park, over primrose hail, regent's park, that whole area. if you happen to know london. someone has helpfully reminded someone to stay away from each other unless you are members of one household, of course. and as we have been reflecting throughout the day, there is a very strong message from government this very sunny eastern bank holiday weekend. don't go out above and beyond the restrictions. you can go out for for chopping, for medicines, to help someone chopping, for medicines, to help someone who is vulnerable and you can go out once per day for exercise. so you have to assume that all of those people are doing their once per day by at exercise. we have been watching these shots from the helicopter over the past few minutes and certainly the region's park that we we re and certainly the region's park that we were looking at is not super crowded, which is good news. that is exactly what the police and what government will want to see. have course, what we are not supposed to be doing is sunbathing. we are

supposed to be taking exercise out and about with members of our household, but that the scene there on this sunny good friday, as it certainly is here in london. let's find out what the weather prospects are wherever you are in the country. nicola can tell us. hello. our weather is looking much cooler by the time we get to monday. right now, it is warm to very warm across much of the uk. a lot of hazy sunshine. perhaps a shower. the entry for north wales and north—west england. patchy rain in western side of northern ireland and scotland. this will sink east overnight. the chance of a shower towards northern england. the rest of england and wales dry and largely clear with some mist and fog. no frost, so it will be a mild start to saturday. this cloud and some rain affecting parts of scotland and northern ireland since southwards and the rain will start to fizzle out but it will be cloudy for a time in northern england. behind the cloud, it will brighten up for a time with

some rain coming back to the western isles later. an isolated and possibly thundery shower. most places will stay dry. one to 31 and again much cooler by monday. you're watching bbc news. these are the latest headlines. there is an easter message to stay indoors this weekend as more than 900 further deaths of people with coronavirus are announced across the uk. downing street says the prime minister continues to be in good spirits in hospital after he was moved from intensive care onto a regular award. his father has urged him to rest. new york has started to bury some of its dead in mass graves with nearly 160,000 people infected with coronavirus across the state. and here, there are concerns that postal

workers aren't being fully protected from covid—19. more on all those stories to come but we are going to pause and catch up but we are going to pause and catch up with all the latest sport. the chief executive of the league managers association has criticised the english football league for saying the season can be completed within 56 days of a restart. a letter sent out to all 71 clubs by efl chairman rick parry says the season could be finished in under two months once it's safe to resume. but richard bevan has told our sports editor dan roan, that isn't realistic. the season finished on the 14th of march. 49 days left. then you have the 56 day potential proposal. that is going to include the play—offs and the finals and that makes it amazingly tight. to do that you are going to have to get the goodwill of

the players because they're going to have at least three weeks of training to get back on the pitch, at least. and you are going to have to get the support of the coaches and managers. you do not do that by not talking to them. you do not get strong leadership, you do not get the end product of all working together if you just send a letter out without actually taking their advice. football clubs in scotland are voting whether to resume the current season when it's safe to do so, or to end the campaign now because of the coronavirus outbreak. the season's currently suspended until at least the 10th of june. today the spfl is recommending that all clubs back it's resolution to end the season early. if they do go along with this, it'll only impact the championship, league one and league two initially — the scottish premier league will remain untouched for the moment, because uefa's indicated clubs may be denied places in europe if they end their leagues early. the clubs will have to cope with the financial situation,

that's just the way it is. it's a shame because they might make the right noises about the fairness of the competition and what should happen, but in reality this is crisis management. in reality, this has been a panic situation that they are in just now. they will make the decision that they think is not just the best financially for themselves, but to some degree what might save them. leeds united have confirmed their former defender norman hunter is in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus. the 76—year old is one of leeds all time greats, having played over 500 games for them during the 1960s and 70s, winning two league titles and the fa cup. he was also part of england's 1966 world cup winning squad. england could move their summer tour of japan from july to october, or play a revamped six nations tournament in the autumn if that can't go ahead — that's according to the rfu's chief executive, bill sweeney. he also says he's confident

the current six nations, which is on hold, will be completed. england are one of the sides who still have a chance of winning it. along with france and ireland. hampshire county cricket club's cancelled the contract of australia off—spinner nathan lyon by mutual agreement due to coronavirus. lyon, alongside australia's michael neser and india's cheteshwar pujara, has now become the third overseas player to miss out on their county stint due to the pandemic. domestic cricket in england is currently delayed until the 28th of may at the earliest. and ufc have scrapped plans to host its next event on a private island. having considered the idea in order to stage mixed martial arts bouts during the coronavirus outbreak. ufc 2—49 was due to take place next saturday, with the mixed martial arts organisations president saying he was close

to securing a island venue. however, he's now announced that broadcasters asked him not to go through with staging the contest. you can find more on all those stories on the bbc sport website. that's all the sport for now. thank you. here on bbc news we have throughout this pandemic been trying to get through as many of your questions as we possibly can. every day, we run a section of our programming to answer as many of those as possible. let's see again at your questions answered from just at your questions answered from just a little earlier today, presented by joanna gosling.

welcome both of you, thank you forjoining us. i will come to you first of all in oxford. the question from an anonymous questioner, with so many people isolating, why have infection rates not plummeted 7 well, the disease takes a little while, so without understanding the cause of the disease, people may be infected but not have signs of the illness for a few days, then they may have that initial phase that goes for a week and then they may end up with worse symptoms and have to be admitted to hospital and then unfortunately some of them will go to icu and not survive, so on the course of the journey of this disease, it can be around four to six weeks. yesterday at the press conference, we were told that there were signs that the lockdown was working.

there were fewer admissions to icu beds, there were fewer admissions to hospital. we are beginning to see that curve beginning to flatten, but that will only translate into a change in the death rate unfortunately over a period of time. jess, paul asks, would offering a small, controlled viral load to an individual allow a lesser infection to develop in the individual, and make them immune? so what paul is asking is the basic principles we use for immunisations, that could be something we look for in the future in terms of a vaccine, but at the moment, we do not know enough as to whether that would be an option, so in terms of should he seek exposure to it and try to get a small exposure, that is not something any of us can control, so that is something in development and we will leave it for the experts

to develop those vaccines, but at the moment i would strongly advise him to keep across the government guidelines which is to stay away from people, stay at home and keep distance. sian, dominic asks, why does the government not make it compulsory to wear face masks? obviously some countries just do it whether they are compulsory or not, but here it has not been a thing, although when you are out and about, there are so many people wearing them. the government is following the world health organization, which last week reviewed all the evidence on face masks. as you say, many people do wear them and i have worked a lot in hong kong where everybody wears masks if they have a cough or cold and the evidence shows that wearing masks alone could be misleading. if you touch them then touch your face and eyes, they can actually be infectious, either to yourself or other people. they are useful, and the recommendation is to be worn by carers, either in hospital

settings or care home settings or by people who are symptomatically, so if you are sick then facemasks are useful. if not, it is really up to you, it is not something the government mandates. i have one of these plastic visors which i have been wearing with my mask. what about those? i think these are rather new, and they will of course protect you when you are wearing it, and they will also protect anybody else, but the same would apply. when you take it off, you need to take it off and make sure that you place it somewhere safely, wash your hands and don't risk spreading any infections you may be carrying because you are asymptomatic or might have been on the external surface of the mask from someone who has come into contact with you. just take great care using protective equipment in the general public is the message. laura asks, can the people who have had or think they have had coronavirus go out and meet other people? jess, if you could answer that.

if you think you had it, then they may have some immunity to getting ill, but that does not mean they cannot necessarily spread it. in future, it may be the case that people who have had it could be allowed out, but at the moment we do not know enough, that is what the experts are trying to work out now. they are doing as much as they can to find out, but at the moment unfortunately the only thing we can say is for people to carry on following the advice, staying at home and keeping a distance and hopefully in the future then we will start to make more plans about who can go out, and we will hopefully all get immunity to it. obviously without testing, people may think they have had it but not really know, but if you are in a house where you have been in quarantine with someone who does seem to have it, can there be an assumption that everyone else in that house

is not going to get it? if they haven't shown symptoms while living alongside people who have? you kind of mention part of the problem, because at the moment we are not routinely testing everybody, we cannot be 100% sure. because some of the symptoms are quite similar to other flu—like illnesses, at the moment until we have those tests, we cannot be sure that it is coronavirus the person has had, and it may be that because that household has been following all the guidelines using different towels, being in the kitchen at different times, all household members might not have been exposed to that virus, so we could not guarantee that everybody in that family would therefore be immune just because one person has had symptoms and they haven't developed them, so that is why we need to keep following those rules. as difficult as it is, that is why it is so important we keep doing that. this next question follows on, is there any evidence of natural immunity to covid—19? because it does seem it affects people very differently. i don't think natural immunity is a phrase that can be

used with this virus, because as jess says, it is very new. the research to date doesn't actually give us the answers, so i would not assume you have natural immunity. you may have had an asymptomatic infection. it is unlikely that it is a natural immunity, but obviously being fitter, healthier, not smoking, sleeping well, eating well, all of those things will help fight any virus and so your immune system will be able to cope better with the disease. so is that what it boils down to? just having a good immune system if you are an asymptomatic patient? we do not know the science yet, and we also don't know the rates of asymptomatic infections. this will become clearer, and we are talking about testing, which is at the moment is for those who have the disease, that is the antigen test,

and that is being ramped up so it can be done more broadly in the public. now it is for those who are sick and for health care workers, but when we get the antibody test, it will show whether or not you have had the disease. it will tell us whether or not we are protected against future exposure to the virus, and that is a test that there is a lot of work going on in academia to come up with that test, because it is proving to be quite complicated to produce a sensitive test that can be used safely in the public. there are suggestions of there being several strains of covid—19, and heather asks, are there different strains of covid—19 with differing severities? could that be part of it? it is too early to say. there was a paper from china that talked about the s type and the l type but that has not been followed up, and more research is needed. every virus can mutate and can change, and for example stars back

——sars in 2003 caused the epidemic and then it was no longer pathogenic and really very little of it was seen again, and that occurred. we have not seen that in this disease, although it isjust a matter of time and monitoring the science that will tell us the answers. there are some questions we are getting on second—hand smoke that i will come to you for, jess. first of all, alan asks, can you catch coronavirus from a smoker‘s second—hand smoke? in a similar vein, helen asks should vaping and smoking be banned when queueing to enter a shop? what are the chances of catching the disease from this kind of exhalation? the first thing i would say in reply to that is for anybody who is a smoker, now would be a good time to stop because the one certain thing i know in terms of answering this question is we know that smoking does put you at risk of having more severe illness if you get infected with covid—19.

in terms of can you get it from second—hand smoke, there is a differing opinion, and again, because it is such a new virus, we are learning about it, every day and our knowledge is improving, there is no current firm evidence that can be transmitted in second—hand smoke. at the moment, we know that if somebody was too as they exhale the smoke, be it through vaping or a cigarette, if they were to cough at the same time, then there would be a risk just like there would be if anybody coughed into the air, because those droplets are going into the air. there are certain types of smoking, so if people are sharing vaping pipes or in some of the other types of smoking where you share devices, then certainly that has a risk of transmission because people are using it. smokers have an increased risk because as they are lifting the cigarette to the mouth, they are touching their mouth with their hands, if they have those virus particles on their hands and are likely to transmit through that. should it be banned? it is a difficult one.

we know that we banned it in public places, in restaurants and bars, and now people do it outside, and certainly at the moment there are people having to queue to go into shops, so i can understand that would cause some anxiety. what i would advise is to make sure that when you are in that queue, and if there is somebody that is smoking, make sure you keep the distance because the further away you are from that person, then if there is any potential risk, you will be able to minimise that as much as you possibly can. there are concerns emerging about people not going forward to see medical services, whether it is the gp or a&e at the moment because of concerns about going to hospital. one question here, probably for you jess, could the government use emergency facilities after the pandemic to catch up another delayed medical procedures? first thing i would like to reassure all of your

viewers is that we are still working with gps, the gps are still there. bank holiday has been cancelled for general practice this weekend, so we are all there and working because if somebody does have a problem related to covid—19 or something else, then we are all still there and we are there and ready to work and help you. this is regardless of what the problem is, so please do not feel that we are not there to help. i can understand that there are people there who might feel a lot of anxiety about going into hospital and perhaps presenting their problems to us, but what i would say is you are far better to present to us, to ring us and have a chat and we can come to a plan about the best way forward, and we understand that people do not want to go into the hospital at the moment, and we are doing our most to make sure we do not have anybody that does not need to be in. in terms of catching up, i have no doubt that there are nhs planners right now who are working on how we can catch up on things

that have been cancelled or postponed during the period, and whether we use the extra facilities. that could be part of the plan, and i agree it could be a sensible option. we need to see how this pans out, because unfortunately there is a great degree of uncertainty right now, about what is going to happen and when, so all we can do is try and lay the best plans we can and hopefully we will catch up. i would like to reassure everybody that we are still there, we are still working. it is ourjob to help you and we will be there. the chair of the royal college of gps is saying the doctors aren't seeing the usual cases of early cancer or conditions such as diabetes. there has also been a big drop in the number of people going to a&e. what are your thoughts on what is going on? is it what you would expect to see from your experience of what has happened in previous pandemics? i think if you look back to sars, you did see a fall off in people attending for heart disease,

people were more severely ill, and more routine care was definitely... they did not keep their appointments, because people do get anxious and concerned. i would just reinforce jess's advice just now. it is really important that if you have a long—term condition and you are not well, you should phone your gp and discuss with your gp. there has been more use of phone consultations, skype consultations, ways in which you can get the advice you need, and i am sure if you do need to go to hospital, then the hospitals are very aware of the need to keep people separated, social distancing, the hygiene, all of those issues, so if you need care, it is important you go to get care. the first step is to get some advice, so use the phone first and get advice so that your condition does not worsen and you do not end up seeing, having more problems.

that applies for mental health as well as physical health. it is very important that if you feel you cannot cope, see the doctor. isabel asks, will you get more sick if you take on lots of virus as opposed to just one exposure? this is something that has been discussed from the start, isn't it, where medics in medics in china in particular, they were realising you seemed to get more sick because of the viral load they were coming up against? yes, and this is something that as we have said before, because it is so new, we are learning every day about it, so in terms of if you have a higher viral load and more exposure, the more chance there is of the virus making you ill, but essentially at the moment nobody can really take any risks about how much of a load they have. obviously the more exposure you have to a situation with the virus, the bigger the chance of getting it. but it is still not

a chance worth taking. the second part of that question was what would that mean in a household where someone may have it and you don't know? this is the issue, and this is why we have the rules on isolating, so if a member of the household should get symptoms and that is why all of the members of the household should stay inside and isolated for 14 days, and that is because it could take up to 14 days for the symptoms to start. that is what is most important about that, and that is why we have that rule. in that period, they are obviously up close with somebody who it seems has covid—19. they are, and this is what we don't know, and it could be that most ——those people have had very minor symptoms and have hardly noticed, and this is where we come back to the issue of testing and all those sorts of things that we have previously discussed. it is essentially at the moment that we don't know enough

to be completely sure, but what we know is any exposure to the virus is one too many. on the issue of testing, sian, the government's chief scientific adviser has suggested that probably less than 10% of people in the uk have had the virus. we do not know in the absence of testing, but speaking to people here in the newsroom today and anecdotally with people i know and other stories that are being told, there seems to be a lot of people out there who think they have it or have had it, so what is the true picture? are we actually lulling ourselves into a false sense of security if the 10% figure is right, thinking maybe we have had it and have immunity when we don't? as he said yesterday, we don't know, and we don't know. that is the message, we do not know who has had the virus,

we do not know who is safe, we do not know who has antibodies and that is why we all need to stay home and protect those around us. the test for antibodies is proving quite difficult, as i said earlier, to get a robust test that will be sensitive enough in the population to give us a true picture, and so if only 10% of the population have been exposed, that leaves 90% who have not, which again the message is protect that 90%. as the research is produced and vaccines are produced, more information will be created and when we have a test, we will have more of an understanding, but it is a new disease and so the best thing to do is take precautions and not think about is it 10%, 20%? as he says, we do not know. in the 1950s, we sterilised letters and magazines for 20 minutes to kill chickenpox or polio germs. is that a good idea now?

certainly what we have learned so far about the virus is that it can live on different services for different lengths of time, so the harder surfaces like plastics, it could live up to 72 hours or longer. in terms of cardboard, may be up to 24 hours. what i would say tojohn is handling a letter itself is not going to give you coronavirus. how you will get it is when you handle that letter and then touch your face, eyes and mouth with your hands, so in terms of opening letters, that is fine to do, just wash your hands after you have done it. same goes for handling anything else that you have any concerns about. it is ok to handle them, it is just then wash your hands straight after and that will minimise your risks. i do not think trying to sterilise every letter is feasible or appropriate, really, but certainly making sure that you are washing your hands after you have handled anything or after you have been outside, all those sorts of things is really important.

you would drive yourself crazy if you try to sterilise everything you touch, because it is constant when we are touching different things. just keep hands away from faces. on that, rachel asks should we quarantine mail and deliveries for how long? you have answered that, the idea is to keep your hands away from your face and wash them. one doctor says, is coronavirus airborne and could sufficient droplets be carried far on the wind and how many virus units are needed to establish infection? i cannot answer how many virus units would establish infection. if the general thinking is that it is droplet spread and the distance to stay apart from people is two metres, and although other work is being done

on aerosol spread, and the most common form of spread is droplets, so stick to the advice, stay two metres apart and when you are out exercising, make sure that you keep your social distance from other people. thank you both very much. it is looking much cooler by the ten we get to monday but for now it is looking warm. a lot of hazy sunshine out there. there mayjust be a shower and some patchy rain edging into the northern side of northern ireland and scotland. this will sink further east overnight. chance of a shout towards northern england, they will fade and the rest of england and wales dry. largely clear that there will be a few mist and fog patches. nowhere seeing a frost so it will be a mild start to saturday.

this area of cloud and some rain affecting parts of scotland and northern ireland as a saturday begins. it sinks in south and the rain will is allowed but it will be cloudy for a time in northern england. behind the cloud, the scotla nd england. behind the cloud, the scotland and northern ireland it will brighten up for a time. someone coming back to the western isles later. the rest of england and wales, there may be an isolated and possibly thundery shower, although most possibly thundery shower, although m ost pla ces possibly thundery shower, although most places will stay dry. yes, warm to very warm but again, much cooler by monday.

this is a bbc news special. we will bring you the very latest government briefing on the coronavirus shortly. but firstly, an eastern message to stay indoors this weekend as the number of deaths from coronavirus in the uk rises by more than 900. downing street says the prime minister continues to be in very good spirits in hospital, and after leaving intensive care. new york sta rts leaving intensive care. new york starts to bury some of its debt in mass graves, with nearly 160,000 people infected across the state. here there are concerns that postal workers aren't being fully protected against the virus. and nearly £2 million lost in virus —related fraud. we confront was behind the

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