for viewers in the uk and around the world. the united states has renewed its attack on the world health organization for its response to the coronavirus. it said the pandemic had "spun out of control" partly because of what it called the who's "failure". italy has further eased its coronavirus restrictions, ten weeks after it became the first country in the world to impose a nationwide lockdown. shops, restaurants, bars and hairdressers have re—opened. france and germany are proposing a european recovery fund worth more than half a trillion dollars. president emmanuel macron and chancellor angela merkel said the fund would offer grants to the countries and regions hardest hit. the mayor of brazil's biggest city, sao paolo, says hospitals are on the brink of collapse. official figures show less than half of its residents are observing social distancing rules to stem the virus. you are watching bbc news.

let's now hear more of what the foreign secretary, dominic raab had to say in today's daily briefing from downing street on the coronavirus. good afternoon, and welcome to today's downing street press c0 nfe re nce . i am pleased to be joined byjonathan van—tam, our deputy chief medical officer. i will start with a daily update on the latest data on coronavirus. 2,000,680 tests for coronavirus have not been carried out in the uk, and that includes 100,678 tests carried out yesterday. 246,406 people have tested positive, and that is an increase of 2,684 cases since yesterday. 9,408 people are currently in hospital with coronavirus, which is down 13% from this time last week. i'm very sad to report that of those who have tested positive for covid—19 across all settings,

34,796 have now died. that is an increase of 160 deaths on yesterday. it goes without saying, we offer our condolences to the friends and family of every individual who has passed away during this coronavirus pandemic. this is a challenging time, and as we chart the right course over the weeks and months ahead, our overriding priority remains to save lives — whilst also at the same time preserving livelihoods and allowing people to return over time and when it is safe to something resembling a more normal way of living. so, on the 11th of may, we set out a road map to provide the information, the advice and the reassurance to businesses, to public services to other organisations, and to employees and citizens up and down the country. i want to thank everyone who is making the adjustments and engaging with us in government to forge the path ahead in a sure—footed and sustainable way.

of course, we recognise that people have concerns and questions, and we want to work together with them and with everyone involved to provide the necessary confidence and reassurance in the next steps that we're poised to make. that approach is summarised in the slides, which if we could now have them up on the screen, please. you will see from slide one, and as people will be aware, we have established a new covid alert system, with five levels, each relating to the current level of threat posed by the virus. the alert level is focused on the rate of infection, known as the "r value", as well as the total number of coronavirus cases overall. that alert level helps us determine the social distancing measures that we need to fight the virus. so the lower the level, the fewer or the less restrictive measures we will need at any given time. since the lockdown began at the end of march, we have been at level four,

as indicated on the slide, and thanks to the hard work and the huge sacrifices across the uk, and the progress we have made as a result of that, particularly in relation to compliance with the social distancing measures, we're in the process of moving from level four to level three on the slide. and we will do that through a number of very careful and deliberate steps. slide two, please. you'll see that last week, the prime minister set out the first of three steps designed to carefully modify the measures that have been put in place. and by gradually easing certain measures, we can begin to allow people to return to something resembling a more normal way of life. the choices we make, what we are asking the public to do and what we are asking them not to do are designed to avoid a very real risk of a second peak that would overwhelm the nhs, and risk turning a temporary economic painful moment for the country into permanent damage to the uk economy.

at every step, we will closely monitor the impact of easing restrictions, and in particular the impact on the spread of the virus. it is only by collecting and monitoring the data that we will be able to take the next step — which is indicated as step two on the slides — no earlier than the 1st ofjune. i understand that it is natural for people to question why they can't do one or other thing now, why distinctions have been made, but in reality, you have to look at the package of measures as a whole — mindful of the risk to the r level and taking into account the various economic and social effects combined. so we have adopted a balanced approach, guided at all times by the science, and, as i said, the overriding need to avoid a second peak that could overwhelm the nhs. of course, it is true to say that making any changes inherently comes with some risk of spreading the virus compared to

simply staying at home. but it is also true that staying in permanent lockdown is itself not sustainable on health grounds or economic grounds. that is why we have only eased measures where it can be done with the lowest risk possible. that is also why we are watching the impact of every change that we make very closely. i know the last couple of months have been really tough for families, for businesses, for everyone up and down the uk, but it is only by keeping to the plan, sticking to the rules, even including when those rules change, that we will beat coronavirus for good. slide three, please. and that is why we have asked people to stay alert, to control the virus, to save lives, as we make changes to the measures in place in england and adjust the government's advice accordingly. now, for the vast majority of people, that still means staying at home as much as possible. for those that can't work from home, they should return to work,

with the arrangements in place to ensure it can be safely and responsibly done. we have also adjusted, as you can see from the slides, the advice for people to exercise more, to visit public outdoor spaces but staying two metres apart from those outside their own household. as ever, people need to keep washing their hands regularly and carrying out the hygiene measures that we have advertised before. our advice is to wear a face covering when you're outside the home in enclosed spaces and where it is difficult to socially distance, for example, going to the shops or travelling on public transport. if you or anyone in your household developes symptoms, you still all need to self—isolate. while we are asking the public to do these things, we in government will keep ramping up the effort that we need to see to get the uk back to a more normal way of living. and with that in mind, today, the health secretary announced that

anyone in the uk with covid—i9 symptoms can now get a test by booking online. and i can also report that we have recruited now over 21,000 contact tracers and call handlers in england for the implementation of our test and trace programme. that programme is absolutely key in the next steps we need to take as a country to come through this pandemic safely and responsibly. jonathan, if you would like to run us through the latest data. thank you, secretary of state. good afternoon, everybody. i have just got a few data slides to show you, in the normal fashion. beginning with this one, which shows you apple maps' searches for directions. so it is confined to apple users, and it shows the beginning of the period of lockdown on the left on the 23rd of march, and what has happened to searches for walking instructions, driving instructions and public

transport from that point until the very recent past. and you can see that there has been a gradual, but only gradual, upward trend in searches related to walking and driving. but for public transport, this trend is essentially flat. and this is very much in line with the guidance that the government has issued about avoiding public transport wherever possible, saving it for key workers, and clearly, this is a trend that the public eye following. i have shown you the two data points on the right of the slide before now. compared with last year, 44% of adults are working at home in the period 24th of april to the 3rd of may, compared with 12% at the same time last year.

and that 80% of adults report they have either left the home for permitted reasons or not at all in that period. next slide, please. moving on now to testing, these data are correct as at 9am today. and they relate to tests processed and sent out. the broad message is that we are continuing to test at the rate of around 100,000 tests per day, and that in total, almost 2.7 million tests have been used since the crisis began. in terms of confirmed cases, the data as of this morning were over night for 2684 new cases out of a grand total of diagnosed cases of just under 250,000. but what you can see, if you look to the bottom right—hand corner of slide, the green bars, you can now see a definite and sustained decline

in new confirmed cases, which continues to be encouraging. next slide, please. so, these are data i showed to you last week, updated, of course, data from hospitals. the top curve relates to estimated admissions with covid—19 in england. 678 is the latest figure, darren from 701 on the 9th of may, ——678 is the latest figure, down from 701 on the 9th of may, so again, steady declines, and you can see that in the top blue curve. turning at the bottom of the slide to the percentage of critical care beds currently occupied by covid—19 patients, this trend is also consistently down across the four nations, and currently the figure runs at 19%. next slide, please.

and then this slide also relates to hospitals. it relates to all of the uk, and it relates to the total number of people in hospital with covid—19 over time, updated as of the 17th of may, and what you can see here is that everywhere the numbers of patients in hospital with covid—19 is now in sustained decline. again, very good news. and the final slide, please. this is the daily deaths data. these are deaths confirmed with a positive test in the uk. as of the 18th of may, we are reporting 160 deaths, and a total of 34,796 with a positive test. what you can see, and again it remains the most important thing

to look for, is the overall long—term trend as illustrated by the orange line, which is showing a consistent and solid decline as the days and weeks roll by. thank you, secretary of state. thanks very much. we will open it up to questions, and i think there is one from david from bury. good afternoon. as we take the first tentative steps towards releasing the lockdown, when will the government outline the road map ahead beyond the pandemic to ensure a swift fiscal health and well— being recovery? and what has already been discussed and decided? thank you very much. it's danny, i'm sorry. i have david here. danny, we've already published and over 50

page road map for how we rebuild after coronavirus, including the three steps i set out on the slides. the key thing, and there are different measures at different stages relating to no earlier than the 1st ofjune, the phasing of reopening of primary schools, different issues for businesses at different times, so nonessential retail will be dealt with at that point, but whether it is the 1st ofjune or the 4th ofjuly or any subsequent steps, we will only take those decisions and take those measures based on the scientific advice that tells us we can responsibly do so, and the worst of all worlds would be to trip up now and stumble when we have made the progress that the deputy chief medical officer has set out very clearly. so, we set our road map but it is a conditional one, and we will monitor very carefully based on the changes we have made over the last week and see what impact that has, and we will assess where the r rate is and where the other data is before taking any subsequent steps no earlier than the 1st ofjune.

jonathan, would you add anything? no. danny, thanks very much. i think there is one from james from wittering. james asked via text: i will let the deputy chief medical officer comment, but one of the key things we have said is that first of all we will be mindful to avoid a second wave. we want to keep the r level down, the rate of transmission down, to avoid that, and we will not sanction measures where we fear or there is a risk that they would take us above one. at the same time, when we set out our five tests for easing lockdown, and they still in large part apply, one of the key things was that we wouldn't take measures until we are absolutely confident that we've got all of the capacity we need in the nhs.

one thing we've done, and it has been effective, is, we made sure that at every step the nhs has not been overwhelmed, and in particular, the critical care capacity that jonathan showed on the slides has not been overwhelmed, and it's notjust good enough to do that day by day, we want to make sure that with any steps we take in the future, that remains the case. jonathan, what would you add? danny, thank you, secretary of state, so that i would add that we are absolutely not hoping not to have a second wave, and that is one of the reasons why we second wave, and that is one of the reasons why we are second wave, and that is one of the reasons why we are being so careful about unlocking social distancing one piece at a time, because we absolutely don't want this to get out of control again. however, is it right and proper to prepare for emergencies? is it right and proper to put ourselves in a

good position to be able to deal with an upsurge of cases? absolutely. let me emphasise a couple of things here, one is that maybe people are just hoping and praying that this virus willjust go away, as indeed i hope and pray it will but the reality is that certainly, until we get a vaccine, and only if we get a vaccine that is really capable of suppressing disease levels, will we ever be what we would call kind of out of this. so from that perspective, we may have to live and learn to live with this virus in the long term, and certainly for many months to come if not several years. a vaccine may change that, but we can't be sure we will get a vaccine. the other thing to say is that this virus is a new virus. we don't fully understand it. we don't understand something called

seasonality, and one of the things thatis seasonality, and one of the things that is very clear, for example, with flu viruses, is that they come in our cold winters and the levels of transmission and circulation decline over the summer months. now, the data we have on other coronavirus is that we have looked at very carefully, and it is not clear that these coronavirus as our as seasonal as influenza, but there may be an of seasonality, and it may well be that the autumn and winter conditions provide a better environment for the virus to then do it's work again, so we have to be very cautious about that and plan for these kind of health care surges that we hope we don't need, but we wa nt that we hope we don't need, but we want to be ready for them if they do happen. very good. thank you, james, for your question. we open it up to the media now, and we have fergus walsh first from the bbc. fergus, over to

you. thank you. you havejust first from the bbc. fergus, over to you. thank you. you have just added loss of taste and smell as a key symptom for coronavirus. france advised people back in march that if they lost taste or smell, that they should self—isolate. hasn't the uk been very slow to act? jonathan, i think that's probably one for you. thank you, fergus. we have been very careful about looking at the data on this and looking to see if adding it to the case definition would change something in terms of what we could practically do. now, i do understand, and you are absolutely right that the loss of taste has been recognised for some time now is a possible symptom of acker one. but if you unpick that on —— covid—19, if you unpick that on —— covid—19, if you unpick that on —— covid—19, if you unpick that further, how

often does cost of taste from really early in the illness, that's the first question, versus coming later oi'i first question, versus coming later on in the illness, when there are many other symptoms that are evidence, particularly cough and fever, which are absolutely the most prominent. the next point is how often does the loss of taste occur oi'i often does the loss of taste occur on its own in the absence of other symptoms, and the answer seems to be very rarely indeed. so, from that perspective, what we have had to do is go through all of the possible symptoms of covid—19 and, you know, other than fever and cough, the who list includes tiredness, aches and pains, sore throats, diarrhoea, conjunctivitis, headache, skin rash, even loss of speech or movement is something that the who put on there.

so what we have had to do is do some very careful analysis behind the scenes to try and work out when looking at the whole range of symptoms again, which of those it might be useful or important to add in terms of picking patients up and improving the very simple and easy to remember symptom list that we had already of cough and fever, and that's why we have taken our time in this country, because we wanted to do that again painstaking and very careful analysis before we jump to any conclusions, and even if it was obvious that loss of taste was part of us, we wanted to be sure that adding it to cough and fever as opposed tojust listing it, adding it in informally to our definition was the right thing to do, and based oi'i was the right thing to do, and based on advice from nerve tach, we have made that decision. fergus, did you

wa nt to made that decision. fergus, did you want to come back on anything? professor tim spectre estimates that between 100 and 200,000 cases of covid—19 may have been missed by the failure to include this earlier. how many cases of covid—19 do you think have been missed as a result of not including this earlier on? imean, i including this earlier on? i mean, i don't have those figures at my fingertips, not sure anyone other than professor spectre is trying to make those kind of estimates. what i can tell you is that from the public health include data sets called the ff 100, the first few hundred cases, there are actually 229 cases in there, all laboratory confirmed covid—19, all of whom who have been studied in considerable detail, and 0.44%

reported loss of taste on its own as a symptom. so, the plaintiff vote the loss of taste is that it doesn't always come as the first symptom, and even if it does, it is followed by the cough, the fever, and many of the other symptoms that i've talked about referring to the who definition, so you don't miss those cases. the important thing was to work out if this would add any sensitivity to the diagnostic cluster we were using and the answer is, it makes a small, very small difference, and we have therefore decided to do it. thanks, fergus. next up, beth rigby from sky. thank you. secretary of state, you are asking people to use their common sense as we come asking people to use their common sense as we come out of asking people to use their common sense as we come out of locked on, and you also asked many people to go back to work or soon send their children back to school, but isn't it common sense for people to wait until you have that track and trace programme properly in place before

they go back to work or before they send their kids to school, otherwise, aren't you asking people to make something of a leap of faith? professor van tam, the our rate last week was said to be 0.7 to one, parents and teachers are obviously anxious about transmission primary schools —— r—rate. to expect there to be some level of covid—19 transmission in schools once children return, and how do you expect that to impact the r—rate? young i beth. first of all, we are making good progress with the test track and tracing regime, as the health secretary announced today we've got 21,000 traces. the level of testing is about 100,000. we have got 60,000 downloads of the app on the isle of wight, pilate, so we're making progress on in terms of measures that we've taken at this stage, as

he will know, at step one, we've been pretty cautious, that is precisely because we want to make sure footed and sustainable steps. when we come to the later steps, and as and when capacity tacitly and tracing capacity are up and running, it will give us more room for manoeuvre and flexibility, so we are making very sure that we have taken the right steps at the right moment and obviously, the testing in the tracing is good to be a key component, particularly medium to longer term, as we come through the coronavirus. hello there. so far, this month of may has been exceptionally dry, with a rain deficit for many areas. doesn't look like there's much rain in the forecast either, certainly over the next few days, it will be turning warmer, particularly around the middle part of the week, after we've had some rain across northern areas to start the week. by the end of the week, low—pressure moves in, so it's cooler, windier, and for some of us, we will see a little bit of rain. now, the pressure chart for the latter part of monday shows these weather fronts across the northern half of the country, higher pressure towards the south.

but it means that through tonight, it will stay cloudy and damp across northern ireland, north wales, northern england, much of central and southern scotland, with outbreaks of rain here. try to the far north of scotland, and also dry across the south, where we will see variable cloud and clear spells, and a mild night to come for premature areas, temperatures 10—11d being the lowest value. for tuesday it starts off mild, rather cloudy, still quite damp across northern ireland, scotland, northern england, but the rain that should gradually peter out and become more confined to the far north of scotland into the northern isles. elsewhere, a dry story with increasing amounts of sunshine. so, again, another warm day in the south—southeast, 25 degrees — high teens further north. high—pressure really starts to build in for wednesday. this is where we start to see the heat building. it pushes that weather front north and draws up the air from spain and france. so it looks like it will be a dry story for most. the rain becomes confined to shetland, lots of sunshine around. that warm southerly breeze

will lift those temperatures, this is where we will probably see the peak of the warm weather, 27—28d in the southeast, even in the low 20s celsius across parts of scotland. thursday's another warm day in the south, increasing chance of a heavy shower and thunderstorms. some slightly cooler air will gradually push in from the west through the day, and then as we end the week, we see this. quite a different story moving in there, low—pressure, quite a deep feature as well, you can see lots of isobars on the chart, and also whether front which will sweep northwards to bring some areas outbreaks of rain. so we end the week on a cooler and a windier notes, thanks to that area of low pressure. and some of us, particularly in the north and the west, will see the rain. so it's probably scotland, northern ireland, perhaps northwest england, western wales, which will see outbreaks of rain. signs that some southern and eastern areas could stay dry altogether.

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. the us renews its attack on the world health organization and china over their response to the coronavirus pandemic. there was a failure by this organisation to obtain the information that the world needed, and that failure cost many lives. all along, we have acted with openness, transparency and responsibility. new symptoms to look for if you think you may have