the head of the world health organization has warned of worrying upward trends in coronavirus cases in africa, central and south america and eastern europe. he said that for many countries the disease was just getting started. new estimates suggest — the number of deaths in care homes in england — may have doubled in just five days. spain's parliament has approved a request from the prime minister to extend the coronavirus lockdown until the tenth of may. the country has been under severe restrictions for more than five weeks. the us secretary of state mike pompeo has again accused china of covering up the coronavirus outbreak in the early stages, and of censuring those who tried to warn the world. you are watching bbc news, now here's another chance to see

the uk government's daily coronavirus update, led today by the first secretary of state, dominic raab. good afternoon and welcome to today's downing street press c0 nfe re nce . i am joined by chief medical officer professor sir chris whitty and our chief defence staff, sir nicholas carter. before we took to the fantastic work the armed forces have been doing, let me give you an an update from the cobra coronavirus data file. i can report that the ongoing monitoring and testing programme as of today, 550,935 people have now been tested for the virus. 133,495 have tested positive. those who have contracted the virus, 18,100 have very sadly died and we express our deepest condolences to their families and friends of these victims

and my heart goes out to every single one of those who have lost a loved one throughout this crisis. as a government, we continue to take the steps necessary to slow the spread of this virus. the social distancing measures that people have overwhelmingly adhered to, has meant that fewer people have needed hospital treatment. that has protected our nhs capacity as we continue through the peak of this virus, and it has undoubtedly helped to save lives. at every point in this crisis, we have considered the scientific and medical evidence that we have received carefully and we have been deliberate in our actions so that we take the right steps at the right time. i know it has been tough for businesses, for families and vulnerable members of our communities up and down the country. and it has been a physical strain as we adapt to living and working at home while not seeing our family and friends in the usual way we would like to. it has been an economic

strain as businesses have had to furlough staff, which is why the chancellor launched the various business support measures to help see businesses and workers through these difficult times. but it has also been an immense mental strain on everyone, people stuck at home, families worried about their finances, and the elderly, more isolated than we would ever want them to be. we are making progress through the peak of this virus, but we are not out of the woods yet, as sage advised last week. that is why the measures we introduced must remain in place for the time being. the greatest risk for us now, if we eased up on our social distancing rules too soon, is that we would risk a second spike in the virus, with all the threats to life that that would bring and then the risk of a second lockdown which would prolong the economic pain we are all going through. that was a point that andrew bailey, the governor of the bank of england, also made earlier today.

with that in mind, last thursday i set out the five principles that will guide our approach going forward to the next phase which must be satisfied before we are in a position to make any changes, which will of course be based on the advice we received from sage. that way, we will ensure that our path out of this crisis is sure—footed, protecting both the public health, but also our economy. if we stick to our plan and take the right steps at the right time, we can get through this crisis and i know we will. there is no hiding the scale of this tragedy. but even in our darkest moments, the crisis has also shone a light on the best amongst us and the nation has come together to applaud our heroic nhs staff, our carers, every week and we pay tribute to their dedication, professionalism and the care with which they look after those who have fallen sick. with general carter hit a day, it is only fitting to page a view

to the amazing work of our fantastic armed forces and the whole mod, led by defence secretary ben wallace. they have been there every step of the way, helping us to build the new nhs nightingale hospitals to reinforce our critical care capacity, supporting our local resilience forum is in delivering personal protective equipment where it is needed most, and helping to deliver the mobile labs which are critical to ramping up our testing capacity across the country. as a result of those efforts and that teamwork, hospitals have been able to treat more patients and save more lives. and we have ensured that the peak of this virus has not overwhelmed the nhs. today our armed forces are again part of that team as we announced two new deployments to the nhs nightingale facilities in harrogate and bristol. across the uk, this extra hospital capacity, which itself comes on top of the 33,000 additional beds we have managed to free

up across the nhs, that is the equivalent of building an extra 50 district general hospitals. and that has safeguarded the capacity of our hospitals both to care for coronavirus patients, but also to make sure other people get the care or emergency treatment they need. people used to joke in this country that you could never build a hospital that quickly. well, we didn'tjust build one, we built seven and we thank our armed forces for helping to make that happen. for many countries around the world including modern democracies, the sight of their military on the streets in a national emergency could be a cause for concern or even trepidation. but for the british people, the sight of our armed forces working side by side with our brilliant nhs staff offers a calm reassurance that the task is at hand and we will come through this crisis. i make no bones about it,

there have been challenges and are still our challenges. we are not there yet. we continue to ramp up the testing capacity, which will play an important role in the next phase of the crisis. amidst a global shortage in personal protective equipment, we have debated 1 billion items to the front line. we havejust brought in lord dayton, who helped organise the london olympics, to boost our domestic supply further. and i am on the phone every day pursuing the next batch of deliveries from abroad with the support of our tireless diplomatic service. 0n the first of several new deliveries landed from turkey in the early hours of this morning. we will only come through this global pandemic if we come together as a nation and if we bring other countries around the web together so that we can rise to this international challenge. and as we work with our partners abroad to get the ppe we need and the ventilators we need and to pursue a vaccine for this terrible virus,

we are also working night and day to return stranded british nationals from all four corners of the world. we have kept airports open and air lines running to bring over a million brits home and commercial flights, a massive endeavour. on top of that at the fco, we set up a £75 million special charter arrangement with the airlines, and that has already got home over 13,000 people in 63 flights from more than a dozen countries. we are organising more flights in the days ahead from india, pakistan, bangladesh, new zealand, nigeria and sierra leone. so at home and abroad, we are meeting the range of challenges that coronavirus presents. if we stick together and if we stay the course, we will defeat this virus for good. i will now turn over to sir nick to brief us on the latest military involvement in the effort. thank you very much. the first secretary asked me today to give you an update on what the armed forces and defence

as a whole is doing in support of the government response to the virus. up front, i would say that our role has been entirely in support of the heroic health care workers on the front line. that is both the nhs and social care, with humility very much being our watchword in the way we give that support. we have done it in a variety of ways. we have supported first and foremost the ministry of housing, community and local government and the devolved administrations through the national spine of local regionalfora that the first secretary referred to. and we have had dozens of liaison officers embedded into each of those forrer. it is a tried and tested system that has been used in the past, whether for delivering military aid to the civil authorities for foot—and—mouth or for flooding or wildfires. it is frequently exercised and there are close relationships which give great confidence between all of those working on those teams at the lower level. this is important because it is that delegated sense at that level which works because it makes

the more responsive and flexible to local demand, whether it is for ambulance drivers, testing or whatever else. with decentralisation being so much of the key to how some of this is done, the first secretary delegated authorities to this level early in the crisis, which has proved to be successful. ——defense secrectary. we have also been giving support to the department of health and social care and the nhs. first and foremost, this has been a logistic task and i would say that in all of my more than a0 years of service, this is the single greatest logistic challenge i have come across. i will give you the scale of the problem. in 25 days since we started working with the nhs, they have gone from some 240 customers they delivered to normally to nearly 50,000 customers. this has involved creating 260,000 square feet of distribution and warehousing, nearly four football fields, and some 38 additional delivery routes per day.

that is the equivalent to driving three times around the world. it is a major logistic challenge. we have of course been involved in the nightingale is met, which the first secretary referred to, but we have also been involved in planning and command and control, providing additional resilience to ha rd—pressed staff. we have dozens of people embedded both in skipton house, but also in victoria house, whether the hsc headquarters is. we are involved in testing both in terms of playing a role in helping design the system, but also manning some of the regional test centres and adopting some innovative approaches like mobile pop—up centres which will make it possible to get the decentralised areas i described earlier. we have brigadier leslie faithfull davis and her team, who have been imaginative in the way they have taken this forward. and we have provided an aviation task force which has been able to support the communities from scotland to the channel islands, in northern ireland

and from wales to the east coast of england. we have been involved in helping the foreign office with repatriations and supporting our overseas territories, where we have security advisory teams deployed in several of them. and we have deployed ships to do just that. we have been involved with the cabinet office rapid response unit with our 77 brigade helping to quash rumours from misinformation, but also to counter disinformation. between 3000 and 4000 of our people have been involved, with around 20,000 available the whole time at high readiness. we have at the moment some 73 ongoing tasks, and we have promptly completed about 30. it has been very much a whole force, notjust of regular military from all the three services, but reservists as well, some 15% of the force has been reservists. it has involved defence civilians, defence contractors, scientists from porton down

and something called the engineer and logistics staff corp, where we bring in people from industry who work inside the military in times of crisis and provide expert support for how we might link into the civilian community to bring forward skills and industrial support. the scales have been about planning, lodge traditions, medics, engineers and it —based people. and the road has been very much about catalysing, designing and supporting. i will single out one individual to give you an example of the sort of backgrounds we are talking about. a young major has been mobilised from the reserve. he has really stepped up to the plate. his daytimejob is a logistics expert who runs google‘s transport network across europe, north africa and the middle east. he has been part of the supply team that has been working on how we distribute ppe. he has designed a portal in partnership with ebay which will in due course manage individual customers. and he designed a bulk supply

chain for distribute in a ppe to all of the nhs regions and trusts. despite all of this, we are still involved in protecting the country, and there are essential operations that must continue, whether that is defending the homeland with the nuclear deterrent or protecting british and uk airspace generally. whether it is overseas operations in afghanistan, the middle east, africa and further afield or whether it is about building essential operational capability. we take great care not to endanger the population. all of this is a truly national endeavour. we have even mobilised 99—year—old veterans. and i think everyone would agree that captain tom moore embodies the sense of service and duty ingrained in our armed forces. 0ur armed forces are drawn from every part of the uk and much of the commonwealth. they take great pride in serving the communities that they are part of.

everyone is experiencing real challenges at the moment, and it makes me feel immensely proud of our collective national effort in pulling together behind those on the front line to combat this unprecedented challenge. i firmly believe we will defeat it together. thank you. thank you very much. chris, would you talk us through some of the latest data? thank you. before i do, can i thank the armed forces enormously for the assistance they have given us. these slides are familiar to most people who watch this. the first is a look at transport usage in the country and it is really as a proxy for if people are continuing to stay at home except for essential business. as you can see although there is some bumping along, it is broadly remaining very stable despite the fact people have had

to do this for a considerable period of time now and there is further time we will have to do this if we wish to pull the peak of this right down. looking at new cases in the uk, these are tested positive weather in hospital or out of hospital. as you can see, this is broadly flat with a slight trend downwards over the last several days. really back to about the 8th of april. but not a steep descent at this point. next slide, please. if you look at people in hospital with covid—19, looking across the country, the situation is either improving, and i think it is pretty clear it is improving in london for example, or broadly flat across all four nations. next slide, please. if you look at people who have sadly died in hospital, this is not all deaths but probably

the majority of those who have sadly died with covid, what you can see again is that the very steep upward climb that there was up to the early part of this month has now flattened off over the last week and a half. next slide, please. and this is a slide we use really just to track the trajectory between different countries. i should be clear that trying to compare different countries with this kind of data is notoriously difficult but it does show the trajectories between the different countries with the uk using hospital data which is our most steady source of data over that time. next slide, please. this isjust one slight we thought we would add in in addition because i think it makes a point which is important for people fully to understand. what you can see here, this is the seven day

rolling average for deaths, sadly, in several countries, including the uk. the reason i thought it was sensible to put this in was for people to see that even in those countries which started their epidemic curve earlierthan the uk, and which are still ahead, the downward slope from the point where we change is a relatively slow one and we should anticipate the same situation in the uk. we should not expect this to be a sudden fall away of cases. thank you very much. thank you, chris, let's turn to the media, the bbc? first secretary, worrying figures today suggest a doubling in care home deaths in england. in a virus which targets the elderly and vulnerable, do you see that as inevitable? i didn't catch the last bit? i will let chris whitty talk about i think the cqc...

would you like me to repeat it? yes please. we have seen figures suggesting a doubling in care home deaths in england. in a virus that targets the elderly and vulnerable, do you see that as inevitable? no, i don't think anything is inevitable. we are fighting tooth and nail, striving every scene you to make sure we minimise the life lost in every context a point i will let chris whitty say a bit more about the cqc data which i think is going to be published but obviously in care homes, whether on ppe testing, delivery, on testing across the whole range of things that we are looking at, we're doing everything we can to make sure we provide the support to them and to protect the care homes and the workers there and obviously the residents as well. of course it is a vulnerable part of our community, if you like, and we are targeting all of our efforts to make sure

we protect and safeguard as best we can the most vulnerable in society. chris, do you want to say anything on the cqc? not on ctc because it has not yet published its report. but in terms of care home deaths, sadly your starting position is of course correct. in care homes, what we have is a large number of people of the most vulnerable age for this virus, a virus which is particularly a virus are people who are older and particularly a virus which causes severe disease and death in a minority but an increasing minority as you go up in age. and in those who have coexisting medical problems. and many people in care homes of course and nursing homes in particular have coexisting medical problems so they are a very vulnerable group, you're absolutely right. the numbers that have been ascribed

to covid directly in 0ns statistics are still relatively modest but i've said repeatedly in data, the fact that the 0ns said in the last weekly report 826 deaths, every one of them a tragedy, but i think that will be an underestimate. what we need to look at in these data and other data if we want to get a true picture is, and i've said this from the beginning, the all because seasonally adjusted mortality over time. that is because, as i have said before, deaths from covid will be a combination of direct deaths from the virus and indirect deaths, if people are nervous about going into hospital for example. one of the things we have been trying to make clear is it's absolutely critical that if people have heart attacks, strokes, children have severe asthma attacks, any of the things that have severity and this would include people in social care settings, that the nhs remains absolutely able to manage emergencies as it always has been able to.

but when we look back over this epidemic, and i want to be really clear, we are not anywhere near being able to say that is done and we can look back, but when we are at that stage, i i'm sure we will see a high mortality rate in care homes because this is a very vulnerable group and people are coming in and out of care homes and to some extent, that cannot be prevented. did you want to follow up on any of that? just quickly, families and staff in care homes have heard a lot of promises about protective equipment and testing, but what i'm being told is that they are still not seeing that on the ground. what reassurance would you give them that they are being made a priority in this? we are conscious that there is a challenge with care homes, i said that in my remarks, but we are doing everything we can the situation is improving

and we are getting the ppe to those places that need it. we are working with the military in relation to some of the mobile testing labs because we know it is difficult for some people in care homes to access the testing. we have revised the guidance or the nhs has revised the guidance to make sure the discharge, were being careful with those going into care homes and were doing everything we can. we understand there are concerns and anxiety and i feel for those who are living in care homes and nervous about this or their loved ones and were doing absolutely everything we can to protect them. robert peston from itv? good afternoon. representatives of the tssa transport union have been told to prepare for a possible increase in a phased way of the railway service between the 11th and 18th of may. we are obviously not looking at an exit from lockdown but is that a timetable for modifications

of the lockdown? and secondly, overseas doctors and nurses working in the nhs pay a surcharge of hundreds of pounds a year, thousands if they have families, to use the nhs. given they are putting their lives on the line to protect us, is there a case for waving that surcharge? first of all, the dates that you described, i don't know where they come from, it's not something i recognise and as chris whitty has rightly said, and as the governor of the bank of and has rightly said, from the public health and also the economic perspective, it would be a mistake to take our eye off the ball right now. the focus is still on delivering us through the peak and we are reliant as i said last thursday come on the data we get back from sage in a couple of weeks in order to even think about the next phase. in relation to people

from overseas working in our nhs, i think the home secretary has already outlined some measures to make sure their interests are safeguarded and we pay tribute to the incredible job they do and of course we want to look after them in every way possible. good evening twin wrist easterly wind we have had. we have had enough funds abundance of sunshine here. centre when he seen the last but clear skies and very little changing to the overnight period and temperatures again will fall away. winds will continue to ease said that will allow low cloud to drift back but some fog at low levels potentially as well. temperatures are not as low as they were last night but they still will be processed in scotland and still chilly first thing thursday morning. nest and low cloud and any fog will

clear quickly in the strong sunshine. it looks like there will be lots of strong sunshine during the course of the day. winds are lighter and the likelihood is we will see temperatures and a degree 01’ will see temperatures and a degree or two up. we could see 25 and a few localities north of london. the east coast has been chilly recently but it will not feel as cold. that high levels of pollen are forecast. d said the pollen levels for the day on thursday. heading into friday though, the high pressure starts to decline somewhat so it is getting an increased chance of a few showers developing. settled and the chance ofan odd developing. settled and the chance of an odd shower but for the majority still warm and dry. probably not quite as high from any on friday but still a degree or so down and high—pressure declines further as we go through the weekend

allowing the risk of a chance of a few showers coming up from the south and west and later from the north as well. the devil is in the details for the weekend exactly where those showers will occur but from most parts of the united kingdom that are dry and warm with hazy sunshine, temperature still into the high teens and low 20s, it could be that odd shower around. by sunday we are starting to pick up the northerly or northwestern area and that will take temperatures down a few degrees. as ever, there is plenty more on the website.

this is 0utside 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. a sobering warning from the world health organization, for those hoping to see the back of the coronavirus pandemic anytime soon. make no mistake — we have a long way to go. this virus will be with us for a long time. in the us, the secretary of state again accuses china of covering up the outbreak. spain's parliament has voted to extend its lockdown — we'll get the latest from madrid.