day or so and tonight, space of a day or so and tonight, you see the blue colours here, that is the air frost, these are temperatures and bigger towns or cities but outside of town, those temperatures will be two or three degrees lower than that so widespread frost on the way, north or south. the difference tomorrow with the weather will be that the winds won't be a strong and there will be more sunshine around and are written as a result, the temperatures will improve a bit and on the yorkshire coast around 30 celsius. hello this is bbc news. the headlines. the number of people who've died from coronavirus in uk hospitals, passes 10,000, as the country enters its fourth week of lockdown. the nhs has saved my life, no question. out of hospital and grateful to be alive.

boris johnson recuperates at his country residence chequers, after praising nhs staff. he singled out two nurses — jenny mcgee from new zealand and luis pitarma from portugal — for caring for him at his bedside at the most critical time. china reports the highest daily rise in coronavirus cases in more than five weeks — most of them imported from overseas. some construction workers in spain return to work, as the country starts easing restrictions after four weeks in lockdown. and nearly 200 members of the armed forces are being deployed to support ambulance services in england and wales. a group of bikers from bodmin in cornwall have been helping let's cross to edinburgh, where first minister nicola sturgeon is giving an update. good afternoon. thank you again for

joining us today for this media update and can i begin by thanking everybody across scotland for staying at home over this holiday easter weekend. it seems from all of what we can tell that people have overwhelmingly been doing the right thing. ido overwhelmingly been doing the right thing. i do not underestimate a single second how difficult this will have been for so many of you, but your actions this weekend have been crucial and by staying at home you help us to slow the spread of covid—i9 and are helping to protect the nhs and stop it being overwhelmed, and you are helping us to save lives, so thank you for sticking with it. we all know how difficult that is. there is due to bea difficult that is. there is due to be a review of these restrictions this week. i want today to be clear so this week. i want today to be clear so that nobody is under any illusion

that review is not likely to result in these restrictions being lifted in these restrictions being lifted in the near future. in these restrictions being lifted in the nearfuture. there in these restrictions being lifted in the near future. there are early optimistic signs the steps we are taking are working, but until we know more and have solid evidence, we must stick with it. we want these restrictions to be lifted as soon as possible. as i have said before, they will not be in place a minute longer than necessary. but we know that if you lift the restriction is too early or do so without thinking through properly how we can ease the restrictions while also keeping the virus under control, we risk the virus under control, we risk the virus spreading out of control, we risk it overwhelming the national health service and we risk it taking many more lives. i know this way of living our lives is not easy, but it is essential so let me thank all of

you for the effort and sacrifices you for the effort and sacrifices you are making. i want to provide an update on some of the key statistics dr elisabetta groppelli in relation to covid—i9 —— in scotland. there have been 6067 positive cases confirmed, an increase of 155 since yesterday's figures. it is important to note we do not yet have testing figures for the last 2a hours from laboratories in tayside or ayrshire, otherwise the number i havejust in tayside or ayrshire, otherwise the number i have just reported would have been higher. across scotland, a total of 1797 patients are in hospital with covid—19, an increase of 42 from the figures reported yesterday and a total of 211 people last night were in

intensive care with either confirmed 01’ intensive care with either confirmed or suspected covid—19 which is a decrease of ten on yesterday's figures, although i would caution against reading too much into that at this stage. it is with sadness i report there have been nine further deaths of patients who tested positive, which takes the total number in scotland up to 575, although i want to sound a note of caution about that figure in two ways. the nine i reported is lower than in previous days because whereas it is now possible to register death seven days a week in scotland, we always expect the number registered to be lower at the weekend, which is true over the easter weekend, so i expect the figures to be higher tomorrow and the following day as any deaths from the following day as any deaths from the last few days are registered. the second point i have made before

but it is important to stress that these figures i have reported today only include those deaths where an individual tested positive. 0n wednesday, national records of scotla nd wednesday, national records of scotland will publish its second weekly report detailing all registered deaths from covid—19, which means suspected as well as confirmed. this week's report will break down these figures by location of someone's death, showing whether an individual died in hospital, a ca re an individual died in hospital, a care home, their own home or another location. i want to take a moment to acknowledge there are particular concerns about people in care homes andi concerns about people in care homes and i want to give a strong assurance first that we are working ha rd assurance first that we are working hard with the care inspectorate to provide appropriate support for care homes and their staff and residents, and we are working hard to ensure we

can publish robust information about numbers of cases in care homes, which we hope to do later this week. i want to reflect as i always do in my own mind when i give the numbers of people who have sadly died, that they are notjust of people who have sadly died, that they are not just statistics. of people who have sadly died, that they are notjust statistics. they represent individuals who are mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons and daughters, siblings and spouses and daughters, siblings and spouses and partners. they are unique valued human beings whose loss is a source of grief to others, so we mourn their loss and extend deepest condolences to all those coming to terms with life without them. i want to thank everyone working hard in the health care sector for the incredible work they are doing. all of us owe you an enormous debt of gratitude and i want to repeat my insurance to you that we in government will do everything we can to support you and we will work hard to support you and we will work hard

to address any concerns you have. that is a responsibility i and the health secretary and all in the scottish government takes seriously and personally. two things i want to update you on today, which are both about non—hs support for people facing challenges from the virus and restrictions put in place to slow the spread of it. the first relates to support the charities and third sector organisations providing vital community services. we announced four weeks ago we were establishing a £350 million emergency package of support. this included £50 million wellbeing fund for third sector organisations and 10 million has been allocated for immediate priorities and £7 million has been allocated to support around 2000

charities. however the majority up to £33 million in total is open to bids from third sector organisations. we know these organisations. we know these organisations play a vital part in protecting welfare and wellbeing during this crisis so we want to do everything to support them as they support people across the country. these organisations need funding to continue providing important services, or if they have good ideas for new services that could help people in these difficult times, i encourage them to apply. expressions of interest can be registered from today and information is available on the website of the scottish council for voluntary organisations. the second piece of information is to confirm that from tomorrow, there will be a new telephone helpline for people we know face significant

challenges as a result of covid—19, but who are not in what we call shielded groups and therefore receiving bespoke support. the kind of people i talk about now are for example elderly people over the age of 70, with disabilities, those who require support for mental health services, those who are pregnant, and those receiving a flu jab for other health conditions. if you are in one of these groups are not already getting shielded support, this free helpline is open to you. it will open tomorrow. the number is 0800 111 it will open tomorrow. the number is 08001114000 it will open tomorrow. the number is 080011111000 and it will open tomorrow. the number is 08001114000 and will be available in daytime hours during the week. it is intended for those in groups i've mentioned and who do not have family 01’ mentioned and who do not have family or existing community support to access food and medicine and who cannot get online to access that kind of support. if you are in one

of these categories and did not get the number, i will give it in a moment so you have time to get a pen to note it down. if you call the helpline, you will automatically be connected to your local authority who will help you access the services and support needed and that might include essential food and medication, contact with volunteer groups, emotional support, links medication, contact with volunteer groups, emotionalsupport, links to local social work services for vulnerable children and adults. it is worth repeating this service is in addition to local support already available for people who have received letters advising them to shield themselves. it is intended for those without other means of support and who cannot obtain help through other means. we do not want anybody to fall through the net and be isolated at home without the essential help you need. it is about providing people who are vulnerable with a further way of getting

essential help. i am about to give the free helpline number again and i stress you can call it from tomorrow. the number is... 0800111 4000. anyone who is not in these categories but still looking for some support and advice can find it on the ready scotland website. i will hand to the chief medical 0fficer will hand to the chief medical officer and cabinet secretary for health but before that, i repeat the key health messages. please stay at home unless it is for an essential purpose such as buying essential items or exercise. if you leave the house day two metres apart from others and do not meet up with people in households who are not your own. if you have symptoms of covid—19, self—isolate for seven days, which means not going out even for essential purposes. if someone

in your household has symptoms that instruction applies for 14 days. i know these rules are difficult and they will have been especially difficult over the holiday weekend. they will not get easier as the days pass. but they are vitally important and are making a difference. please know they are making a difference. by know they are making a difference. by staying at home we can help stop the spread of the virus and help protect the precious nhs and save lives so thank you once again for doing the right thing. i will hand over to dr gregor smith. u nfortu nately, over to dr gregor smith. unfortunately, death is a subject we continually have to turn to when discussing covid—19 and today i want to acknowledge the terrible burden some families experience, as they deal with that loss. it is a difficult time for those who have lost someone not only from covid—19

but other conditions. as a gp it is too real to me the support some people need during the grieving process and i ask everybody to bear that in mind and to try to offer their own way of support, recognising the need for social distancing but to be able to call upon people in other ways to offer them support. across scotland, the process of saying goodbye is an important part of the grieving process but at this time it is important people are able to grieve the passing of a loved one but delaying the funeral in anticipating of social distancing being lifted could increase strain on funeral services responding to coronavirus and we respectfully ask families not to delay the funeral as a result of adherence to the advice, or because they are waiting for emergency measures to be lifted. the measures

to help protect us during the pandemic will remain in place for a significant period. this includes restrictions on who can attend a funeral service. it is not a request only directed to those who have sadly lost loved ones. it affects us all across scotland. on average there are 57 —— 57,000 deaths a year across scotland. those deaths from other causes continue. we work closely with funeral directors and burial grounds to monitor and address the sector's ability to deliver as normal service as possible and the sector can cope if eve ryo ne possible and the sector can cope if everyone appreciates the circumstances and continues to arrange a funeral as normal and i stress, please without delay. i end by thanking everyone for continued effo rts by thanking everyone for continued efforts to limit contact outside the household. those actions are the

most important you can take to help limit the spread of coronavirus and to play your part in saving lives across scotland. thank you. thank you, these are really difficult messages. please know they are difficult for us to be giving. we do not do so lightly and i know there are more difficult messages for you to hear but please understand we give them because we judge these measures to be essential and i would ask you to listen carefully and comply as much as possible because they are part of this national collective endeavour to ensure coronavirus does not take any more lives than absolutely can be avoided. i will hand to the health secretary and then we will open to questions. can i also offer sincere thanks to all of you for following

public health messages over the weekend and staying at home, protecting yourself and family, but also protecting our nhs. i thought it would be useful today to provide a snapshot of statistics over the weekend to give an illustration not only of the work we undertake to ensure the nhs is ready and coping with the demands of the pandemic on it, but also how your efforts matter. as the first minister said, nhs boards reported as of midnight, there were 211 suspected or confirmed cases of covid—19 in intensive care, together with 55 other non—carry— macro patients, numbers in intensive care were 266. boards now have a surge capacity which means they have beds ready and train staff of 585 beds. they can be

resourced immediately. that in effect trebles the original capacity and shows as the virus progresses at present, our capacity is sufficient to meet anticipated demand, but boards will continue to work as staff continue to be trained to reach the objective, which is to increase the number to 700 beds. we have successfully secured 3000 of our bed capacity in the nhs estate for covid patients. louisa jordan will add to that when it is ready from next week and an important effort made unsuccessful, important for bed capacity and also for the patients involved was the significant reduction, 60% reduction, in the number of people

in acute hospital settings who no longer needed to be there for clinical reasons and who were able to leave hospital and return home or to leave hospital and return home or to the home setting. that was an significant effort by health and social care partnerships and by health boards and work that will continue in the days ahead. the other area where we have been increasing efforts is in front line response through nhs 24. by encouraging people to use the nhs and website and contact 111 only if symptoms worsen, we have seen a reduction in call volumes and as a consequence a marked improvement in response times. we continue to explore what more we need to do to increase capacity for nhs 24 to ensure we can answer calls quickly and meet the demand and improve the performance. what is clear from that

is that the efforts you are making, sacrifices you are undertaking, and the work of health and social care staff, are moving towards the position where we are protecting the nhs and we are ready to cope with demand the pandemic will bring and we are very grateful to everyone for everything they have done so far. thank you. i will go to questions from journalists. we have a long list of questions and i will get through all of them but i ask the journalist to avoid as far as possible duplication. kay nicholson from scottish television is first. going back to care homes mentioned. it has been four weeks since the who said countries need to test, test, test. today we spoke to a care home provider who said testing

indistinct. they say they have been treated as second—class citizens. what would you say to those claims and are you confident enough is done to escalate testing quest back can i say categorically and directly that everybody matters in this. everyone matters regardless of age or where they live, if it is a care home or hospital, so there is no sense any group in society is less important than another and it is important than another and it is important to understand that is the case. 0n care homes, let me take the issue of testing. we are increasing the testing capacity and have set out what the objectives and priorities for the utilisation of that capacity is. we are working to

ensure the capacity is fully utilised by ensuring laboratories are working in a coordinated way, so we are seeing more health and care staff tested, which is where they are tested negative, enabling them to get back to work. in terms of residents in care homes, from the outset, care homes have had guidance available about how to manage situations where residents have suspected symptoms and how to reduce the risk. unfortunately, as with the rest of the population, it means a greater isolation of people in their rooms rather than in communal parts of homes and the care inspector is working with the sector make sure support is available and where tailored and bespoke support is required it is made available, so it is an area for obvious reasons,

given the risk of infection spreading in that environment, that we ta ke spreading in that environment, that we take very seriously. my last point is about the transparency around this. on wednesday, the numbers of deaths reported by national records in scotland, which isaid national records in scotland, which i said encompass notjust those where there has been a positive test confirming the virus, but also deaths where it is included on the deaths where it is included on the death certificate as suspected, a possible factor. those figures will be broken down by location of death so we will be able to see the numbers that have died in a care home and it is important the information is available and in addition, we are wanting to get to a position where we can also publish robust figures for the numbers of cases in care homes but i do not wa nt cases in care homes but i do not want that to dilute the strong message that preventing infection in ca re message that preventing infection in care homes is a key priority and one

that the sector with support is focused on. david henderson, bbc radio scotland. the death toll in the uk is predicted to be one of the worst if not the worst in europe, according to the uk government adviser. what are you doing that is different from the uk government approach that would mean scotland is not as badly hit? even if the timescale is not clear, do you have an exit strategy from the lockdown and what does it look like? let me ta ke and what does it look like? let me take those points one by one. first, it is important that as we go through the pandemic and particularly as we come out the other side of the pandemic, that we do have an ability to compare experiences in different countries

which is important for accountability and important to ensure lessons are learned for the future. i will make two points. first when we compare country to country, it is important we develop measurements and ways of making sure we compare like with like. some of the comparisons we see are not necessarily comparing like with like and perhaps do not take account of key factors required to take account of. the second thing is that we need to be cautious about making comparisons at a particular stage, because we are not through this pandemic yet. i am not an expert on what is happening in other countries, my responsibility is to oversee the management of this in scotland, so we do see countries that had lifted restrictions that are seeing an increase again in numbers of cases so we have a way to go in this pandemic, so the ability

to compare and learn lessons as we go and when we are through it is important and as with all of this, transparency is key. in terms of scotland's approach... nicola sturgeon updating the media with the latest developments in scotland. and with the latest figures. another nine people have died or been registered dead over the weekend of covid—19. she pointed out the number may be reduced because of registrations over the easter weekend, but it brings the total number of confirmed cases in scotla nd number of confirmed cases in scotland to 575 and 6067 confirmed cases in scotland being treated. now i look at the weather. hello, there isa i look at the weather. hello, there is a chill in the air today and some of us are stuck under grey skies with light rain and drizzle here and there. easter monday will be the

cold est there. easter monday will be the coldest day of the week. from tomorrow it will feel less cold. this is what happens when a cold front sweeps across the uk and the northerly winds have brought cold airfrom the northerly winds have brought cold air from the subarctic regions and on top of that a fair amount of cloud. shrouding northern and eastern scotland, counties east of the pennines and down to the south—east. many western and south—west areas enjoying plenty of sunshine so this is where we will see the highest temperatures. tonight, it will be cold, a widespread airfrost tonight, it will be cold, a widespread air frost develops. and these are the temperatures in some city centres which means in rural spots it will be 2—3 degrees lower. frost on the way. tuesday will feel less cold and the reason is because we will be in the middle of the high pressure. when you are in the middle

of the high pressure, the winds do not tend to be so strong. they are usually stronger around the area of high pressure but inside it, sunny, and not too bad. liverpool with 13 degrees will feel pleasant if you are out in the garden or going on your daily walk. wednesday, we are in the middle of high pressures of the wind will be light and it will be sunny across most of the uk. temperatures could pick up to 18 across parts of the midlands but still colder across western scotland. towards the end of the week, changes develop in the south—west. clouds are gathering and these are weather fronts expected to bring rainfall as we head into friday and the weekend. before that, on thursday, a warm day and southerly winds. temperatures could get up to 21 in london. this is the

week ahead... by the time we get to friday increasing amounts of cloud. friday, saturday and sunday a chance of rain. goodbye.

as spain and italy look to relax their coronavirus restrictions, pressure on the uk to come up with a strategy when it's time to do the same. as the uk faces its fourth week in lockdown, the government is set to review whether social distancing measures can be changed. the prime minister is recuperating at chequers after leaving hospital yesterday. it's not yet known when he will take back control of his government. the mother of one of the nurses who the prime minister specifically praised says she's "exceptionally proud" of her daughter. it doesn't matter what patient she is looking after, this is what she does and ifind it incredible that she, and any nurses, can do this. as spain and italy take the first tentative steps in easing restrictions, we'll be assessing the chances of it happening here.