this is bbc world news. the headlines: new figures show that covid—19 related deaths in care homes in england and wales trebled in the space of three weeks. 586 people died in uk hospitals in the last 2a hours. the french prime minister has told parliament that the country's lockdown will start to ease on the 11th of may, but he gave a warning that the country would have to learn to live with the virus. the rate of transmission of the virus in germany has gone up again, to around one. it means that every person who has the virus infects one other person. this alligator provided a good reason for people to stay at home in south carolina in the us. the reptile nicknamed big george escaped, causing havoc, but was eventually captured and released into a nearby lake. most of the relief of all the community there.

all care home residents and staff in england are to be eligible for coronavirus testing regardless of whether they have symptoms, the health secretary, matt hancock, has said. it comes as figures show a third of all coronavirus deaths in england and wales are now happening in care homes. data from the office for national statistics show there were 2000 coronavirus care home deaths in the week ending the 17th of april. that's double the previous week. we can speak now to gavin edwards, senior national officer on care homes for the trade union unison. thank you very much forjoining us. iam sure thank you very much forjoining us. i am sure like many you are very upset to hear this news but perhaps not surprised. give me your assessment of it. on the care home debt figures, it's a tragedy and national scandal that we have seen so national scandal that we have seen so many deaths in scare homes —— ca re so many deaths in scare homes —— care homes. that these are rising so

rapidly now, they announced the never to be released on daily basis is welcome but that should have been happening from the outset. anyone looking for evidence that the care sector has not been prioritised in the right way during this pandemic need only look at the fact that here we are weeks into this crisis and those figures are only now going to be released in this way. this has happened because of ppe, because of financial pressure on care home staff and the government really does need to take hold of the situation. why do you think there has been such a delay to make this move to collate the figures as they are doing now?” think care staff and also people who are cared for in the care system must have been feeling from the outset in this pandemic that they are at the back of the queue in terms of things like ppe, things like the amount of attention that is paid to them by policy makers also the reason it has happened, look at the reason it has happened, look at

the care structure is structured in this country. it is not part of a well recognised both at your institution at the nhs. it is administered by councils to private companies and not—for—profit companies and not—for—profit companies as well. so for some of those councils and some of those institutions that commission that care, it is outside and out of mind i think that may have happened at high levels of government as well. we look at other countries across europe and particularly france, they began separating hospital deaths to that of care home death and midway through the lockdown they had then collated the figures that we are following the example of moving forward. in your opinion now when we are say a month on in this pandemic, what do you think needs to be done other than just putting the figures together? you are calling for action, what action are you asking for? the first thing if the supply of equipment to care workers. we have been receiving reports throughout the pandemic of serious

shortages of masks and other protective equipment for care workers. now that she would have been made available from the very start and it should have been a good supply and it has not been. we have heard reports of care home workers who had to make and buy their own equipment and some workers forced to wear one mask for an entire shift which can be up to 14 hours and other workers who have been told to remove their masks when they did have them because they were told that they might scare the residents at the care home. all of these things are ultimately unsuitable and the kind of things that should through clear guidance and the supply of ppe ensure that they did not happen. as you think you will get to that stage? we could've been having this conversation three weeks ago and still the same situm it would be expressed but now it is clearly the need for urgent action here. without that equipment coming through, this means we are still going to have this conversation perhaps three weeks on. part of it

is about making sure that the ppe gets to the right places where there are shortages so one part of that picture is to ensure that local councils who have a good picture of what the care needs are in the area both in care homes but also in care provided in home to make sure they can make sure it gets to the right places without the care sector is very fragmented and people don't realise that. it is delivered by thousands of different companies up and down the country and we think that councils are well—placed to get a hold of that but of course nothing will replace the need for the government to get a hold of it and the supply and get ppe to the right places so it can be supplied to characters. i'm sure we'll talk about this and hopefully with more positive news but for now thank you very much. gavin, senior national officer on care homes for the trade union unison. let's take another look now at today's downing street daily coronavirus press conference, led today by the health secretary

matt hancock, accompanied by professor dame angela mclean the deputy chief scientific adviser, and professorjohn newton, coordinator of the uk coronavirus testing programme. welcome once again to downing street for the daily coronavirus briefing. i'm joined by professor john newton, our testing coordinator, and by deputy chief scientific adviser angela mclean. this morning at 11 o'clock, we paused to remember the 85 nhs colleagues and the 19 colleagues from social care who've lost their lives with coronavirus. it was a solemn moment of reflection for so many of us. and of unbearable sadness for some. these are the nation's fallen heroes, and we will remember them. every day, we're working through our plan to protect life and to protect the nhs.

slowing the spread and building capacity so that the nhs, at all times, can offer the very best care to everybody because we've got the beds and the ventilators and the staff available. so far, thanks to the incredible work of nhs colleagues and the shared sacrifice of everyone who's at home, that plan is working. the latest figures show 3260 spare critical care beds across the nhs. 0n the most recent figures, there've been 763,387 tests for coronavirus so far in the uk, including 43,453 yesterday. 161,145 people have tested positive, an increase of 3996. 15,796 people are currently

in hospital with coronavirus. 21,678 have now sadly died in hospital, an increase of 586 since yesterday. this morning, the office for national statistics and the cqc published more information on the overall impact, including that there have been 4343 notified deaths in care homes since easter. the proportion of coronavirus deaths in care homes is around one sixth of the total, which is just below what we see in normal times. i want to make sure that we bring as much transparency as possible to important information like this. and so, from tomorrow, we'll be publishing notjust the number of deaths in hospital each day, but the number of deaths in care

homes and in the community, too. this is something that wasn't previously possible. this will supplement the 0ns and cqc weekly publication and all add to our understanding of how this virus is spreading day by day, and it'll help inform the judgments that we make as we work to keep people safe. behind every single death is a family's heartbreak, and we must do everything humanly possible to save as many lives as we can. we will not be changing the social distancing rules until our five tests have been met. the nhs protected, infections rates falling, the number of deaths falling substantially, the operational challenges around testing and ppe addressed, and no risk of a second spike. i want to update you on two other issues of major importance. first on testing.

at the start of the month, i set a goal of 100,000 tests a day. every day, we're ramping up this testing capacity on track to meet that goal. we're continuously opening new drive—through centres. there are now 41, with 48 going live this week. for people who can't get to the tests, we're expanding home testing to bring the tests to them. we're increasing the dispatch of home test kits from 5000 a day last friday to 25,000 a day by the end of the week. at the weekend, 17 mobile testing units manned by the army were operational. by the end of the week, we plan to have over 70 deployed with trained crews right across the country. all of this has led to an increase in daily testing capacity, which now stands at 73,400. and this has allowed us progressively to expand access to testing.

we started with hospital patients who've always had the access to tests right the way through. ramping up to include symptomatic nhs and social care colleagues and their households, and then to all essential workers. today, because we've been able to expand capacity, i can expand access further. building on successful pilots, we'll be rolling out testing of asymptomatic residents and staff in care homes in england and to patients and staff in the nhs. this'll mean that anyone who is working or living in a care home will be able to get access to a test whether they have symptoms or not. i'm determined to do everything i can to protect the most vulnerable. and we now have the capacity

to go further still. so, from now, we're making testing available to all over—65s and their households with symptoms and to all workers who would have to leave home in order to go to work and members of their households, again, who have symptoms. so, from construction workers to emergency plumbers, from research scientists to those in manufacturing, the expansion of access to testing will protect the most vulnerable and help keep people safe. and it's possible because we've expanded capacity for testing thus far. next, i want to update you on our covid—19 therapeutics work, which is research to understand whether existing drugs could be used to treat people more

effectively when they have developed the disease. currently, no drugs in the world have been clinically proven to treat covid—19, but our therapeutics task force has identified a number of promising candidates. currently, six different treatments have been entered into a national clinical trials, and the first is ready to enter the next stage, a new early phase clinical trial platform that we're launching today. this is a national effort made possible by government, academia and industry all working together. in addition, we have to make the best possible use of all the medicines that we have. we're updating the guidelines for the use of medicines in care homes, removing a barrier so that, for the period of the pandemic, where it's clinically appropriate, medicines that have been labelled for use by one patient can be used by another patient who needs them instead of being destroyed. clinicians and colleagues in social care have called for this change, and it's already standard procedure in hospitals. right across government, we're working day and night to defeat this virus.

ramping up testing capacity, investigating new drugs and treatments, backing vaccine development, securing and distributing billions of items are ppe, getting the nhs whatever resources it needs to make sure it's always there to treat everybody who needs it. the risk of a second peak is real, but as a nation, we're holding it at bay. so, please, stay at home, protect the nhs and save lives. i'm now going to turn to the deputy chief scientific adviser to take us through the daily charts. angela. thank you very much. if i could have the first slide, please. i wanted to go into a bit more detail about the five tests for adjusting the lockdown. so, the first is that the nhs shall have sufficient capacity to provide critical care and specialist treatment right across the uk.

the second is that we should have seen a sustained and consistent fall in daily deaths from coronavirus. number three says that we must have reliable data to show us that the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels right across the board. fourth is that operational challenges, including testing and ppe, are in hand with supply able to meet future demand. and the fifth test is that we must be confident that any adjustments that we make to our current measures will not risk a second peak of infections that might overwhelm the nhs. and if i could have the next slide, please. here is a description of transport use and how it has changed across great britain for a number of different ways of travelling.

and it starts on the 16th of march on the left—hand side, and runs to saturday the 26th of april. and what you can see when you look at this data is how volumes of all kinds of traffic have fallen relative to how much travel there was in the first week of february. so, in particular, we remain pleased to see that the use of public transport is below 20% for buses, the tube and national rail, and we just very much hope that all those people in motor vehicles who are not below 20% are practising really excellent social distancing when they get it wherever it is they're going. next slide, please. we know that's been a lot of work for everybody. and this slide is new cases in the uk between the 21st of march

and the 28th of april. and what it shows is that... so, this is a new positive tests. in dark blue, is tests that happened in hospitals, and in orange is additional testing that has become available for key workers. and what you see in that slide is how that number of positive tests rose very quickly through the latter part of march and has now stabilised, and the blue line, the numbers in hospital of positive tests, is starting to fall, although because the number of tests is still rising overall, we're still getting about the same number of positive tests across the uk. next slide, please. this, instead of counting tests, counts people. so, this is people

who are in hospital with covid—19 across the uk. what you see is that overall, that has fallen by 14% in the last... i think it's in the last week. yes, over the last week, that has fallen by 14%, a particularly dramatic fall in london, where the number of people in hospital peaked early compared with the rest of the country. and several other regions england now clearly falling. although in a few regions, the number of people in hospital is still stable for now. this is critical care beds, in which there is a patient with covid—19. there are two kinds — those in high—dependency ward and those in intensive care wards, and the four different lines are england, northern ireland, wales and scotland.

and what you see is what percentage of those beds that can be used for critical care are occupied by a patient with covid—19. again, what you see is, across our four nations, that has peaked and is beginning to fall as a percentage. next slide, please. we have to turn to how many people have died from covid. and our first way of counting that is daily covid—19 deaths in hospital. so, this is a slide that many of us will be familiar with. it's the way we have been counting for more than a month now. when you look at that slide, the first thing you see is, i guess, that the number of deaths in hospital has started to fall. it's been falling for the last two weeks. you see that most easily by looking at the orange line.

that is a seven—day rolling average, and the reason that is because there are decent strong weekend in effect in these data. you see that out of every seven days, there are always two days when it is really low, followed by a day when it is much higher. because it is tuesday, it is higher today because we report results from a few days ago. i think the most important thing to see there is that the orange line is falling steadily. but this is just one of the ways that we can count how many people have died with covid. next slide, please. this is a different way of counting the same thing. so, this is all weekly registered deaths from covid—19 across the uk compared with what ijust showed you, the deaths in hospital. so, let's just look at the last bar, which is for the week leading up to the 17th of april. the dark blue bar is what we just

looked at, but is summed up up to then, whereas the pale blue bar is all weekly registered deaths, so that's everybody, notjust the people who died with covid in hospital. if i could have the next slide, please. so what the next slide does is it takes the pale blue line that we just had and breaks it out into a number of different locations. so, what you see is hospital is the right—hand bar, in a sort of smoky blue. just to the left of that is people who died with covid in care homes. just below that is people who died with covid in their own home, and then the smallest bar is other locations. so, what you can see here is that deaths from covid are dominated by those deaths in hospital, but that is not the only location in which such deaths are seen. next slide, please.

the last slide for today compares uk deaths with those in other nations. so, these lines are lined up against the first day when there had been a total of 50 deaths accumulated in each of these nations, and we have two different lines on there describing what's happened in the uk. towards the right—hand side, you see a dark blue line labelled "uk hospitals only", and that's the data we've been collecting and showing for a long time, so people who have died with covid in uk hospitals, whereas the grey line further to the left there is people who have died with covid in the uk in all settings. and not surprisingly, if you count all settings, that line is higher than the people who died in uk hospitals. that's the end of

the data for today. thank you very much. thanks very much indeed. as with yesterday, we'll now take questions from the public before turning to journalists. and we'll take two questions today from the public. these are questions that, as with the questions from journalists, we don't see in advance. the first i'll read out from the screen, and then the second is going to be relayed by video. so, the first question is from amanda from hull, and she asks, "given that grandparents cannot be used as childcare, what is the plan for easing the lockdown for full—time working parents who have young children that may not be allowed to be in school on a full—time basis?" and, amanda, this is a really good question, and the honest answer

i can give you is that it's still too early to say when we are going to be able to get the schools to go back, because there are still too many deaths each day, and the five tests that we set out haven't been met. now, i know, especially as a father of three young children, that there's a yearning from people to know when schools might go back, and of course, it's something that we think about and talk about, and i'm sorry that i can't give you a more definitive answer, but i can't because we don't yet have the number of deaths and the number of infections low enough for that to be safe to reopen the schools, and we don't yet know how fast the number of new cases will fall, so we haven't been able to make that decision yet. angela, i don't know if you want to add. i'm not sure i do have anything to add on that. we are, of course, all of us, yearning for the number

of deaths each day to fall. thank you, amanda, for your question. all i can say is that i hope we can be in a position to be able to give a definitive answer as soon as possible, and the best way to get there is for everybody watching to stay at home in order to protect the nhs, save lives and to bring that curve down. thank you, amanda. next question. hi, my question is regarding my ten—year—old son who has cystic fibrosis and autism. apart from shielding, is there any other option for him and others in the extremely vulnerable category to return to school and be part of society again without the vaccine available? thank you, sadie. the answer to this is yes. we have made sure, in the schools policy, that we're working very hard to ensure that those who have

extra needs, for instance people with autism and cystic fibrosis, get that extra support. it is, of course, very, very hard, though, when that clashes with the medical needs, which have to come first, and for those who're in the shielded category, i'm afraid that the safest thing for them to do is to be shielded, which is notjust to stay at home, but really be protected from all contact because of the consequences should they get the disease. hello again. it's been the sunniest april on record, and up until today, it was also unusually warm and unusually dry. but all that changed across england and wales today. this was yesterday, and although the heat was more limited, still up to 19 degrees. a significant drop in the cloud and rain today, and in coventry it was only seven degrees this afternoon. still some wet weather

around at the moment. 0vernight, the worst of that rain pushes away eastwards. but it stays cloudy and misty, some hill fog and some drizzle around as well. where we have the clearing skies across northern and eastern scotland as the showers reduce, so there could be a touch of frost, but elsewhere temperatures remain at six or seven degrees. and whilst it's turning a bit drier overnight, there's more rain to come tomorrow. this weather front bringing some rain up from the south—west wrapped around the area of low pressure. ahead of it, there could be some sunshine in scotland, a few showers, too. pretty grey and cloudy and damp elsewhere. and then we'll see this band of more persistent and perhaps heavier rain pushing northwards and eastwards. once that clears, you've got a good few hours of dry and sunny weather before it turns wet and windy again in the south west later on. and although there's more rain to come on wednesday, it won't be as cold for england and wales as it was today. but all this rain means that the pollen levels have dropped, and they remain low to moderate across the country tomorrow. more rain to come overnight,

as well, on those two weather fronts there. and as we head into thursday, as that centre of low pressure gets closer, so we've got more wet weather to come as well. so, a bit of patchy rain to start with on thursday in scotland, a band of rain for northern england and northern ireland, but south of that, we'll see some sunshine but also some heavy and potentially thundery downpours developing and some strong and gusty winds through the english channel as well. those temperatures still disappointing for the time of year. typically 12 or 13 degrees. now, as we close out april and move into may, we've still got an area of low pressure close by. it's only moving away very slowly, so again, it's not going to be completely dry. around that weather front in northern scotland, some more rain. whilst we see some sunshine elsewhere, the showers are likely to develop, push their way eastwards and again those could turn heavy and thundery before it turns brighter and drier in the south west of england and wales later. temperatures in the sunshine in the south up to 15 or 16 celsius.

this is 0utside source on bbc news for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm babita sharma. we're covering all the latest coronavirus developments here in britain and globally. new figures show a third of all coronavirus deaths in england and wales — now take place in care homes. the uk's health secretary announces testing will soon be rolled out to all residents and staff. anyone who is working or living in a care home will be able to get access to a test, whether they have symptoms or not. france announces plans to ease its lockdown,