the headlines: the number of officially recorded coronavirus cases across the globe has climbed above the 30 million mark. according to figures from johns hopkins university in the united states, more than 940,000 people worldwide have died finally, an outlier, sweden, with the disease since it first never imposed a compulsory emerged in central lockdown and face masks are not recommended there in public places. china late last year. well, they had a much higher figures from the world health death rate than their nordic neighbours in the first wave, but now their cases organization show that are staying low. new weekly coronavirus cases in europe now exceed those reported when the pandemic now on bbc news: philippa thomas hears first peaked in march. from people around the world the un body has also about their extraordinary warned of alarming rates experiences during the pandemic of transmission and how covid—19 has across the region. changed their lives. officials have described it as a wake—up call for europe. and the british government is considering the imposition of new measures across the country in response to a sharp rise in coronavirus infections. the suggestions include a so—called circuit break — a short period during welcome to coronavirus: which restrictions would be your stories, a programme about how reintroduced in public spaces. covid—19 is changing lives

around the world. i'm philippa thomas, now, with the number and this week, of new infections continuing we're hearing about to rise daily and deaths starting homelessness, about whole to creep up, how does the situation in the uk compare communities in desperate circumstances, and the personal with that in march and to other stories of two men who have managed countries in europe? to turn their lives around. 0ur medical editor fergus walsh has this assessment. let's start by looking at the areas of the uk which are subject to extra from mexico city, we'll restrictions, marked hear about the hundreds here in blue. hundreds of people in rural guerrero state being forced by the end of the week, from their homes by violent it's thought around 9 million gangs, and why that's making people in the uk will be so many more vulnerable subject to extra controls. to violence. that's around one —— vulnerable to the virus. in seven people. here in london, we have now, it's all because of the rise in cases a personal story from across the uk. hersukh, who feels the pandemic saved himself from homelessness and addiction because he we're in a much better place was given a home of his own during lockdown. than we were back in mid—april, when cases were peaking we will start in athens at over 5,000 every day. with michael samolis, who works on the streets selling the greek newspaper but that figure is completely shedia. unreliable, because we weren't shedia translates as ‘life doing much testing in the community. raft', and that's what it's it was probably more like 100,000 new cases every day. been for him, but all around michael, he sees evidence then cases fell until about mid—july and started of the new homeless. to rise again. 00:02:01,198 --> 2147483051:37:45,314 we're now seeing more 2147483051:37:45,314 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 than 3,000 cases every day, greece, battered by the last

crisis, is seeing a new one. let me go back a bit, michael, to tell your story. how did you come to be on the streets, how did you come to be homeless? because of the crisis, you must understand, that until 2009, homeless people in athens, they had them with drinking, problem with drugs and things like that. but after 2009, with the crisis, people like me, we lost everything and we ended up homeless, we are the new homeless people, and in 2012, i had a truck, a lorry, a big lorry, and i was working very well, but somebody stole my truck. i went to the police and they found nothing, so i lost myjob. because of my age, it was impossible to find a newjob.

you know, unemployment in greece, under 30 years old now, it's very big, it's very big and you can imagine, all these people looking for a job and me, i couldn't find a job so i survived one year with the money i had at the bank and, after that, i did stay homeless. michael, i want to go back to your previous life. you, ithink, had travelled, studied. did you ever think something like losing your home could happen to you? no, i never thought, i never thought, i never thought, like everybody. right? i never thought that one day, i would end up homeless. it never passed through my mind, never. and then the paper, shedia, what does that mean to you? my life changed completely, six years ago, when i started working for shedia. and that's why i'm smiling now.

chuckles it wasn't only the money, it was the contact with the people, because the people that support us and buy that paper, very nice people, they want to help us and this changed my life completely. how is business now, selling the paper? it's not so good. it's a bit down because you must understand that people don't have the money to buy a paper now, and things are getting worse and worse and worse every day. and that's a result of the coronavirus? yes, because many people, they lost their jobs, and they don't have money anymore. people i knew, that they usually buy the paper, they stop and say, "hi, michael, i want to buy the paper, but i have one or two euros in my pocket," and are not able to do that. so it's harder

for them and for you. how have you found the last six months? well, actually, it was very bad but as you know, i live in a centre, the centre of athens, in the mixed part of athens, with the measures to protect us. i feel very safe living in the centre because from the beginning, we have shop, we have antibiotics, we have vitamins, we have everything, masks, everything to protect us. but the problem is, we couldn't work and it wasn't very easy for us to survive without selling the paper. michael, you're witnessing a lot. you see a lot in your city. and do you see more people becoming homeless because of covid? every day, new people, they come at the shelter and they are asking for a place to sleep. that's why the shelter, it's full now. we cannot accept any more people.

but it's getting worse, not every week or every year, it's getting worse every day. what's most important to you now in life, michael? selling the paper, i speak with a lot of people and this thing helped me to, you know, to live again. and i feel great. i have very good purpose now, to inform the athenians what's the situation now in the centre of athens. we are talking about 500m from parthenon, 500m from syntagma square. i live there, in the centre of athens, and i say to the people, living around, i'm talking about shelters, soup kitchens, drugs, everything, and i'm very proud of that. because i show to the people

that we are here, we exist. and for our viewers, what would you say that this whole experience has taught you, what have you learned? i think that the whole situation made me a better person, because i start caring for other people. people like me, and people, they live in the roads, you must try to understand how they feel, and now i know how they feel, and i'm helping them. that's changed me a lot. and i think that's what the coronavirus did to a lot of people. many people, they start caring about your neighbour, other people, you know, because when i stay in the centre for five months inside, we were getting out for a few minutes and go back in. i had many phone calls from friends, if i need something, many people, they used to come with food, with clothes, with everything.

what keeps you going, michael, day to day? what keeps you going? surviving, life, it keeps me going every day. i am a survivor. michael samolis in athens. next, a different kind of homelessness. what happens if hundreds of people at a time are forced to flee their homes, to become internally displaced because of the fear of violence? well, if they flee to the same places, they become much more vulnerable to the risk of catching coronavirus. that's what's happening in the mexican state of guerrero. it's perhaps best known for the city of acapulco, but behind

the glitter of that coastal resort, there is darker story. nestor rubiano is a mental health expert with medecins sans frontieres, working with displaced people in guerrero. there is a war ongoing her in mexico, in guerrero, and there are between 20 and 30 small groups army groups fighting amongst them, to take control of the land and to displace people and so on, but at the same time, the health system is not present at all in the whole guerrero. nestor, describe what it's like to be a villager in the state of guerrero with this violence around you, threatening you. surviving, for many of us, surviving every single day has been the best way they can and situations can change very quick. in a couple of minutes, a couple of hours for you, you can be a in a safe way

today and tomorrow, you just have to run away and leave every single thing behind you. and i suppose that means even though, in a pandemic, we are not to crowd together, you will get people crowding together in whatever building they can be in. exactly, totally. totally. what else you can do with your family, if you have to move your family and run away? they say, to run away, to escape to the situation. so you join, whatsoever, you can join an extensive family or friends or whosoever is going to provide the kind of support for you. or if you are lucky and you find an empty physical space, you willjoin them, but there are many of the small villages, they just cannot of move. the groups are inside and the groups are fighting among them but they cannot get out of the circle, and why, because the groups are controlling everything. let me ask you more about that control of people by violent groups. do you think that control has increased because of covid—i9?

we are speaking about a specific state, which is guerrero, they have thousands of medical people who don't want to work, with past consequences of covid, and the economic situation has getting worse. it's such a desperate situation. you're telling me about a lot of people facing violence and now facing coronavirus as well, so nestor, what are you trying to do to help? we are providing mobile clinics, we reach the communities with a doctor, with a psychologist, with primary healthcare, we can say. the majority of the people living in those areas are speaking here speak about medical conditions, most of them, they have these special chronic disease. one of the main ones is mental health disorders. this has been acknowledged by our doctors. what it shows is that people are facing not only a physical condition but also by the mental condition as a consequence of virus

in the last years. do you struggle? do you feel unsafe even these double threats, violence and the virus? what we care is about people, what we care is about the health of the population, and everyone knows what we are doing, everybody knows us, but we do not feel scared unless there is a fight and we get in between the middle of the situation and we are in the middle of it. do you think the outside world cares? there is so much on people's minds with this emergency, this pandemic. do they care about what is happening in guerrero? i doubt of that, to be honest. i don't want to generalise but what i can say is that the situation in the whole mexico and in some specific states in mexico is getting worse and we

need to do something about it. nestor rubiano in mexico city. you're watching coronavirus: your stories, a programme about how covid—i9 is changing lives around the world. i'm philippa thomas and this week we are hearing personal stories about homelessness. hersukh lives in london. he was homeless for three years, addicted to heroin, on the streets. and, for the first time, he's telling his story about how the pandemic gave him another chance, brought him back from the depths. he started by telling me what it was like. it was absolutely terrible. not knowing where you're going to sleep, if you're going to eat. it was absolutely terrible. not having anybody to talk to or nobody to turn to, and it was absolutely...| have never, ever experienced anything like that.

i guess you saw things you never expected to see and witnessed things as well? yeah, a lot of things. 0bviously, when you think of homelessness, people seem to think, you know, drunks and druggies and, in some extent, that is true and, in some extent, it isn't as well. but i did see a lot of drug addicts and drunks and stuff like that, and how people were sleeping on the streets, and some people were actually worse off than me. and you ended up taking drugs? idid, yes. it happened three years ago when basically i split from my wife and i was going through a bad patch in my life and the circle that i was around, that circle of friends i was staying with, were all drug users, and i sort of got into it with them, and i found that it was helping me forget about my problems and forget

about everything that was going on in my life. and little did i do know it was going to be the biggest mistake of my life. i can hear it is difficult to talk about it. taking heroin, what did that do to you? the only way i can describe it is it is like being imprisoned. it's not...heroin is a drug that it's not something you can do one day and stop the other. it's not like that, it's something that you need every day. and if you don't have it, you start going into several withdrawals and, yeah, you would do anything to get it, commit crime, you know, rob money from somewhere, you know, anywhere you can, really. and, yeah, it had a really big hold on me at the time as well. the thing was, i didn't know what i was getting myself into and that was the first time in my life that i'd

actually really ta ken drugs and unfortunately it was the wrong choice. and then, hersukh, the pandemic happened and britain went into lockdown, and somebody found you. tell us what happened, how you got your chance? i always said to myself i didn't want to do the drugs anymore because i had had enough. you know, doing the same thing every day and it was just getting too much for me, and i said to myself, i need to sort of find a place where i can keep my head down and get away from it all. and itjust so happened that i was sleeping at the hospital

one night, the local hospital, and there was a charity group coming around, st mungo‘s, and they came and found me sleeping rough at the hospital, and said that, you know, they could help and get me, and get somewhere to sleep which i was, you know, i wasn't pretty sure if it was going to happen or not, and because i'd heard those sort of things before and nothing has really happened, but they did follow through. and the pandemic happened and they phoned me and said they had an emergency hotel if i would like to go. and when you moved in, hersukh, what kind of state where you win? they asked me when i got there if i had any health conditions or alcohol use or drug use and i was open about it to them and said, "yes, i'm and they got me a nurse to see me the next day.

and they saw that i was in a bad state and they sort of medicated me and that's how i ended up getting off the drugs. and you just said they brought you food so you didn't have to go out, you didn't have to worry about seeing the wrong people. no, no, i didn't even have to get out of my room. i wasjust, you know, if i wanted to, i could have stayed in there all day. i had my own television, my own bathroom, and they'd come to your door to give you your breakfast, lunch and dinner, so you literally didn't have to go out to see anybody. and you made some good friends there as well? yeah, i mean, i met some really nice people there as well. the staff were all friendly they all used to talk, even the security, they became friends as well. you had somebody to talk to, i suppose, even ifjust a couple

of times a day. they were also very encouraging in coming off the drugs, which was a very, very, you know, gave me real motivation to actually do it because seeing people rooting for you, and itjust gives you a big, big boost that you're doing the right thing and going about things the right way. what do you think might have happened to you if this intervention hadn't come along, this kind of lockdown room and the help you got? to be honest with you, think i would be in prison by now and that is the honest truth, i would be in prison by now. do you ever worry now, hersukh, about it falling apart again? i know it's been, for a few months now, you've got a place, you have a home but is it still in your mind? it is, yes. it never leaves your mind, you know what i mean?

you're always... even now, i'm still sort of afraid to go out most homes. i don't not really go out anymore, i keep to myself, i talk to who i need to talk to over the phone, i don't tend to go out. the only time i go out is in the morning, first thing, 7 o'clock, when the supermarket opens to do some shopping and then i am back indoors. i don't go out at all. that's just because i feel still quite vulnerable and i don't want to see the people i used to see, and things like that. are you back in touch with yourfamily, your old friends? not as yet. it's only been six months, and six months you might think is a long time, but it's not really the right time yet. i'm still trying to get myself together, my life together. i have done the first big step,

which is coming off the drugs, that's first big step. i have a place now, i've got a job ijust need to get myself in the right place and show the people who i have sort of... i don't know how you want to put it...are disappointed because they all knew what i was doing but i was just too ashamed to admit it. nobody wants to admit that, you know, that they're on drugs or anything like that. but they know now, and ijust want to get myself in the right place, and show them that i am not that person anymore — this is who i am. it sounds like the pandemic has brought something good for you, but it's still a process. you're still working at this. yes, definitely, definitely. the pandemic, it came at the right...

not in a bad way but for me, yes, something good came out of it. ithink, hersukh, you're speaking in public about this for the first time. what would you like us to understand about being homeless? um, there is help out there. a lot of people think there isn't, but there is. you've got to be willing to help yourself at the same time. it's not a very nice place to be. i know, because i've been there myself and this is the first time i am speaking in public about this. but it is not the be all and end all. there is help out there, as i said, but you've got to be willing to help yourself as well. and that is why i took the steps that i did and i knew that i wanted to change my life. hersukh, who also wants to thank the outreach workers from the charity st mungo‘s who helped him

to turn his life around. i'm philippa thomas. thank you for watching coronavirus: your stories. hello. the current spell of settled weather is expected to continue for a few more days yet and friday promises to be another beautiful day across the uk. for some of us, clear blue skies, may be hazy at times, but on the whole, a fine day. so, high—pressure is in charge of the weather, notjust on friday but through much of the weekend. the south of the country is a little bit closer to the low pressure that may bring a few showers on the weekend. but the short term is certainly looking dry. across most of the uk, friday morning, sunshine pretty much from the word go. a little nippy first thing in the north of england, getting in as low as five degrees early in the morning. so, here is the forecast for friday afternoon. lots of sunshine, that breeze is quite strong, despite the breeze still 22 degrees in london, 19 in the midlands, 21 degrees in glasgow and edinburgh,

and on those winds, gusts possibly up to a0 miles an hour in the south coast of england. that will take the edge off the temperatures. a bit of a bluster there if you're walking along the channel coast. the evening is promising to be fine across most of the uk. here's saturday's weather forecast. notice the weather front just to the south of us linked to this low pressure close to spain and portugal, the weather front will approach the channel coast during the course of the weekend. the initial thinking is that there might be some showers around on saturday, may be cornwall, devon, but the vast majority of the uk will be in for a fine day and again, that breeze quite nagging on some of the coasts, blowing out of the east northeast. but still, 23 in london, a bit fresher in the north around 16 for glasgow and edinburgh and belfast. those showers continue through the course of sunday clipping the south coast of england, again, midlands is looking pretty much dry and sunny. 20 degrees in birmingham, a little bit fresher there on the north sea coast, newcastle at 15 on sunday.

monday and tuesday is expected to be settled again, with high—pressure close by, beyond that, it looks as though the atlantic is turning a little more unsettled and the weather fronts will be heading our way, so that does mean the weather will slowly turn more unsettled later, but until then, friday and into tuesday next week, for most of us, the weather looks fine with hints of that unsettled weather in the north.

welcome to bbc news. i'm aaron safir. our top stories: as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide reaches 30 million, officials say the rise in europe must serve as a wake—up call. although these numbers reflect more comprehensive testing, it also shows alarming rates of transmission across the region. covid—i9 cases are on the rise in france, as doctors warn that hospitals are filling up. a record number of fires in the pa nta nal wetla nds a record number of fires in the pa nta nal wetlands in south america, causing devastation in one of the world's most bio diverse