the first commercially rocket is successful heading out of florida. the us state of minnesota launching the national guard for the first time in history following several nights of violent protests black men in police custody. the states government said the deployment was needed because outside agitators what the death of him to spy chaos. the uk government insists that it continues to be led by science over the next stages of the easing of lockdown measures — after concerns were raised by some leading scientists. we need to proceed in a very conscious way. so we've set out a road map that at each stage where you saying we are not going to proceed with that unless we are confident that we can do so in a safe way. confident that we can do so in a safe way. the return of competitive sport is announced for the uk —

from monday — starting with horse racing — other sports given the go ahead to resume behind closed doors include football, rugby and cricket. india's daily total of new coronavirus cases hit another record high today — with nearly eight—thousand new infections. now on bbc news... our world, new york has been the epicentre of america's coronavirus outbreak, with nearly 30,000 deaths in the state so far. as the virus took hold in march, doctors and nurses from across the us answered new york's call for help. this is the story of four of those on the frontline, told through their video diaries as the crisis unfolds. it is about bravery, sacrifice and sadness, life in the eye of the storm. sacrifice and sadness, life a warning this programme contains scenes some viewers may find distressing. new york city has been the global epicentre of coronavirus.

the president said this is a war, i agree with that. this is a war. more people have died here than in any other city in the world. there's been times when i have walked out of the er and said to myself, what in the the government defends world just happened 7 its plans to ease lockdown — things got so bad that the governor of new york pleaded for help. after some of its own scientific advisors say they fear restrictions i am asking healthcare are being lifted too quickly. professionals across the country, the deputy chief medical officer please, come help us for england admits the uk must proceed with caution in new york now. as he urged the public not to "tear this is the story of some of the nurses who answered the call. and the besieged new york doctors fighting to stop their city being overwhelmed. i saw the row of ambulance stretchers waiting to be triaged and i thought to myself, we're losing, we're losing. ellie, come here! i'm christina ferguson

and in a week, i will be heading out to new york to help in the bronx at one of their hospitals. i'm travelling with a co—worker of mine, and having the skills, critical care for me, er for him, we decided, let's do it. this is the first time i have ever gone on an assignment such as this. this is a little bit different going into the epicentre of a pandemic. this is one of my suitcases. i was there for september 11, so naturally it feels like i should go back, you know, to be a part of this and help out in any way ican. i have seven bags, there is the insta—pot. as a nurse, this is what we went to school for. this is what we do. going to new york for this whole covid crisis is basically like that, it's like throwing yourself into the situation. you don't think twice about it, you're just going.

here we are at our favourite lake. my daughter and i do a lot of outdoorsy stuff, and it is something we're really going to miss. but i would like to take these moments to think about the things i can come back to. i do have my trunk packed, all the medical supplies that were donated. we'll get ready to hit the road. so the day has come, it is a 17.5 hour drive, and reality is sinking in and we're on our way. i have my sleeping beauty and her best friend. i had some conflict about bringing her along but i don't want fear to steer me away from what i want to do, and we have had many conversations. we'll just take it

one day at a time. some gorgeous views, it's kind of serene all at the same time knowing that once we get out of these mountains and into the city, there's no telling what's going to be waiting there for us. there's always some fear going into such a traumatic environment, but the moment i walk into the er, it's go—time. on march the 13th, new york city recorded its first covid—i9 death. i'm not we could have fathomed how big this could've been. within a month, more had died from the virus than in 9/11. i never really ever imagined in my life i would see the density of human suffering.

we will never think about healthcare in the same way. new yorker, doctor eric cioe—pena is working at an emergency covid hospital that has been set up on staten island. ijoke with people that i don't remember the days of the week anymore, i don't remember how many days i've been doing this. ijust count it like coronavirus day 67, or something. new york has been through a lot and this is certainly testing us to our limits. but i think we are all hopeful this is going to get better. it's been a marathon. we have been acting like it's a sprint. it's as if we were immediately post—hurricane. except the problem is, it wasn't like the hurricane came, hits the coast and then moved away. then we could start recovering. imagine a hurricane sitting over your city for 50 days. vacations have been deferred, birthdays have been deferred. all we're doing is basically

sleeping and coming to work and dealing with coronavirus. so, i have finally made it to my hotel room. a cute little kitchen. there is my famous insta—pot. nancy is a critical care nurse who will be working in the same hospital as doctor cioe—pena. i left my daughter this morning but i'm sad to leave her but i know she is in good hands. here is the bathroom, this is where the action is. make—up, hair, i don't know what. a shower. it looks kind of cosy to me and i think i'm going to be very happy here over the next eight weeks. christina and derek will be working in the bronx. there's our hospital. the burrough with the highest death rate in new york. we came two days early to get a tour. a lot of sick people.

they're coming in quick. that right there is exactly what you think it is. they're about to take a truck away from the hospital. by early april, the situation in new york is so bad that refrigerated trucks are being used as makeshift morgues, and mass graves dug to deal with the number of bodies. so, it's the morning of my first shift. didn't really sleep very well last night. i'm working a 12 hour shift today and tomorrow. so, i'm just keeping my fingers crossed for the best. alrighty, wish me luck. this is my first shift and all day today, we've been going through testing and honestly everywhere isjust go time. we're doing the best we can.

i heard the other day that if you can work in the bronx er, you can work anywhere. so, hopefully we get through these 13 weeks with my sanity. so we just finished our shift today, trying to decontaminate and disinfect everything. she's already taking off her shoes. laughs don't lose this now. we keep everything in a bag separated. it's unlike anything i've ever seen before. to see so many critical patients coming in at one time. the ambulances were non—stop. it seems like every two or three minutes, there was an ambulance coming in. there are other cases where you know the situation is not going to end well. whenever i see it to this degree, it's almost as though death is sitting on some of these patient‘s shoulders whispering

in their ears. there's been times when i walked out the door and said to myself, what in the world has just happened? time to get out of here. nancy has been assigned to work in one of her hospital's pop—up intensive care units... so thirsty. ..which have been created to do with the overflow of covid—19 patients. time to go back. no rest for the weary. with these pop—up icus, the issue is the lack of access to equipment we need to take care of the patients. the nurses are spending a good majority of their time running around hospital trying to find supplies. i think all of the nurses are doing the best that they can but it's definitely stressful.

it was busy, it was definitely an experience today. i got in there and they were so short—staffed that they tried to give me four icu patients, which is kind of unheard—of. usually, two is the norm, three is a lot. but four, there was no way. so we'll see how it goes. i'm on foranother12 hour shift tomorrow. it's going to some strengthjust to get myself upstairs. it has become all—consuming. i'm getting reminded by my family to take small breaks, especially when i'm with my kids. when i'm at home, there's almost like this guilt that i'm not still there. there is much more fighting to do. there has been a lots of absentee fathering unfortunately. i got home early enough to put my son to bed last night and the thing he was sad about yesterday was that he doesn't get to see me,

which breaks my heart. he's going to remember me not being there more than the pandemic and the virus and that hurts. it's definitely something that leans on me and affects me, and affects them. after i get my scrubs on and my compression socks, every nurse should wear compression socks. we're at high risk, the virus is everywhere. no matter how many times we wash our hands, no matter how many times we sanitise, the risk is very high. i have a scrubcap. right now, we have 40 people agency nurses from our agency picking up the work for the nurses that are out sick. there are more of us working in the er right now than the regular employees. it's extremely busy, it's just a constant flow, one after the other, after the other. an ambulance brought in an elderly person, about 15 minutes, 20 minutes later, they were brought out in a body bag.

they come in alert, and then it is mind—blowing how fast theyjust go. after this is over and healthcare workers don't get the therapy they need to process the stuff, i think the statistics are going to be high with suicide attempts in healthcare workers, so there is something we really have to watch out for. as somebody who works in psych, i know that it's a possibility. well, we just finished our first two days in a row. i'm wiped out, i'm tired. you don't realise how much it takes, wearing all of this ppe. my head feels like it's 100 pounds heavier on my neck. it's been a long night, it's after midnight, we've been here since noon and it's time to hit the road, decompress and... shower! both chuckle.

nancy has just finished a shift on a covid unit where all of the patients are dependent on a ventilator. generally, those people that are in that unit are not likely to survive. since this whole virus situation started, there's only been two patients who have made it out of the unit and survived — that's very, very little. the age range was pretty great. there was a patient there who was 26, which i thought was really eye—opening because it just further reiterates how the covid virus affects everyone. but this young girl — and she's still there and she's still fighting for her life and it's sad. home, sweet home! sighs. time to get these scrubs off.

ugh, my feet are killing me! it's been a long day. pants — they are going to go into the basket. sighs. i think now people are exhausted and i think people just want respite. i think the nurses want to get back to what they were doing, you know, before this happened. their units have been turned so upside down. but i think at this point, people are just ready to quit — quit the covid crisis, i mean, not theirjob. you know, as a nurse, we give all of our energy to others and keep none for ourselves. i think that's why we're always tired. across the city in the bronx, the virus is highlighting stark inequalities.

you have the projects, lower income housing, a large immigrant population. we are seeing mostly impoverished individuals, you see the black and latino community as well. these are essential workers, you know? they're the bus drivers, they're the janitors, they're those that deliver food, deliver mail. and so, while many people are able to quarantine themselves, or they have the luxury of working at home, essential workers don't have that opportunity, so it gives them an increased chance of being exposed to the virus. black and latino new yorkers are dying at twice the rate of white residents of the city. after developing symptoms of fatigue and a headache, christina has been sent home from the hospital... i was crying.

i was just more scared because i didn't want to be like some of the patients that we've seen — i mean, they get really, really sick. ..and today, she's going for a test. if it is positive, ijust hope that i have built up some type of immunity. i'm pretty nervous. i'm hoping it's not, but ijust feel like a truck hit me and my muscles hurt. any symptoms right now? uh, just fatigue and a headache still. and my stomach is not right. you've got to tilt your head back all the way back, as far as you can. 0oh! great. all right, you're all set. it takes 2a hours to know the results so that's going to be really hard, to sit and wait on the results.

so if things, for me, get really bad, to where i have to go in the hospital, derek has graciously told me he'll take care of chloe and the dog. if it gets really bad and i don't make it out of the hospital, then chloe and i have had the discussions about, you know, where she would go and who she would go with. if christina tests positive, she'll be one of the growing number of infected nurses. and some are becoming gravely ill. when i was training in brooklyn, there was a nurse there who worked the night shift and she kind of has this reputation of being a battleaxe, and i obviously grew to love her and knew that she had the biggest heart in the world. and i was told today by a colleague that she's in critical care in the icu on a ventilator

with coronavirus. um, and this is, uh, aymbolic of a lot of the angst and the hurt that happens with healthcare workers because we're not only watching patients die but you're also hearing about colleagues that are suffering and so, it feels like an attack on all fronts — it feels like it is a personal attack, it's a professional attack, um, and it's hard sometimes, i think, to see past that and to get through that, because it's really an acute stress and it feels like it's unravelling a lot of our lives as healthcare workers. that is the most challenging part is that these patients are kind of alone and the families are not able to be there. there was a gentleman that i was caring for and he wasjust not in a good way and i was holding his hand. i was like "i'm going to go get some coffee and i'm gonna come back". i came back with the coffee and he was dead. yeah.

he died. so, i was gone maybe 15 minutes. and there was nobody with him. so it was sad. and i felt, to some extent, that i did a disservice because i wasn't there and i went to get coffee. so, um, i hate that. um, i hate that more than anything. and then after that experience, you just flip back into nurse mode, you know? now you have to just do what you have to do. a well— known er doctor here in new york who battled to save the lives

of so many others... 49—year—old dr lorna breen took her own life after weeks of treating patients with covid—19. she died in virginia sunday... when i heard about doctor breen, i wasn't surprised. it's tragic. and in the same day, we heard about an ems technician who also killed himself, and ijust think it's the tip of the iceberg. the other day, i was talking to a tech who was responsible for putting the bodies in the bags. and he said "that's all i did, day after day. i would put a body in a bag, take it downstairs and then there was no room downstairs — they were just everywhere. that's when the trucks came." they would fill it up with 55 bodies, it would leave and then another truck would be right there, they'd fill it up. he said it was horrible. i said "you have to talk to somebody about it. it will never go away."

the end of a really long and hard week. ijust finished the zoom memorial service for a colleague — dr lorna breen. lorna was a former colleague and friend and, last sunday, took her own life. you know, her family says that it was related to the stress of coronavirus, and that really hurt. in addition, the head nurse that i think i mentioned in one of my previous diaries passed away last week as well. a nurse manager that i know also passed away. and an intensivist downstate, where i trained, also passed away. so last week really, for me, was the worst week of this. it really did feel like a war. and any other event you would stop, you would mourn, you would be with people. tough week.

i hope next week's a little bit better. by early may, hospitals are finally starting to see fewer admissions and fewer deaths. and new york is beginning to ease lockdown restrictions. it has been a crisis, and a painful one. but we're coming out of the other side. christina's coronavirus test was negative but she and her daughter chloe have returned to missouri. i will talk to you guys tomorrow. nancy is about to head back to maryland to see her daughter and mum. and derek is continuing in the bronx. it has been a great adventure, it is challenging, but the whole thing has been great.

over 100,000 people have died from coronavirus in the us since march. just under 30,000 of those are in new york state. it has survived what its governor called a war. now, it has to come to terms with how life has changed. we tickled the brink in new york. the system was about to collapse. it completely disrupted normal in every sense of that word. there is no normal anymore. there's no going back from this. we will honestly never be the same again.

hello there, it's been another dry sunny and warm day some of you might be wondering when the next rain is on the way. i have news about thatjust a moment. first of all today more of that sunshine as it didn't cross much of the country and to the west and the highlands to days highest temperature at 27 degrees most of you could see the extent of the days, sunny skies on the satellite picture. 0vernight will keep the dry weather we will keep the dry weather from the vast majority. however it looks quite likely will see some low cloud move into northeast scotland perhaps running down the east coast of scotland into the northeast. low clouds mist and fog patches around the coastal region. could turned quite murky for that yet a comfortable night sleep almost between eight and 12 degrees at the most was up tomorrow that fog could linger around the first few hours around the east of scotland before lifting and clearing. then it is sunshine across the board. the highest temperatures will be across western areas. in the highlands i suspect we will again see temperatures resting by 25,

26 degrees with a 23 or 2a for western areas of northern ireland. wales seeing some of the highest temperatures 27 in pomac and western areas of england are doing pretty well as well. temperatures reaching the mid to high 20s in a few spots for them got more of the same to come on monday. i pressure still with us. more dry weather, more of that warm sunshine. 0nshore winds keeping the east coast and temperatures around 20 degrees. still warm and sunshine but it's just the high temperatures will continue to be across more western parts. 26 or so in cardiff. 2a and glascow. there are no signs of changes we get into next week because the high pressure starts to slip away and looks likely that we will see in i delete my area of low pressure from the north. bringing showers or perhaps some lengthier outbreak of rain. also going to drop the temperature is the winds turn more to a northwesterly so it won't be as hot as it has been over the last week or so. with a bit more detail on that rain or shower start

to move into parts of scotland on tuesday. you will notice those temperatures dropping back close to normal. 16 or 17 degrees in glasgow. and we see that change for the south as well across england and wales. again there could be some rain or showers around as we head toward the middle part of the week. but things will certainly get a little bit fresher where the temperatures coming down several degrees. 00:27:20,751 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 that's your weather.