this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. the worldwide death toll to the coronavirus has passed a new terrible milestone passing 150,000 for the first time. a top uk health specialist warns the country could end up with the highest death rate in europe due to early errors made in the pandemic. we have to face the reality of that. we were too slow with a number of things. but we can make sure that, in the second wave, we're not too slow. germany's health minister says the country's covid—19 outbreak is under control — after a decline in the infection rate. finding inspiration in the past. we'll introduce you to a victorian cook whose recipes have gone viral — 100 years after her death.

hello and welcome to audiences in the uk and around the world. we're covering all the latest coronavirus developments here in britain and globally. the latest figures charting the human cost of the coronavirus pandemic have passed another grim record. 150,000 people have now lost their lives. just how we know who has died has come under the spotlight again as china has released new figures for the city where the outbreak began. it announced a 50% jump in the official total of people who died in wuhan. the total number of confirmed deaths in china is now over 4,500, a rise of more than 1,200. state media also reported another key number — china's economy had contracted by a substantial 6.8% —

the first time it had shrunk for three decades. taken together, the numbers have led some to accuse china's government of concealing just how bad the outbreak was — and how seriously it affected the country. but officials say there has been n0 cover—up. 0ur correspondent in beijing, stephen mcdonell has more on that huge increase in the figures. now, what officials are saying is that what they have been able to do is use the time they now have because the crisis is now under control to have another look at the numbers. and they are counting people who, for example, have not come into hospital. maybe you have died at home or may be people who have died with symptoms they are pretty sure our coronavirus symptoms, but have not officially done the test. there's been a lot of criticism and questioning regarding china's figures and people suggesting they have been underreported, i'm not sure if it's a common response to that but either way it's a big jump in one day to

just whack, up by 50% there. when you consider the numbers in other countries it seems remarkably small. many other countries around the world are struggling to count coronavirus casualties. the economist magazine has been tracking covid—19 numbers — and the different ways in which governments are counting fatalities and concluded that they are distorting death rates. if we take france as an example. it's official death toll accelerated rapidly in april after the authorities began including people who died in nursing and care homes. by wednesday nearly 40% of the 17,000 recorded fatalities happened in such facilities. other countries — like the netherlands — excludes anyone who didn't die in hospital, or who hasn't tested positive for covid—19 in their daily figures. and because of the time it takes to establish cause of death — there is often a lag in collecting data which is why we're seeing a jump in fatalities days after the fact. i spoke earlier to james tozer,

a data journalist for the economist. james, how can we know the full toll of covid—19 when each country is that is the total number of people who have died from all causes compared to the usual number of people who die for a given region in a given period. look at the average number of deaths in the years preceding. we have found and people are fighting this individually what we have found and people are finding this individually and this individually and countries are reporting this, is that number is much higher in the excess deaths, or the excess deaths are much higher than the covert 19 official toll. and one is that people are dying outside of hospitals in the excess deaths pick that up and another might be the official daily count to see each day have something of a lag and

sometimes it takes several days for hospitals to establish what the cause of death is. when you look at excess deaths, or x as much mortality across europe are you noticing any patterns that is the total number of people who have died from all causes compared to the usual number of people who die italy's excess deaths rose much more quickly than britain's. but what you find is reallyjust a question of how far the official trajectory behind the excess deaths. i think what we will see eventually in most countries is they will revise the official figures up and already started to see this, britain is now introducing a retrospective estimate of how many people have died on a previous day and that's much higher than the figures that the government is reporting daily. countries and governments are trying to wise up this and adjust for it. 0rdinary people when you look at the newspapers just go with the daily figure that is released that day and you see the commentary in britain

is based around that daily figure. would it be betterfor everyone simply to slow down, look at figures once they are fully collated or at least trust in this excess mortality figure which might be more accurate? i think the daily numbers are useful when you're trying to work out whether a country is flattening the curve successfully and to a certain extent, social distancing measures are working, but often with this data there's a race to publish first, to pick what the pattern is, and there is a lot of uncertainty around it, so i think it's probably best to wait a week or ten days for most european countries and see with the excess deaths are. there has been another largejump in the uk's coronavirus death toll — 847 deaths have been reported in the past 2a hours, bringing the total number of deaths to 14,576.

that's as a leading health expert, has warned that britain will likely face "further waves" of covid—19 and have the highest death rates in europe. professor anthony costello has told a committee of mps — via videolink — that the government was too slow to act. the who said all along, you need to find cases, you need to test them if you can, you trace their contacts, you isolate them, you do social distancing, but most important of all you do it all at speed. and the harsh reality command one of the reasons i have not been constructively critical and i take we should have no blame at this stage, where were the system errors lead us to have probably the highest death rates in europe, and we have to face the reality of that. we were too slow with a number of things, but we can make sure that in the second wave we were not too slow. christian fraser has been speaking to martin mckee — a professor of european public health at the london school

of hygiene and tropical medicine. he began by asking him if he agreed with professor costello — that the uk could see 40,000 deaths in this wave of coronavirus. (tx it's very risky to reject the future with a virus which we are still learning. but his figures are still probably in the right ballpark i would have thought. but we need to see what happens of course. can we talk about testing? because today's figures show that testing is going up, 21,000 done in the last 24 hours but the capacity was 32,000, why that disparity? there was a report in the guardian today from someone working in the testing centre at milton keynes and saying they're not working at anything like capacity because the samples are not getting through. but clearly there's a whole range of logistic issues i'm getting people to be tested getting the test to the testing centres and so on.

it's not clear what the problem is but there's clearly a problem from these fobs that should be tested are not getting to the people who can do them. with your experience i'm keen to understand what we mean by testing, because we say we need to up testing and said almost endlessly. i wonder if it needs to be intelligent testing, because today we heard in the committee briefing that we should really go into mass testing but is that going to solve the problem, or should we be reverting to intelligent testing of certain sectors of society? we need a combination. one of the pillars of the secretary of state announced was an exercise with there will be testing using the antibody test that are done in the laboratory and not the hand—held one. three and a half thousand people to get an idea of the prevalence of immunity in the country. that will be very important information. we certainly need to do a great deal more testing for the virus itself so we can talk about that to make sure we know what's going on. one of the difficulties

we are facing is that the death figures that we are getting our or the number of people who have been tested into a died in hospital. we still have a large gap in our knowledge about people who are dying and care homes. and also who are dying at home. so some of the latest of analysis looking at that has suggested that perhaps her total discount which is now running at about 14 and a half thousand probably should be increased by about 6000 and part of that is because we are not doing enough testing, so that would talk to the need for testing and care homes but also more in the community, a number of other countries are doing much more in the population. the uk government is setting up a new task force to back the development of a coronavirus vaccine. however it'll be many months before a vaccine is available. meanwhile the pressure to carry out more tests on front line staff continues. 0ur medical correspondent

fergus walsh reports. more than 70 scientific teams across the world are trying to do in month what would normally take many years. develop a coronavirus vaccine. one of the leading groups at oxford university says manufacturers in europe, china and india are set to produce their vaccine so it is ready to roll—out in september, if by then it is shown to be effective. it is pretty clear that the world will need hundreds of millions of doses. ideally by the end of issue two in this pandemic, to let us out of lockdown and ensure we can do that. —— by the end of this year. a vaccine is the exit strategy for this pandemic. the government has announced a coronavirus vaccine task force to help scale up manufacturing and support teams like this one at imperial college london. at the number ten briefing, the scale of the challenge

and its importance was all too clear. producing a vaccine is a colossal undertaking. a complex process which would take many months. there are no guarantees. but the government is making our sciences, betting big to maximise a chance of success. when we do have a vaccine, how will you prioritise who gets it first? well, first of all, we have to get a vaccine first. that is not two days away, two months away. making a vaccine is a difficult complicated process. it doesn't only have to work. it has to be safe. i think it will be important that we vaccinate in the way that you normally do for these diseases which is to make sure the most vulnerable are protected and then to roll—out to wider vaccinations but that is some way off. stay with us on news, still to come: should we all be wearing masks during the pandemic? we'll look at the arguments

for and against. one of the century greatest mass murderers reported to have died of natural causes. he and the movement he led were responsible for the debts of an estimated 1.7 million cambodians. there have been violent protests in indonesia where playboy has gone on sale the first time. traditionalist muslim leaders have expressed disgust, the magazines offices have been attacked and its editorial staff have gone into hiding. it was clear that paula's on the with the clock, and for exporting legacy paula radcliffe's competitors will be chasing a new world best time for years to come. quite quietly and quicker and

quicker she is seenjust to slide away under the surface and disappear. this is bbc news, the latest headlines. china denies trying to cover up its coronavirus figures — hundred 50,000 people have now died across the globe. a top uk health specialist warns that britain could end up with the highest death toll in europe due to early errors made in the pandemic. in the government has in germany the government has declared the country's covid— has country's covid— nineteen outbreak under control — as some other european nations look to ease their restrictions on movement and working. but the statistics are varying greatly from country to country — with france extending its lockdown. 0ur europe correspondent gavin lee sent this summary of the situation

from brussels. well, this is a moment where an increasing number of european governments say they are confident that they are getting some control over the coronavirus crisis. in germany, the biggest population of europe, 83 million people, where there have been 130,000 cases and less than 4,000 deaths, so comparatively low there. the health minister, jens spahn, today saying that at no point have the icu units been under pressure and they can start to slowly ease the measures. on monday, small shops, businesses will start to open. in austria, the government says they have flattened the curve and it's been the last couple of days that things like hardware stores, libaries, bookshops, diy centres have been opened there. spain today, there's been a slight increase again in the spread. they are up 5,000 more cases, the death toll around 585. the authorities there saying that it is in line with a slow spread that is starting to waiver slightly, but enough that it's dropped that pressure on some

of the icu units that were really struggling to cope just over a couple of weeks ago, particularly in madrid. and the swedes today, in many ways an outlier in this whole lockdown times of europe, with cafes and bars open. ann linde, the foreign minister, today saying it was a myth that sweden carried on as normal, they have had social distancing in place and they say it is working there. gavin lee there with an update from around europe. let's look a little more at the situation in germany. despite confirming more cases than either the uk or france — germany has recorded significantly fewer coronavirus deaths than either. that's partly explained by the greater number of tests that germany is conducting overall — so far more than 1.7 million of them. but many experts believe that germany's high testing rate is itself playing a crucial role in the country's efforts

to contain the virus's spread. hans—georg krausslich is head of virology at heidelberg university hospital — earlier he explained what germany can teach other countries from its experience. from my side, i think it's true that the relatively large number of testing, which is probably higher than in most countries in the world, is making a difference in the sense of both getting the numbers right but also getting an overall view of the epidemic. we clearly have a large number of relatively mild cases who were diagnosed. we feel that this might also help in the course of the disease because we might capture people earlier, before they go on to artificial ventilation and so on, they might be able to treat them at an earlier stage, which could also be helping in this overall crisis. i think we are currently, as everybody facing the problem, that we simply do not get more reagents to do more testing. so even if you had more personal, machines, and everything, the reagent market, on the international scale, is pretty empty. so different groups are working on different programmes to devise

alternative testing, but also full testing. so our view is that with the gradual opening, we might be in a situation that we might need to look into schools, into health care units and other places, and simply test a larger number of people there. but there, we would expect the number of positives is very low, so maybe taking pools of tens or so will give us a much higher testing capacity while not actually lowering the position of the results. let's look at some of the day's other news malawi's high court has temporarily prevented the government from introducing a three—week coronavirus lockdown following a petition by a rights group. market traders and other informal sector workers have staged violent demonstrations in cities across the country saying they will go hungry if the restrictions were imposed. france has distanced itself from us allegations about the coronavirus originating in a chinese research laboratory. president macron‘s office said there was no evidence to back the reports which have been circulating in american media. beijing says the claims have no scientific basis. the virus is thought have been passed to humans at a market

selling wild animal meat. meanwhile the head of the world health organization has called on governments to enforce bans on the trade of wildlife meat — in wake of the coronavirus pandemic. tedros ad—hanom ghebre—yesus also said all markets selling live animals should only be allowed to reopen if they met stringent hygiene standards. when the coronavirus first started spreading in asia, the use of facemasks rocketed — with people forming long queues outside stores to buy up supplies. but while many countries have made wearing them in public compulsory during the pandemic — others say the evidence about their effectiveness is not convincing. so who's right? here's our science editor, david shukman. popular in asia before the pandemic, masks are now appearing in more and more countries around the world. the government here is weighing up the options and the mayor of london believes we should cover our faces anywhere crowded. think about when you're using public transport, if you really have to, or you're in a shop and you can't

keep two metres apart. wearing a non—medical facial covering makes it less likely you may inadvertently give somebody else covid—19. one reason is that coughs and sneezes can travel much further than previously thought. another is that people can spread the virus before they have any symptoms. but the government has a serious worry, that the best masks, which are vital on the medical front line, will get snapped up by the public. here is how you can make your own face covering in a few easy steps. that is why in the united states, the authorities are urging people to make their own masks. america's top medic showing how. then you fold either side to the middle, and you have yourself a cloth face covering. an old t—shirt is not going to do a greatjob of protecting you from the virus, but think of it the other way round. covering your face with something like this might actually protect others from you.

that's because you might be if infected with the virus and be passing it on without even realising. if you're wearing a double layer of cotton masks and you cough and someone eight to ten inches away, there is a very dramatic reduction in the percentage of virus that is getting to the other person. they still get some, but it is a small fraction of what they would have got if you hadn't been wearing a face covering. i protect you, you protect me. the czech republic was one of the first european countries to insist on masks, and now many others are following. it could help with the process of reopening factories and offices whenever the lockdown is relaxed. but that'll be a big step and so far, the government has held back from taking it. david shukman, bbc news. a quarter of the world's population

is living under lockdown — meaning among other things online cooking lessons are becoming more and more popular. millions of people have been finding inspiration in the recipes of a little—known victorian cook — more than 100 years after her death. avis crocombe was the cook at an english stately home in the late 19th century. today, a youtube channel is dedicated to her — it has millions of fans around the world. let's take a look. hello. you are here rather early. just in time to help with lord and lady ray brooks breakfast. so we must get on. i'm about to start making bacon and onion roly—poly pudding. it's a cheap, savoury putting, and ideal for the servants all here. it's the kind of dish that i grew up eating. mrs crocombe is brought to life by english heritage and a team of historical interpreters. she is played by kathy hipperson, whojoined me from her home in norfolk county, in eastern england — and i asked her if she ever thought her character would become a cult hero. i had no idea.

i think we were all taken for how popular she has been. how did you get the idea to do videos playing her? i think it was, well it's english heritage that drove the idea and they were keen to make some of the history online as you can see today. and they wanted to make their youtube channel a little bit more diverse with cooking as well as weapons and castles and stately homes. so to add another layer to it i think. do you actually do the cooking and is videos yourself? i do 90% of the cooking myself. we don't do all of it in the kitchen, unfortunately the historic engines are not able to let the range into all the cooking there. but we do do all the cooking, yes. and of course had a boom popular do know that everyone is stuck at home watching online cooking videos. can her cooking, which was done in a 19 century stately home be repeated in 21st century lockdown kitchens?

i think absolutely. not all of the recipes but a lot of them you can reuse things can you can use stuff at the back of your cupboard, some of the lowers status dishes definitely you can make in your kitchen today. such as? like the roly— poly pudding that you just showed a clip of or some of the biscuits and sweet dishes there. my favourite because i've got a sweet tooth. but i would not recommend things like the poached things because that would be a challenge in a modern kitchen. they also do roast pitching with the feet sticking up. that's right. i imagine that's not trip up there today but very popular in the 19th century. page and can be popular if you have access to it but perhaps not with the feet on it.

what's been the response for viewers stuck at home getting insight into this world of the 19th century? i think it has been really pleasing for them to see some history and i think the videos are really comforting. english heritage has done a great job of making them very welcoming and gentle, and it must be really pleasing to hear the music that you heard makes all such a gentle experience to watch. and it's fun and you can actually cook some of the recipes at home yourself and have a go. are you on yourself and if so do you cook the recipes or do you cheat? i am on lockdown, i live on a farm so it's not quite the same as locked to further people in that i have quite a lot of space to move around. and i have last week made some potted pigeon which was from the victorian cookbook we use in the kitchen. so yes i do make some of her dishes at home. occasionally. a wet home cooking 19th century dishes? what are your favourite

lockdown dishes? you can get in touch with me on twitter. of the team on twitter — i'm @jamesbbcnews. hello. another day where there has been a good deal of sunshine across parts of scotland, northern ireland, northern england and east anglia particularly this morning. this was earlier on this afternoon, for others finally some rain has arrived into parts of southern england and wales. after slowly tracking its way northwards through this afternoon. all tied in with his frontal system, this area of low pressure to the southwest of the uk meeting the high—pressure to the north and to the east it would become more dominant as we go through the second half of the weekend. back to tonight we saw the band of rain slowly working its way northwards tending to wea ke n working its way northwards tending to weaken as it does, but find us a every nth injury showers across the south of england to parts of wales, may be as far north as the midlands

by the end of the night. driving clearest to the skies and for the rest you are once again see a touch of frost across rural parts of scotland. milderfurther of frost across rural parts of scotland. milder further south underneath the cloud and with the showers. they got their showers around tomorrow morning, still heavy infa ntry around tomorrow morning, still heavy infantry across central southern england and wales, a little bit further northwards through the day, maybe into the far south of north of northern england but the showers will beat fewer and further between us will beat fewer and further between us the day wears on. rest of this sunshine the further north of york, easterly breeze with the eastern coasts cooler. a bit more in the way of sunshine across northeast england and the eastern side of scotland compared to friday. further south temperatures in the low teens celsius with a lot of cloud around and all of those showers. get the showers going for a time through saturday evening post released start to fizzle out at this area of high pressure becomes a bit more established as a go through sunday and extending its way further south and extending its way further south and westwards. fair amount of cloud arrived on sunday with the morning but gradually as the day wears on that cloud will reseed away

westwards with increasing amounts of sunshine from the east. by the afternoon just holding onto sunshine from the east. by the afternoonjust holding onto more cloud for spots of wales, southwest england and ireland. temperatures in the mid to high teens can but still somewhat cooler along eastern coast somewhat cooler along eastern coast so that breeze on the cold north sea. that breeze will strength into the early part of next week, high—pressure stills northeast of the uk and the dominating feature, but stronger winds developing through monday, tuesday and wednesday particularly for eastern coasts. 0nce wednesday particularly for eastern coasts. once we have lost the rain for central areas on saturday things once again are looking mainly dry. bye— bye.

this is bbc world news, the headlines the worldwide coronavirus death toll has passed a new milestone — 150,000 people have now died across the globe. the chinese city of wuhan, where the coronavirus originated last year, has raised its official covid—19 death toll by 50%, taking the national total to more than 4,600. china insists there was no cover—up. a top uk health specialist warns there could be 40,000 deaths in britain by the time the early wave of the pandemic is over — due to in initial errors. there have been 847 deaths reported in the past 24 hours. germany's health minister says the country's covid—19 outbreak is under control after a decline in the infection rate. many experts believe the country's high testing rate is playing a crucial role in containment measures. at ten 0'clock sophie raworth

will be here with a full round up