for the fourth week in a row, around the uk people are being urged to open their windows, go to the front doors and applied the countries key workers were working so hard in these unprecedented times. in many of them also taking part tonight as you can see, this is a thank you to all of your front workers everywhere. —— front line.

keep it going. good evening. we are at the special retirement home for all 94 residents of turned out tonight for a very special rendition of the national anthem. the average age is around 85 in the oldest person is 94 years old. they have reworked the national anthem, especially for tonight so they can think not only the nhs, but also the care system as well. there's been so much in the news this week. all of these people are out to say thank you, not only to

the nhs, but also to the doctors and the nhs, but also to the doctors and the nurses in the care was the look after them here. day in, the nurses in the care was the look afterthem here. day in, day the nurses in the care was the look after them here. day in, day out in this residential care home in their messages, the nhs in the care home system, thank you for everything. welcome. number 23 here, you can see townsend and richard orchestral musicians that are leading this street and a great rendition of over the rainbow down the road, they are joining in with applause, clapping, and most importantly, for this community for the key workers in the ca re community for the key workers in the care is here, they have a social media group and everybody gets involved in the music by the way, is not happening by accident because as well as the campaign for people to come out and clap, there's a new

hashtag, play for our nhs for musicians like townsend and richard to make a noise as well and my observation is that social distancing is keeping us all separate, but this sort of thing, this shared moment gives us a real sense of community. welcome to st petersburg hospital and an incredible scene. medical workers have come out to say thank you to their fellow workers but also to say thank you to you, stink at home during these challenging times because of the blue light flashing in the background and the ambulances, the police cars, the fire engines and the message to dennis that they are working together to combat this virus. this isa together to combat this virus. this is a team effort and this is not just happening at this hospital, it is happening across five other hospitals here in surrey. forfour weeks into lockdown, the people here

arejust as weeks into lockdown, the people here are just as committed as ever before to say thank you. (applause)

it has become a wonderful moment every week across the nation with a huge round of applause for carriers and key workers were working so tirelessly to save lives. thank you. i'll be back to the latest news ten. goodbye. we are going to start our coverage now with the uk where we have just witness people clapping from their balconies, they'll be clapping for every three weeks now. in the government carried out its lockdown measures and this was the outcome. we still do not have the infection rate is down as we need to. in other countries, we have issues with the virus spreading and other hospitals and care homes and there is very clear advice that we

received that any change to our social distancing measures now would risk a significant increase in the spread of the virus. that would threaten a second peak of the virus and substantial increase to the number of deaths. almost 14,000 people have already died of covid—i9 in the uk and more than 800s of those deaths were reported in the past day and among those figures, the only include hospital deaths, the only include hospital deaths, the true death toll is likely to be much higher. the number of confirmed cases in the uk went past the 100,000 mark today in the government scientific adviser said there are some positives. the overall message is that cases are at least flattening and may be decreasing. this is probably the critical slide. this is probably the critical slide. this shows people in hospital beds with covert infections and here you can see across many regions in the

numbers are decreasing. the scientific advisory group for emergencies if you want to see the data, they have been using in the government website. they've also issued advice on what using lockdown measures would mean for the economy. here is dominic raab again. over a longer period, i want to be really clear about this. the advice from sage would establish both public health and our comments. political correspondent jessica parkerjoins us now from westminster. any sense of how long this will go after. i think the midst is very relu cta nt after. i think the midst is very reluctant on the timeline of things, so the situation is very dynamic, they mention sage constantly looking

at the data, constantly looking at the latest modelling to advise ministers of what they think the next steps should be. so that is why we are at this three week cycle and so it was back in the 23rd of march that borisjohnson, the prime minister announced these radical lockdown measures saying that we reviewed after three weeks, that as we hit this week and today, dominic raabis we hit this week and today, dominic raab is even outlining the prime minister's deputy because the prime minister's deputy because the prime minister still recovering from coronavirus, so he is deputizing for him. confirming what we were likely sure was going to happen. the various devolved administrations from wales and northern ireland and scotland, saying there was this can be too soon to lift the measures, so we are set for another three weeks of lockdown, dominic raab today saying that we are in a dangerous and delicate moment that while there are signs that social distancing measures are working, there are also indications that in some settings, infections could still be increasing

and care homes and hospitals, for example. so we do not know how long this could go on for, but there is quite a lot of pressure and ministers from the likes of the labour party, the official opposition party in the uk to be more transparent and the exit strategy and how it plans to take the uk out of these measures going forward. let us move on to europe now. the head of the european commission, ursula von der leyen, has said europe owes italy a heartfelt apology for failing to offer enough support at the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic there. italy was the first european country to suffer a serious outbreak, and has recorded more deaths than any other nation bar the united states. yes, it is true that no one was really ready for this. it is also true that too many were not there on time when italy needed a helping hand

at the very beginning. and yes, for that, it is right that europe as a whole offers a heartfelt apology. but saying sorry only counts for something if it changes behaviour. of course, there are still some who want to point fingers and deflect blame. and there are others who would rather talk like populists than tell unpopular truths. to this, i say, "stop it. "stop and have the courage to tell the truth. "have the courage to stand up for europe. "because this union of ours will get us through." italy responded by calling it an important act of truth. here's gavin lee. we haven't heard yet from giuseppe conte the prime minister, and you get a sense a part of this, the populist right—wing politicians

matteo salvini is in the criticism that he has given to the eu and being very vocal about in the past few weeks and the government in turn as well, the underlying message was to aim it at the populists. that we have the courage to tell the truth and not to obfuscate, not to distort the facts and it is a big significant acknowledgement from what is the most powerful person in brussels who has said formally, we were not there at the time that italy needed us. some countries in europe are moving to ease restrictions on movement. in germany shops of a certain size are set to open next week. and schools will re—open next month. however, social distancing rules will remain and angela merkel has recommended the use of face masks on public transport. greece says it will move more than two— thousand elderly and sick asylum seekers out of camps on the aegean islands later this month. on wednesday, greece began moving children out of camps, with some being sent abroad. no coronavirus cases have been reported from migrant camps

on the aegean islands but there have been infections in camps on the mainland. greece has fared much better than its other southern european neighbours during the outbreak, despite being hit by years of austerity. so far it's only recorded just over 2,000 confirmed cases here's a professor at the university of athens to explain why. the greek health system was badly hit during the crisis and we did not have the luxury of waiting. the government followed the very decisive approach, very professional managerial approach where greece is one of the first countries right after italy to impose across the board lockdown and it is been about a month since then and is a very heavy loaded sequence of measures. but it is working. the number is flattened and restarted from about close to a hundred cases every day

and we are down to 15 and it is less and we are down to 15 and it is less and less every day. the number of deaths is declined in the hospitals have been able to take the blow stay with us on oustide source. still to come: we take a look at what facebook is doing to stop the spread of coronavirus misinformation. 99—year—old british war veteran captain tom moore has finished a challenge to walk laps of his garden, raising $18 million for charity. captain tom moore was keen to do things properly on this, the final leg of a journey that had begun as a little family challenge — and has turned into something extraordinary. i think it's absolutely fantastic. we never imagined that sort of money. it's just sort of... it's unbelievable that people would be so kind. it began just over a week ago. the target — 100 laps to mark

captain tom's 100th birthday at the end of the month. the family hoped they might be able to raise some money for nhs charities and set what they thought was a bold target — £1000. just over a week later, it had leapt past a million. however, it's not over yet. if people keep giving, captain tom will keep walking. this is outside source, live from the bbc newsroom the uk government has extended a lockdown for another three weeks — and warns that relaxing restrictions now risks a significant increase in the spread of coronavirus. it's a question that scientists around the world are trying to figure out: once you'd had coronavirus, can you get it again? health officials in south korea found 141 patients who had recovered from covid—19 — have now re—tested

positive for the virus. experts say among the main possibilities are re—infection — which would be the most concerning scenario because of its implications for people to develop immunity. relapse, where parts of the virus remain dormant in the body and then it's reactivated. and lastly, inconsistent or false test results when first screened. here's dr woojoo kim — an infectious diseases expert in south korea. i think that most of those patients are relapsed cases. i think covid—19 virus reactivated and that is why this patient‘s and that is why those patient‘s are demonstrating fever or a cough, our concern is transmitting from them to a different case and so the test, but now, korean centres are looking

for a study and investigating the cause of this relapse case. the chinese city of wuhan has tentatively re—emerged from lockdown, spurring hope of resolving an urgent mystery — the origin of the new coronavirus. it's important to understand how the pandemic started because that informs how we prevent the next one. but there are signs that china is not sharing all the information the rest of the world is eager to see. and in the meantime, speculation abounds. here's barbara plett usher. one of the theories that has gained traction is that the virus came from a laboratory in wuhan, rather than from a market, as the chinese have claimed. now the wildest version of this says that the chinese manufactured the virus as part of bio weapons research. scientists have dismissed that, saying that the virus clearly came from animals. but they haven't ruled out the possibility that it did come from a laboratory because the chinese were conducting

experiments on bat coronaviruses there, as part of research to try and prevent pandemics. now, this lab theory has been pushed by politicians and by commentators who are hawkish against beijing, and who are eager to defendant donald trump against criticism that he's handled the pandemic badly. but that theory has spread so widely that mr trump and other us officials have had to respond to it. and apparently, us intelligence is looking into this — but according to reports, they have not found any evidence of an accidental leak. the issue of where this virus has come from is now becoming increasingly political, not least because of the latest intervention by donald trump. let's bring in ros atkins to look at this. hi, ros. hi lewis. explaining how this virus started matters medically and politically. we know it began in wuhan in china — but we don't know how. president macron has said things "‘happened there that we don't know about‘.

and the trump administration is repeatedly turning to this — as you'll see in these clips starting with a question from a fox news correspondent. multiple sources are telling fox news today that the united states government now has high confidence that while the coronavirus is a naturally occurring virus, it emanated from a virology lab in wuhan. that because of lack safety protocols, and in turn was infected, protocols, and intern was infected, who later infected her boyfriend, then went to the wet market in wuhan, where it began to spread. does that correspond with what you have heard... well i don't want to say that, john, but i will tell you more and more, we are hearing the story. we know that there is the wuhan institute of virologyjust a handful of miles away from where the wet market was. there's still lots to learn, you should know that the united states government is working diligently to figure this out. but what we really need is the chinese government to open up.

the lab in question is the wuhan institute of virology. this picture is from a government website. here's zhoiyin feng from bbc chinese on the work that it does. according to the institute's website. it includes studying infectious diseases. it also houses asia's level four map, which is the highest level of map of viruses. there are also a handful of these around the world that studied the most dangerous viruses. and it is worth mentioning that such allegations are not needed. information was trending on chinese social media bed covid—19 patient was a researcher, working at the lab but the institute quickly denounced that rumour saying that the researcher had left the lab a few

yea rs researcher had left the lab a few years ago and no one working there it was infected by covid—19. and we've heard this from the chinese government. translation: i'd like to remind you that who officials have repeatedly stated that there isn't any evidence that the new coronavirus was produced in a laboratory. many well— known medical experts in the world also believe that the so—called liberatory leak hypothesis has no scientific basis. that the so—called laboratory leak hypothesis has no scientific basis. it's true that the who says the source of the virus is unknown — and that all available evidence suggests it has a natural animal origin and is not a constructed virus. but what about claims it was an animal virus that was accidentally released from the lab. that idea was given impetus by this washington post story this week. it reported that two years ago, "us embassy officials visited the lab in wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to washington about inadequate

safety" but some have taken issue with the report. jeremy konyn—dyk led the us government response to the ebola outbreak in the 2010s. in this tweet he argues: "the point is that the biology shows a lot and used this meme to make his point. how this virus started matters for how we stop the next pandemic — it also matters to us politics and to china's standing in the world which is why, today, it's right at the centre of scientific research and an information war. and however we long we wait for an explanation of how this outbreak began — inevitably the space that leaves will be filled with questions, speculation and theories — some without any facts

to go with them. will stick with that theme of conspiracy theories. facebook has come under increasing pressure to stop the spread of coronavirus misinformation on its platform. so — users who read, watch or share false content about covid—19 will soon start receiving pop—up warnings. the notification will look like this. facebook says it will start showing the messages at the top of news feeds in the coming weeks. there will also be a link directing people to this world health organisation web page where misinformation is debunked. facebook‘s new alert system is a response to what the un has called the "infodemic" around covid—19. here's the secretary—general antonio guterres. our cyber—security reporter joe tidyjoins me now. these actions all come off the back

of a damning report from avaaz, a crowd—funded activist group. it has been forced to and we have seen a lot of things in this pandemic more so than the us election. and today, mark zuckerberg defended facebook‘s action so far in the pandemic. pointing up to the fa ct the pandemic. pointing up to the fact that hundreds of posts that have been false and life—threatening of been deleted and another point that he made was that 2 billion people, almost the entire user base have been offered these information packages on the top of their newsfeeds so far. report was also very critical of facebook. hugely critical, damning relief from the cloud funded network. they looked at facebook in six different languages and concluded that it was what they describe as, sitting at the epicentre of misinformation and look toa epicentre of misinformation and look to a lot of examples of conspiracy theories that have been prevalent on theories that have been prevalent on the service is not to condemn quick

enough and not been downgraded in the algorithm and they looked at one about black people being resistant to coronavirus which is not true and that went viral and another one was coronavirus is destroyed by chlorine dioxide. and when the detailer decided that gargling salt or vinegar, or drinking lots of water would stop the virus. there are still clones of that post on the surface without warnings. also a discrepancy in language, apparently if you are a spanish, italian or portuguese speaker, you are more likely to see misinformation. web or other platforms taking in terms of action? tick you see an nhs video and on youtube you will see the world health organisation on the top of the search results on google as well, is there

thank you for bring this up speed. before we go let's take another look at those pictures. people taking time out to thank health care workers in the uk. that's the uk foreign secretary dominic raab on the left there. applauding not only staff that were for the nhs but does that work for the emergency services and everyone involved in the front line on the battle against coronavirus here in the uk. a tradition of thanks to all those workers, not just the uk. a tradition of thanks to all those workers, notjust in the uk but right around the world. don't forget you can get in touch with me and some of the team on twitter —

i'm @lvaughanjones hello. another fine tray day across much of the uk but tomorrow, we are expecting some rain, much—needed rain. as been very dry across the uk and so far, the safety rule is one or two places that had not a drop of rain. so any rainfall is good for the garden growers and farmers. this is where the rain clouds are coming from, the south. he can see this regular area of cloud, an area of low pressure and the weather fronts associated with the slope will be drifting in our direction. in fact, they already are his evening, in advance of the main area of rain, will already see one or two showers across the south but still looking dry across much of southern britain. this is where the rain is heading.

for the north, dry and clearfor the most part. temperatures of around four or three degrees, but not dropping a lower than 10 degrees are cardiff and plymouth. here is early in the morning, reaching southern england, eventually hitting wells. not a luxury of grain comes on the front not a luxury of grain comes on the fro nt m oves not a luxury of grain comes on the front moves through, the only talking about a few minutes of the rain and in fact, as this area of rain and in fact, as this area of rain was northwards, that rain sta rts rain was northwards, that rain starts to peter out and by the time it reached the midlands and also northwestern england, it really is not an awful lot left of that rain. very hit and miss, really. but it does fall. settling in scotland and northern ireland, on friday and saturday, it is looking dry across the north the country and high—pressure across scotland through friday and saturday, and it isa through friday and saturday, and it is a silly picture across scotland but i think there saturday, is there northern ireland southwards in the

bit of cloud and hidden this rain is so. six years since he is well but in scotland around 12 degrees, but which of the sunshine here. sunday is looking dry across the uk and we are starting to see an easterly wind and that wind is picking up and will fizzle out some the clouds towards the west and there's more sunshine on the way in temperatures will recover to around 20 in london, still actually a bit of degrees there. in high pressures with us so there. in high pressures with us so the weather is looking settled.

this is bbc world news,

the headlines... the british government says that lockdown restrictions to contain the coronavirus will remain in place for at least another three weeks. the foreign secretary, dominic raab, said any changes would risk undoing the progress made to date there's been another sharp rise in the us unemployment figures — with a further 5.2 million people having lost theirjobs in the past week. the uk government says it won't extend the brexit transition period, even if the eu were to ask. earlier, the international monetary fund said that in the current crisis, the uk and eu should consider extending trade talks. and a 99—year—old british veteran captain tom moore has completed his charity walk of 100 laps of his garden, raising more than $18 million for the uk's national health service. you are watching bbc news. earlier, uk foreign secretary dominic raab gave reporters

an update on the steps the government is taking to tackle the outbreak. let's listen to what he said. first, let me update you on the steps we are taking to defeat the coronavirus and also the decisions that we have taken today. step—by—step, our action plan aims to slow the spread of coronavirus so that fewer people need hospital treatment at any one time, and that's the way we can protect the nhs from becoming overwhelmed. at every step along this way we have followed very carefully and deliberately the scientific and medical advice that we have received so that we take the right steps at the right moment in time. at the same time, we are dramatically expanding nhs capacity in terms of the number of beds, key staff, life—saving equipment on the front line, so that people get the care that they need at the point in time that they need it most. and that's also why we have directed people to stay at home, to deny coronavirus the opportunity

to spread, to protect the nhs and to save lives. today's data shows that 327,608 people in the uk have now been tested for the coronavirus. 103,093 people have tested positive, and sadly of those with the virus, 13,729 have now died, and these are heartbreaking losses for every family affected and it reminds us exactly why we need to follow the social distance and guidance. earlier today i chaired meetings of the cabinet and cobra to consider the advice from sage on the impact of the existing social distancing measures. there are indications that the measures that we put in place have been successful in slowing down the spread of this virus. but sage also say that it is a mixed and inconsistent picture, and in some settings infections

are still likely to be increasing. sage insists the rate of infection, or the so—called r value is certainly below one in the community and that means on average each person infected in turn infects less than one other person. but overall, we still don't have the infection rate down as far as we need to. as in other countries, we have issues with the virus spreading in some hospitals and in care homes, and in some very clear advice we have received is that any change to our social distancing measures now would risk a significant increase in the spread of the virus. that would threaten a second peak of the virus and substantially increase the number of deaths. it would undo the progress we have made to date and as a result would require an even longer period of the more restrictive social distancing measures. so, early relaxation would do more

damage to the economy over the longer period, over a longer period, and i want to be clear about this. the advice from sage is that relaxing any of the measures currently in place would risk damage to both public health and our economy. patrick and chris will be able to go into further detail on all of this shortly. but based on this advice which we very carefully considered the government has decided that the current measures must remain in place for at least the next three weeks. in terms of the decisions that lie ahead, we want to be as upfront with the british people as we possibly can. so let me set out five specific things which the government will need to be satisfied of before we will consider it safe to adjust any of the current measures. first, we must protect the nhs‘s ability to cope, we must be confident that we are able to provide sufficient critical care and specialist treatment right across the uk. the nhs staff have been incredible and we must continue to support

them as much as we can. second, we need to see a sustained and consistent fall in the daily death rates from coronavirus so we are confident that we have moved beyond the peak. third, we need to have reliable data from sage showing that the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels across the board. fourth, we need to be confident that the range of operational challenges, including testing capacity and ppe are in hand with supply able to meet future demand. fifth, and this is really crucial, we must be really dumb are confident that any adjustments to the current measures will not risk a second peak of infections that overwhelm the nhs —— we must be really confident. the worst thing we could do right now is to ease up too soon, allow a second peak of the virus to hit the nhs and the british people. it would be the worst outcome notjust for public health but for the economy and for our country as a whole.

so, the current restrictions will remain in place. the government will continue to monitor the data on the impact of the virus. we will soon be able to test 100,000 people every day. that will give us a greater understanding of the scope and affection across the country and also help us plan how to change the measures when we are ready to do so. —— infection. when we are confident on these five points, guided by the science, guided by the data, we will look to adjust the measures to make them as effective as possible in protecting public health whilst allowing some economic and social activity to resume. but we will only do it when the evidence suggests that it is safe to do it. it could involve relaxing measures in some areas while strengthening measures in other areas. but formulating the right balance we will be at all times guided by the scientific advice and the evidence.

i should add at this point that we recognise all the economic and social impact that the current measures are having. that's why we put in place an unprecedented package of support for jobs, for businesses but also for hospices and charities who are doing so much to support the most vulnerable in our society. and i know that many people would like to hear more detail. some people are calling for exact dates. on what will happen next and when. so we are being as open as we responsibly can at this stage. and it would not be responsible to prejudge the evidence that sage will have an review in just a few weeks' time. i know some people will look at other countries and say why is the uk not doing what they are doing? i can reassure people that we carefully follow what is happening in other countries. we will always look to learn any lessons in how they are approaching their response and i'm talking to foreign ministers on a daily basis. i know that chris and patrick are doing the same with their opposite numbers around the world.

ultimately, though, we have got to do what is right for the british people based on the advice of our experts, grounded in the conditions prevailing here in the uk and we will make those decisions at the right time for this country. that's what we have done so far and that is what we will continue to do. i appreciate that the impact of these measures is considerable on people, and businesses across the country, whether it is the costs being shouldered, the sacrifices people are making, being isolated from friends and family, whole households cooped up inside all week long, parents having difficult conversations with their young children whojust don't understand why they can't go and see their grandparents or go outside and meet up with friends as they would normally do.

i know there are people very concerned about their household finances, uncertain about their jobs, worried for their small business that remains closed. we get it. we know it is rough going at this time, and every time i come to this lectern and i read out the grim toll of people who have so sadly passed away, i walk away from here and i think about what their sons and their daughters must be going through right now, their brothers, their sisters, their grandchildren. all the loved ones left behind with an unbearable, life changing, long—term grief. it makes me, it makes this government focus even harder on what we must do. and i know that together, united, we must keep up this national effort for a while longer. we have just come too far, we have lost too many loved ones, we have already sacrificed far too much to ease up now, especially, especially when we are beginning to see the evidence that our efforts are starting to pay off.

and your efforts are paying off. there is light at the end of the tunnel. but we are now at both are delicate and dangerous stage in this pandemic. if we rush to relax the measures that we have in place we would risk wasting all the sacrifices and all the progress that has been made. and that would risk a quick return to another lockdown with all threat to life that a second peak of the virus would bring and all the economic damage that a second would carry. so we need to be patient a while longer. so please, please, stay home, save lives and protect the nhs so we can safely return to life as close to normal as possible as soon as possible. it has been an incredible national team effort. now is not the moment to give the coronavirus a second chance. let's stick together, let's see this through and let's defeat the coronavirus for good.

now patrick and i don't know whether you are going to give us a more detail on both the status of the coronavirus but also sage‘s advice today. i will do. can i have the first slide, please? this is one you have seen before, transport use showing the reduction that has maintained down. it is these sorts of changes, the fact we have managed, all of us, to keep our social distance and going, that has meant that the transmission of the virus in the community has reduced. sage look carefully at all the evidence and is of the opinion that it is highly likely that the r is below one, the transmission force of the viruses below one, meaning, as the first secretary has said, that one person will on average be infecting fewer than one other person. that's an important change. it means in the community it is likely that the virus and the epidemic is now shrinking. there are areas such as hospitals

and social care settings where there may be growth in some places. but overall, the r is below one but we can't say by how much. next slide, please. this shows the new cases. of course, as i have said before, this is just the cases that are tested in hospitals so it's not the totality. the blue bars are the people who are tested in hospital, and there is a flattening and possibly signs of a decrease. the orange bars show that the testing has now been expanded to critical workers in the nhs, social care and other sectors, and of course, cases are being picked up amongst that population too. but the overall message is that cases are at least flattening and may be decreasing. next slide, please. this is probably the critical slide.

this shows people in hospital beds with covid—19 infection. and here you can see across many regions the numbers are decreasing. in some they are flat, so there is some regional variation. but again, this is consistent with the idea that the r is below one, somewhere between 0.5 and one. the closer it is to one or more likely it is that even small changes in the measures that are in place could lead to the r going above one. if the r goes above one this starts to grow again fast. it may be quite difficult to predict and to detect that growth, and then we run the risk of a second peak with all of the damage that that will cause to health and to the economy. so at the moment, this is looking in a good place, it is beginning to come down, beginning to stabilise in some places, and it's important that

all the measures we are taking stay in place in order to allow us to maintain this level of control and to see the epidemic begin to decrease. final slide, please. sadly, of course, there are people who have died from this awful virus. i expect the deaths to reach a plateau and to stay up a bit for a little while and then to decrease thereafter. and what you can see on this slide is both the deaths in hospital and in the all settings from the offigialfigures the national statistics data. sage‘s view is that the r is below one, that the changes we have all made to our lives has made a difference and will continue to make a difference. it is important we continue with those in order to drive the numbers down and to get

ourselves into a position where we can see that this is really now decreasing as an epidemic. we will take some questions from the media. is laura kuenssberg there for the bbc? yes, thank you, foreign secretary. you have been very clear about why in your view and in sage's view that now is not the time, but can you give the public any hope of when the restrictions might start to lift? as you said yourself, in other countries, people have been told when and what to expect. from what you know now, is it more likely we are looking at another three weeks or may be another three months? the prime minister said at the outset that it would take three months to come through the peak, and i think that, broadly, is still the outline. but what we set out today is our approach, which will be step—by—step, guided by the evidence. it will be reviewed by sage at the end of the month. we have set out five

points of principle, if you like, that will guide us. we can't give a definitive timeframe, that would be to prejudge the evidence and would not be responsible. but the message to the british public is there is light at the end of the tunnel, we are making progress. at the same time, we must keep up social distancing measures. there have been all sorts of challenges with this coronavirus crisis. we have seen the country follow the guidance consistently. that is one of the reasons we have had the progress, notwithstanding the huge losses i have described. as you said, people have overwhelmingly listened to the government guidance and followed it. why do you think, then, you can't share with the public anything about what might be next? we can, i have done these press conferences multiple times, we do them on a daily basis. the problem is not that we are not able to talk about the public in detail, it is that if we prejudice the data

that sage is getting, on the spread of the virus and the extent which we get it down below the level r 1, we would be prejudging the decision that we need to take. likewise, the evidence sage is getting is constantly informing cute options that we have got. what i have tried to do is be as upfront as possible and set out the principles, if you like, the five principles that can give a bit of hope to the country and say, we got to keep this up. what we are doing is working. we can see the signs of that, notwithstanding the death toll, which is a huge tragedy for so many people. we must stay the course, and if we let up now, it would be damaging for public health, but also damaging for the economy. it's not a trade off here. if we get a second peak, it is notjust damaging for peoples health and for public safety, it will also mean we end up in a second lockdown, prolonging economic risks.

we are taking the right decision at the right time, as we have always said. if i start to give you arbitrary timeframes, it would be the irresponsible thing to do and i can't do that. tom clarke, itv? thank you very much, foreign secretary. in yesterday's press briefing, professor chris whitty, when asked about how we should manage the next phase, the data that you are talking about, he said one thing that is really useful is serology data. this is the surveyed data from the country to get a sense of how much of the population has been infected with the virus, and therefore how many might be immune to it. the phd labs and porton down had tested more than 3000 samples from that survey. but the results have yet to be published. is that because, as i understand it, that these tests are not delivering reliable results?

either because of the tests themselves, or what is going on in the immune systems of people who are being infected? and where does that leave us in terms of figuring out how big a potential second peak or how long we have to stay in a lockdown situation is? are we currently flying blind? i will let chris address that. serology data will be critical for a lot of reasons. the most important of which, at this point of the epidemic, is to work out what proportional people look as if they have been infected. we have a crude estimate, but that is a way of measuring it directly. in the longer term it will also be important in understanding options for getting a vaccine. it may also be useful, in very longerterm, to provide evidence that someone has had the infection and remain immune, if the tests are reliable. now, that is why it is important. you are absolutely right that there is a lot of work not just

going on in porton down, to be clear, there are now substantial bodies of work in the academic sector, in public health england, and in many commercial areas, because everybody wants to have accurate serology. there are several ways of approaching this. different people are going down different groups. broadly, three things have slowed us down to date. the first is that we don't yet have a test we can put a lot of reliance on, although it can give us a ranging shot. we do expect to have really quite crude early data. that definitely needs to be improved on. the second thing is that we don't yet have a good sampling, what is called a sampling frame, in epidemiological terms, and we are trying to get that set up across the country, so that we have a wide view about what has happened in this infection in various areas. the third thing, which isjust

a fact of biology, is that it takes probably at least 21 days for the tests to be reliable. so you are always looking back in time on this. early data will, therefore, because looking back in time, 21 days, the epidemic was at a much earlier stage, before we had reached the evidence at the beginning of the peak, which sir patrick talked about, that is a very different stage of the infection and we will get the data becoming more useful over time. we are moving very fast in this area, scientifically. but we are definitely not there in either of the issues of getting the serology, or getting the sampling frame. but we will probably have a crude ranging shot fairly soon. that's the consensus of the scientists involved. that is a pretty detailed answer, anything you would like to come back on? one follow—up, an interesting addition to the data. we have the all cases addition to the number of cases,

outside of the hospital setting. it looks like that will be very important. is it going to change sage's predictions of how the peak is manifesting itself, and what is happening with it? are we seeing faster transmission in the care home setting at the moment? and that is something we will now have to factor into any next phase response ? patrick? as i said before, it is very important to have the hospital death rate and the total death rate. it is worth remembering again that the ons rates are people who have covid—19 on the death certificate, but many of them have not been tested, so we need to understand the difference. in terms of the sage view, it is looking at the r of the transmission in the community. and i don't think any of those

data change that opinion as to where the r is. as i have said, it is not true that the r is necessarily below one in every hospital or in every care home. that is the important area that we now need to look at, and make sure that the appropriate measures are in place to try to reduce the r there. but it doesn't change the overall view that i have described, that the r, overall, is below 1, and therefore we expect to see the slowing and the turn of the epidemic. i think chris wanted to add something? on top of what sir patrick said, the ons data tells us not only the people that were diagnosed as having covid—19 on the death certificate, some on the basis of tests, some on the basis that the doctor thought it was likely, but not definite, but it also gives excess mortality, the difference between the normal death rate at this time of year, and what we've got at the moment.

that has been changing over time. there are some additional deaths on top of the ones that you would expect for this time of year. so, in the last week for which we have data, from ons, 3,475 people were diagnosed as having covid, some in hospital, some out of hospital. the excess mortality was, in terms of the period as a whole for that week, depending on whether you compare it to the week before all the same week last year, somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 people. there is a gap between those. it could be random variation. but one of the things we said from the beginning is that people die for many reasons and epidemics. they include the direct cause of death. but they can also include people who died, for example, if they stayed at home because they were worried that going into hospital was dangerous for them, and actually they have a heart attack, a stroke or something

important like that. the reason i making this point, other than just to clarify the data, it is really critical for people to realise if they are having a medical emergency, we really appreciate people taking pressure off the nhs for less urgent things, but if they have a medical emergency, heart attack, stroke, a bad flare—up of asthma, things like that which could be life—threatening, one of the things the british public have done by taking the pressure off the nhs, by staying at home, and my remarkable colleagues in the nhs have done by building up nhs capacity, as we have always maintained the ability to handle emergencies, whether covid or not. i want to encourage people that if they have other medical emergencies, the nhs is open for business. tomorrow we are expecting some rain, much—needed rain. the last

tomorrow we are expecting some rain, much-needed rain. the last few have been very dry, and 1—2 places have not had a drop of rain. any rainfall is good for the gardeners, growers and farmers. this is where the rain clouds come from, the south. you can see this ragged area of cloud, and the weather fronts associated with it drifting in our direction. through the course of this evening in advance of the main area of rain, already 1—2 showers across the south, but the bulk of the night is looking dry across much of southern britain. this is where the rain is headed. but further north, dry and clear for the most part, temperatures around 3—4dc, scotland not getting lower than 10 celsius. here's the rain earlier in the morning, which in cornwall, devon, central and southern england eventually reaching whales. a large area of rain, meaning once the rain moves through, only a couple hours worth of rain in any town or city,

and as this rain moves northwards, that rain starts to pewter out. so by the time it reaches the midlands and also northwestern england, there really is not an awful lot left of that rain. very hit and miss, where it does fall. at the same time it will state settled in scotland and northern ireland. friday and saturday look dry across the country, that high pressure across scotland. through friday and saturday it is mostly sunny across scotland, but through saturday, through northern ireland southwards, thatis through northern ireland southwards, that is where we will see a fair bit of cloud and maybe hit and miss rain. 16—17dc in the south on saturday, at least we have some sunshine here. now sunday is looking dry across the uk, we start to draw in an easterly wind, which tends to fizzle out some of the clouds, pushing clouds out west. so there's more sunshine on the way, temperatures recovering to around 20

celsius in london, still in chile temperature there. there next week, the weather looks settled. bye—bye.

this is outside source on bbc news for viewers in the uk and around the world. we're covering all the latest coronavirus developments here in britain and globally. the uk government has extended a lockdown for another three weeks — and warns that relaxing restrictions now risks a significant increase in the spread of coronavirus. the worst thing that we could do right now is to ease up too soon, allow a second peak of the virus to hit the nhs and the british people. donald trump is due to announce a plan to re—open the united states'