now on bbc news, panorama. we all want to know when lockdown will be lifted. at the moment i don't see light at the end of the tunnel. the government will tell us its plans later this week. so how will we stay safe? it's clear there are still infections spreading in the community. tonight on panorama, we're behind the scenes with the scientists racing to find answers. we need to go really, really fast. it's been very stressful trying to work out how we do this safely. and we're on the front line with trial volunteers. we're hoping it boosts the immune system. so how long will it take before we can get back to normal life again?

we're in this for the long haul. and i think we are going to have to adapt to live with this virus. why are you watching me with that? oh, my god. five—year—old theo hamilton's temperature is rising. his parents are worried. don't go getting a temp. we really want to stay away from a hospital. theo... he's got leukaemia. it's weakened his immune system. so theo is at particular risk from coronavirus. what will this keep away? the germs. theo and his parents are following government advice, isolating at home because of the illness. lawrence is on furlough from his job as a chef. i have a rest. you're having a rest.

katt has been filming life in lockdown for us. our normal daily routine of wiping everything down. making sure there's no germs. she's only been out of the house once in six weeks. naughty mum! so what are your big fears? why is theo so at risk? people who are healthy are not making it, so someone like theo, i'm scared that that will take him. stop being a cheeky monkey. i will be a cheeky monkey. the covid—19, with him not having an immune system that could fight it, if it was to happen to him, would he be able to fight it? that's the scary part for me. and that mustjust be playing on your mind the whole time. yeah. co nsta ntly. so theo's having his weekend meds, which is his antibiotics.

we have this every saturday and sunday twice a day. this is the only thing that i can protect him from. if i keep him home in his bubble then i know he's safe and that gives me a little bit of peace of mind. yeah. the idea of lockdown is to stop the virus spreading by keeping us apart. theo's grandmother drops off supplies, but she can't come in. cheers, mum. lockdown has slowed down the spread of the disease, but the virus is still out there. that's why katt and lawrence say they won't risk letting theo go out when the government does start to lift restrictions. at the moment i don't see light at the end of that tunnel. i just don't see how it's going to get fixed. 5.5. the chemo. when he was diagnosed with cancer,

there was, there was an end goal, there was a treatment, there was a plan. now there's not, and that frightens me a lot, so that plays on my mind a lot, like i'm not in control. we haven't got a plan, we don't know what we're going to do next. and that's hard. so when will theo, and the rest of us, finally be safe? the international scientific community has launched an unprecedented effort to beat this microscopic killer. but it is not easy. viruses are notoriously hard to eradicate, that's why colds and flu come back every single year. and remember, this is a new virus, so there is still so much we don't know about it. "know your enemy" is the advice in war, so what do

we know about coronavirus? doctor stephen griffin has spent his career studying viruses and how to fight them. how does the coronavirus infect us? the virus is present in droplets, and then that gets into the airway in your mouth and in your nose, and infects cells in our bodies. then as the infection gets more progressively expanded within your body, it will start to spread further down. it gets in, hijacks the cells because the virus can not replicate on its own. the whole point of a parasite like a virus is to get in, get out and spread. the best way to beat a virus is to stop it spreading from person to person. and the best way to do that is with a vaccine. a vaccine should make us immune. if we vaccinate people enough, then the virus just doesn't have any where else to go, and so therefore you can eventually eliminate it.

around the world, more than 100 teams are racing against the clock to create a vaccine. one of the most promising is being developed here in oxford. the process normally takes years. the team he hopes to produce a vaccine in super quick time. we need to go really, really fast. it's been very stressful trying to work out how we do this safely. we're not skipping any steps, we're not missing things out, and it's been very challenging. the oxford vaccine takes the gene sequence from the outer spikes of the coronavirus and adds it to a harmless version of a common cold virus found in chimpanzees. when will you know whether this vaccine is effective and safe? we're going to know that it's safe pretty soon, as soon as we start to vaccinate people. but we can't put a firm

date on when we're going to know if it works. in the past your team have said the autumn? we would expect, we think there is a high probability we'll be there by autumn. we can't say with any certainty exactly when it's going to happen. maybe i'm just being too optimistic but we see good results with the technology that we're using. the oxford researchers are injecting 550 volunteers with their vaccine, and 550 with a control vaccine usually used for meningitis. ok, see you later. today is the day of the vaccine. so i am just about to head to the hospital for that. i am a bit nervous. jayne harrison is one of the volunteers. she is a senior nurse with the nhs in oxford. it feels really amazing actually to be part of something so important, that's happening right

here in oxford. none of the volunteers are told whether they are getting the coronavirus vaccine or not. i might be one of the few people in the world at the moment that have had a vaccine against covid—19. this is my very small contribution to a much bigger effort. researchers aren't going to infect people with the virus, so they have to wait to see who catches it naturally. if hardly any of the volunteers from the vaccine group get ill, while 20 of those from the control group do, then they'll know it's worked. but lockdown means it could take longer to get a result. lockdown we hope will be effective, but it makes it difficult to test the vaccine because we need a small number of people to become infected to know that the vaccine's working. the more effective lockdown is, the paradox is the longer it'll

take you to establish whether your vaccine's working? that's right. everyone is hoping we'll get a vaccine soon. but some scientists warn we shouldn't be too optimistic. i think it will take 12 to 18 months still. we don't yet know if there's any product out there that will actually work. that's the first thing we have to establish. and we don't yet know whether even if we give the vaccine, for how long that protection might last for. and that's not something we can find out quickly. and to upscale for the mass production will take extra time. despite these uncertainties, two pharmaceutical companies are taking a gamble on the oxford vaccine. before they even know if it works, they've agreed to go into production to ensure supplies are ready if the trials are a success. we're planning to be ready to have tens of millions of doses ready by the autumn as well and then expand from there and start going into tens of millions of doses per month.

tens of millions a month? yes. by the middle of next year, we should be up by the middle of next year, we should be up to the billion mark. it could be at least a year before a vaccine is widely available. in the meantime, what about a drug to help us fight the disease and make it less deadly? at the moment, doctors have nothing that's been proven to work. it feels like this will never end. karolina and steve live in east london. they struggled through covid—i9, and kept a video diary for us. it's a quarter past five in the morning. steve woke me up because my body's burning. so i still have fever. steve's completely got no voice oi’ energy.

initially i developed fever. temperature would creep up a lot and i would really, really poorly. there was times when he would get out of bed and would be like, "i can't breathe, i can't breathe." so what was it like when the virus went into your lungs? i couldn't take a clear breath, take in or take out a clear breath, and you could feel it. it was really scary, especially the times when steve was struggling to breathe. paramedics had to visit steve three times. today steve has been really poorly. he's just been assessed by an ambulance, and his oxygen saturations are quite low. it took steve 15 days to recover. and their three—month—old baby, amaya, also caught the virus.

i'm currently filming from whipps cross hospital paediatric ward. amaya has sadly developed covid—i9 complications, and she now has viral pneumonia. karolina was horrified when doctors said they had no drugs to help baby amaya fight off the disease. she had to do it for herself. herface was red, she was burning, she was sweating, her palms and feet were really sweaty. you know, there would be times where she would be shaking, and she would be lethargic. did you sort of realise what a terrible situation you were in? you know, i feel like emotionaljust remembering. it was really scary. the whole family has now recovered. today steve has been really poorly. we showed doctor stephen griffin the family's video to find out how drugs might have helped them.

his oxygen saturations are quite low. it seems as though this gentleman's infection has spread further down into the lungs. and this has started to cause an inflammatory response. so your body's response to the virus is within the lungs and part of that is causing fluid to build up which is what we term pneumonia. that's why he's feeling shortness of breath. so what kind of things would we want drugs to do in order to kind of attack this virus? you'd use an antiviral drug to slow that virus down so that your immune response can get on top of it, or you can use drugs which interfere with that huge inflammatory process that's going on in your lungs, dampen that down so that the damage it does is less severe. and the last one is to give a sort of artificially intense stimulation to your immune response. we have been invited to university hospital southampton, where doctors are trialling an experimental drug they hope will give the immune system a boost.

first, i have to put on the protective equipment we've brought ourselves. the only way to test these drugs is to give them to people who have the illness, so that's why we need to go onto the ward. the idea of the treatment is to increase levels of a protein called interferon beta in patients' lungs. it is one of a number of experimental drugs that have been given urgent public health research status. professor tom wilkinson is heading up the trial. interferon beta's a naturally—occurring protein that many of the cells in our body produce on a daily basis. so when the lungs experience a viral attack the cells in the lining of the lung produce this protein naturally and it helps the immune system co—ordinate a response to that virus. 67—year old kaye was admitted to

hospital yesterday with the illness. hi, kaye, how are you? all right, thank you. how are you feeling? i'm feeling fine, thank you. what we're going to do, kaye, is give you some of that medication, that research medication, now. kaye is one of around 75 patients trialling the drug in uk hospitals. so, kay, how has your breathing been? it was very, very shallow. so it's like your lungs are sort of blocked? yes it was, yeah. so you try to take a breath and it's...? were you quite frightened? yes, i was. when you start breathing, it will kick in. the drug is inhaled via a nebuliser to get it deep into kaye's lungs. we're hoping it boosts the immune system. we're hoping that will help fight the infection, the virus. the company says that it's not a cure, but thinks it could

save lives by helping our bodies fight the virus. so what would you hope would be the results of your drug trial? well, if we get good results from this trial, we'll scale up the clinical trial effort and hopefully have enough patients in to show that we can reduce mortality and we can get people out of hospital sooner. government, universities and industry want to fast—track testing for promising experimental treatments. but new drugs still need rigorous clinical trials, and that takes time. if scientists could also find an existing drug that also works for covid—i9, that would really speed things up. there are dozens of trials around the world hoping to do just that. today in exeter, dr matt masoli is trying to recruit coronavirus patients for a trial of five existing drugs.

his colleague is filming on the ward for us. right. i've come to see the gentleman. dr masoli's work is part of the world's biggest drug trial. more than 5,000 nhs patients are taking part, and the numbers are growing. so this is a gentleman in his 805. normally fit and well, no significant past medical history. can walk two miles on the flat. on a bit of oxygen. can i have a quick look at his x—ray? they're testing an hiv drug, a malaria drug, an antibiotic and two anti—inflammatory treatments to see if they help. a leading expert on infectious diseases is overseeing the trial. so these drugs, we know how they work, we've got a very good idea of the safety profile and they're available, they're kind of off the shelf. so if they work, you know, we can use them straightaway in a large number of patients.

this x—ray shows this gentleman has got severe covid pneumonia. dr masoli has found another potential patient for the trial. so he's asking if he wants to participate. he actually looks a lot better than his x—ray, and he has agreed to take part. a number of the patients that we've recruited have done well. whether that's down to the study treatment, or whether that is just the normal care, it's difficult to know. when will we begin to get answers? when will we know whether these drugs work or not? i think june, realistically, because although we've got a lot of patients in the trial now we need to give a period for the patient to sort of finish their clinical journey to either recover, go home or you know, if they pass away, then that can take some time. professor horby warns against getting our hopes up too quickly about any

of the drugs his team is testing. we have to be honest that these are not going to be game changers. we think that they may have a modest effect and i think that's the best we can hope for. i don't think we'll find anything that's miraculous. given the severity of the disease, nobel prize winner sir paul nurse thinks we've got to keep trying. when you're fighting an enemy like this you have to have every tool that you have at your disposal. and anything that works we should apply, even if it's not perfect, even if it doesn't work 100% effectively. if it only works on some patients or some of the time, that is still going to be useful in the present circumstances. what's clear is this is all going to take time. vaccines and treatments are many months away. and let's be honest, they may not deliver the miracle cure that we need. meanwhile, lockdown is devastating the economy. so how can we ease

the restrictions safely? steve's recovered from the virus — he'd like to go back to work. he runs a dry cleaning business. lockdown has taken a great toll on the business. even i would say two weeks prior to the government announcing a lock down. we had literally a customer walking in a day. it has had a dramatic effect on us. the whole family has had the disease. so does that mean they are now immune? sadly it is not that simple. so are there reasons to think that we might not be immune if we've been ill? absolutely, because there are many viral infections to which we are not immune if we've had them. i mean, you and i get a cold pretty much every year or so, and we get them more than once, right? so at the moment, we don't know if we will get covid again if we've had it before. we simply don't yet know how

much immunity — if any — we'd get after having coronavirus. so to lift the lockdown safely, we're going to need to know who's got the disease now, and isolate them. and the government says that means a lot more testing. i've paid for a home test kit, and i'm going to test myself, while following the instructional video from the nhs. so, before you begin, blow your nose to ensure nothing interferes with the test. then, wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds. right, so i've blown my nose and i've washed my hands — very important that you do that. then you get your test out. there we go. holding the stick end of your swab, open your mouth and rub the fabric end across your tonsils five times. justin coughs remove the swab carefully

without touching anything else inside your mouth. oh, god, that was unpleasant. i now have to test my nose as well, so i use the same swab for that. so let's do that, so you insert it into your nose until you feel a bit of pressure. let's do that. once inside, rotate the swab five times against the inside of the nose. i know it's a bit fiddly, but hopefully it wasn't too uncomfortable. it takes two or three days to get the results and i got mine yesterday. and here they are, look at that — covid negative. so i got the all clear. so how does testing like this fit into the government strategy to lift the lockdown? this is the francis crick institute

— one of britain's leading biomedical research centres. its director, sir paul nurse, has overseen the transformation of its labs into a temporary covid—i9 testing hub. emerging from lockdown over the coming weeks and months is going to rely mainly on testing. it's the only tool we have at this moment, coupled with the social tools that you can apply to it. until we know who is infected and therefore who might infect other people we can't really manage it. but sir paul — a longstanding labour supporter — has criticised the government for being too slow to roll out more testing. we would have gained more information about the virus and how it works, more rapidly so by the time we got to this point we might have had more information that could have advised the authorities on how to get out of lockdown into a more normal life.

the government told panorama it has taken the right steps at the right time, guided by the best scientific advice — and has launched the largest network of diagnostic testing facilities in british history. we can relax social distancing only when the government's five tests are met, and that means particularly getting the infection rate right down. testing will help keep it under control once we are out of lockdown but our levels of testing have not kept us in lockdown a day longer. there has now been a big increase in our testing capacity. but when lockdown is lifted, we'll need more than just tests to keep us safe. we'll need a system to track down those who might have been infected. this is how a great british virus hunt is going to work. if you've got symptoms of the disease, if you get

tested, if you've got it you go into isolation. teams then trace the people you've been in contact with and if it seems likely they've got the disease they get tested, if they've got it, they go into isolation too. the idea is to hunt this virus down in the community and run it to ground. the process is known as contact tracing. it's almost public health's best kept secret, because we've been doing it for decades and it's basic, old fashioned shoe leather, phone calls, post and ringing people up. it's a tried and tested method, we know how to do it, and we know it works. jim mcmanus is hertfordshire's director of public health. local authorities will play a key part in delivering the government's plan. we do have a contact tracing system in place in the uk, but it's nothing like as big enough as it needs to be to cope with the volume, so a new system is being built as we speak.

the aim is to build a team of 18,000 tracers by mid—may. public health officials likejim mcmanus say it's a big ask. there has been a realisation as we've gone on that contact tracing is much more important than perhaps some of the advisors and modellers had thought it was. will you be able to do it in the time? the honest answer is, i don't know. but we will give it our very best shot and we will work as hard as we can to help government deliver this. a new nhs smartphone app may help. if someone tests positive, it will alert everyone they've been in contact with. the government told us contact tracing has not stopped, and tracing and testing is essential to limit the spread of the virus. it's working with clinicians, scientists and other specialists to plan a safe, staged path to national roll—out.

when testing and contact tracing are rolled out, it doesn't mean life willjust go back to normal. because when the lockdown is lifted, there's a risk the virus will start spreading more quickly again. so we'll need to maintain some social distancing. and if there's a resurgence of the virus, there may even be further lockdowns. i mean, i think we're in this for the long—haul. and i think we are going to have to adapt to live with this virus unless we have a very effective vaccine. science for sure will solve this problem. what we can't be certain of is how long it might take. what have i got to do, blue? yeah, blue. but for at—risk families like theo's, that is little comfort. what is the way out of this? hoping and praying that there'll be a vaccine sooner rather than later. so you think you won't be able to go

out until there's a vaccine? we could be talking 18 months, we could be talking two years even? i'm not willing to go outjust because it's 18 months and risk him contracting it and then being out, without him for life. you know, we know a lot of parents on our ward that have lost their children and i would never, and i have always said this, never, ever... sorry. never want to be in their shoes. i'm sorry. many of us are anxious about the lifting of lockdown. to keep safe, vulnerable people like theo may have to continue to live under severe restrictions. the rest of us? well, we will to have to change the way we live, the way we work and the way we travel — to reduce the risk of infection. scientists around the world are making incredible efforts to try to defeat the virus. but we can't expect a silver bullet to come along any time soon.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: british ministers insist plans to ease the lockdown will be "modest" and closely monitored. the prime minister will outline the changes on sunday. jobless and homeless: with 33 million americans now unemployed, new york's subway is a haunting symbol of the pandemic‘s impact. france is to begin lifting what's been one of the harshest lockdowns in europe, bringing an end to two months of confinement. and marking 75 years since world war ii ended in europe, but there'll be no crowds on the streets to celebrate the anniversary.