and you know, sir patrick vallance, who's the government's chief scientific adviser, still sounded veryvery cautious about what's going on. there is not a lot of room to do things, and things need to be done cautiously, step by step, and monitored. and the tests and trace system needs to be effective in order to manage that. fergus, i thought he sounded actually quite gloomy there. is he doing that to just be like, hold your horses, everyone? we've still got to be careful, this is to stop everyone barbecuing morning, noon and night? or actually, is there a bit of a problem here that actually the virus is not disappearing as fast as we would like from the uk? absolutely — from chris whitty and patrick vallance, there were massive notes of caution that this shouldn't be seen as the start of, hey, barbecue season and we've defeated this. and there's real concern that we could see another surge in cases. the indications are, in terms of hospital numbers, hospital admissions with covid, the number of people in intensive care with covid—19, all those figures are falling, but still something l

there is and sir patrick vallance said that we are in a very fragile state and there is very little room for manoeuvre. we have to be cautious. so a lot of nervousness there and it is down to the r number, the rate of infection. with coronavirus with no social distancing that number is around three and you lead to a doubling and a redoubling of cases every few days. so the lockdown is about bringing down that r to below one and the latest estimate has been over the past two months we have brought it down to somewhere between 0.7 and 0.9. that is very close to getting above one when the outbreak could get out of control again and it is estimated that around 93 in 100 people in england have not yet

r as it's known, which as sir patrick vallance said, is still worryingly close to one.le follow the rules as intended and if the government delivers its new measures on time. talking about following the rules, let's go to the next paper, the daily mirror, which, as one of this main story is. earlier this week, theresa may, the former prime minister's former head of press said the former —— story would be gone from the papers by the end of the week. that is sort of right. the mirror still goes with it. yeah, but i think downing street will still be signing a sigh of relief that a week on, papers do seem to be turning away from it. we have heard from durham police today, that was seen as the kind of deciding factor as to whether dominic cummings would have to go, if they ruled that he had broken the law. and people saying there is no way he can survive in numberten if he there is no way he can survive in number ten if he has clung on this far. instead, their statement kind of gave enough or people on both sides of the art mistake something away from it, so the mirror poin

because we know that the government scientists, professor chris whitty and sir patrick vallance, youe record, they were hesitant about going into lockdown too early, ministers were at that point absolutely explicit about how closely they were listening to those two in particular, are you suggesting that they weren't urging ministers strongly enough to act at that stage? well, i wasn't involved at that stage, but i know both patrick vallance and chris whitty, i know that they would have been very blunt and very clear in the advice that they are giving. however, i can only reflect on that question as a citizen looking in at this from the outside, but somebody who knew what was going on behind—the—scenes or had a pretty good idea what was going on behind the scenes, and my question was, even as things were being locked down in italy, would we ever be able to make that work in the uk, because we had never done it before, and i, as somebody who had worked in government science, as a scientific adviser in government, was saying to myself, actually this is going to be really, really difficu

first a question to patrick vallance and chris whitty.ice, is there anything else the prime minister has told you not to answer on? and prime minister, today the launch of track and trace could mean at any point you might get a call from someone on behalf of the government, telling you to quarantine for 14 days, can you to quarantine for 14 days, can you tell the nation, is that no ifs, no buts instruction that you must follow, what ever your childcare arrangements however important you think yourjob is? it is very important. do you want to answer the first question, by semaphore or otherwise? the desire not to get pulled into politics is far stronger on the part of sir patrick and me thanit on the part of sir patrick and me than it is in the prime minister. that is for sure! thanks. than it is in the prime minister. that is for sure! thankslj than it is in the prime minister. that is for sure! thanks. i have nothing to add. i am politically neutral i don't want to get involved in politics at all. i had no choice, but let me just say on t

to patrick vallance, sage advice and education makes pretty depressing reading.mpletely, back to the way they were in january. do you think schools will be fully up and running in the septemberor schools will be fully up and running in the september or should parents start to realise that that is just not going to happen? on france, i can say directly to you enter the country, over the last 12 days, myself and colleagues in government, and i speak to my french counterpart frequently on a range of issues and i have been involved in many of these discussions, the fact of the matter is, we have been working closely with french government and authorities. border force have also been involved in finalising much of these arrangements. there are limited exemptions which, when it comes to france, involves frontier workers and preserves the critical supply of goods, which is exactly what we have been discussing with our french counterparts. 12 days ago. we have continued to do so, we will continue to engage with our french colleagues, we do that across government and it i

there's been criticism of the uk's intital testing strategy — chief scientific adviser sir patrick vallanced it would have been better if capacity had been increased more quickly, and the deputy chief medical officer for england, jenny harries, told mps things would have been "done differently" if more tests had been available in the early stages of the outbreak. 0ur health correspondent lauren moss reports. the true cost of coronavirus is becoming clearer every week. more than 30,000 people are now thought to have died with covid—19 in the uk. up to the 24th of april a quarter of deaths were in care homes alone. although it's likely less than the week before, the total number is still more than double what we would expect this time of year. these are largely deaths that were taking place until around the 20th, 21st of april. that is about four or five weeks after the lockdown was first advised and then instructed, so if we think about the timeline of the disease, it often about three orfour weeks from becoming infected to, sadly, death. but the real number of those who have lost their live

there's been criticism of the uk's intital testing strategy — chief scientific adviser sir patrick vallanceit would have been better if capacity had been increased more quickly, and the deputy chief medical officer for england, jenny harries, told mps things would have been "done differently" if more tests had been available in the early stages of the outbreak. 0ur health correspondent lauren moss reports. the true cost of coronavirus is becoming clearer every week. more than 30,000 people are now thought to have died with covid—19 in the uk to. up to the 24th of those deaths we re to. up to the 24th of those deaths were in care homes alone. although it's likely less than the week before, the total number is still more than double what we would expect this time of year. these are largely deaths that were taking place until around the 20th, 21st of april. that is about four or five weeks after the lockdown was first advised and then instructed, so if we think about the timeline of the disease, it often about three or four weeks from becoming infected to, sadly, death. but the real number of

george eaton, looking at that headline, and contrasting that with what sir patrick vallance said in the, there are quite a number of infections, dr is close to one. should we be happy it is monday? we should be happy but cautious, i think the scientists would say. clearly, progress has been made in terms of reducing the rate of new infections and the rate of the horrific death toll has come down, but his precarious progress because the risk has always been that the situation has improved because of the lockdown, so the fear is that if electron is eased, people start using public transport more and someone, start using public transport more and someone, some start using public transport more and someone, some people are already in the parks and elsewhere in london, people have already been gathering in groups, so i think the scientists are already quite i'iei’vous. scientists are already quite nervous. with the further easing, you do wonder if it made sense to announce it at of this weekend, when the temp tatian for people will be tojump the gun, given the nice weather we have had recent

another point i want to make to you claire, we saw sir patrick vallance the chief adviser talking today about the fact that admitting to countries failure to ramp up testing may have cost her dearly. and the whole issue of testing and its relationship to how bad the virus is spread in the uk, it's going to come up spread in the uk, it's going to come up again and again, is in a? 0h, we are going to be dissecting this issue for months and years to come. and the numbers as well. eve light mentioned the care homes there, we probably won't know for a long time the extent to which they been affected. of course they are what we call indirect s as well. from people who have had surgeries cancelled, from people who have been so frightened to stay home during lockdown that they haven't gone to seek help. things like heart attacks oi’ seek help. things like heart attacks or strokes. the testing issue and the numbers and the death toll we are going to be dissecting for a very long time. obviously, the human tragedy that this virus has brought about is hugely important. we also have to look at the

medical officer professor chris whitty and the government's chief scientific adviser at sir patrick vallance. the government publish more details about its plans to ease the lockdown in england setting out three phases over the coming months, addressing mps, boris johnson described over the coming months, addressing mps, borisjohnson described it as very good advice for the entire population of the uk. but the leaders of scotland, wales and northern ireland have largely rejected it, deciding to stick with the core message that people should stay at home. but speak to our chief political correspondent vicki young in westminster. the prime minister has been trying to add flesh to the bones of the plan he announced the nation last night and there is a slew of more documents to come. yes, there certainly is, we had a broad picture from boris johnson there certainly is, we had a broad picture from borisjohnson last night talking about the differences between outdoor and indoor activities. today, there has been a lot more detail, a 50 page document giving guidelines, there are guidelines about wor

sir patrick vallance said it's currently between 0.7 and 0.9.id still close to one, not a lot of room for manoeuvre. now, hospital numbers with covid patients are still falling, but it's estimated that fewer than seven in 100 people in england have had coronavirus, so it's most people still susceptible. a crucial part of keeping the rate of infection down is a test and trace system, which was launched in england today. our health editor hugh pym has more. for millions of people, a scheme in place today might make a big difference to their lives though they don't know it yet. potentially they could be told they have met up with someone recently who now has the virus and they will have two self—isolate for two weeks even if they are not ill. they could find out through an e—mail or text or phone call and then be asked to get in touch with the nhs. new n ew co nta ct new contact traces have been signed up new contact traces have been signed up and trained and now work with health professionals, some of whom have already experience talking to paper

and the chief scientific adviser, sir patrick vallance, said it would have been better if capacity hade there are lots of things that we could look back and think, we may have made different choices at different times. i would be amazed when we look back if we couldn't have done something differently there. in terms of what we have seen now, i think that probably in the early phases, and i have said this before, i think if we had managed to ramp testing capacity quicker it would have been beneficial. for all sorts of reasons, that didn't happen. i think it is clear you need lots of testing for this, but to echo whatjenny harris was saying, it is completely wrong to think of testing as the answer. it is just part of the system that we need to get right. the entire system needs to work properly and jeannie to have contact tracing and isolation and so on. there will be plenty of time to look back and say what works, what didn't, which things do we need to do differently. let's speak to the chair of the health select committee, the conservative mp and former health secretary, jeremy hunt.

as a scientist have all said, i can remember patrick vallance and chris whitty talked about this.al verdict on how our countries have done until the pandemic is done. and particularly until we've got comprehensive international data on all cause mortality for subtype there is two points to make about uk has approach things. there are different ways of counting deaths as we know we had that debate in this country. we now publish data that includes all deaths in all settings. and not all countries do that. so i'm not sure whether the international comparison works unless you reliably know that all countries are measuring the same way. and also depends on how good frankly, countries are in their statistics. in our own office of national statistics is widely acknowledged to be a world leader. one of the reasons we've embraced thatis one of the reasons we've embraced that is we want transparency. we are confident, we believe it's only we get the full transparency will be the best way to tackle this virus. i think it is important but i don't think it is important but i don't think you c

sir patrick vallance saying there that he thinks it could have been developed more rapidly and not stored think these questions can only continue from here. you pen, our health editor, thanks very much. the prominent scientist whose work was a key factor in the government's decision to implement the lockdown, has stepped aside tonight, from the advisory committee called sage. professor neil ferguson said he'd acted in a way that undermined the rules on social distancing. it follows reports in the daily telegraph that a woman had visited his home, in breach of the restrictions. 0ur correspondentjessica parker is at westminster. jessica, what have you learnt about this development tonight? well, as you say, professor neil ferguson, a member of the scientific committee known as sage, which advises ministers on their approach to coronavirus. he has stepped back from that committee this evening following reports in the daily telegraph that he breached social distancing rules after a woman visited his home. i will bring you some of his statement tonight. he said... i accept i made an error of j

there is and sir patrick vallance said that we are in a very fragile state and there is very little roomdown to the r number, the rate of infection. with coronavirus with no social distancing that number is around three and you lead to a doubling and a redoubling of cases every few days. so the lockdown is about bringing down that r to below one and the latest estimate has been over the past two months we have brought it down to somewhere between 0.7 and 0.9. that is very close to getting above one when the outbreak could get out of control again and it is estimated that around 93 in 100 people in england have not yet had covid—19. and around 500 people a day are still being admitted to hospital in england alone, well down on the more than 3,000 a day in april, but the threat is still there. thank you. and if you want more information on the measures announced today and the tracing systems that have been put in place, you can find the details at bbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus and click on the links. all this week we've been reporting from one of the hospitals hardest hit by the coronavirus.

press conference where i'm joined by professor chris whitty, chief medical officer, and sir patrick vallanceic advisor. i'm sorry not to be part of this trio for so long. yeah, the three amigos, which we call them back together. it was a big moment today in terms of their progress of this disease. since the prime minister was last at the lectern in downing street, there's been more than 26,000 deaths. astonishing numbers that are hard to wrap your head around. but the government scientists, the cabinet and the prime minister had decided that today, it was time to say we have passed the peak. we've been talking about that on this programme for some time. are we there, is it a plateau, can we say that we've actually officially moved through, that the disease itself has passed its worst stage in terms of the spread? and today, the prime minister, in a very high—profile moment, decided that it was the right time to say so. and of course, because the prime minister's back, the vivid, maybe sometimes not quite accurate metaphors are back too. here is today's. we've come through the peak or rather,

but sir patrick vallance said testing alone would not control the virus.rward is having very good surveillance systems to be able to pick up risk early. so, nothing is going to be risk—free. everything as we go back to less social distancing will carry a risk of there being an outbreak somewhere 01’ a few more cases or, in worst case scenario, we need a very effective surveillance system to pick it up. it is absolutely essential to know where the virus is if we are going to track it. do you think it is right to stop community testing on march 12 rather than ramping and up like we decided to do an april? if we had ongoing support beyond that, then we perhaps we would choose a slightly different approach. but with resources we had, and i mean that in a broad sense, because many of the specialists and expertise you need to carry out additional contact tracing will also be supporting the other changes that have been very successful, for example, ramping up nhs capacities. testing, she said, had continued, but it had been a question of resources. but there is a

to be joined this afternoon by paul lincoln, the director general of border force, and by sir patrick vallanceour chief scientific adviser. firstly, i would like to update you on the latest daily figures. 3,000,200 and 31,000 -- 3,000,291 test have been carried out in the uk. including 100 30,497 test carried out yesterday. 254,000, 195 people have tested positive and that is an increase of 3287 cases since yesterday. 9307 people are currently in hospital with coronavirus. that is down 14% from 10,781 this time last week. and sadly, of those tested positive for coronavirus, across all settings, 36,393 people have now died. that is an increase of 351 fatalities since yesterday. all our thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathies remain with all those who have lost their loved ones. at this time of national emergency, it is crucial that we continue to remain alert and save cou ntless continue to remain alert and save countless more lives. that means doing everything to control this terrible disease, taking the right action at the right time to prevent action at the right time to prevent a second de

scientific adviser, search patrick balance, and there had been pressure mounting over —— sir patrick vallances and that is because the government advice over the pandemic... the government has said it has been leaning heavily on that scientific advice, so there have been calls to say, we should really know what may cut that is thatis really know what may cut that is that is advising the government and having such an influence. somebody who is really welcome this is the committee chair greg clark, the former business secretary. he had pushed to get this publish. he said that this was called for in order to provide public assurance that the government is making decisions informed by a substantial body of expert advice. so he's welcome think that today. first minister of scotland nicola sturgeon has been outlining the scottish government's plans for a test, trace, isolate strategy to deal with coronavirus. this new strategy would mean anyone with symptoms reporting them to the nhs, who would then inform everyone they'd been in contact with.the first minister said that this new approach would rel

the other day when professor chris whitty and patrick valla nce professor chris whitty and patrick vallancectly about dominic cummings, the uk prime minister's chief adviser on his jaunt to durham and round—trip to barnard castle about his eyesight we re barnard castle about his eyesight were first shielded by the prime minister said it's not for them and when they were asked explicitly said we don't go anywhere near politics so we don't go anywhere near politics so they sought refuge in ducking the question because they can argue they are not political figures so why should they be drawn into it? professor van—tam could have sought the same refuge but now he was straight out there. it was explicit and effort very striking. he was expressed that he wanted to answer the question. you did not fair to mr cummings by name but the question was expressly about dominic cummings. —— he did not name mr cummings. —— he did not name mr cummings. he made it clear he was speaking on his own behalf but i'm not sure i am allowed to say it but it was a kick in the goolies for mr cummings insofar the ninth

but sir patrick vallance said testing alone would not control the virus.g forward is having very good surveillance systems to be able to pick up risk early. nothing is going to be risk free. everything as we go back to rest social distancing will carry a risk of their being an outbreak somewhere or a few more cases or in worst case scenarios, we need a very effective surveillance system to pick it up. it is essential to know where the buyer in the mifi rest is if we are going to track it. —— where the virus is. do you think it is right to stop community testing on the 12th of march rather than ramping it up like we decided to do an april? if we had unlimited capacity and ongoing support beyond that, perhaps we would choose a slightly different approach but with resources we had and i mean that in a broad sense because many of the specialists and expertise you need to carry out additional contact tracing will also be supporting the other changes that have been very successful, for example ramping up nhs capacities. testing, she said, had continued, but it h

and when you have people like patrick vallance today saying that they had —— had they started testingou have someone at the top of the tree saying that. that will prompt questions. we cannot be waiting to answer that. no, ithink cannot be waiting to answer that. no, i think the time for dissection is now and will continue. claire was talk about your newspaper the daily telegraph and an exclusive for them this evening. the lockdown professor, this is the professor who was instrumental in prompting boris johnson to professor who was instrumental in prompting borisjohnson to lockdown britain, he has not stepped down after breaking rules to meet his married lover. now, this is obviously interesting on a personal level but some people might argue look ultimately, this guy is a scientist, he is not a politician, doesn't matter what he does in his spare time? firstly congratulations to my colleagues who broke this exclusive. i don't think even though it is in the great tradition of fleet street to talk about peoples personal lives and the romantic lives, i do not think that is the point of t

sir patrick vallance has said they believe the r value is around 0.7 and we are measuring that directlyough the work of the office for national statistics. that is being measured by randomly testing people in the community. once that data has been presented, once the data is available, i think it will be better to give a more precise figure, but as patrick also explained, it is impossible to get an absolute single, precise number because around the country in different settings, it will be slightly different. with better data, that range will narrow. thank you very much. we will turn now to sienna rogers from labour list. one month ago the government announced a scheme to release a low risk prisoners and it was expected up to 4000 would be released. but after mistakes were made, the scheme was paused. so mr gove, can you tell us how many risk assessed prisoners in total and how many pregnant prisoners have been released. and professor, rates of self— harm in english and welsh prisons were up by 1496 english and welsh prisons were up by 14% last year so with visits cancelled at the momen

terms of the comparison that you're suggesting, as the scientists have all said, i can remember patrick vallancethink we will get a real verdict on how our countries have done until the pandemic is over, and in particular until we've got comprehensive international data on all—cause mortality. but there are two points i would make about the uk approach. there are different ways of counting deaths, we have had that debate in this country, as we know. we now publish data that includes all deaths in all settings, and not all deaths in all settings, and not all countries do that. so i'm not sure that the international comparison works unless you know reliably that they are measuring in the same way. and it also depends on how good countries are in gathering their statistics. and our own office for national statistics is widely acknowledged to be a world leader. and one reason we've embraced that is because we want the transparency, because we are confident and we believe that it is only if we get the full transparency that we will be in the best place to tackle this virus. so i think it is important

patrick vallance who is the chief scientific adviser and someone who has become familiar to people, heleveled at the government that they we re leveled at the government that they were too slow on testing and they set the target to reach 100,000 daily tasks across the country by the end of april. it was a target he announced he had met although there was some controversy over figures, he actually surpassed 100,000 tests on the end of april but that number has lagged since then and gone below 100,000 in terms of tests being provided said there is ongoing scrutiny there on the government‘s approach and conversely some people saying they have reached the target at the end of april and the numbers have gone down but people say what was good about the testing target was good about the testing target was that it galvanise the white hall, government and the army and services across the country to ramp up services across the country to ramp up testing which was seen as you said keen to make tea and living to that next phase of easing the lockdown and test, track and trace and a app to help tes

i think on that and the chief scientific officer patrick vallance made a similar point, and equally,e world leading laboratories, overall capacity and scaled as something that we did not have. clearly, we acted very quickly, from 2000 tests each day in february, with all of the different remote testing, the other steps that we re remote testing, the other steps that were taken to bring it mobile and closer to home, which has ramped as up closer to home, which has ramped as up to 120,000 test by the end of april. and i think it is that response that we have given. but clearly, there will be plenty of time for searching questions once we are through this, about how we ensure that we are best prepared as we can be, learning and applying lessons from this experience. but at the same time, we must be rigorously focused on the here and now, looking at these next steps, and ensuring that we do that carefully, appropriately, to get through this virus and get our country back up and running and to get through this terrible challenge. i am interested that you mention that 120,000 test, because

of the comparison that you are suggesting, as the scientists have all said — i can remember patrick vallancey talking about this — i don't think we will get a real verdict on how well countries have done until the pandemic is over, and particularly until we have got comprehensive international data on all—cause mortality. applause. and amid all the grim news, some remarkable tales of survival. a round of applause for 98—year—old alice atkins, discharged from king george hospital in east london after beating covid—i9. jon donnison, bbc news. 0ur political correspondent nick eardley is in westminster. today, boris johnson today, borisjohnson will face keir starmer as labour leader for the first time and it's likely the labour leader will ask mrjohnson why the figure of excess deaths in the uk is 11,500 at the moment and why the uk is on course to have one of the highest death tolls in europe. those sobering figures from yesterday which showed the uk has 110w yesterday which showed the uk has now surpassed italy in terms of the number of deaths. labour has consistently said the government has b

scientific advisor has been forced to clarify his initial comments on herd immunity back in march the patrick vallance said the building up a degree of population immunity to the disease was a key part of the government's efforts the initial herd immunity strategy of letting the virus pass through the population was later discredited after modeling appeared to show it could lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths i should be clear about what i was trying to say and if i didn't say this clearly enough then i apologize but what i was trying to say was that in the absence all of therapeutic the way in which you can stop. community becoming. susceptible to this is through immunity and immunity can be obtained either by max a nation or it can be obtained by people who have the infection specialists in the field assistant professor of medicine at queen's university in canada dr mark stress told me that he thought herd immunity it was the solution if done in a gradual responsible way. i think that the initial herd immunity strategy was an imperfect and i think as we learn more about this virus we have an opp

we heard yesterday at the downing street news briefing from sir patrick vallance, warning about the numberom borisjohnson, very interestingly, saying don't meet people from too many different hassles in quick succession. a real sign of the nervousness in political and scientific circles, despite this easing of the lockdown? yes. this is a significant step but there is real caution from government here at westminster and in the devolved parts of the uk, around the implications that this new guidance could have and as you've been hearing, it varies from place to place, according to where you are in the uk which could potentially lead to some confusion. although boris johnson, the prime minister said yesterday after he spoke to the first ministers of wales, scotland and northern ireland, that it was important for the uk to continue to ta ke important for the uk to continue to take a coordinated approach, all nations are taking a similar move in allowing people to meet in groups from different hassles outdoors but the specifics of the numbers and different criteria do vary from place to place.

if i could follow up, just to go back to dame angela, your colleague, sir patrick vallance told the scienceat was the best advice you could give in the context of the capacity? i think that is what ijust said, yes. 0k, thank you very much, jane. next we have stephan from city am. thank you secretary of state. david frost and the uk brexit negotiating team said on multiple occasions that one of the key contentious areas of negotiation has been fishing policy and if there is not any movement on these talks by june and if there is not any movement on these talks byjune that the deal will be unlikely to go through. this would mean that the city of london is locked out of lucrative eu markets. with this in mind, can you tell me what the government is prioritising, the city of london or financial services firms that contribute 7% of gdp to the economy, or the fishing industry that contributes 0.1%. and to dame angela, any chance of the lockdown being lifted entirely where island or isolated communities in the uk have not had any instances of covid—19? have not had any instances of covid-19? thank

england, the catholic church and others, with sir patrick valla nce church and others, with sir patrick vallance of thing in schools, and of course questioning how the government intends to do it, and do it safely, to ensure that pupils and teachers are not at too higha pupils and teachers are not at too high a risk of catching coronavirus, and ideas to reduce class sizes, one of the main ideas, with groups of 15. it follows the model in denmark where you have bubbles, if you like, of pupils, with one teacher only, and they don‘t mix with other children within the school. of course that takes an awful lot of planning. that was the point of the government giving notice, really, to schools, to start preparing for all of this, giving them three weeks in england to do so, and as we know it is not the plan in scotland and elsewhere. let‘s now listen to matt hancock. good afternoon, welcome to downing street for the daily coronavirus briefing. i am joined street for the daily coronavirus briefing. iamjoined by street for the daily coronavirus briefing. i am joined by the street for the daily coronavir

only really to say that sir patrick vallance has already said it from this podium, that the r is currently this means we do not have an enormous amount of headroom, and we will have to go very slowly. and we will have to go very slowly. and we will have to go very slowly. and we will have to go very cautiously. and this is a time where there are potential dangers if we go too fast, andi potential dangers if we go too fast, and i am fully aware of this and i'm perfectly prepared to give that advice to the government, as needed. thank you. we now go to lisa holland from sky news. good afternoon. my question is for professor van tam. 8000 new infections every day, and thatis 8000 new infections every day, and that isjust in england, and supposedly doesn't include care homes and hospitals. can i ask you, who is catching coronavirus, and how, given that we are ten weeks into lockdown? that is a difficult question. i can't tell you who is catching coronavirus. what i can tell you is the kinds of people who are at risk of catching it, and the kind of people who are at risk of being hospitalised.

sir patrick vallance hinted earlier in the week that some regions could come out of lockdown sooner,lice, who are very overstretched already, to prevent a large—scale invasion of holiday—makers? prevent a large—scale invasion of holiday-makers? i will perhaps turn to yvonne to speak about the regional disparities in the path of the virus and how we might respond to that, including through tracking and tracing. in terms of local councils and the emergency services and ensuring they have the support that's required, as i said earlier we are providing additional funding to forces, and the home secretary is speaking with national police chiefs to ensure they have the right guidance and consistent messaging that they can use to enforce the lockdown rules where that is required. as we have seen so far, the vast majority of members of the public have chosen to do so and adhere to the messaging, and most police forces have been able to support the lockdown measures through consent, which is the way we wa nt to through consent, which is the way we want to do things in this country. but in an

i think sir patrick vallance give a good description of the science and some of the things around the are to an individual and the longer you are close to somebody and that is the basis for the contact tracing in test and trace and there are a number of other mitigations that can be taken around that to metre rule. i don't think the scientific evidence has changed and the scientific evidence will continue to be presented to the government and of course, if new evidence becomes available at any time, of course that must be taken into account, but i don't think the science has fundamentally changed. anna, anything else? circling back to the tax question earlier, you said you don't want to comment on future budgets and i understand that, but the prime minister in answer to that question this week reaffirmed that he would maintain a commitment to all tory manifesto pledges which include the triple tax lock. when you also now reaffirm that you will not get rid of that manifesto commitment? i agree with the prime minister and i will go back to what isaid minister and i will go back to what

downing street presser at around 5pm today it will be led by borisjohnson our along with sir patrick vallancengland as ofjune one to welcome back some pupils who have not been able to attend so far. and also car showrooms and outdoor markets opening up in the first insta nce markets opening up in the first instance and then, later on in a couple of weeks, nonessential shops and other retail businesses being able to open. that is broadly what we are expecting to hear from the prime minister of this afternoon. he will talk i am sure about the government's five tests they set which needed to be met before restrictions could be eased. following death and infection rates we re following death and infection rates were included and also the ability of the nhs to cope with a potential second wave of cases. there may be more, the prime minister may go further and announced other measures which haven't been trailed in advance, but we will have to wait and hear what he has to say in about and hear what he has to say in about an hour. we will bring you that life of course on the bbc here. test and traces

thatis one metre versus two metre, because that is the crux of all of this, this coming from sir patrick vallanceing millions, a huge pa rt industry, employing millions, a huge part of the service sector industry and who is important for the economy, but when we're talking about ten to 30 times risky clearly that advice is important someone that advice is important someone that the hospitality industry and others need to take on board. we all wa nt to others need to take on board. we all want to be safe all the time, but why is it that france, for example, a very sensible country where i'm sure they take safety and the risks from the disease very seriously, has decided that one metre is sufficient or indeed the who? are they all wrong? let's talk about the logistics of restaurants and bars. we know a lot of organisations are trying to work out how they can accommodate this at two metres or, perhaps, even less. what are the penge west, what are the real issues in restaurants and bars? the real issues are about people sitting down at tables, because they believe that the risks are, in terms of tran

the health and social care select committee this morning, the chief scientific officer, sir patrick vallancewe would have done something differently. in terms of what we have seen now, i think probably, in the early phases, andi think probably, in the early phases, and i have said this before, i think if we had managed to ramp testing capacity quicker it would have been beneficial and for all sorts of reasons that didn't happen. i think it is clear you need lots of testing for this but to echo whatjenny harrison said, it is wrong to think of testing as the answer, it is part of testing as the answer, it is part of the system you need to get right. the entire system needs to work properly and you need to have that link to contact tracing and isolation and so on. i think there will be plenty of time to say what worked and what did not work and what we need to do differently. india has recorded its biggest dailyjump in the number of coronavirus cases and fatalities. health officials said there were nearly 4,000 new cases of the virus and about 200 deaths in the past 24 hours. the largest spike

the government are probably feeling they have more room to manoeuvre, but patrick vallance said thatis is a very bad idea. i think this is a very bad idea. i think there should have been a unified front, certainly initially, everything doing the same thing to avoid confusion. we know what works really well when you‘re trying to contain outbreaks is giving clear advice to people with a simple message everyone understands and eve ryo ne message everyone understands and everyone can get behind. i think this is a reflection on the fact of having devolved administrations and them having different advisors locally, some louder voices may be heard more in some sectors and therefore people will make their own minds about what they think is the right way to do this. there is no gold standard way for doing this because we have never been down this path before. so, localthings because we have never been down this path before. so, local things are dominating. i think it probably would have been betterfor this not to have happened. interesting. doctor chris smith, the naked scientist virologist a

this is the patrick vallance, the chief scientific advisor, saying finding a vaccine is by no means assuredk for an estimate of when people will be able to hide someone they have just met, i people will be able to hide someone they havejust met, i mean, would you have someone they havejust met, i mean, would you have someone you have just met, that's a question. anyway, mr hancock said i would not recommend it. to get to the point, things will advance when we have a treatment or advance when we have a treatment or a vaccine. the papers have a lot more, if you want details, they have all of them, lots of them have a lot of detail. can you remember the last person you hugged who was not in your house? i think it might've been the lovely zoe williams. on your challenge? it could have been them, because there was the sport relief night. yes, that was all happening at the time. it might've been her. talking about the housing market as well, because you cannot see your pa rents well, because you cannot see your parents as well, saying in the times, here's the thing, a retired doctor won £500,000

medical officer professor chris whitty and the government's chief scientific adviser at sir patrick vallance government publish more details about its plans to ease the lockdown in england setting out three phases over the coming months, addressing mps, boris johnson described over the coming months, addressing mps, borisjohnson described it as very good advice for the entire population of the uk. but the leaders of scotland, wales and northern ireland have largely rejected it, deciding to stick with the core message that people should stay at home. but speak to our chief