germany has unveiled plans to reopen europe's biggest economy. restaurants, schools and professional football have all been given the greenlight to re—start as lockdown restrictions are lifted. the european commission says, europe is experiencing its biggest economic shock, since the great depression. it predicts a decline this year, of seven and a half percent due to the pandemic. another grim milestone. the number of deaths in the uk has tipped past 30,000 the prime minister defends his handling of the pandemic. president trump backtracks, saying he won't now disband the coronavirus task force telling reporters he didn't realise how popular it was. the us is the hardest hit country with 71,000 deaths. the us is the hardest hit country with 71,000 deaths. you are watching bbc news....

now let's take a look back at today's downing street briefing, which was led by the communities secretary, robertjenrick, the medical dierctor at public health england, yvonne doyle, and also the deputy director for nhs england, nicky kanani. good afternoon and welcome to the coronavirus press conference from downing street. i am joined this afternoon by professor yvonne doyle, the medical director of public health england, and the deputy medical director for nhs england, who has a particular focus on primary care. today's data shows 1,448,010 tests for coronavirus have now been carried out across great britain, including 69,463 tests carried out yesterday. 201,101 people had tested positive, an

increase of 6,111 cases since yesterday. 13,615 people are currently in hospital with coronavirus in great britain, down from 13,922 yesterday. and, sadly, of those hospitalised with the virus, 30,076 have now died, an increase of 649 fatalities since yesterday. behind those numbers are heartbreaking losses for the loved ones of all those who have died, and once again our thoughts and our prayers are with their friends and their families. professor doyle will provide an update on the latest data on coronavirus, but first, as communities secretary, i would like

to take this opportunity to give an update on the work being done locally during the pandemic to keep people safe, to provide support for people'sjobs and businesses, and to prepare for the reopening and the recovery of our local economies. that's why it is appropriate that this afternoon we are joined by regionaljournalists who are doing so much to keep people informed about how the national effort is being coordinated in our own communities. a free country needs a free press and the national, the regional and the local newspapers of our country are under significant financial pressure. i would like to echo the words of the culture secretary recently and encouraging everyone who can to buy a newspaper. as i said before, the battle against coronavirus will be won

in every city, town and village across the country. this is truly a national effort and it has a national effort taking place at a local level. my department has played a vital role in bringing people together to tackle the virus. we have provided local authorities with over {3.2 billion during this pandemic so that they can continue to support the communities that need it through this most challenging time and respond to the immediate pressures they are facing due to coronavirus, whilst also protecting and preserving vital public services. at the start of march, i established a task force to support local resilience forum is known as lrfs, standing them up at a local level across the country —— forums known as lrfs. to prepare for a range

of different scenarios. there are 38 lrfs in england made up of emergency services, a range of government agencies, health bodies and local authorities. they are headed by some of the most senior and experienced local leaders of the emergency services, of councils, the nhs and others, who together are leading their communities through the crisis with the full support of central government. we unprecedented challenge that we face. in doing this i took the decision to embed within them some of the finest military planners in the world from our armed forces and i am very grateful for their hard work in recent weeks. this combined expertise and leadership is ensuring a comprehensive, coordinated and consistent response across the country. responding to the urgent need for personal protective

equipment to reach the front line of the care sector, we have mobilised lrfs to help distribute ppe and thus far they have delivered over 67 million items in england alone since early april. together with local councils, they are also assisting us in supporting some of the most vulnerable individuals in their communities, and to date they have helped us to ensure that 1 million boxes of food and essential supplies have now been delivered to those people identified by the nhs as extremely clinically vulnerable to coronavirus, the shielded. with more than 290,000 boxes being distributed every week, this has been a huge team effort, and i would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved for the role that they have played, and will play, in the weeks ahead. we are also working very closely with mayors to ensure

we have a coordinated approach to tackling coronavirus at a local level. the government has been determined to ensure that the vital work of keeping people safe in their homes also continues. so with the support of the mayors of london, of the liverpool city region, of greater manchester, of sheffield, of the west midlands, and others, we were able to announce the building safety pledge. these mayors have come together because they have a number of the high rise buildings with highly flammable cladding in their respective regions, and the pledge we agreed sends a very clear message that vital building safety work must continue, despite the coronavirus pandemic. we have beenjoined by 25 local authorities including 18 in london, who have also given their fulsome support.

as work on many of these critical sites was paused early on, it is now slowly starting to reassure them as a result of this initiative, and i would urge any building owner or contractor to do so, as soon as practical, where it is safe to begin work once again. now, coronavirus will not stop our mission to level up, to unite and to unleash the potential of this country. the prime minister will set out on sunday our approach to the second phase of this pandemic. as we look ahead to supporting businesses as they are able to reopen, my department will lead our work on how our local economies can adapt, evolve, recover and grow. i will continue to support mayor clinic and local government leaders who will play a critical role in this work. every local economy now needs a plan

to restart and recover. we will be informing these plans with our own detailed work in areas such as how workplaces from factories to construction sites to offices can be adapted, how outdoor spaces, leisure and businesses, from parks to high streets, to markets, can be managed. and how public transport networks, from the tube, to trams and buses, can operate. in each case, guided by scientific and medical advice, we want to ensure appropriate and safe social distancing, providing the public with the confidence to return to work and to return to public spaces and public transport, knowing it is always safe to do so. we are considering how we can create more room in town centres for pedestrians, how we can make it easier to cycle or walk to work. and we will work

with towns and places whose economies have been hardest hit intensively as the recovery begins. and our commitment to infrastructure investment remains undimmed. for example, over two thirds of h52 sites are open. we want infrastructure and construction work to begin again, wherever it is safe to do so. it is clear to everyone that the pandemic is putting huge pressure on economies the world over, and there is no denying the challenges that lie ahead in our own country, but we cannot and will not let this pandemic halt our work to improve connectivity, to provide vital social and cultural infrastructure and to boost economic growth across the regions. that is how we will begin to rebuild and to recover from this national emergency. we are working to ensure the right support is available to

local businesses, and last week high street businesses began to receive the £22 billion package designed to mitigate some of the effects of coronavirus, with grants of up to £25,000 being paid into bank accounts of those businesses. and, of course, our 100 towns benefiting from the {3.6 billion towns fund will continue to receive our support and we will be working at pace with them in the months ahead. local authorities have now paid out over £8.6 billion in grants to around 700,000 businesses. as local government secretary, i would like to congratulate those councils who have worked extremely hard, sometimes around the clock, to get those grants out to the businesses that desperately need them. i would like to congratulate chichester, ealing and heinberg councils, the three highest performing councils so far in england.

businesses are also receiving discounts of almost £10 billion on their rates bills in response to covid—19, with the hardest hit by the pandemic such as shops, cafes and pubs, paying no business rates whatsoever this financial year. together with existing relief, this means 1.1 million ratepayers are no longer paying business rates this year. this week the chancellor and i announced an additional 5% uplift, up to £670 million available to local councils to fund small businesses that rent space in shared offices, industrial units and innovation centres —— 617 £9. as well as market traders and b&bs that pay market instead of business rates, and also to support small charities. local councils will now have more flexibility to keep those businesses going —— £617 million.

moving forward, our mission is to ensure everything we can is done to help people get back to work safely, to reunite friends and family, and to reintroduce the things that make life worth living in a safe way, as soon as it is safe to do so. finally, on friday, we will be celebrating, as a country, the 75th anniversary of ve day. my department, like others, had been helping to plan some of the public celebrations, but we know that, sadly, we will now need to mark this important occasion from home instead. cabinet colleagues had been speaking with veterans, organised by the royal british legion. i had the pleasure, earlier this week, speaking to a 98—year—old world war ii veteran on the phone, leslie. leslie was full of warmth and wisdom telling me how he spent ve day

sienna having fought his way through north africa and italy, and how he would be spending friday more sedately celebrating at home. he said to me that as we rebuilt and we recovered then, he is certain we will do so again this year. i will now hand over to dr nikki kanani in the first instance, and then to professor doyle. thank you. thank you, secretary of state. i wanted to just reflect on your point about community, and thank communities for following government advice. it is an incredibly difficult time. i am a gp and before i was a gp i grew up in a community pharmacy, and my colleagues have been facing probably the most challenging time they have ever had to come and right across the nhs people are working under significant stress and strain, and our communities have helped to look after them and look out for them

through staying at home and following government advice and becoming a volunteer responders, and looking out for their own communities, so i want to thank you for that. it's really challenging, isn't it? i have a family i'm home schooling children and it feels difficult and we all want reassurance and we missed the familiarity of the things we used to do. i wanted to reassure people who are listening and watching today that your primary ca re watching today that your primary care services watching today that your primary ca re services are watching today that your primary care services are still there for you. i want to pay tribute to our gp practices and our general practice teams. 0ur dentist, optometrist, the unsung heroes of community pharmacists on high street have continued to work day after day and make sure that they're there for you. this bank holiday there will be open as well. it might feel a little bit different. you might have more telephone calls or online consultations, you might see somebody addressing ppe as i was yesterday in my surgery. but you

must know that your nhs is still here for you. please come and contact us if you need advice or support over the coming weeks and months. thank you. thank you, i think we all want to reiterate your comments thanks to gp and everybody working in primary care across the country. yvonne who's going to provide today's size. thank you. just to remind us all of the five tests for adjusting to lockdown here we can see that they relate to capacity and to mortality, to deaths and also that we are actually controlling the epidemic itself and the transmission of the epidemic. looking at the first graph, we can see again that this is about transport, it's a regular slide, see again that this is about transport, it's a regularslide, it shows that overall transport is down a good use by 50%. but less motivated calls and that has been slowly increasing over recent weeks. this is up to the 4th of may and

it's for the uk. the important message and all of that of course, is that we must still respect the track that this virus does transmit and to stay at home. and not to interact too much because evil are still very vulnerable to getting this virus. we can see how the daily tests a nd this virus. we can see how the daily tests and these have increased over time. this is up to the 6th of may. i will move on to the next slide which is of interest which is the new cases. here we have more new cases. and this may be a matter of concern but it's also a matter of testing more. we are doing more testing more. we are doing more testing and therefore we will find more cases. this is what we want to do. we want to find the positive cases so that we can break transmission. this is about people in hospital. i know of great interest to you listening and the

news here is generally very good. you can see where london had its early epidemic and it has declined. the cases in hospital have declined as more slowly perhaps of other regions. we see here with the northwest is now has more cases in hospital than london but overall, we have about 13,000 cases. which is a decrease and it's good news. most critically ill patients, this is about critical care beds. throughout the uk and this is again good news. it's for the poor countries of the uk and we can see here where we actually have less than a third of critical care beds being occupied by people with the coronavirus. good news there. it is declining. we look at the recorded data. less good news here in terms of these very tragic. it is very, very sad. but the trend is good because it is slowly coming

down. this is a seven—day rolling average for the uk. we have 649 yesterday and that was a decline. a slow decline. finally, to slides about the international deaths. the first one is just the crude numbers. this of course depends on the size of the country so we have over 67,000 deaths in the united states but of course a big country. and we can see the uk and the european countries they are further down. if we look at the last slide, which is about the rates per million population than we have taken account of the size of the country and we can see a different pattern where the uk and european countries are more closely together. i want to say that this really is presented just to show you different ways of looking at death. there are many different ways of looking at death. it is far too early to say how this

will eventually result for how countries have fared in this epidemic. we need to give this some time. most of those who are used to looking at these things would say probably a year. but we thought you would be interested to see. so thank you secretary of state. thank you very much. before we turn to questions from the regional press we have two from members of the public. the first one is from edward. given the excess in critical care beds across the nhs and nightingale hospitals, my question is, why has the uk suffered a greater number of deaths when compared to countries such as italy who had their health ca re systems such as italy who had their health care systems completely overrun by covid—19? care systems completely overrun by covid-19? thank you edward for that question. why has the uk suffered a higher numberof question. why has the uk suffered a higher number of deaths compared to italy, for example whose health care syste m italy, for example whose health care system was overrun by covid—19? i think as the prime minister has said ona numberof think as the prime minister has said on a number of occasions now, it is

difficult to make international comparisons with certainty today. there will be a time for that and we have already established a way in which we will measure that in due course. which is a measure of excess deaths. but that is a hard calculation to do with accuracy today. of course we want to learn whatever lessons we can once we're still responding to the virus. but i think the time for accurate comparisons will come in the future. it is more positive of course, that when we saw those very disturbing scenes earlier in the year in italy of theirvery scenes earlier in the year in italy of their very good health service being overwhelmed and were concerned about the potential impact upon the nhs, that we haven't seen those scenes in the uk. we have had sufficient icu capacity, we have had sufficient icu capacity, we have had sufficient ventilator capacity and of course we've been able to build capacity. for example within nightingale hospitals some of which have not been used at all. so far during the course of the virus. if

you want to add more about the international perspective? thank you, so credit to the nhs for having it not being overwhelmed. but in international comparisons as i have mentioned, countries measure in very different ways. they measured the virus number of deaths in different ways. that is absolutely fine so long is that is consistent in each country. it makes international comparisons very difficult though because we are not comparing like with like. it's worth continuing to stress this because over time probably the right measures have been outlined by eight number of our experts including our chief medical 0fficer which would be excess mortality, excess deaths overall. in a period of time. and then we will note, truly, how we have been impacted. also this is a comparable measure internationally. so the thing that we would then be able to understand then how we would been

impacted internationally as well. thank you. our second question is from mr from swansea. emma's question is religion is a huge part of life for many in the uk. that's a very important question. obviously, in any part of our lives the government has been driven by desire to protect life and has taken expert medical and scientific opinion. but we are very aware that this has been a difficult period for a different faith groups. you've seen for example, the jewish community having to hold their seders and passover by zoom and without having their friends or family around. you then so to see easter whose churches were not able

to come together and the archbishop and others held their sermons and services over the internet as an churches across the country. at the moment through ramadan friends and family are not able to come together to break fast in a way that they traditionally would. we know this is very tough and none of us would want these restrictions to continue a date longer than they need to. but it is right that we stick to the advice, the medical advice at this time. however much it goes against our traditions and our religious beliefs. in order to protect others as well as ourselves. we are in conversation with faith leaders across the country to consider how, when the time is right, they will be able to recommence services in churches and mosques and synagogues across the country. but that moment is not now. we also been working with them how we can ensure that

funerals and other important events in peoples lives are conducted in an appropriate way. in my department hasissued appropriate way. in my department has issued guidance to enable people to hold funerals in public spaces for example, like crematorium us with close members of their family around them. because none of us want to see scenes which we did see unfortunately, and a small number of occasions early on in the virus of funerals being conducted with few if anyone present. that wasn't right. we've issued guidance now so that shouldn't happen again. we are working with faith leaders to see how they are appropriate, those funerals can be conducted in churches or other settings like that as well. good evening. it's been a warmer day today and the warmth will continue for many of the cover days. warmth will continue for many of the cover days. but when we get to the weekend. some changes. by the time we get to saturday afternoon, across the north

of scotland in particular, there will be a blast of market air —— arctic air moving across by sunday so it will feel very much like winter has returned. for the rest of the evening, it stays largely clear. quite chilly and further west we got cloud and a few showers to hold our temperature up. mist and fog will clear quickly and once again and there'll be plenty of dry unsettled weather under this area of high pressure. however, those showers are making their way on this weather front so there will be an increased chance of showers over the coming few days. i would like to roll out the odd one. more likely to be across northern areas up into northern ireland and scotland. more cloud in these areas. not everyone will catch a shower by the afternoon, they could turn out to be heavy. temperatures are expected to be higher than those of today.

notably i think an eastern coastal counties. friday very similar in that there will be a lot of dry, bright weather, hazy sunshine, but different in scotland. rather cloudy and damp at times here. there could be the odd sharp shower just about anywhere. as we see temperatures rising into the low 20s in many parts of england and wales, the art shower elsewhere for scotland and northern ireland. —— all at a shower. similar for saturday. at the same time in the north, we are getting that whole point of hearing so just seven or eight in the far north of scotland. so just seven or eight in the far whilst we hold onto that heat in the south. during saturday evening, that cold air will push our weather front right the way south and behind it, the chance of some snow. even at low levels

for northern scotland. so it will feel much colder by day on sunday. a drop of some 10 degrees, feeling cold still when you add on the effect of that strong northerly wind.

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. germany has unveiled plans to reopen europe's biggest economy. restaurants, schools and professional football have all been given the greenlight to restart as lockdown restrictions are lifted. another grim milestone in the uk. the number of deaths has tipped past 30,000. the prime minister has been defending his handling of the pandemic but admits to some failings.