for unemployment benefits in the united states last week. the coronavirus outbreak has now led to thirty million americans losing theirjobs since mid—march but economists beleive the true figures could be higher. british prime minister borisjohnson has said the uk is past the peak of the coronavirus outbreak. the number of uk deaths is now more than 26,700 — among the worst in europe. the european central bank says the coronavirus has caused the economy of the eurozone to shrink at a speed and magnitude unprecedented in peacetime. economic activity plunged by nearly four percent in the first quarter of this year. and south korea has announced zero new coronavirus cases within its borders. you are watching bbc news.

the prime minister led his first downing street briefing today — his first since being discharged from hospital 18 days ago and only 36 hours after the birth of his baby son. he was alongside chief medical officer chris whitty and chief scientific adviser sir patrick vallance. let's hear what was said. good afternoon. i want to thank everybody who's been doing such a good job in my absence. and i want to thank the nhs for so much including getting me back here andi much including getting me back here and i might add very hostile but not and i might add very hostile but not a hospital visit yesterday. in a few minutes i'm going to hand over to patrick and to update you on the epidemic. but first i'm getting set up epidemic. but first i'm getting set up today's latest data. 9001000, 905 test for coronavirus have now been carried out in the uk. including 81,611 carried out in the uk. including 81 , 611 tests carried out in the uk. including

81,611 tests yesterday. 1000 and 1253 people have now tested positive. that's an increase of 2000 600 cases since yesterday. compared to 15,000 300 and 59 people yesterday. and sadly, of those tested positive for coronavirus across the settings 26,711 have now died, that's an increase of 670 for fatalities since yesterday across all settings. and sadly, of those tested positive for coronavirus across all settings, 26,711 have now died. that is an increase of 674 fatalities since yesterday across all settings. this figure, of course, includes

deaths notjust in hospitals. across this country therefore, families every day are continuing to lose loved ones before their time. we grieve for them and with them. but as we grieve, we are strengthened in our resolve to defeat this virus, to get this whole country back to health and back on its feet and we are determined urgently, and in particular, to overcome those challenges that in the last few weeks have been so naughty and infuriating. i am not going to minimise the logistical problems we are faced in getting the right protective gear to the right people, at the right time both in the nhs and in care homes. or the frustrations we have experienced in expanding but what i can tell you is that everyone responsible for tackling these problems, whether in government or the nhs, public health england, local authorities, we are throwing everything at it, heart and soul, night and day to get it right.

we will get it right and we are making huge progress. i will not underrate the work and achievements of those who are dealing with global shortages in a global pandemic. they are rising to a challenge we have never seen in our lifetimes. and the same can be said of the entire people of this country, staying in enforced confinement, not seeing family, not seeing friends or grandchildren, worrying about their jobs and the future. so my message to everyone again today is, your effort and your sacrifice is working and has been proved to work. today, the number of covid hospital admissions is falling, the number of patients in intensive care is falling. we have so far succeeded in the first and most important task

we set ourselves as a nation, to avoid the tragedy that engulfed other parts of the world. because at no stage has our nhs been overwhelmed. no patient went without a ventilator, no patient was deprived of intensive care. we have five of the seven projected nightingale wards and it is thanks to that massive collective effort to shield the nhs that we avoided an uncontrollable and catastrophic epidemic where the reasonable worst case scenario was 500,000 deaths. and so i can confirm today that for the first time we are past the peak of this disease. we are past the peak and we are on the downward slope. we have so many reasons to be hopeful for the long term.

the uk is leading international efforts to find a vaccine. today, oxford university has announced a partnership with astrazeneca to develop, what they believe, could be a means of inoculating ourselves against this disease. but until this day comes, and i am afraid we cannot say exactly when it may be, we are going to have to beat this disease by our growing resolve and ingenuity. so i will be setting out a comprehensive plan next week to explain how we can get our economy moving, how we can get our children back to school, back into childcare, second. and the third, how we can travel to work and how we can make life in the workplace safer.

and in short, how we can continue to suppress the disease and at the same time restart the economy. a huge amount of work has been going on on that plan and of course, as we produce it we are being guided by the science and we will try to build the maximum political consensus as we produce it across all parties and across the uk. but there will be five key tests that we must satisfy before we can put that plan into action. we must be sure that we can continue to protect the nhs and its ability to cope. number two, we must see a sustained fall in deaths. three, we must be sure

that the infection rate is falling. number four, we have got to overcome the operational and logistical challenges on testing and ppe. fifth, and this is the most important, we must all make sure that the measures we take do not risk a second spike that would overwhelm the nhs. we have come through the peak, or rather we have come under what could have been a vast peak, as though we have been going through some huge alpine tunnel and we can now see the sunlight and the pasture ahead of us. and so it is vital that we do not now lose control and run slap into a second and even bigger mountain.

and so to avoid that disaster, our fifth and final test is that nothing, as i say, we do should lift the r other reproduction rate of that disease back above one. and before i hand over to patrick, i am going to ask for a short explanatory clip about the one and before we come to that clip, let me emphasise, keeping the r down is going to be absolutely vital for a recovery, keeping the reproduction rate of the disease down. we can only do it by our collective discipline and working together. i know we can do it, because we did it and we have shown we can do it in phase one of this disease. this country came together in a way a few of us have seen in our lifetimes to protect the nhs and to save lives. that is why i am absolutely convinced we can do it in phase two as well.

can we play the video now?

good, i hope that it was clear and useful. patrick, any update please. can i have the first slide please? as the prime minister has said the government has five tests laid down for adjusting the lockdown. i will go through some of the epidemic and show you where we are. and 0.9 across the nation. maybe a little lower in some places, a little higher in others but it is below one across the country. this shows the number of new cases, but as i have said before, this only shows in the blue, the cases in hospital and in orange, the cases that have been tested outside, so it is not the total number. we know the total number of cases is on the way down and you can

see in the blue bars, the number in hospital is coming down and the orange bars represent others who have been tested, including essential workers. but the number of infections will be coming down. this turns into a reduction in hospital admissions for covid and this is the nhs data so it is england's only data. but what you can see is in the blue, in patients newly diagnosed with covid and in the orange, new patients confirmed with covid at the time of admission. you can see very clearly from the 20th of march there was a rise of up to a peak, somewhere at the beginning of april and now it has come down. that translates into the number of people in hospital with covid and this shows the data across the nations and in different regions, you can see very clearly the decrease in the number of people in hospital in london. you can see a slightly flatter

situation in some other places. to get the r down further, to continue to keep it down right the way across the nation. that, in turn, leads to the question of how do you get the critical care beds down? again, when you look across england, northern ireland, wales and scotland, the number of patients in critical care and those on ventilators is coming down right the way across, it is coming down slowly, as you would expect, but it is on its way down. and that in turn starts to lead to the decrease in deaths. and here, you can see the number of deaths in all settings, this is notjust hospitals but across all settings, and you can see it is gradually beginning to come down. it is not coming down as fast as it

went up and i said before i expect there to be a bit of a plateau stage before things really come down further. but you can see it is on its way down. and again, this is the comparison, it is difficult to look at exactly what this means because people recall things differently, but the message is, r is down. the number of new cases is down. that is turning into fewer admissions, fewer people in hospital, fewer people in intensive care and we are beginning to see that decrease in deaths. thank you. thanks very much, patrick, we will go first to members of the public you have questions. i would like to hear from michelle, in cornwall. we are getting inquiries daily to book holidays from june onwards, we are worried there will be an influx of people going away from the cities and two tourist hotspots which could bring a second wave to areas such as cornwall.

please could we ask how tourism in the uk will be managed in the coming weeks? well, thanks, michelle and first, i want to say i sympathise very much with everybody in the tourism industry who has taken such a hit. it has been one of ourjob is to make sure that we look after businesses as far as we possibly can, through our loans and support schemes, following schemes for workers. —— furloughing schemes. you will come back, michelle, we will make sure the uk bounces back strongly as it possibly can, but we have to be sensible and the public have been sensible in staying away as far as they have and obeying the advice. it is vital, as i say, that that does not fray and we don't see people starting to disregard what we are saying. a lot more will be said next week and in the coming weeks about how

and when we propose to unlock the various parts of the uk economy. what you are going to get next week is really a road map, a menu of options. the dates and times of each individual measure will be very much driven by where we are in the epidemic and watch the data is really saying. and we are getting in a lot more data every day now and in the course of the next few days. so, michelle, the short answer is you are dead right, we have got to get your business going again, we have to get tourism going again, but we can't allow such a big influx of tourists is to create a second spike, a second wave of the disease. chris, patrick, is there anything you want to add to that? 0k. i hope that is ok, michelle, thank you very much for your question. katy, from liverpool.

she asks, the lockdown has seen an increase in suicide. what help is available for people experiencing a mental health crisis? clearly, this is a major issue that we have been thinking about, people can find at home can become to existing mental health conditions. that is why it is very important to understand taking pressure off the nhs in the way that we have means that we can now, as matt hancock said on monday, we can now make sure the nhs is once again prioritising other urgent care needs across the community including people's mental health needs. and public health england is doing

a huge campaign to reach out to people who have mental health needs, who are feeling in need of comfort, in what is a very difficult time. if you are experiencing it yourself at home, then there are lines you can call, go on our website to see what you need. we are putting money now into mental health care charities across the country to support what we agree, i agree very strongly with katy, it is an issue that needs to be addressed. and it goes to show why it is all the more urgent for us now to begin to come out of lockdown and to continue to suppress the disease. happy with that and more or less? absolutely, i would add to that if you go on to the nhs website, there are contact details both

for nhs things which are available for people who have mental health issues or who are feeling lonely or indeed in this case suicidal. there are also many remarkable voluntary organisations, well known ones like the samaritans and others as well and i would strongly encourage anybody who is feeling they are going into a mental health crisis or feeling suicidal or very low mood, please do look up those numbers and go to one that is relevant to your particular needs and call someone. because there are a lot of people out there he would be very keen to help you. that is absolutely right and that goes for anybody who is stressed out by the current situation, whether the atmosphere at home has gone wrong, people who feel at risk of domestic abuse in particular. there are helplines for you, it is absolutely vital that people should use them. and as i say, one of the reasons why we don't want, there are good, practical health reasons why

we don't want to protract this lockdown any longer than it needs to be protracted. 0k. let's go to the media. laura kuenssberg, from the bbc. thank you very much, prime minister. there has been such a huge suffering, there have been 26,000 deaths since you last studied at that lectern. there has been huge suffering to people's health and also to the country's wealth, many people are very worried about making ends meet. by continuing with lockdown, are you telling the public that the economyjust has to wait? and if i could ask leading or professor whitty, you said the r is between 0.6 and 0.9, at what level does the r need to be out before you are comfortable with starting to ease restrictions? thanks very much, laura and what you say is totally right, and we mourn for every life lost. and we mourn for the economic damage as well that the country is sustaining.

for people's, the dreams of people's, that they are seeing shattered in their businesses and their anxieties about theirjobs. we totally understand that. the government has made a huge effort, as you know, to look after workers, to protect them with our furloughing scheme. colossal sums in loans are going out of the door, we are doing everything we can. i really pay tribute to rishi sunak, the chancellor, for the speed with which he has come forward with the schemes that he has. i do think that the uk has done very well by comparison with a lot of places around the world. but it is absolutely vital, laura, that if we are to bounce back as strongly as i think we can, but we don't have a second bout of this, a second bad spike. because that would really do the economic damage.

and that is why we have got a lasting, and lasting economic damage, and that is why we have to calibrate our measure so carefully and make sure that we not only unlock the economy gradually, but also find ways of continuing to suppress the disease. and possibly new ways, more ingenious ways of suppressing the disease as well. that is what we are working on now and you will see a lot more of that, i hope, next week. chris. then patrick. so, there is not a perfect answer to what should the r be? but we are absolutely confident the wrong answer is anything over one. as soon as r goes above one, you restart exponential growth, it may be slow if it isjust above one and maybe faster if it goes a lot above one, but exponential growth restart and sooner or later and the higher it is, the sooner it is, the nhs goes back to the risk of being overwhelmed and the number

of cases will go up. it is also important from a health point of view to emphasise one other thing, which is, i have talked before about the fact you have the direct deaths from coronavirus, but also indirect deaths, part of which is caused by the nhs and public health services not being able to do what they normally can to look after people with other conditions. and it is therefore important, at whatever point we are at, but the nhs not only has the r below one, at or below one, at all times, preferably significa ntly below in an ideal world, but certainly below, but also that it has headroom which allows it to operate not just in doing the emergency things which it has managed to maintain throughout the entire coronavirus first phase, but also to do the other important things like urgent cancercare,

elective surgery and all the other things like screening and public health preventative terms which we need to do to keep people healthy. so, those two things, from my perspective as someone who is responsible for talking about health and thinking about health as the chief medical officer, absolutely, those two, to me, seem critical. hello there we finally got to see some april showers some of them really were torrential with some thunder mixed in may it looks like it'll be gay and unsettled with some showers around thanks to low pressure but then signs as high pressure but then signs as high pressure begins this weekend and into next week. for friday the 1st of may, our area of low pressure we are pushing out into the north sea but will be bringing further showers into northern parts of the country, scotland, northern ireland, northern

england could see some heavy downpours into the afternoon. chance of returning dryer and sunnier across the south as pressure begins to build here. so with lighter went to build here. so with lighter went to and some sunshine which were a little bit warmer at 15, 16 degrees. low teens in the north. 0ur little bit warmer at 15, 16 degrees. low teens in the north. our own area which is into scandinavia and saturday. and between weather systems this feature getting close to the southwest. they on saturday for the top the back edge of that area of low pressure could be certain further showers to the northeast of scotland. in between plenty of dry weather some sunshine but also some cloud building up through the day. one or two places could become quite grey. it will feel pleasantly warm in the south i think 15 or 16 degrees. 0n feel pleasantly warm in the south i think 15 or 16 degrees. on it to sunday, it looks like this frontal system now flirts with southern parts of the country the high pressure will be building in all the while across the uk. it looks like again part two for the weekend could be dry for most of us. some good smells of sunshine to wake up to possible cloud into the afternoon. 0ne possible cloud into the afternoon. one or two showers being brought to the north of scotland on the northerly wind at the haps app

currently system for some thicker cloud and showers to the southwest. in between wet, dry and settled a little bit warmer 16 or 17 degrees. into next week the models want to agree with pressure building that will settle things down turn dryer and much sunnier. feel pleasantly warm by day and stronger sunshine. you can see the high—pressure building in from the northwest across the uk. as we head into the start of the week, low pressure stays toward the southwest for now. but things could change if the models change their minds on the area of high pressure. at the moment it looks like it wants to be a dry and a settled scenario for monday. could be a little bit chillier down the north sea coast but further west could see highs of 19 or 20 degrees. high pressure into tuesday come across the country this low to the northwest of spain mightjust edge and a little bit. if the scenarios change it could turn out to be a bit more unsettled and went across the

southwest. you have to stay tuned to the forecast was up at the moment it looks like tuesday will be mostly dry with plenty of sunshine, quite breezy through the channel is an area of low pressure tries to push up. could see a few showers for the far southwestern channel islands. but the majority of the country a pleasa ntly warm but the majority of the country a pleasantly warm and sunny. beyond tuesday through wednesday, thursday, friday and indeed into the following weekend i get the favourite scenario is for high pressure to remain in place. that goes for some milder air as well as we have plenty of strong sunshine by day. it will feel quite warm but night will be on the chilly side. as we had through the week next week, it looks like i pressure will bring a lot of dry weather. variable cloud and some good smells of sunshine. the best of the sunshine through central southern and western areas. quite warm at times through the day.

this is 0utside source on bbc news for viewers in the uk and around the world. we are covering all the latest coronavirus developments here in britain and globally. the number of americans who've lost their job climbs to more than 30 million — after another 3.8 million sign on in the past week. we'll take a look at the pandemic‘s effect on the global economy — and at how in many countries, people are struggling to feed themselves. britain's prime minister boris johnson says the country is past the peak of the coronavirus — but it's too soon