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 british government is forced on to the backfoot — concerns over the supply of protective equipment for hospital workers. we work in the nhs because we want to help patients, we want to treat patients. and we never expected we'd be putting our own health at risk by doing that. signs of normality as a number of european countries, including germany, start opening up for business. but in the us, oil prices have

slumped to levels not seen since the mid—1980s. welcome to outside source. officials in the uk say coronavirus infection rates are flattening out, as the death toll from the virus continues to fall. but the government is under sustained pressure about the lack of personal protective equipment — or ppe as it's known. a lack of gowns for health care workers is critical according to nhs providers. the latest figures for the uk show there were 419 deaths reported in the last 24—hour period, reflecting a steady drop over the last few days. it means the official number of deaths in the uk linked to coronavirus is 16,509. that number doesn't include deaths in care homes or in the community in england and northern ireland. it's also been reported today that at least 100 health and care workers have now died from coronavirus in the uk, according to the nursing website nursing notes. there are fears a shortage of protective equipment is putting

health workers at risk. 0ur health editor hugh pym has been finding out how important the right protective equipment is to health workers. we've recently got these gowns made locally. 0ne care home's response to equipment shortages — get it made by local contacts. these are the supplies that we have up in head office. as you can see, they are very limited. we have ten litres of hand... while supplies are still coming in, they are hard to get and staff who look after residents with covid symptoms, fear they may run out. every single care worker, they genuinely care and these are some of the most selfless people i've met and we are putting notjust our residents at risk but also our staff and that makes us feel awful and it keeps us up at night and we are trying our best. first of all, we are putting our gowns on. for hospitals, specialist gowns and masks used in intensive care are in short supply. some, although not this

one, say they are down to a day or so of stocks. usually staff put on new items every few hours, but the guidance has been changed so they are allowed to wash and reuse the gowns. frontline staff, though, are concerned about the situation. we work in the nhs because we want to help patients, we want to treat patients and we never expected that we would be putting our own health at risk by doing that. and not knowing whether you are going to be able to protect yourself is a worry that we shouldn't have to have. not having enough protective gear puts health workers at risk, but it also affects the health care patients receive, as this a&e doctor explains. i am seeing about 80% of my patients are coronavirus positive so on a ward, if you're going on a ward of 30 people, you will see about 2k, 25 positive patients. and i think this comes into the whole issue with ppe because a lot of the ppe, as we know, is non—reusable and we do have some

negative patients on the ward as well. so ensuring we care for ourselves and these patients who are negative and patients who are pending, because we have a lot of patients whose swab haven't come back yet, we need to make sure that we are adopting ppe appropriately. and it obviously requires more usage from each of us and obviously that puts a strain on how much ppe the hospital can give us at one time and it means we have to make adjustments in who is seeing patients, how many patients they are seeing and where patients are put. these are precautions that we have taken from the very beginning. however, we have obviously seen a lot more coronavirus positive patients come in and as more coronavirus positive patients come in and it means that we need more ppe. more of us are required to see these patients. we also need to worry about ourselves testing positive for coronavirus as well. a supply of protective equipment from turkey was supposed to be flown into the uk over the weekend, but only on monday did an raf plane set off to collect it.

the uk has blamed issues in turkey for the delay, something turkey has denied. at today's daily briefing, hugh pym raised the lack of ppe with chancellor of the exchequer, rishi sunak. are you ashamed as a government that there are some nhs staff going into work who say they're worried about their safety, because they fear their hospitals might run out of ppe? absolutely everybody working incredibly hard on the front line deserves to have everything they need to do theirjob safely. and we are working round—the—clock to make sure we can deliver on that. obviously, a billion pieces of ppe have been delivered — i think 12 million yesterday. and as you heard from me, we're improving our sourcing internationally and domestically to make sure we can get the ppe we need in what has been a very challenging international context. let's speak to our uk political correspondent nick eardley. good to see you. we heard the chancellor saying this is a tough, global market we are in trying to

get our hands on ppe. do you think that, as a reason, is going far enough or will the government not be able to avoid criticism? no, i think the criticism will continue. i think it is pretty much unavoidable because a lot of what you are seeing at the moment is ppe coming in and being used extremely quickly and then more having to be sourced. the government here basically has two plans, one is to get more ppe produced in the uk. they are asking big companies to get involved in that effort. the other is to buy some in. that is where the turkey shipment came into the equation. there were 140,000 gowns also delivered to date from my and more. this is an issue that isn't going to go away and i think there is an a cce pta nce go away and i think there is an acceptance in government that it is acceptance in government that it is a comp coated one that is likely to continue for the simple reason that there aren't vast reserves of ppe sitting about the uk so those pressures to make sure that everybody on the health service front line has what they need aren't

going away. in a sense, when it comes to the trend of the awful death toll here in the uk, is it too $0011 death toll here in the uk, is it too soon to draw a conclusion from the numbers? definitely. the numbers we got today were a fair bit lower than what we have got used to but they are from the weekend and there has been an issue with reporting deaths at the weekend where there has sometimes been a lack and they don't come through it in the figures until tuesday or wednesday put up every day, the uk government is now producing a set of slides which show hospital admissions, which in some ways are more instructive because thatis ways are more instructive because that is the early part of disintegration of someone's condition where they are put into hospital and hopefully saved from there but potentially not. there is a trend, certainly in london which had been the epicentre in the uk, of hospital admissions, the number of

people in hospital rather, having gone down over the last seven days. that is being seen as a positive but nobody is quite saying in the uk yet that we have definitely reached the peak and there are still concerns that those numbers could go back up. 0k, that those numbers could go back up. ok, thanks for that, nick. across the world, some countries are taking the first tentative steps towards lifting lockdown restrictions, as the rate of infection appears to slow. in germany some small shops have re—opened, while denmark and norway have started opening their schools. new zealand has today announced rules on local travel, they will be relaxed. what happens next is likely to be keenly watched by governments globally. here's our science editor david shukman. even when the worst seems to be over, the virus remains a threat. in china, the authorities are still on their guard — checking forfever, a common symptom of covid—19. every government is now trying to work out what to do next. new zealand is held up as an example of a country that's

got it right so far. it cut itself off from the rest of the world. an extreme lockdown was introduced rapidly and cases of deaths have been kept unusually low. so, the prime minister has announced the first cautious moves to open up. we believe that decisive action — going hard and going early — give us the very best chance of stamping out the virus. and it has. we have done what very few countries have been able to do. we have stopped a wave of devastation. in europe, germany is seen as a model for how to hand it handle the virus. it's leading the way in testing. in munich, this team is checking a thousand people for antibodies, to discover who's been infected. right from the start, mass tests were seen as vital and now, like in new zealand, there is a first step to re—opening. julia runs a shop in heidelberg.

closed for weeks, she's now got permission to start again, this time from behind the protective screen and with only one customer allowed in at a time. do you think it's the right time in germany for shops like yours to re—open? yes, i think so, because if we couldn't do that it would be very, very difficult to take this. it is maybe more important for the small businesses. but what's happening injapan show it is risk of easing measures too soon. controls were introduced, but then relaxed, only for cases to rise sharply again. and the world health organization is warning countries against moving before they're fully prepared. please make sure you have got the defences in place at the community level. please make sure that everybody knows what their responsibility is. please make sure that older people are given special care and attention. please make sure that

hospitals are got ready. japan's hospitals are now struggling. they're short of personal protective equipment. the government there is accused of assuming they had got the outbreak under control. david shukman, bbc news. the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his political rival, benny gantz, have signed an agreement to form an emergency unity government. it follows a year of political deadlock in which a series of general elections failed to produce a stable government. mr gantz had originally pledged not to go into coalition with mr netanyahu, who faces corruption charges. but he changed his mind as the covid—19 pandemic threatened. let's get some major business news for you now. the price of a barrel of oil has collapsed to below zero. this graph shows the price of a barrel of west texas intermediate grade oil, or wti, for delivery in may. you can see how it has fallen through the course of the day. crude oil had already been

under pressure for weeks, due to the coronavirus pandemic. so what's behind today's crash? let's speak to our business correspondent michelle fleury, who's in new york. what has been going on? what has been going 0mm what has been going on? it is a simple question of demand and supply. ever since the coronavirus outbreak, we have seen a sharp drop in demand. just to put it in context for you, before the outbreak, roughly, on average, the world consumes about 100 million barrels per day, since it has dropped to 75 million barrels per day. what that means is that there is an excess capacity, too much oil in the world being produced right now of about 25 million barrels per day. that is starting to have a real, serious effect on the price of oil. at west texas intermediate oil, as you say, essentially producers are paying customers to take the oil away because they can't afford to store it. so, when go from here, if these

storage problems continue? so, it is worth expending to viewers, there is a difference between west texas intermediate and brent crude oil. brent crude is still trading above $20 a barrel and the people going to the petrol pump, it is going to be supported more by that so they can't expect to get fuel for free but west texas intermediate is landlocked and so texas intermediate is landlocked and so in other words the oil has to travel through pipelines and that makes it very expensive and if those pipelines are already full, and that is where you are seeing what has happened to this contract for may. we expect the situation may ease as you start to see parts of the country be open but again, that mismatch between demand and supply, until that is fully resolved, you are going to continue to see this pressure on the price of oil and ultimately on oil companies. and

that pressure, in turn, translates to political pressure to try and ease restrictions and get countries and economies moving again? well, if you look here in the united states, one of the areas, parts of the country, that is moving fast to reopen, texas, is a big oil producing state and a lot of its revenue and wealth comes from that industry. they will be feeling the pain from this, both in terms of jobs and the ripple effect that that has on the broader economy. that being said, if you look at the flip side, consumers do benefit. brent crude is still sharply down from if you look where we were a couple of months ago and so consumers can expect to pay less at the pump and can expect ultimately prices to come down. that will help offset some of the higher costs from elsewhere. when you look at the airline industry which is struggling, they will also have lower fuel costs so

it can help, it isn't all negative, u nless it can help, it isn't all negative, unless you are an energy producer. thanks. stay with us on oustide source. still to come, sir richard branson says his airline virgin atlantic needs government support to survive. britain's former prime minister tony blair says the uk government needs to do more planning to ensure there's a smooth transition out of the lockdown measures — whenever they are eased as anticipated next month. the effect of taking this amount of economic activity out of the economy — every week that passes, we are losing billions and billions of pounds. now of course, the government, rightly again, has provided support for businesses — you've just been talking about that now — and support for people as they go through a difficult period. just imagine when you come out of the lockdown, you know, you've emerged from the tunnel and you look around you at the economic landscape, it's going to be very different.

it's going to hit some sectors very severely for retail, hospitality, construction, manufacturing. so you take all of that demand out of the economy — yes, the government can step in and help. at some point, you've got to get economic activity moving again, because otherwise you're left with this bill that's going to take you a very long time to pay. this is outside source, live from the bbc newsroom. the uk government has come under sustained pressure for failing to provide sufficient ppe for health care workers. last week we talked a lot about the growing pressure on china to be more open about what's happened with the virus. that pressure has continued today. let's bring in ros atkins to look at this. hi, ros. hi, thank you. last week an outside source we talked about the fact that

the trump administration was repeatedly calling on china to come clea n, repeatedly calling on china to come clean, ina repeatedly calling on china to come clean, in a donald trump's words. emmanuel macron said there is a lot we don't know about what happened in wuhan, where the outbreak began. today, angela merkel also called for more chance currency from china. here she is earlier in berlin. translation: i believe the more transparent china is about the origin of the virus, the better it is for everyone in the world in order to learn from it. this comment comes at the same time as china's national health commission has indicated that hundreds of people in wuhan were wrongly listed as having recovered from covid—19. in wuhan, the number of recovered cases was reported at 47,300 on friday. on monday, that figure was revised down by almost a thousand to 46,359. more astionishing, was the government in wuhan's decision on friday to revise the city's overall death toll

upwards by an extra 50%. the total number of confirmed deaths across china currently stands at more than 4,500, though those statistics are impossible to verify. this is kerry allen from bbc monitoring on change to the numbers. one of the things that we are seeing today coming out of the official statistics given by the national health commission in china is the number of cured cases and china has been giving daily statistics on the number of confirmed cases, suspected cases, number of deaths, the number of cured patients. we are suddenly seeing this figure of cured patients drop significantly and so, around... previously it was around, for the central city of wuhan, it was around the 47,000 mark, 47,000 people having been cured and this dropped by nearly 1000, by 941 people. now this was very quietly done and the government didn't make a lot of fanfare about this but what we do know, going back to last friday, is that the government said that around 1200 people had

died that it had not reported at the time. it said there were a number of reasons for this. it said that one of the reasons was that some people had died in their homes and they also said that there are some centres where people were being treated for covid—19 that weren't attached to the central network so people were being treated but the figures were not being passed on to the central government so they could report them in the daily statistics. also they said there were some errors in factual reporting problems but, you know, it is very significant today that the government has very quietly, i mean this 1200 death count, around 900 people potentially were reported as cured, even though they had died and that is very, very significant and there's not a lot of noise being made about this in the media but china does censor content on social media anyway and one of the things that is very common when something like this happens is you will see people, what are known as the 50 cent brigade in china, so people who will leave pro—government messages, in line with

the government message, talking about how it is good that the government is giving a lot of transparency. so, you will see comments more on that line rather than the fact that yeah, around 900 people might have been reported as having been cured who actually died. some interesting analysis in this bbc article. our correspondent stephen mcdonell writes that some have suggested this was designed to distract because this was announced at the same time as new terrible data on the performance of the chinese economy. maybe — but both have been covered. and as stephen notes, this could simply have been a coincidence. as ever with china, lewis, we only make educated guesses on some parts of this story — something that is evidently frustrating leaders in the west. thank you for that. sir richard branson says his airline virgin atlantic needs

government support to survive. the boss of the virgin group says he's not asking for a hand—out, but a commercial loan, believed to be more than 600 million dollars. and he's pledged his luxury island resort as collateral. sir richard is the 286th richest person in the world with an estimated $5.8 billion dollarfortune. in an open letter to staff he writes... critics point out he's paid no uk income tax since moving to the tax—free british virgin islands 14 years ago. it follows decisions by denmark and poland which won't to give financial aid from their coronavirus bailout packages to companies registered in offshore tax havens.

the danish finance ministry released a statement — saying... poland has taken similar measures. the uk says it won't follow suit though — because that would penalise uk workers. a treasury spokesperson says... in new york the number of people who've died with coronavirus in a single day has fallen below 500 for the first time since april 2nd. but andrew cuomo — the state's governor — has warned that infection rates could spike for a second time if residents leave their homes more

frequently as the weather gets warmer. the question for us is are we passed the apex? we have had a number of days that have seen a reduction, reduction across the board, hospitals also say anecdotally that they have less patience in their emergency room. let's go back to that story is talking about with virgin airlines. joining me now is dharshini david, who covers global trade for us. the uk is saying it will help out companies wherever they are based, not following the example of other countries which have said, if you are ina countries which have said, if you are in a tax haven you are not getting our money. why do you think that difference? it is really fascinating because denmark and others as you have been saying has

said that if you are based on a tax haven we are extending help to other companies but not for you. when you wa nt companies but not for you. when you want look at what is being said by various institutions, the tax justice network has been saying, that if you have not been fulfilling your obligations, don't come looking for a bailout. so, why is the uk saying it is not going to do the same thing? i have had confirmation from the government tonight that it is not going to do that right now. why? because frankly they are saying, these are themes that have been set up in a hurry. they have got to be as simple as possible to get them to places as quickly as possible and they are there to help all uk based workers. remember, the whole point of these schemes is to give a lifeline so that the jobs can be preserved and to limit the economic scarring after all of this is over. the uk government is saying, we are not going to be doing that for now, but they say they are aware of this issue with tax havens. in other words, watch out. if you have not been paying your bills or doing your part in the way perhaps

that some might think you should, they could be coming after you particularly when it comes to finding the funds to plug the deficit in the years to come. what you make with these issues that specifically with virgin airlines, do you think they will get help? talking to the uk treasury, the finance ministry, they are saying we're not into looking into specific sectors that say they need special deals because guess what? they have companies and sectors growing up saying, we are special, we need extra help here. airlines are going through a terrible time at the moment. we do know that. and we do know, of course, we have seen in previous downturns, that some of them didn't quite make it all the way through. airlines at the moment are saying that they have got an important strategic role to play when it comes to making sure all the goods we need can still enter the country but in this actual case we have had various things from richard branson have had various things from richard bra nson but he have had various things from richard

branson but he is saying, the treasury is saying properly not this time. thanks, goodbye. today's higher temperatures were all in shelter and southern england did well with other areas which had temperatures in the warmer spots around 18 or 19 degrees. this clear, blue sunny skies still with us pretty much nationwide. there is the extent of the day's some time for that we did see this area of cardiff north—west france. that has been bringing a little bit of to parts of brittany. as we go through this evening, there's a chance we could see an odd shower creeping into the channel islands and the isles of scilly overnight but otherwise it is a dry night. it stays quite breezy, so not desperately cold. temperatures fought to seven celsius overnight. perhaps cold enough for a nip of

frost in the sun of the sharper scottish valleys. tuesday, any cloud on the isles of scilly and channel islands will move away pretty quickly and we will be left with clear, blue skies. some trying from dawn till dusk for the vast majority. again with those eastern winds, it is across the eastern side of scotla nd winds, it is across the eastern side of scotland and eastern areas of england that will see the day is at lower temperatures. —— sunshine from dawn till dusk. not feeling bad in the sunshine but the warmest weather will be further west. we will see temperatures pushing up into the low 20s with hot spots again across southern wales, south west midlands, south—west england, north west midlands, south—west england, north—west england and northern ireland and western counties probably not doing too badly either. on into wednesday, high—pressure as to weather us but it is weakening a little bit. the pressure gradient is opening out and that means that the wind will be blowing a little bit less strongly. wednesday, as well as being a sunny day, should be a warmer date for many of us. temperatures in western scotland reaching around 1819 celsius. in a number of areas reaching around 1819 celsius. in a number ofareas in reaching around 1819 celsius. in a number of areas in england and

wales, we will see the temperatures approaching on into the low 20s. it will feel warm in the sunshine and warm are given at those lighter winds. thursday looks like the warmest day of the week ahead. lots of sunshine, perhaps a few isolated mist and fog patches to start the day for top although not lasting very long at all. in the centre, we should see temperatures pushing on to around 23, 20 four celsius in the warmest areas. another fine day on friday but heading into the weekend, generally things will call off a little bit with a bit more cloud in the sky and an outside chance of a few showers are moving in for some. that is your latest weather.

this is bbc world news. the headlines...

the british government says its working around the clock to get protective equipment to frontline health workers. it's facing sharp criticism over its dwindling supplies. parts of europe are starting to open up with lockdown restrictions relaxed in several nations including germany. and the number of people currently confirmed to have the coronavirus in italy has fallen for the first time. the price of american oil has plunged spectacularly to a record low — turning negative for the first time ever — as demand collapses because of the coronavirus. that's despite a landmark deal to cut production and boost the value. and the airline virgin australia has appointed administrators — another business victim of the pandemic. it's been refused a government bailout and has debts of more than $3 billion us.