a royal video contribution.

perhaps i could invite nightingale's head of nursing natalie grey, on my behalf, to unveil the plaque to declare nhs nightingale hospital open. applause. prince charles was on the balmoral estate having recently come out of self—isolation after contracting coronavirus. in less than two weeks, huge empty exhibition halls have been transformed into special hospital wards for covid—19 patients. a joint effort involving army planners working alongside nhs staff. the hospital is ready for new patients. it had been thought the first group would have arrived by today, but london's hospitals have built up enough extra capacity to cope with the caseload at this stage, so the nightingale will not be needed until next week. nhs england announced new locations for further temporary hospitals — one in bristol, one in harrogate to add to those in manchester and birmingham. nhs scotland has announced similar plans for the sec in glasgow, and in wales, the principality stadium in cardiff is to house patients.

getting things done is the message the government wants to get across, but matt hancock, meeting staff and training at the nightingale, has faced claims he hasn't done enough on testing for the virus. having set a target of 25,000 tests a day, which slipped to later this month, he's now come up with a hugely increased figure of 100,000 by the end of april, including many more done by academic and industrial laboratories. where are the test going to come from, who's going to do them? itjust hasn't been explained, you haven't given any detail. well, we have. i set out a five—point plan yesterday. the first stage is the expansion of the testing capacity within the nhs and with public health england, who are doing an amazing job. then, also the next stage is to bring in the private sector companies, the existing testing companies. one of the key aims of testing is to allow nhs staff who think

they have symptoms to get back to work quickly. the scottish government says it's expanding testing facilities like this and moving slightly higher, proportionately than the rest of the uk. this expansion of testing capacity means, amongst other things, that we will be able to test more key workers with every day that passes. however, in addition to increasing capacity within nhs scotland, we are also working with the uk government and other partners to further increase testing capacity beyond that. there was a virtual graduation ceremony for doctors at bristol university today. it happened early so they could move straight to the nhs front line where they will certainly be needed in the months ahead. hugh pym, bbc news. the english health secretary's warnings about the dangers of relaxing lockdown conditions have been echoed by the world health organization. it's said ending lockdowns has to be done in the right way. we need a transition strategy that gets us back into more

control of the virus. we need to get ahead of the virus, and then if we are in control, we can protect our economies. but if we lurch from lockdown to poor control, and back to lockdown and back to poor control, that is not what anybody needs right now. so the investment we need to make... the lockdowns have given some time. they've taken the pressure out of the epidemic, we see that. this is precious time, not only to strengthen the health care system, as the dg has said, but precious time to put in place the public health architecture, the testing, the community education, and build this response from the community up. the queen will address the uk and commonwealth this weekend about the coronavirus outbreak. her statement will be broadcast on sunday. earlier we heard from our royal correspondent nicholas witchell, who says these broadcasts only happen at moments of

national significance. there have only been a handful of them during the 68 years of the queen's reign. 0ne thinks of the broadcast on the eve of the funeral of diana, princess of wales, or as british troops went in to action in the first gulf war. now, downing street and buckingham palace have been closely consulting for the past couple of weeks. this broadcast has been recorded, it will go out at 8pm sunday evening. it will embrace, i'm sure, the themes we've heard from the queen in the written statement that was issued on the 19th of march. she talked then about people and communities coming together to work as one. she said now more than that any time in our recent past, we all have a vitally important part to play as individuals. so personal responsibility, community, cohesion, national solidarity, and i'm quite sure that the queen will wish to express her own profound gratitude to the national health service, to others, to all the key workers for the heroic efforts to look after patients and keep

the wheels of society turning. it will be a message at the start of the easter week from the head of state, the head of the nation, to reassure the country and to rally the nation's resolve at a moment of particular difficulty. the issue of testing is one that the uk government has been heavily criticised over — it's now set itself a target of carrying out 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month. 0ur science editor david shukman looks at the two different types of test and what they may tell us about the virus. the government is under relentless pressure over why more testing isn't happening. so, why does that matter in the struggle against coronavirus, and what are the different tests involved? the first kind of testing is the most urgent, because it's to try to find out who actually has the infection. this is done with a swab inside the mouth and throat to look for clues about the virus. this is really important for patients in hospital, because if they're infected, that will determine the course

of their treatment. it's also vital for healthcare workers and many others, because if they've got mild symptoms that turn out to be negative, then they can go back to work. and longer—term, relaxing measures like social distancing will all depend on working out who's got the infection and who hasn't. testing for the virus is now being scaled up, and scientists say that without it, we simply can't tackle the pandemic. it's like trying to fight with almost both hands tied behind your back. it means you're always responding a little bit after the effect. we're not really able to work out the extent, we're not able to plan as well as we could do, if we had more information. the second type of testing is to look for evidence that you've had the virus in the past. this involves a blood test — just a pinprick on the finger — to look for antibodies, a sign of your own response to infection.

now, this should help answer the question about whether you have immunity — having had the virus and then recovered, and that would allow you to return to work. but how long would that immunity last? months? years? at this moment, no one can be sure. the hope is that the public will eventually get tests to see who's had the virus. but government scientists want to check the technology first. well, it's been recognised from the outset that testing is critical, and a huge effort has gone in. these are complete tests, and the existing technology these are complex tests, and the existing technology is difficult to scale up quickly. everything now hinges on a research effort on a scale that wasn't expected. a race to catch up with a dangerous threat. david shukman, bbc news. meanwhile, in the us, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases has topped a quarter of a million — making it home to about a quarter of all confirmed cases across the planet. the state of new york has been particularly badly hit —

today it suffered its deadliest single day, with 562 additional coronavirus fatalities. the total number of deaths across the state is now 2,935. new york's governor andrew cuomo has warned that that people will continue to die due to a lack of ventilators. and he called on other states to help out. help the place that has the crisis! this is that on a macro scale. new york is in crisis — help new york. and then, pick up, decamp, and go to the next place as this rolls across the country. there's not a perfect timing. there will be two parts of the country that hit an apex at the same time. there will be three parts of the country that hit an apex at the same time. but i do not see any operational, practical alternative to dealing with this going forward.

0ur north america correspondent aleem maqbool says governor cuomo's stature has risen during this crisis. although people are watching him, because he's showing empathy, he's showing that he understands the gravity of this crisis, they're also now realising that he is really fighting for his state more than any other, as you would expect. he's talking about resources, in terms of equipment coming to his state. he's talking about members of the health care profession coming to his state from around the country to deal with the crisis there first before they then move on to other places. but, of course, there are states right across the country that are seeing a surge in coronavirus cases already, in places like michigan, a lot of hospitals saying they're at full capacity. but louisiana and florida, as well, they are all seeing, as i say, surges in coronavirus patients in those states.

but the numbers are staggering in new york — a quarter of a million cases across this country, and more than 100,000 of those are in new york. but new york has nearly a half of the deaths, the 6,000 deaths that there have been in the country. but governor cuomo talking about his state not having to fight with other states for resources, both nationally but also the resources that they are trying to acquire internationally for patients suffering right now. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: we hear from the businessman and philanthropist bill gates who's been warning for years that the world was not prepared for a pandemic like coronavirus.

as governments around the world battle to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the world health organization has warned against lifting restrictions too soon, despite concerns about the global economy meeting england's target of 100,000 tests a day will be a ‘huge undertaking', the health secretary matt hancock has admitted. the new coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 40,000 people in europe, more than three—quarters of them in italy, spain and france. a short while ago, france announced a sharp increase in the number of deaths, after it included fatalities in care homes for the first time. earlier, spain revealed just over 930 deaths in the past 2a hours. that's slightly less than yesterday — providing a small glimmer of hope. tim smith is a freelance journalist based in barcelona.

we journalist based in barcelona. can speak to him nov describe we can speak to him now. tim, just describe what the situation is now across spain if you would, because there must be some regional differences i imagine? yes, absolutely, the crisis started in the north—west around the basque country, bill bao, but since then madrid has been the most heavily affected area so we are seeing the the vast majority of cases in madrid and where i am in barcelona, again you are seeing less in the region but essentially the whole country is dealing with cases across the board 110w. dealing with cases across the board now. how much strain our hospitals and funeral services under?|j now. how much strain our hospitals and funeral services under? i mean, it is extraordinary really. there is a lot of anger about the fact that there is not the public health infrastructure to deal with this, so

you are seeing large public event spaces like conference halls, large public sport centre is being turned into field hospitals, is funeral homes and cemeteries completely overwhelmed as well, so you are seeing in madrid they had turned a large public ice rink into a morgue because of the sheer weight of deaths there, you are seeing the crematoriums in madrid are also having to pass other regions to carry out cremation so it is really buckling and there is lot of anger that things were done earlier and that things were done earlier and that years of cuts to the public health system here have made things worse for those people who have to be out there fighting this virus. how did spain get to the stage given that there were strict measures and restrictions in place? one theory is that part of the reason, same with italy, is that there is a lot of

intergenerational living, families tend to stay with their grandparents and grandchildren more meaning that there can be a greater spread between generations, a lot of criticism as well that the lockdown did not come in quickly enough, so a week before lockdown a minority group in parliament were advocating that people be out on the street for large—scale matches for international women's day, so there was a sense that the lockdown was not quick and hard enough, and that the public health system just wasn't fit to deal with it as this time. thank you very much. in france the number of dead continues to rise, with nearly 600 deaths recorded injust 2a hours. thousands of police are on the streets of paris, to enforce the french government's tough quarantine measures over the easter holidays. railway stations, airports and major roads will be monitored to prevent people leaving the city.

0ur correspondent, lucy williamson reports from paris. it is not only nations that thrive on liberty — epidemics, too. at stations across paris today, every journey began with a police check. freedom of movement, a new national threat. do you have the piece of paper? of course. this person made it through. he is on his way home to brittany after two years abroad. but even the smallest mistake means being turned away. translation: i wrote the wrong date, not today's date, and they told me i need to go back home to prepare another form. i have to go to work but i can't. france carried out almost six million checks during the first fortnight of confinement, far more than neighbouring italy, and it has issued more than 400,000 fines. but questions over when the confinement will end are growing. france's tough approach to the confinement runs the risk of losing public support if it becomes too harsh or too long.

the interior minister has advised sensitivity in applying the rules, and says the police operate differently in the countryside compared to the big cities, in the poorer suburbs, compared to the towns. but the paris police chief was forced to apologise today after taking a very different tone. translation: the ones who are hospitalised today, the ones on life support now, are the ones that didn't respect the quarantine when it began. this is not a video game, it's real. there are dead people. with few life—support beds left in the paris region, patients are being sent across the country for care. this is now the worst—hit region of france, but is there a light at the end of the tunnel? if you asked me this question two days ago, i should say no, but there is a reduction in the patients coming to the emergency wards, and also a reduction in severe patients with signs of covid—19.

hafid says there were no new admissions to intensive care in his hospital today — a first since the epidemic began. the first glimpse of hopes here after weeks of fear and frustration. the first sign that confinement might have worked. the us businessman and philanthropist bill gates says there is still time for the world to take actions that can help contain the spread of the pandemic. back in 2015 mr gates gave a talk in which he warned that the world was not prepared enough for a pandemic. he's worked closely with developing countries on health issues for a long time, and spoke to my colleague peter 0kwoche. well, it's really a stunning gigantic problem — the medical challenge, the deaths, the economic impact. you know, it's very unprecedented. so as soon as we can get

the right tools to bring this thing to an end, you know, that's going to be a gigantic importance. i mentioned your speech in 2015 at a ted talk, when you said you didn't believe that the world was quite ready. at that time, did you envisage anything of this magnitude? yeah. the example i gave in the ted talk was a flu spreading and killing 30 million people and causing about $4 trillion of economic damage. and, sadly, what's happened here mirrors that pretty closely. and a lot of the things we could have done, like having diagnostics that could be deployed quickly, having the drugs, having built a vaccine platform

to shorten the time for that to get out, most of those things did not happen. why do you think the world has been so slow off the mark when it comes to preparing for a virus of this magnitude? well, it's hard to be ready for something novel. the way we do it, in terms of war, is we have full—time soldiers, they do war games. they come up with different scenarios. they try things out. they see problems and keep refining it and refining it. there is no group of people there for this epidemic who thought through, "0k, how quickly do you approve pcr testing? how do you make billions of doses of a vaccine?" and so there just wasn't the staffing or funding, almost as though people thought it couldn't happen. and yet, you know, actually, in my view, in 2015, it was the biggest risk of something

very, very negative happening. i wrote a new england journal of medicine article that went into more depth about the particular things that needed to be invested in. bill gates. the american singer songwriter, bill withers, whose hits included lean on me and lovely day, has died. he was eighty—one. born into a coal mining community, he became a navy mechanic and then worked as an aircraft assembler before becoming a star in 1971 at the age of 32, with ain't no sunshine. he followed it with a string of hits in the 19705, all based around his distinctive soulful voice. in a sign of the popularity of his music, lean on me was performed at the inaugurations

of both president barack 0bama and bill clinton. don't forget you can get in touch with me and some of the team on twitter — i'm @martinebbc hello, a dose of spring warmth on the way and there is every indication that the weather is going to continue warming up. that weather could hit 20 celsius, notjust in the south of the uk but further north we could get those values. this is what's happening on the satellite picture, it is this plume here which is coming in from the we st here which is coming in from the west atlantic out from the azores and iberia that is heading in our direction and this process is actually already begun, you can see

behind me that wounds burrowing out of the south, the following light it in the change of direction is a curving to the early hours of saturday. —— curving to the early hours of saturday. — — those curving to the early hours of saturday. —— those wins coming out of the south. possibly a touch of frost in the highlands and then on saturday as far as england and wales is concerned, out towards the west always a little bit more cloud and the chance of some showers. still cool in the north—west, 11 celsius, but notice about 16 degrees expected in the south—east of england and then saturday night into sunday at this weather front approaches us and that also means that the southerlies will strengthen and strengthening southerlies also means more warm air heading our way but at the same time be fun to get closer so that does

mean that in northern ireland perhaps some of these western extremities could be cloudy at times with gusts of rain. i notice the gusts here, 30 to 40 mph, a veal these out there but further towards these out there but further towards the east and the south, you can see newcastle as well, easily touching 20 degrees on the london area. on top of that, the pollen levels will also vie throughout the weekend touching high values in london and the south—east, —— the pollen levels will also rise throughout the weekend.

this is bbc news, the headlines. as governments around the world battle to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the world health organisation has warned against lifting restrictions too soon, despite concerns about the global economy the number of deaths in the uk hasjumped to more than 680 in a single day. the new figures come as one of the world's largest hospitals opens in london to treat up to 4,000 coronavirus patients. there are now more than 100,000 coronavirus cases in new york. the number of people who've died went up by almost 600, the single highest daily increase in the number of deaths so far. the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 40,000 people in europe, more than three—quarters of them in italy, spain and france. there's particular concern for nursing and care homes across the continent.

let's return to that downing street news conference held a little earlier , where the health secretary, matt hancock, urged volunteers to come forward to participate in clinical trials for coronavirus tests. he also echoed the prime minister in demanding people don't leave their homes unnecessarily ahead of the sunny weekend , this is not a request, he said. we can now watch back that news conference at length. our plan is to save as many lives as possible by protecting the nhs and preventing it from being overwhelmed and we are doing this in two ways. one, by slowing the spread of the virus. and that is why it is so important that people stay at home. and that's true for everyone who is watching. how important it is that we stay at home. and two, by boosting the capacity of the nhs to care for

those who fall sick. that means more beds, more staff, more life—saving equipment, and more effective treatments. we will get onto that. coronavirus continues its grim march. i can report that through the government's ongoing monitoring and testing programme, according to the latest figures, as of this morning, a total of 173,784 people have been tested, of whom 38,168 have tested positive. 3605 people have sadly died. and we are reminded again today that for the nhs, this truly is the front line. in the last 24 hours, two nurses and two health care assistants have tragically died fighting coronavirus. every life lost to this

dreadful disease makes me more determined than ever to push for victory. and today, i want to update you with the latest on what we are doing to boost nhs capacity so the capacity we have to care is always above the need for that care. first, we are delivering more critical care beds. this morning, i attended the opening of the new nightingale hospital in east london with ruth and many others. it was planned, constructed and fully staffed in just nine days. and that is an outstanding achievement and i pay tribute to ruth and all who have been involved in its construction. it shows what is possible when we come together as one team in one national effort. i pay tribute to the extraordinary work of everyone, the nhs, the military, the construction industry who both donated supplies and of course their expertise.

the engineers, the electricians, plumbers, the caterers and others. all playing their part to build a place of hope and a place of healing. it was really inspiring to go and see the sheer scale of it and the team going on there. and lastly, i want to thank you, i want to thank everyone who is at home. because you are giving the nhs the time to expand so that it can save lives. by staying at home, you are saving lives. we have more nightingale hospitals planned and on the way in birmingham and glasgow. and today, we have announced that we will begin the work on two further nightingale hospitals in bristol and harrogate. the bristol nightingale will have a capacity of up to 1,000 beds and in harrogate, a capacity of up to 500.

the nightingale hospitals are not the only expansion we have seen across the nhs. since the start of this crisis, we have boosted the number of critical care beds to care for coronavirus by over 2,500. that is before the addition we will get from the nightingale hospitals. and the result of this extraordinary work is that in every hospital the country, we have managed to expand capacity. and as we stand today, over 2,000 critical care beds are free and available. and they are ready, should they be needed, and that is before the nightingale hospitals. and we are working round the clock to deliver essential deliveries of ppe across the nhs, across social care, key public services and in all four nations of the uk.

yesterday, more than 26 million ppe products were delivered to 281 different organisations. and i have agreed with the northern ireland executive that we will immediately be providing more ppe to northern ireland to meet their needs, over 5 million items including goggles and aprons and masks. over 7,000 nhs staff had now been tested. and alongside testing, we are intensively researching drugs and treatments. since the start of this crisis, we have been clear all our plans are based on the best possible science and that science gets better every day. but there is still a lot we don't know about how to treat and potentially prevent covid—19. so research about treatments is absolutely central to our plan. the uk of course has a long tradition we are very proud of of being the best in the world

in this sort of science. and we are a world leader in clinical trials. and we are putting this to use right now, bringing together some of the finest research minds in the country to design new trials and we are delivering them at record pace as well. we have established three national clinical trials covering each major stage of the disease, primary care, hospital care and critical care for the most seriously ill. and just like the nightingale, one of these trials was in fact put together in just nine days, which is breathtaking speed. these trials are looking at the effect of existing drugs and steroids, repurposed for treatment of covid—19. one of the trials, called recovery, which deals in hospital care, is the largest of its kind in the world with 926 patients involved. we have also set up an expert therapeutics task force to search for and shortlist other

candidate medicines for trials. i am advised on that work by my brilliant colleague jonathan van—tam, one of the finest research scientists of his generation and jonathan will say more about this in a few minutes. we need more patients to volunteer to be part of these trials because the bigger the trials, the better the data and the faster we can rule out the treatments. if and only if it is proven to work. these treatments will help us as the science develops. but for now, the only way to protect yourself and your family from this disease is to stay at home. and of course, while this is a national effort to find these treatments, it is also an international effort. in the same way we have donated more money to the global search for a vaccine than any other country, so, too,

we will lead to the world in the science of these treatments and whatever we learn, we will share, because we are all on the same side in this war. earlier today, i spoke to my counterparts in the g7 to coordinate our research efforts over this and other things and whether it is treatments or equipment or nhs capacity, we will strain every sinew, we will move whatever mountains need to be moved. we need everyone to keep playing their part, and that includes you. the only way to protect yourselves and others now is to stay at home. and the one final thing i want to say is this. we are set for a warm weekend in some parts of the country. but the disease is still spreading. and we absolutely cannot afford to relax the social distancing measures that we have in place. we cannot relax our discipline now.

if we do, people will die. so i end with the advice that we all know. this advice is not a request. it is an instruction. stay at home. protect lives. and then you will be doing your part. i am now going to hand over to ruth may, the chief nurse, to say a little bit about the nightingale hospital and then to jonathan van—tam to talk about the treatments and data we have got. thank you, secretary of state, before i talk about the nightingale hospital in london, i want to recognise that today, we have had the very sad news of the loss of two of my colleagues. we have lost today areema nasreen and aimee o'rourke. two registered nurses working to protect our public.

they sadly have died. my sincere condolences to their families, their friends and their colleagues. because they were one of us. they were one of my profession of the nhs family. i worry that there is going to be more. and i want to honour them today and recognise their service. so as the secretary of state said, we were with his royal highness, the prince of wales, joining by video camera as he opened the first nhs nightingale hospital in london. it was an extraordinary feat. people have worked so hard from all sorts of walks of life. all sorts of backgrounds, and they have come together as one team to build an nhs hospital, an enormous piece of work

of absolutely huge proportions. as the secretary of state said, he has announced two further facilities harrogate for the people of the north—east, in bristol for the people of the south—west. and that is alongside birmingham and manchester. so thank you to all of our nhs staff, all of our staff and social care, nurses, midwives, doctors, all of them pulling together to make sure that we continue to prepare for covid—19 surge. i am grateful to all our front line staff and all of our support staff, who are caring as a team for our sick patients. i am very grateful to you, the british people, for your patience and in helping our nhs. as the secretary of state said, this weekend is going to be very warm and it will be very tempting

to go out and enjoy the sunshine. but please, i ask you to remember aimee o'rourke and areema nasreen. please stay at home for them. thank you, ruth. and if you could bring us up to speed on the treatments, jonathan van—tam, and the latest data we have. thank you, secretary of state, i will begin with the data and the first site i want to show you is a survey which shows the behavioural changes of march 29th in relation to the social distancing advice government has given. as you can see on the slide, if you begin on the left, there is a small increase in mobility within residential settings. this actually is good because it shows people are staying at home. if you then contrast that with the bars further to the right, which move progressively through grocery and pharmacy and public

parks and workplaces and transit stations and finally to retail and recreation, you can see progressively larger declines in mobility across the uk. this is very encouraging indeed and shows the british public are following advice that was given to them but it needs to continue. next slide, please. if you move on and look at the change in transport use between the 5th of march and just a few days ago, you can see dramatic declines across the piece. in total, motor vehicles and use of national rail, buses and the tube in london. this, again, is very encouraging. next slide, please. however, as we have always said, we do not expect these changes to turn the curve on this awful disease immediately.

it will take time. as you can see, this slide shows the number of uk cases by day, and you can see the numbers are increasing. this remains a dangerous time. it remains vitally important that people continue to stay—at—home and practice the social distancing that we have asked of them. even this weekend, as the weather turns warmer. next slide, please. you will see a similar picture for hospital admissions, that they are increasing. again, this reinforces the advice we give. the final slide, please. shows the comparison of the uk in relation to various other countries. the index is set at the first day in each country when 50 deaths were reported. you can see from this slide that it is a global battle and

that the uk is in the same situation, in terms of the curve and the shape of the curve, as many, many other countries around the world. this is a serious battle. we need to keep fighting it. i would now like to talk about clinical trials, if you could take the slide down, thank you. the first thing i want to say is that this is a new disease, where at the moment we do not have any proven treatments. the uk is absolutely determined, however, to find effective treatments for this virus disease. weeks ago, we began to look at clinical trials. we may not have publicised it at that point, but a lot of work has been going on for weeks behind—the—scenes. clinical trials are a gold standard

way to discover if a treatment works or not. but saying whether it works or not is rather too simplistic. treatment has to be effective, it also has to be safe and also have to understand the right dosage to use, the right patients to give the treatment to and the right time in the illness to give that treatment. this is complicated stuff and the only way to unpick the signal and make sure we get it right is through clinical trials. and as my colleague, the secretary of state, has said, there are three trials already up and running in the uk that target different places in the patient pathway, from primary care through to critical care. their recruitment rate has been absolutely astonishing, particularly

in the recovery trial, where we are at 926 patients, some three weeks after the trial began. it is astonishing, it really is a fantastic tribute to the fact that the nhs is getting on with delivering care, but at the same time, is committed to finding the right effective treatments. now, again, as the secretary of state has said, our initial focus has been on what we call repurposed medicines. medicines that are already licensed for some other use or indication. an example would be hydroxychloroquine, which is a malaria drug. another example in our clinical trials would be a combination of... an hiv treatment. so we are going the full ground

targets in the first instance, where we already have a drug that is licensed. but we are not stopping there. we are determined in the next round of clinical trials to move on to new medicines, ones that are what we call in phase two of phase three development now, possibly for something else, but that might have a role to play and we are going to explore all of those technologies. to do this, we are going to need this therapeutics task force that we have set up, to keep on oversight and to coordinate this. now i know there will be a question about when are we going to get some results from these clinical trials. my straight answer to you is, i don't know. i think it's going to be a few months but it will all depend upon how quickly patients are recruited into the trials across the nhs. the faster we go on getting bigger numbers in the trials, the clearer and more emphatic and more granular signals we will get about what works and how it works for.

thank you. thank you very much. if we now go to questions. the first question is going to be from hugh pym of the bbc. thank you very much. it is a question forjonathan van—tam. when do you expect the peak of the epidemic to be and at that point, will the nhs have enough ventilators to give those who need critical care that care, at a time when some patients fear they might not be able to get it? thank you for the two questions. the first one is about when we will turn this curve around, when we will peak and when we will come down. we don't know the answer to that yet. we have always said that we will know if our social distancing measures are working a few weeks after we have put them in place. by my quick calculation, we are at ten or 11 days at the moment.

so it is too soon to say. that will partly depend upon how well those social distancing measures are adhered to by every one of us. but i hope it will be soon. we are going to watch very carefully to see when we have hit the peak and when we are starting to turn it that we will not take any premature actions. we are going to stick with the science and see where it takes us. your second question is kind of related and about how tall the peak will be and whether there will be enough ventilatory capacity across the nhs. i can tell you that i don't think we are anywhere close to that kind of scenario at the moment. we will watch it extremely closely and we will make decisions as we need to on a day by day basis. but i repeat, we are not anywhere close to the scenario you describe at the moment.

thank you very much. robert peston of itv. good afternoon. firstly on the clinical trials. jonathan van—tam said the success depends on a certain extent to the numbers enrolled on that trial. is that a call to those who have symptoms to enrol in those trials, are you looking for volunteers but secondly, very recently we heard on the basis of the lag between infections and deaths, that there were probably 1000 people in the community with this virus for every death. does that mean we think we are not far off 4 million people infected or do we have a new rule of thumb now that we are further on? finally, secretary of state, you are well aware because of ministers and people you know that the range of symptoms you can get with this isa very broad indeed.

for example a lot of evidence losing sense of smell and taste is a symptom. are you looking at changing the guidelines to people for when they quarantine? at the moment, you are saying self—isolate if it is a high fever and cough but will you add to the symptoms where people should self—isolate? thank you. if i answer some of that and then i will cast over to jonathan van tam. 0n the last one, which you addressed directly to me, robert, it's complimentary of you to ask me a scientific question but i will resist the temptation to answer it because we have a proper medical scientist in the room and we are following the science. for me personally, i did lose my sense of taste. it has come back, though. i can assure people who have lost their sense of taste

the good news is, at least in my case, that wasn't permanent. and just on the first point about the clinical trials. the answer is that we are looking for people to sign up to the clinical trials, where that is possible within that hospital where there is clinically advised. the call, really, is to the nhs, who are the ones who would make recommendations that people would be on a clinical trial. do you want to add to those two questions and answer the middle question from robert? yes, thank you. i will answer those questions. 0n the point about the loss of taste and smell... we have actually asked our expert advisory committee to look at this and there are some anecdotal data that are now in the published domain that suggest that a proportion of people do indeed lose their sense of smell and taste. however, we have looked

at the data that there are in relation to whether that on its own is a symptom that would be important to add to the case definition and the answer to that, from our experts, is absolutely not. that, yes, this is true, or as far as we can tell on limited data rate appears to be true, but it doesn't contribute anything on its own to the overall affinity of the diagnosis. 0n the second point about volunteers for clinical trials, people will have read in the newspaper sometimes when a new drug is being tried that there is an advert and you ring up a new volunteer for the clinical trial. this is a very different scenario. here, these are about patients who are undergoing treatment at some stage covid—19. first of all, we need the physicians in charge of their care to sign up

for the clinical trial. then it is up to the physicians to approach the patient and ask them if they would like to take part. it is a process of very careful written, informed consent for that to happen. but the straight answer is yes, we do need people to take part in the clinical trials and they are doing. for the recovery trial, yesterday's figure reported to me was a little over 700 patients into the trial. today, i'm walking on my way to number ten downing st and the number comes through with 926. this is really fantastic work by both clinicians and by patients. on your final point about are there more people out there than we are counting through the case numbers? 0ur testing is based primarily, at the moment, in

hospitals, where it is needed most and there will be further cases out there, people who are isolating in accordance with the guidelines, who have covid—19, who we have not counted in the official statistics. how large that is, i wouldn't like to speculate. hello, we are on the cusp of the weather turning warmer and there is every indication of the fine weather lasting well into next week. in the short—term, still a bit of a nip in the air, temperatures will dip down to about three or five celsius, perhaps a touch of frost there in the highlands on saturday morning but that is pretty much it. tomorrow, it is promising to be a fine day across the majority of the uk, always a chance of a bit more cloud, a few spots of rain in the north—west of the uk but, on the

whole, it is going to be a fine day for most of us. the temperatures will peak at around 16 degrees on saturday in the south and the south—east, temperatures in scotland nine to 11 degrees. the warmest ever weekend will be sunday, temperatures in some parts of the uk will hit 20 celsius.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. as governments around the world battle to slow the spread of the coronavirus, a clear warning for people to stay indoors this weekend. we cannot relax our discipline now. if we do, people will die. scaling up coronavirus testing remains a worldwide priority, but the english health secretary admits that meeting a target of 100,000 a day is a ‘huge undertaking‘. new york sees the highest single rise in deaths from coronavirus in a day as the governor andrew cuomo says the state needs urgent help from outside.