Coronavirus - 5th May

Summary for Tuesday, 5th May

• The worldwide Covid-19 death toll is now above 250,000, according to Johns Hopkins University
  
• Nigeria, India and Israel are among the latest countries to start easing restrictions
  
• New Zealand prime minister discusses "Trans-Tasman travel bubble" with Australian cabinet
  
• Later on Tuesday, the UK is to begin testing a new contact-tracing app on the Isle of Wight
  
• The US records 1,015 virus deaths in 24 hours, the lowest one-day tally in a month
  
• The number includes those who have died with the virus and not necessarily because of it
  
• The US Treasury will borrow a record $3tn (£2.4tn) between April and June
  

Hello and welcome back to the BBC's live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. We're writing to you from our homes in Singapore, Australia and India today, and will be joined by our colleagues in London as the UK wakes up.
We're starting off with rather grim news this morning. More than 250,000 people have now lost their lives to the virus outbreak, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
This number includes those who have died with the virus, and not necessarily because of it. However it's likely that some countries have under-reported deaths, which means the true death toll could be higher.
But a glimmer of hope in the US. The country has recorded 1,015 virus deaths over the past 24 hours - its lowest one-day tally in a month. There are currently close to 1.2 million confirmed cases in the US - which has more virus cases than any other country.
The good news continues in New Zealand, which has recorded no new cases for a second day in a row. The government had last week eased lockdown restrictions, but these could be further relaxed if the number of cases stays low.

US sees lowest daily death toll in one month

The US has recorded 1,015 new deaths linked to Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, the lowest daily number in a month. Overall, 68,920 people have died with the virus.
There have been 1,180,332 confirmed infections in the US, more than five times the number of cases that Spain has and more than 14 times the number of cases in China where the outbreak started at the end of 2019.
Fewer than 200,000 of those infected have so far recovered.
An internal US government document projects a sharp rise in coronavirus infections and a surge in daily deaths by 1 June, the New York Times reported on Monday. The projections foresee around 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month and a daily death toll of about 3,000.

NZ and Australia discuss travel bubble

This morning, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joined Australia's official virus cabinet meeting (via phone) to discuss a potential "travel bubble" between the two nations.
The South Pacific neighbours, separated by the Tasman Sea, have both found relative success in containing the virus' spread. New Zealand has reported no new cases for a second day, while Australia's numbers remain low.
Both want a "trans-Tasman" travel channel given their close economic and cultural ties. However Ms Ardern stressed that health measures would need to be in place first:
"We have seen across the ditch very low numbers and then it can only take one outbreak... to suddenly have an uptick and that's why it is so important to stick with our restrictions," she told reporters in Wellington.
"Neither of us want cases of Covid coming between our countries," she said.
More details on this proposed travel opening are expected to come in the next few hours.

US to borrow record $3tn

The US has said it will borrow a record-breaking three trillion dollars in its second quarter, in a bid to offset the huge costs of coronavirus-related rescue packages.
The figure is more than five times the previous quarterly record, set at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.
The US has approved about $3tn (£2.4tn) in virus-related relief, including health funding and direct payouts. The country's national debt now stands near $25 trillion.
Read more on the US debt load here.

Chinese media call Pompeo lab theory 'insane'

Chinese state media has hit back at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over remarks he made on the origins of the virus outbreak - calling them "insane and evasive".
Pompeo had said on Sunday that "enormous evidence" showed the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus first emerged last year.
State broadcaster CCTV responded with a commentary titled "Evil Pompeo is wantonly spewing poison and spreading lies", according to an AFP report.
The CCTV report went on to say that the theory was a "complete and utter lie," saying "American politicians are rushing to shift the blame... their own domestic anti-epidemic efforts are a mess."
The World Health Organization has said that the US has so far provided no evidence to support "speculative" claims that the virus originated in a Chinese lab.
Despite this, the lab theory has continued to gain traction. But is there any evidence supporting it at all? Read more about what we actually know here.

French doctor discovers virus case from December

A French doctor has claimed to have found evidence that a patient diagnosed with pneumonia on 27 December actually had the coronavirus.
If this is verified, it would prove that the virus was already circulating in France weeks before the first known cases were reported there.
The country's first three cases of coronavirus were confirmed on 24 January - almost a whole month afterwards.
Dr Cohen, head of emergency medicine at Avicenne and Jean-Verdier hospitals near Paris, told a French broadcaster that he had re-tested the nasal swabs of patients who had flu-like symptoms in December and January.
"Out of 14 patients, one tested positive. We tested it two more times to make sure there was no mistake. And twice, it came back positive."
Read more about this here.

India sends three ships to rescue stranded citizens

India has sent three naval ships to bring back stranded citizens in the Maldives and the UAE, defence officials said on Tuesday.
Two of them left for the Maldives on Monday night while the third went to Dubai, a spokesperson told PTI news agency.
Some 200,000 people have reportedly registered with the Indian embassies in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, according to the Times of India. Authorities have not officially confirmed the number of citizens stranded abroad.
Meanwhile, the government is organising efforts to bring back stranded Indians abroad in a "phased manner" from 7 May, reported local media. Naval ships and aircraft are being prepared while embassies compile a list of citizens.

NZ reports zero new cases for second day

New Zealand has reported zero new virus cases for the second day in a row, a week after it eased harsh lockdown measures.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the achievement was an effort that "we can all be undeniably proud of", but urged New Zealanders to remain vigilant, saying "don't do anything that snatches our potential victory at this point."
There are currently 1,137 confirmed cases in New Zealand and 20 deaths.

Is there any evidence for lab release theory?

Paul Rincon - Science editor, BBC News website
In April, US State Department cables came to light showing embassy officials were worried about biosecurity at a virus lab in Wuhan, China. The lab is in the same city where the coronavirus outbreak was first detected.
The office of the US national intelligence director says that the virus was not man-made or genetically modified. But intelligence officials are investigating whether the outbreak began through contact with animals or through a laboratory accident.
So what, if anything, does this add to our understanding of the current pandemic?
Read more here.

Long queues as India opens liquor shops

Long, snaking lines were reported outside liquor shops across Indian cities on Monday evening, after new rules allowed some standalone shops to open.
Videos and images of jostling crowds went viral on social media. The scenes spurred concerns over social distancing measures, and the national capital, Delhi, was worried enough to impose a 70% "special corona fee" on all alcohol.
The Delhi government even shut liquor stores in parts of the city, just hours after they opened on Monday for the first time since 24 March, when India's lockdown began.
States have been pushing for liquor shops to reopen for weeks now as excise duty on alcohol is a major source of income. With the economy slowing dramatically due to India's grinding lockdown, there has been pressure to partially ease restrictions

Cambodia reports no new virus cases for weeks

The South-east Asian nation of Cambodia has reported no new virus cases for more than three weeks.
The country has seen an astonishingly high recovery rate as well. Of the 122 confirmed virus cases, 120 people have reportedly recovered - and zero deaths have been officially recorded.
But it's hard to say if the low figures are reflective of the situation on the ground - or a result of under-testing.
According to the Phnom Penh Post, only around 12,304 people have been tested - or 757 of every one million people. Cambodia's population stands at around 16 million.
The country is still choosing to remain cautious despite its low official figures, with schools and entertainment venues like theatres, beer gardens and massage parlours remaining shut.
“We need to continue [suspension], to make sure we are in control,” said Minister Mam Bunheng, according to a VOA report. "We should never try to take [a] risk."

Scenes from around the world

It's fair to say we're all living in extraordinary times - and many of us have been forced to change the way we live, work and play. Around the world, people are now settling into what many governments are calling our "new normal".
Take a look:

Traditional Thai dancers performing at the iconic Erawan shrine are wearing protective face shields




A couple in Mexico sharing a (masked) kiss




Italians sunbathing - with masks - after they were allowed out yesterday for the first time in months

Chinese media fire back at Pompeo

Tessa Wong - BBC News


China has never been one to take an accusation lying down, so when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently made the claim that there was "enormous evidence" that the virus came from a Wuhan lab, Chinese state media wasted no time in firing back.
"Pompeo and Bannon are really a pair of natural liars and clowns" was the headline of an indignant commentary by the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece People's Daily. The piece, written in Chinese and carried widely by other Chinese media outlets, attacked Pompeo and former White House advisor Steve Bannon for similar recent claims accusing China of a virus cover-up.
Some outlets also pumped out critical pieces written in English aimed at an international audience. CGTN, the international arm of China's state broadcaster, carried an opinion piece by a British analyst calling Pompeo a "disgrace", while the hawkish Global Times newspaper said Pompeo's claim was aimed at "fooling US voters"  ahead of the upcoming election.
"It is foreseeable that this politician, who has lost his moral compass, will continue to surprise the world with his absurd theories and twisted facts," said the commentary.
The Chinese media response, particularly from outlets more directly controlled by the state, can often be quicker and more raucous compared to the official government response. China's foreign affairs ministry is yet to comment specifically on Pompeo's claim, though in the past few weeks its government has engaged in a war of words with the US over who is to blame for the pandemic.
Some of that tension has played out in state propaganda, as seen in this cartoon released by state news agency Xinhua mocking the US.

Shopkeepers desperate for Ramadan sales

M Ilyas Khan - BBC News, Islamabad
Forty-three days into a lockdown, shopping areas in Islamabad, Pakistan remain shuttered - a rare sight during Ramadan, the busiest time for shopkeepers. But the parking lots of these areas are lined with customers’ cars.
So what’s going on? A closer look at the shop doors will reveal a chink in the shutter here, a gap in the grill there, through which you can spot people occasionally sneaking in and out.
When a police car shows up, the gaps and chinks quietly disappear, and movements inside the shops cease.
The owner of a small drinks and cigarettes kiosk at a main market confides that he would never play this hide-and-seek if he were able to run his kitchen.
The sole breadwinner of a large family, he rented the shop some five years ago for 30,000 Pakistani rupees ($20) a month.
He pays cash to buy drinks, and says he bought a large stock two months ago in anticipation of Ramadan sales.
Now stuck in the lockdown, he pulls a canvas sheet across the small front of his shop to hide his open shutters, and hangs out in front to spot and invite potential customers.
Most of his drinks are approaching their date of expiry, and he fears financial ruin if the stock remains unsold.
He says if the lockdown continues, it is going to ruin most retail businesses.

New Zealand PM: No open borders for 'a long time'

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the country will not have open borders with the rest of the world for "a long time to come".
Ms Ardern was speaking after attending part of Australia's cabinet meeting via video link.
The meeting discussed a possible "trans-Tasman bubble", where people could go between Australia and New Zealand freely, and without quarantine.
But she said visitors from further afield were not possible any time soon.
Both Australia and New Zealand have closed their borders to almost all foreigners as part of their Covid-19 response.
Read more here.

Plane with coronavirus supplies crashes in Somalia

The Somali authorities say a plane carrying coronavirus aid supplies has crashed, killing the six people on board.
The aircraft was owned by African Airways.
It left the capital Mogadishu and briefly stopped in the city of Baidoa before continuing to the town of Bardale, in the southern Bay region, where it crashed a short distance from the airport.
The cause of the Monday evening incident is not known.
The South-West State Minister of Transport Hassan Hussein Mohamed told the BBC that those who died included Somali and Kenyan nationals.

Iranian airline fuelled virus spread in Middle East

An Iranian airline with links to the country's Revolutionary Guards fuelled the spread of the virus in the Middle East, a BBC investigation has found.
Mahan Air flew infected passengers from Iran to Lebanon and Iraq - leading to the first official cases in both countries.
Sources within Mahan Air told the BBC that cabin crew were silenced by the airline when they tried to raise concerns about its handling of the virus and the lack of protective equipment.
Flight tracking data also shows that the airline repeatedly flew to China despite a flight ban by Tehran.
Mahan Air has refused to comment.

Bangladesh quarantines Rohingya refugees on island

The Bangladeshi government has quarantined 29 Rohingya refugees on a cyclone-prone remote island in the Bay of Bengal after they were stranded at sea for weeks.
The refugees, mostly women and children, were detained after docking in Bangladesh on Saturday and then taken to the island of Bhashan Char. This was done to protect the refugee camps of Cox's Bazar from coronavirus, Naval Lieutenant Abdur Rashid told CNN.
These refugees were among hundreds of Rohingya Muslims trapped at sea for weeks after they reportedly tried to flee to Malaysia from Myanmar, where they aren't recognised as citizens.
Cox's Bazar, home to nearly one million Rohingya Muslims, has been under lockdown since April with no confirmed cases yet. Meanwhile, Bangladesh has recorded more than 10,000 infections.

Almost third of Australians have tracing app

That's five million people of the targeted 16 million mobile phone users in Australia, says Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
He said this was a good response, but "we would like to see a bit more". The government had previously said a 40% uptake is needed.
The app, released just over a week ago, shares users' codes with each other via a Bluetooth signal. It's designed to speed up the contact-tracing process and quickly isolate at-risk people.
"The first job of the COVIDSafe app is to keep you safe and that is its best reason why I would encourage people to continue to do that," Mr Morrison said.
"The more people we get, the better protection we all have as we go back to work."
Mr Morrison has stressed that wide usage is almost a prerequisite to the nation exiting lockdown. A review of freedoms is due this Friday. For over a month now, Australia has reported very low daily case numbers after success in containing the spread.

If you're just joining us in the UK...

Good morning, and here are some of the latest developments:

• An NHS app aiming to track the spread of the virus in the UK will be rolled out for the first time today, as part of a trial on the Isle of Wight
  
• New UK car registrations fell by 97% from the same period in 2019, after lockdown measures were introduced, said the motor industry
  
• Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called for a "national consensus" on tackling coronavirus when the UK begins to move out of lockdown
  
• A group of MPs is urging the Church of England to ease restrictions to allow small-scale funerals in churches
  
• Thousands of nurseries and childminders may shut permanently due to financial problems according to new research
  
• Premier League doctors have raised concerns over plans to resume the football season
  

Green investment 'best way to revive virus-hit economies'

Renewable energy, such as wind turbines, offers higher short-term returns, the study found

Australia: No support for US lab claim

Australia, along with the US, has been one of the loudest voices calling for an investigation into the origins of the virus and its spread in China.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed the virus originated in a Chinese lab - a claim rubbished by Beijing.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says his country is working closely with the US, but isn't endorsing the lab theory.
"We can't rule out any of these arrangements... but the most likely has been in a wildlife wet market."
He added: "What really is important is that we have a proper review that looks into the sources of these things."

Global coronavirus deaths pass 250,000

The number of deaths related to coronavirus around the world has passed 250,000, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the disease globally.
The US is the country with the highest number of fatalities, with nearly 69,000. Italy has over 29,000 deaths while the UK has almost 29,000.
Comparisons are difficult, though, because of different methods employed by countries in reporting their figures - such as including only the deaths that happened in hospitals. Lack of testing, a problem in many nations, may also hide the true extent of the outbreak.

India reports biggest daily spike yet

With 3,900 fresh infections in the last 24 hours, India has seen its sharpest rise in daily cases yet, according to the health ministry.
The latest spike means the country now has 46,433 confirmed cases of Covid-19. This includes the more than 12,000 patients who have recovered or been discharged and the 1,568 who have died.
The uptick in numbers could be due to increased testing. More than 80,000 people across the country were tested on Monday, and health officials hope to start testing around 100,000 samples every day soon.
The new numbers come just as the country woke up to new relaxations in the lockdown on Monday, including the opening of standalone shops and allowing private offices to open with 33% of their staff.

Mobility rise may trigger second wave in Italy say researchers

Today Programme - BBC Radio 4
A report from Imperial College London looking at the reintroduction of mobility in Italy's population suggests it could suffer a second wave of infections and deaths, bigger than the first.
Italians have been living under a national stay-at-home order since 9 March, with everyone required to remain within a few streets of their door.
The BBC's Tom Feilden reports:
This is report 20 from the Imperial team - a sobering read for anyone thinking that things are going to get back to normal.
It looks at drastic measures the Italian government put in and what happens if you reintroduce mobility back into society. It looks at three scenarios: staying in lockdown and increasing movement by 20% and 40%.
Even with the lower figure of 20% of people getting back to normal life, that would be enough to trigger the onset of another wave of infections and subsequent deaths, bigger than the first.
The message is, what you have managed to do is suspend the outbreak - but as soon as you undo lockdown, you run the risk of it flaring up.
The researchers go on to say it is a pessimistic projection and they're not factoring everything in. It is a model, but it doesn’t allow for additional measures like community surveillance, contact tracing and isolating infected people.

UK junior doctors start work early

Junior doctors in the UK usually start work in August, but this year's graduations have been pushed forward so more medical workers can join the fight against the virus.
The new cohort will start work months earlier than expected.
"I think we're all very nervous and it feels quite scary," said Dr Maisha Choudhury.
"The fact that the NHS created this role for us, I guess means that it's just a testament [to] how stretched they are. If we can help in whatever little way we can, I think it will save lives, hopefully."
Read more about the junior doctors who are stepping up to the plate here.

US death toll 'could reach 3,000 a day'

The daily death toll in the US could reach 3,000 people a day by June, according to an internal Trump administration report obtained by the New York Times. That's about a 70% increase from the current figure of 1,750.
The projections are based on government modelling by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The data also forecasts about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month - up from around 25,000 cases daily.
It comes as almost half the states in the US begin easing lockdown restrictions. In Florida, pictures showed dozens gathered on beaches as some businesses across the state re-opened.
There have been 1,180,332 confirmed cases in the US, and 68,920 deaths.

'High privacy' in NHS contact tracing app - Hancock

Health Secretary Matt Hancock says there is “high privacy” in the NHS contact-tracing app being trialled on the Isle of Wight.
Data protection concerns have been raised over the app, which aims to quickly trace recent contacts of anyone who tests positive for Covid-19.
Mr Hancock said the idea the government is attempting to infringe on privacy is “completely wrong”, and that a user’s phone will anonymously store information about phones it has been within two metres of for more than 15 minutes in the previous few days.
“This is an incredibly important part of a wider system to test, track and trace," Hancock told the BBC.
“This can work out who you have been near if you test positive and let them know anonymously. The more people who have the app the better."

Coronavirus 'saved my life'

A woman who contracted coronavirus says it ended up saving her life - after doctors found she had an undiagnosed heart condition.
Angela Schlegel was hospitalised after 11 days of showing coronavirus symptoms. Her heart condition came to light while she was in intensive care.
"I was told my heart was not functioning the way it should be," said the 36-year-old, who was diagnosed with a condition that can damage various organ systems in the body including the heart, joints, lungs and nerves.
"It saved my life in the long-term, but in the short-term coronavirus did nearly kill me," she said.
Read more about Angela's story here.

France's first known case 'was in December'

A patient diagnosed with pneumonia near Paris on 27 December actually had the coronavirus, his doctor has said.
Dr Yves Cohen told French media a swab taken at the time was recently tested, and came back positive for Covid-19.
The patient, who has since fully recovered, said he had no idea where he caught the virus as he had not been to any infected areas.
The claim means the virus may have arrived in France almost a month earlier than previously thought.
Dr Cohen pointed out that the patient's wife worked at a supermarket near Charles de Gaulle airport, meaning she could have come into contact with people who had recently arrived from China.
Read more here.

The latest from Europe

Spain’s opposition says it will not back an extension to the state of emergency, and a French patient from December is thought to have had coronavirus. Here’s the latest from Europe:

• Spain has gradually eased its lockdown measures - allowing people outside to exercise for the first time in weeks, for instance. But the government wants to extend the state of emergency by another two weeks on Wednesday, and the opposition says it will not back the move. Pablo Casado, leader of the opposition Popular Party, said it “makes no sense”
  
• Officially, France recorded its first coronavirus cases on 24 January. But a Parisian doctor now says one of his patients had the virus in December. Amirouche Hammar was admitted to hospital with pneumonia last year, when the virus was thought to be confined to China
  
• Cafes and restaurants will reopen in Finland from 1 June, with pupils returning to school and borders partially reopening for essential travel and work from 14 May. Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced the moves on Monday, weeks after imposing strict lockdown measures in her country
  
• And a major study in Germany suggests up to 1.8 million people there may have been infected with the virus. The University of Bonn reported the figure after studying the town of Gangelt, which was badly affected in the outbreak
  

Lockdown psychiatric care 'severely disrupted'

Sima Kotecha - BBC News
Isolation during lockdown is exacerbating psychosis in some patients, a consultant psychiatrist at a UK mental health trust has warned.
Steve Church said the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust had shifted its focus to crisis management.
He leads the psychosis recovery team, helping patients struggling with their mental health during the pandemic. Some have had to move homes to isolate, and many no longer visit the clinic.
Dr Church explained: "In normal times, and we're not in normal times, the whole treatment is about trying to help people not self-isolate, trying to help people to re-engage with society.
"Self-isolation is one of the red flag hallmarks of somebody becoming unwell in the first place, where they take themselves into a psychosis-induced lockdown."
You can read the full story here.

Premier League needs 'ingenious' solution

Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says England's Premier League football should return if an “ingenious way” can be found to make it safe.
Representatives from Football, Cricket and Rugby are meeting the government today to discuss strategies to restart sport.
A June resumption has been mooted by the Premier League, which was suspended on 13 March.
“It can and it should (restart),” Hunt told the BBC.
“It’s a question of whether we can find an ingenious way of doing it behind closed doors that does not risk the safety of the players or the public.”
While current health secretary Matt Hancock says he is “open” to the idea, PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor said players were “not stupid” and will “put safety first” when presented with proposals next week.
Taylor added that halves of less than 45 minutes are among measures being considered to restart football

Fundraising ex-nurse, aged 101, to walk 102 laps of park

A former nurse in the UK is hoping to raise money for the NHS by walking 102 laps of her local park before her 102nd birthday.
Joan Rich will be walking the 560m loops of Allenby Park in Suffolk to fundraise for NHS Charities Together - the same charity that Captain Tom Moore raised nearly 33 million pounds for.
The centenarian, who walks with a frame, has already exceeded her £1,020 target - four months before her birthday on 11 September.
In her younger days, she was posted to the army and was a member of the Royal Military Police in Jerusalem where she helped prisoners of war returning from camps in Japan with rehabilitation.
Read more about her incredible life here

Coronavirus deaths rise in UK care homes

Virus-related deaths in UK care homes rose to 5,890 during the week ending 24 April, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) - up 36% from the week before.
This accounts for around a third of all coronavirus deaths reported in the UK during the period. The majority continued to be in hospitals.

German ruling criticises EU bond-buying scheme

The mass buying of government bonds is a big part of the EU's armoury in helping European economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
This isn't the first time bonds have been used in this way. After the eurozone crisis, between 2015 and 2018, the European Central Bank (ECB) bought up €2.6 trillion (£2.2tn) of government bonds from eurozone member states.
On Tuesday the German constitutional court declared that the role of the German central bank, the Bundesbank, was partly unconstitutional as it didn't have enough oversight from the German government and Bundestag - Germany's parliament.
The decision does not affect the EU's €750bn bond-buying plan to help member states recover from the coronavirus crisis. But the court does say the Bundesbank must stop buying up government bonds in the next three months if the ECB cannot prove they are required.

Awkward handshake question for UK PM

David Shukman - Science editor, BBC News


One of the documents just released could raise an awkward question for Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It spells out how behavioural scientists were advising the UK government to stop people shaking hands or hugging.
They cite "evidence about the importance of hand hygiene,” in their report of 3 March.
“A public message against shaking hands has additional value as a signal about the importance of hand hygiene.
“Promoting a replacement greeting or encouraging others to politely decline a proffered hand-shake may have benefit.”
Yet on that very day, at the daily government briefing, Mr Johnson declared that he was continuing to shake hands with people.
He described how he was “at a hospital the other night” where there were coronavirus patients and he “shook hands with everybody, you’ll be pleased to know - and I continue to shake hands”.

Couple fined after driving 60 miles to 'smell the sea'

A couple from West Yorkshire who drove more than 60 miles (100km) so they could "smell the sea" have been fined for flouting coronavirus lockdown restrictions.


Whitby Neighbourhood Policing Team said the couple were stopped on Monday evening after driving from Boston Spa, near Leeds, to the North Yorkshire coast.
=68.ARDKYrgbPA90dhKCSrAUFY8ubrXCiq8m8gZURVGrUtlOxkvnDpIEt78ugu-XwNjnAVhCaO1nj68py40nWYKXSUK66syXRNTi2wdhDdx6s9g0spfZ4xFvxth4f4zb-o-MvXoJZBwE0VQ3o6I7nPDNFpED7Pb5dbURYQf6wMKzSMSnDTkUZ3CPZZlrGUKh2ta03ObT0BIpqP43J8CV0XTe-klM2psEg0GEQCSNB6vRGJUpGg4M5qW7HOvYbUcEoCj7CZpsd-LDnCNNP0Ly_EIVKvzpggzyucbhmZRcSYwwivSg3i5Bkb4CO6DpCx7e25GMubXMJAomW-sibsc-hR5HRQ&__tn__=-R]Writing on Facebook the force said: "This is not a reasonable excuse to travel into our area and they were told to return home immediately."
It comes a day after two bikers rode from Rochdale to Whitby on a 200-mile round trip to buy fish and chips.
Police said they'll continue to work hard with residents to keep the town safe.

UK adviser: Masks can be 'beneficial' in crowded areas

The UK government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, is giving evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee this morning.
He told the virtual meeting that wearing face masks had a "marginal but positive" impact on the spread of infection and there may be times when it could be beneficial for people to do so.
"Where masks may have a role is where distancing isn’t possible, where there might be undue crowding," he said. "There may be times when wearing masks can therefore be beneficial to stop the spread."
Sir Patrick made it clear that social distancing and hand washing were vital and that wearing a mask should not replace either.
He added this advice has been given to ministers and he says it is "up to them to decide what to do".

UK car sales plunge to lowest level since 1946

New car registrations almost ground to a halt in April after coronavirus lockdown measures were introduced, the UK motor industry has said.
Figures from industry body the SMMT show only 4,321 cars were registered, the lowest monthly level since 1946.
April's figure marked a 97% plunge in sales from the same month last year.
The closure of car dealerships as part of measures to try to combat the disease has hit consumer registrations.
Read the full piece here

Indonesian folk legend Kempot dies of Covid-19

Resty Woro Yuniar - BBC News, Jakarta
Hugely popular Indonesian singer Didi Kempot passed away on Tuesday morning, a few weeks after he raised more than US$500,000 to help combat the pandemic.
The 53-year-old was a famous singer of a folk genre called campur sari - a blend of Javanese and modern music. He had been making music for three decades, but last year was catapulted back to fame after a video of young men looking sad while listening to his songs went viral on Instagram.
He held a concert on 11 April from his house, which was broadcast through a national TV channel and attended virtually by Indonesia's President Joko Widodo. The concert raised 7.6 billion rupiah ($500,000, £400,000) to help those who had lost their jobs to the crisis.
Kempot was dubbed the "godfather of the broken-hearted" by his fans, who in turn were dubbed sobat ambyar, friends of the scattered heart. They flocked to the internet today to express their mourning, with "Didi Kempot" and "Sobat Ambyar Berduka", or "mourning friends of the scattered heart", becoming worldwide trending topics on Twitter.

  :tweet: dzhulepoenya: :Left Quotes:
"rest in peace didi kempot, thank you so much for all of your songs that never fail made me cry when i listen it,"

US notably absent from vaccine funding conference

Jonathan Marcus - BBC Diplomatic and defence correspondent
The Trump administration’s absence from Monday's vaccine "pledging conference" was notable, and emblematic of a wider failure by the US to assume the mantle of global leadership since the outset of this crisis.
The US was not the only major absentee. Russia was not present either, and China’s EU ambassador attended but made no direct pledge to fund vaccine development and treatment research.
US officials stress that huge quantities of government and private funding is going into finding a vaccine. But the "go solo" approach of two giants of global pharmaceutical power – the US and China – sends a worrying signal.
The European view – backed by many other countries around the world – is that any vaccine must be treated as global public property. There is concern that what is developing is a kind of vaccine race.
The fear is not so much that China and the US will deny a vaccine to others.
It's more that the scale of providing the almost unbelievable number of doses required for the global population means concerted action is essential across research, manufacturing and distribution.
Donald Trump's approach is consistent with his "America First" credo – an outlook that is accentuated as his re-election battle moves into higher gear.

Vallance: UK still quite early in the epidemic

The UK's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has been giving evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee.
He told the meeting that we are still "quite early" in the epidemic.
Although most countries are getting on top of the first peak in some ways it doesn't mean the whole thing's gone away," he said.
Sir Patrick also said:

• The R number - the reproduction rate of the virus - needed to be below one as this means the epidemic is reducing. It is currently between 0.6 and 0.9, with "a little bit of regional variation"
  
• R is thought to be lower in the community than in care homes and hospitals but it is hard to tell due to three routes of infection making it hard to tell the source
  
• On immunity, the evidence suggests the vast majority of people who have had the infection have "some form of antibody response" but that we do not know what degree of protection that gives
  

Read more about the R value here

'Travel bubble' plan to help kick-start flights

Australia and New Zealand are planning a "travel bubble", or corridor, that will allow the quarantine-free flow of people between the two neighbours.
Both countries have severely restricted international travel to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
However, if successful, the "bubble" could grow to include more countries that have a low number of cases.
A wider scheme is planned with Canada and other Asian economies to help supply chains and business travel.
The governments of Australia and New Zealand revealed their plans on Tuesday to set up a "trans-Tasman travel bubble", although no timeframe was given.
This quarantine-free travel zone could provide huge advantages to both nations, which have shown strong records in containing the virus.
You can read more details here

WHO warns more 'early cases' could emerge

The World Health Organization has warned that more early cases of coronavirus are likely to be uncovered in countries around the globe.
It comes after a French doctor said he had tested a sample from a patient diagnosed with pneumonia on 27 December last year, and found it was positive for coronavirus.
The development means Covid-19 may have arrived in Europe almost a month earlier than previously thought.
Speaking in Geneva, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said he was "not surprised" by the news.
He called on other countries to reassess their medical records from late 2019 to help to build a "newer and clearer picture" of the pandemic.

Aer Lingus 'reviewing procedures' after packed Belfast-London flight

Sean Mallon's photo shows no possibility for social distancing on Monday's nearly-full flight

Aer Lingus says it is reviewing procedures on its Belfast to London flights following a claim it was not observing social distancing.
Passenger Sean Mallon took photos on a flight to Heathrow on Monday, showing most passengers sitting close together.
He told the BBC that about 95% of seats were filled, and said passengers queued and boarded the plane just as they would have before the pandemic.
Mallon, who was travelling to England for work, said staff did not offer any guidance or advice other than telling passengers to wash their hands after landing - and no hand sanitiser was offered.
It is one of only two routes flying from Northern Ireland to London.
Aer Lingus said safety was its "top priority" and any necessary changes would be implemented urgently.
Read more here.

Hancock hits back at testing app 'surveillance' claims

England's Health Secretary Matt Hancock has dismissed warnings by civil liberties campaigners that a coronavirus contact tracing app could open the door to widespread "state surveillance".
Ministers have urged the public to sign up to the app - which is beginning trials on the Isle of Wight - as a way to exit the current lockdown and re-start the economy.
But they have run into opposition from some Tory MPs and campaign groups concerned about the potential for the state to monitor individuals' movements and contacts.
Matt Hancock insisted it is "completely wrong" to suggest the app is a threat to civil liberties.
Amnesty International UK has questioned why - unlike other European countries - Britain is establishing a central database to store information.
Read more about how the app works.

'Lack of capacity' behind initial UK testing approach

The UK switched from community testing and tracing to only focusing on testing hospital patients for coronavirus on 12 March.
Giving evidence to the Commons Health Select Committee, the deputy chief medical officer for England said the change in policy was partly due to a lack of capacity.
Dr Jenny Harries told MPs, “if we had unlimited capacity we would have done [it] differently”.
In Germany and South Korea mass testing continued and was seen to be a factor in controlling the spread of the virus.
Plans to expand testing capacity in the UK to 100,000 tests a day were adopted in early April, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock meeting his target on the last day of the month. However, the opposition Labour party said the government should not have counted tests which had been posted out but not yet taken among its figures.
In his evidence, the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said “it would have been better to have ramped up testing quicker” - although he added testing on its own was not a solution to controlling the virus.
Read more: Mass testing earlier 'would have been beneficial'

Latest coronavirus headlines from around the world

A very warm welcome to those just joining us in the UK and globally. Here are some of the latest coronavirus news stories from around the world today:

• A patient in France had coronavirus on 27 December, a recent testing of a swab taken at the time has shown. That would mean coronavirus came to Europe almost a month earlier than previously thought
  
• New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the country will not have open borders with the rest of the world for "a long time to come" - although she discussed a possible arrangement to open up travel between Australia and NZ in a "trans-Tasman bubble"
  
• Chinese state media have accused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of lying, after he said there was "enormous evidence" the coronavirus emanated from a laboratory in Wuhan
  
• The US has said it wants to borrow a record $3tn (£2.4tn) in the second quarter of this year, as coronavirus-related rescue packages blow up the budget
  
• There are concerns about privacy issues relating to the new app to track the spread of coronavirus in the UK, which is being rolled out as part of a trial on the Isle of Wight
  
• Workers who have developed Covid-19 antibodies could be given risky frontline roles in "adverse discrimination" by employers, according to a paper being considered by behavioural scientists advising the UK government
  
• A trial is under way in South Africa to test if the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis might also be effective against coronavirus - something for which the World Health Organization says there is currently no evidence
  

UK economy on track for 'deepest downturn in memory'

The UK economy is set for its deepest downturn "in living memory" as businesses suffer from lockdown, a survey warned.
The IHS Markit/CIPS found the UK's dominant services sector contracted at a record pace last month.
Around 79% of services, such as cafes and hairdressers, reported a fall in business activity amid mass shutdowns in response to the coronavirus.
IHS Markit warned UK GDP could fall by 7% and its economics director Tim Moore said the data highlighted that the downturn in the UK economy during the second quarter of 2020 "will be far deeper and more widespread than anything seen in living memory".

UK scientific advisers' fears over antibody testing

Naomi Grimley, BBC News
According to documents released today, Sage - the government’s scientific advisory body - is worried that antibody tests may not be accurate enough to be used to clear some of the population to return to work. Here is a summary of their concerns on the potential use of antibody testing:

• Some people may go back to work thinking they have immunity when they do not (due to false positives)
  
• People may stop washing their hands as much ("There is some evidence from previous public health crises that misunderstanding test results can affect adherence to risk-reducing behaviours," the body said)
  
• Those who a test showed were not immune might try to hide away and perhaps "seek to avoid attendance at work entirely"
  
• The potential for discrimination by employers on the basis of antibody status, for example only taking on new staff if they had confirmed antibodies
  
• This might prompt some people to try to seek out infection in order to fully integrate back into the workplace
  

Muted celebrations mark 75 years since Dutch liberation

The pandemic may have put a stop to the Netherlands' usual 5 May celebrations to mark freedom from Nazi occupation in World War Two.
But the message of Liberation Day sounds louder than ever, according to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte - because "security, solidarity and freedom are at the core of our lives".
The freedom flame was lit as usual in the town of Wageningen, but there are no freedom festivals because of the Dutch so-called "intelligent lockdown". But that hasn't stopped Dutch military medic Mohan Verstegen giving this rousing explanation of what freedom means on social media:
   Watch video here

Hours before Liberation Day began, King Willem-Alexander made a sombre remembrance speech in Amsterdam's Dam Square, addressing the role of Dutch Queen Wilhelmina during the occupation. The queen spoke to her nation by radio from London but rarely mentioned the Nazi deportation and murder of the Dutch Jewish population.
"Fellow human beings, fellow citizens in need, felt abandoned, unheard, and unsupported, if only by words. Also from London, and by my great-grandmother, despite her unwavering and fierce opposition. This is something that won’t let go of me," said the king.

The countries with rising - and falling - daily death tolls

While many countries are starting to see drops in the number of coronavirus deaths per day, the death tolls are still on the rise in plenty of places including Brazil, Russia, Mexico and Peru.
See more charts and graphs on the global coronavirus pandemic here.

Some Paris streets will only reopen to cyclists

About 30 miles (50km) of some of Paris's busiest roads will be open only to cyclists when the lockdown is eased next week in an effort to limit crowds on public transport.
Rue de Rivoli, which goes through the French capital, and the express tunnel under the Arc de Triomphe roundabout are two of the streets in question.
Another 30 streets will be made pedestrian-only.
Mayor Anne Hidalgo says some of the street closures could become permanent. "I know that the majority of Parisians do not want to see a return of cars and pollution," she said.
The French government has unveiled a €20m ($22m; £19m) package to boost cycling, including a €50 subsidy for bicycle repairs or maintenance

Virgin Atlantic to cut 3,000 UK jobs

Virgin Atlantic is to cut 3,000 jobs in the UK and stop its operations at London Gatwick Airport as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
The airline, which employs around 10,000 people, suspended its Gatwick services during the pandemic and says they will not restart.
Virgin Atlantic is in the process of applying for emergency loans from the UK government.
The company says it also plans to reduce the size of its fleet of aircraft from 45 to 35 by the summer of 2022.
The company says it plans to restore about 60% of its pre-pandemic flying capacity by the end of 2020.
Read more

UK government working 'resolutely' - Hancock

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government is working "resolutely to defeat the coronavirus".
Responding to an urgent question on the pandemic from Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth, he said the scale of the national testing structure meant symptomatic staff and residents at care homes could now be tested and said the government was working to build "resilience" in the NHS.
"As a result, we are now able to start to restore some NHS services and we're in a position to be able to place the London Nightingale on standby," he said.
"This is good news because our NHS has not been overwhelmed by this crisis and remains open to those who need care."
Labour MP Catherine McKinnell described the current death toll as "devastating" and said many were wondering how the government could claim its response to be a success.
Hancock said the government was learning all the time.

Why did it take the UK so long to turbo-boost testing?

Nick Triggle - Health Correspondent
Much like the problems in getting personal protective equipment for staff, the UK’s record on testing is going to come under scrutiny for years to come.
There are many reasons why other countries, such as South Korea and Germany, had a better testing infrastructure to start with.
But what remains more difficult to understand is why the UK did not act sooner to rectify that.
Certainly rapid progress was made from the start of April when Health Secretary Matt Hancock set the 100,000-tests-a-day target.
But why it took until then to turbo-boost the effort is unclear. The first confirmed case was at the end of January.
By mid-March the UK had to virtually abandon testing in the community – it did not have the capacity so had to prioritise patients in hospital.
One school of thought is that because the policy at the time was to have a managed spread of the virus in the community, widespread testing was not needed to contain outbreaks and suppress the epidemic.

Has coronavirus been in Europe since late 2019?

Michelle Roberts - Health editor, BBC News online
Could coronavirus have been circulating in Europe in late 2019, many weeks before it was officially recognised and declared a threat there? That is the suggestion being made after a French doctor has revealed that he treated a patient in Paris with all of the symptoms of coronavirus just after Christmas.
How does this change what we know about the pandemic? It might be that the test result is an error and so does not change a thing.
But it if is correct, it could mean spread of the disease was going unchecked in Europe while all eyes were on the East in Wuhan.
Certainly, any laboratories in Europe with samples from patients sick with similar symptoms around that time might want to run a test for coronavirus to see what it reveals so that we can learn more about this new disease.

India records highest spike in cases

India has recorded its sharpest rise in daily cases with 3,900 fresh infections reported in the last 24 hours.
The total of number of people to get the virus now stands at 46,433, with the climb in numbers following an increase in testing.
More than 80,000 tests were carried out on Monday as India moves to ease the lockdown restrictions introduced on 24 March.
This has seen the opening of standalone shops, the re-opening of workplaces with reduced staffing, and the return of private vehicles in some areas. Public transport remains banned.
None of the new guidelines on relaxation apply to areas with high levels of infection that have been designated as containment zones.
Read more here

'Almost certain' lockdown restrictions will remain in Scotland

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed a further 44 people who had tested positive for Covid-19 have died, taking the total to 1,620 in Scotland.
Sturgeon said it was "almost certain" there would be no significant change to lockdown restrictions on Thursday.
She said there were estimated to be about 26,000 infectious people in Scotland, which was "too high" to consider the virus under control.
The Scottish government is considering measures which would allow people to leave their homes more often but only within their local area, she said.
Read more here

Virgin Atlantic cutting 3,150 jobs worldwide

Earlier we brought you the news that Virgin Atlantic was to cut 3,000 jobs.
The airline has clarified that 3,150 jobs are to be lost worldwide and while they cannot give a country-by-country breakdown the majority will be in the UK.

UK aviation facing a new reality

Tom Burridge - Transport correspondent
It was 28% at British Airways. Now 30% of jobs will be lost at Virgin Atlantic.
The UK’s aviation sector is shrinking in size.
Virgin Atlantic was Gatwick’s ninth largest airline so it’s a blow but not a knock-out punch. However British Airways, which is Gatwick’s second biggest customer, has indicated that it also might not restart its Gatwick operation.
If BA does pull out it would carry deeper ramifications.
Just a few weeks ago, several UK airports had elaborate, expensive and very controversial expansion plans in the pipeline. The big ones were operating at or very near capacity.
But the whole aviation sector is living a new reality.
When lockdown restrictions ease and flight schedules are increased again there will be fewer passengers, fewer and probably more expensive flights and sadly thousands of cabin crew, pilots and ground staff will have lost jobs.
It will take years for the aviation sector to bounce back to where it was before the pandemic.

Does the UK have the worst death toll in Europe?

Robert Cuffe - BBC head of statistics
Is 32,000 the worst death toll in Europe?
We don’t have the information to know. There are different ways of counting coronavirus deaths.
The figure of 32,000 comes from a measure that’s calculated once a week in the UK and isn’t available yet in many other countries.
It’s based on all death registrations in all settings and looking to see whether Covid-19 is mentioned.
The figure you hear about most days, announced at the UK government’s daily press conference or available on the comparison websites, is based on deaths of people who have tested positive for coronavirus.
It’s available more quickly but is less complete.
It’s difficult enough to make comparisons between countries based on these daily figures – definitions are slightly different, testing regimes are different and so it’s hard to be sure you’re comparing apples with apples.
For example, if testing is largely limited to people in hospitals in one country (as it was in the UK for a long time), then the figures will miss deaths in the community.
But going one step further and comparing the death registration figures in the UK with daily figures based on positive tests from other countries is comparing apples with bananas.

Eased Austrian restrictions did not bring increased infections

Bethany Bell - BBC News, Vienna
Austria’s Health Minister Rudi Anschober says the first relaxation of its coronavirus lockdown three weeks ago has not led to a new increase in infections.
Thousands of small shops, garden centres and DIY stores re-opened on 14 April.
"The situation is very, very constant, very, very stable and that is a really very, very positive, good situation,” Anschober said.
But he called on Austrians to be careful, after further steps to ease the coronavirus lockdown were introduced at the beginning of May.
"May will be the decisive month," he said.
All shops, hairdressers and beauty salons have been allowed to reopen in the second step of easing restrictions.
People are now free to leave their homes, although working from home is still encouraged.
Anschober called on people to continue to cover their mouths and noses, to maintain the distance of at least a metre and to wash their hands.

366 more hospital deaths in England

Earlier, we brought you the Office for National Statistics figures which include the number of deaths in care homes for which Covid-19 has been given as a contributing factor.
Now NHS England has put out the latest figures for coronavirus deaths in hospital.
There have been 366 more deaths recorded as of 17:00 yesterday, taking the total to 21,750.
The figures show that 65 of those people died more than a week ago.

Did Iranian airline help spread Covid-19 in the Middle East?

Even as news of Iran's deadly Covid-19 outbreak spread earlier this year, its largest airline continued to operate across the Middle East despite government flight bans, a BBC Arabic investigation has discovered.
Mahan Air - which is linked to the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard - continued to fly to China and a number of Middle Eastern countries even after bans were introduced.
Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Syria continued to allow the airline to land despite having stopped routine flights from Iran.
Sources within the airline told the BBC that dozens of cabin crew members showed symptoms of Covid-19 and that staff who tried to raise concerns about the airline’s management of the crisis and provision of safety equipment were silenced

Trump dismisses forecast of 3,000 US deaths per day

President Trump has told reporters travelling with him to a mask production factory in Arizona that a federal government report leaked yesterday, which forecast 3,000 US deaths per day by June, was not accurate.
“That report is a no mitigation report, and we are mitigating,” he said, referring to the memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
The president also defended state governors who have begun to loosen restrictions, saying residents of those states are continuing to social-distance and take virus mitigation measures.
Trump suggested that continuing lockdown measures would also take lives, through suicide and drug abuse.
This is one of Trump's first visits outside the White House in over a month. The Secret Service has taken extra precautions on his trip to the Honeywell aerospace facility in Phoenix, Arizona - a key battleground state in the 2020 presidential election.
"We have great testing or they wouldn't be allowed to travel with me," Trump says about those travelling with him on Air Force One.

Northern Ireland records 17 more coronavirus deaths

Northern Ireland has recorded 17 more coronavirus deaths, taking the nation's total to 404.
Six of the deaths occured in the 24 hours to 09:30 on Tuesday while 11 died previously, according to the figures from the Department of Health in Northern Ireland.
The department's figures mainly comprise deaths in hospital but do include some, but not all, deaths in other settings such as care homes.
There have been a further 45 new confirmed cases of the virus, bringing Northern Ireland to 3,881 cases overall.

16 further deaths, 266 additional cases of Covid-19 in Ireland
BY: Rachael O'Connor  - Irish Post
May 05, 2020

A FURTHER 16 people have died in Ireland after contracting coronavirus, the Department of Health have confirmed.
As of 5.30pm yesterday, Monday 4 May, an additional 16 deaths had been reported by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HSPC), with their sad passing bringing Ireland's total number of coronavirus-related deaths to 1,319.
An additional 266 cases have also been confirmed in the Republic of Ireland, with the country's total now at 21,772.
The HSE are, as usual, working rapidly to trace any close contacts the newly confirmed cases may have had, in order to advise them and further slow the spread of the virus.
Data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre has revealed that as of Saturday, 2 May, where 21,437 cases had been confirmed, 58% were female and 42% were male, with a median age of 49.
By that date, 13% (2,840) of all cases had been hospitalised, with 364 of those becoming seriously ill and being admitted to intensive care units.
Dublin remains the worst-hit county in the country, with just under half of all cases-- 10,561 (49%) followed by Kildare with 1,268 cases (6%) and Cork with 1,175 cases (6%).
Leitrim remains the least affected county in Ireland, with just 70 confirmed cases, or 0.3%, followed by Sligo at 119 (0.6%) and then Carlow at 127 (0.6%).
Last week, it was confirmed that well over half of Ireland's confirmed cases had made a full recovery, with an estimated 70% of cases recovered and the rate continuing to rise.

AER LINGUS have confirmed they will be conducting an internal review after photographs emerged of an extremely busy morning flight from Belfast to London.
The photographs, taken yesterday on a flight from Belfast City Airport to London's Heathrow Airport, shows a packed flight with no social distancing measures in place.
BBC journalist Kelly Bonner shared the photographs on social media where they quickly went viral, with many criticising the airline for not keeping the passengers or staff safe amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Passenger Sean Mallon, who took the original photographs, appeared on BBC Radio Ulster and said there was "no social distancing whatsoever", estimating that "there was about 95% of the seats taken on the flight".
Both Ireland and the United Kingdom have implemented lockdown measures in order to slow the spread of the virus, however both have stopped short of closing the borders for travel, in part due to the need for importing and exporting PPE gear.
Aer Lingus have released a statement confirming they will be conducting a review into the "unexpectedly high" passenger volume and assured the public that safety is their top priority.
The statement reads:
"In light of the unexpectedly high loads on the Belfast-London Heathrow service this morning and the level of demand for the route, Aer Lingus is reviewing its processes and procedures applicable to the operation of this service.
"The safety and security of Aer Lingus's customers and crew is our top priority and any process changes that are identified as being required will be implemented as a matter of urgency."

Wales passes 1,000 coronavirus deaths

More than 1,000 people have now died in Wales after testing positive for coronavirus, official figures show.
Health Minister Vaughan Gething used the milestone to ask the public to reflect on the "devastating grief" felt by families across the country.
He told a press conference in Cardiff that measures such as social distancing were helping to reduce the spread of Covid-19 but warned transmission would continue until a vaccine was developed or there was more widespread acquired immunity.
Public Health Wales said that 1,023 people in Wales have died with the virus, an increase of 26 on Monday's figures.
There are now 10,669 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country.

Sport bosses warn of huge financial losses due to virus

Sport bosses warned of huge financial losses due to the coronavirus pandemic when they appeared before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee of MPs.
English Football League chairman Rick Parry warned clubs could face a £200m hole by September while the English and Wales Cricket Board chief Tom Harrison said it could cost the body £380m.
Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney added cancelling England's Autumn Tests, against New Zealand, Tonga, Argentina and Australia, could cost £107m.
Parry also warned that the "lawyers are going to get wealthy" if the Premier League tried to stop three teams being promoted and relegated as part of plans to bring the season to a close.
Sport England chief executive Tim Hollingsworth said his organisation's Community Emergency Fund for grassroots clubs hit by effects of the Covid-19 outbreak was oversubscribed.
"We would expect 4,000 applications in a year - over the last five weeks we have had 7,500 applications," he told the DCMS committee.

Trump 'will report very definitively' on virus origins

US President Donald Trump has said he will release details to support the theory that coronavirus was released from a laboratory in the Chinese city in Wuhan, where the pandemic began.
"We will be reporting very definitively over a period of time," the president told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
Early cases of the virus were linked to a food market in Wuhan late last year, and the head of US national intelligence has rejected conspiracy theories that the virus was intended for use as a weapon.
But information obtained by the Washington Post found that diplomats had sent two warnings to Washington about a Chinese research facility, over fears that the institute's research on bat coronaviruses could risk a new Sars-like pandemic.
China rejects the idea and has criticised the US response to the crisis.
Read more on this from our Science Editor Paul Rincon.

What’s happening in the UK?

We should be hearing from the UK government in the next 30 minutes, and we'll bring you the most important updates from the briefing then.
In the meantime, here's the latest from around the UK:

• Virgin Atlantic has announced it is to cut about 3,000 jobs in the UK and end its operation at Gatwick airport, amid the pandemic
  
• The UK’s chief scientific adviser has told MPs it would have been “beneficial” to have ramped up Covid-19 testing sooner
  
• The Scottish government has set out options for lifting the coronavirus lockdown
  
• Scientists advising the UK government have published some of their advice – with the documents suggesting there were fears about people buying fake test results if "immunity passports" were introduced
  
• And, as we heard in yesterday’s briefing, an NHS app that aims to track the spread of coronavirus is being rolled out for the first time, as part of a trial on the Isle of Wight
  

Irish donate to Native American tribes hit by Covid-19 to repay 173-year-old favour


IN 1847, Ireland was gripped by 'the great hunger', and Native Americans were struggling to rebuild their lives after suffering through the Trail of Tears.
Famously, despite their own suffering, the Choctaw Nation tribe raised and sent $170 (an estimated $5,000 today) to Ireland for relief aid, and a monument was erected in County Cork decades later as a mark of respect, gratitude and solidarity.

The Kindred Spirits monument in Midleton, Co Cork (Photo: Gavin Sheridan)

In 2020, with the world suffering from the spread of Covid-19, Native American tribes are some of the most at-risk from the virus, and a GoFund me was set up to issue relief to some of the most vulnerable nations.
The Navajo Nation and Hopi reservation are "extreme food deserts" with a third of people not having access to running water and with high numbers of at-risk residents.
A relief fund was set up by local volunteers to help supply food, PPE and other essential items, and countless Irish people have donated with messages of support and thanks, saying they wish to repay the 173-year-old favour.
A message from one Irish donor, Pat Hayes, sent a donation and message of support: “From Ireland, 170 years later, the favour is returned! To our Native American brothers and sisters in your moment of hardship.”
The organisers of the fund have now thanked Irish people for their donations, with Vanessa Tulley writing on the GoFundMe page:
"Acts of kindness from indigenous ancestors passed being reciprocated nearly 200 years later through blood memory and interconnectedness.
"Thank you, IRELAND, for showing solidarity and being here for us."

The Choctaw people lived in what is now present-day Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida

Ms Tulley explained the connection between the old Irish and Native American nations, writing:
"The death of many people on the Trail of Tears sparked empathy for the Irish people in their time of need. Thus, the Choctaw extended $170 of relief aid."
"173 years later to today, the favor is returned through generous donations from the Irish people to the Navajo Nation during our time of crisis."
"The heartache is real. We have lost so many of our sacred Navajo elders and youth to COVID-19. It is truly devastating. And a dark time in history for our Nation.
"In moments like these, we are so grateful for the love and support we have received from all around the world. "

Volunteers from the relief fund prepare to supply at-risk communities with food and supplies (GoFundMe)

Irish names offering donations continue to flood into the fundraiser, offering support, gratitude and solidarity.
Orlaith Gallagher wrote "Ireland is grateful", while Shane Kennedy offered the words: "We in Ireland will never forget the wonderful act of solidarity and compassion shown by the Choctaw people during the Irish famine.
"We are with you during your fight against Covid 19."
To read more about the relief fund, or to offer a donation, you can visit the GoFundMe page here.

---

Source: Irish Post, May 05, 2020

Hundreds of sheep flock to town deserted due to coronavirus

by Rachel O'Connor - Irish Post

FLOCKIN' HELL!

In what has become a very welcome trend since much of the world went into lockdown, animals have been appearing in places you'd least expect.

Since the rise of the coronavirus pandemic, we have seen sheep peering in the windows of McDonalds, lambs playing on children's playgrounds, and goats taking over an entire town.

There have been foxes on Grafton Street, families of ducks taking a stroll along the city centre's deserted streets, dolphins in the Venice canals and dozens of basking sharks chilling off the Irish coast.

These strange occurrences are taking place all over the world, and now the latest in a long line of 'animals in strange places' has happened in Samsun, Turkey, where literally hundreds of sheep flocked--excuse the pun-- into the deserted city.



The baa-zarre footage, captured by a local from their balcony last night, shows the countless sheep tearing down the street, with some stopping to feed from grassy areas.
And while the images alone are breathtakingly weird, with the sound up it almost sounds like the city has been overrun by sheep-zombies.

England and Scotland footballers donate match fees to NHS

The England men’s national football team have made a “significant donation” to the NHS, using match fees going back to September 2018.
It comes from a fund already in place for worthy causes.
The money will go to NHS Charities Together through the #PlayersTogether movement involving Premier League footballers.
The FA has not said how much the donation is or how much players get in match fees.
North of the border, Scotland’s men's and women's teams have also made a “substantial” NHS donation.

What did we learn from today's UK briefing?

Today's government press conference was led by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who was joined by Angela McLean, the deputy chief medical officer.
Here's what they told us:

• Criminal gangs, which are often linked to other state actors, have been attacking the cyber infrastructure of national and international organisations working against coronavirus. The government has issued advice on tackling these threats, as well as working to debunk misinformation
  
• The government is troubled by an increase in people using their cars and other vehicles
  
• There is strong evidence that being obese increases the chance of being seriously ill and needing intensive care treatment
  
• Just under 89,000 tests were carried out on Monday, meaning the government missed its 100,000 target
  

'Where's the beef?'

US businesses are experiencing meat shortages which have partly been driven by outbreaks at slaughterhouses.
Wendy's, the fast food chain that coined the slogan "Where's the beef?" as an insult to its competitors, has taken hamburgers off the menus at nearly 20% of its restaurants.
"Some of our menu items may be in short supply from time to time at some restaurants in this current environment,'' Wendy's said in a statement to Restaurant Business.
"We expect this to be temporary, and we're working diligently to minimise the impact to our customers and restaurants."
Costco is also limiting sales of pork, beef and poultry to three packages per shopping trip.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) there have been more than 5,000 confirmed infections at 115 meat processing plants across 19 states.

New York City subway to close overnight for first time in history

New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Administration (MTA) plans to shut down the city's subway system from 01:00 to 05:00 on Wednesday morning for disinfecting.
Service will resume each day, but on a truncated schedule for the first time in the subway's 115-year history. Buses will be free during that time.
It comes amid a 90% drop in riders, but a large uptick in homeless people who have essentially moved onto railcars.
"Our customers should not have to board a car that’s being used as a shelter," acting New York City Transit President Sarah Feinberg said last week.
Starting at 01:00 the city’s 472 subway stations will become exit-only and thousands of NYPD officers will flood the system to force out anyone remaining on trains and platforms.
At his daily news conference New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said normal service would resume when "the pandemic is not problematic".
"You tell me when the global pandemic is over and I’ll tell you when 24-hour service resumes," he told one reporter.
Cuomo added that the state had seen 230 Covid-related deaths in past 24 hours, up from 226 on Sunday.

Baseball starts in South Korea - without fans

South Korea's baseball league started on Tuesday in front of no fans.
It is one of the world's biggest sport leagues to return during the coronavirus pandemic. The country's football league kicks off on Friday.
Players and coaches were checked for fever on their way into the grounds. Umpires and some coaches wore masks and players could not high five team-mates without gloves.
Cheerleaders were still active - although to empty stands. Some pictures of fans were placed in seats.
The league will be suspended for three weeks if any player catches coronavirus.

Lawsuits from parents hit shuttered US universities

Parents of a student in Washington DC have filed a class-action lawsuit against George Washington University, one of the priciest private universities in the country, alleging that the closure of the campus merits a refund.
“Despite sending students home and closing its campuses, Defendant continues to charge for tuition and fees as if nothing has changed, continuing to reap the financial benefit of millions of dollars from students,” the complaint states.
The father of the female student adds that he's observed a decline in "academic rigour" since virtual learning began from home.
The lawsuit follows similar complaints at Boston University, Brown University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago.

When will it be safe to fly again?

The images of a nearly full flight from Belfast to London yesterday have shocked many.
Most of us are not even thinking about flying at the moment. Between 16 and 22 April, the number of air passengers coming into the UK was 99% lower than for the same period in 2019.
But we will want to travel again in the future - so when will it be safe to fly?
Some airlines say they will keep middle seats free in the future - but others say that is not possible.
And what about the air circulation in the plane? Is that safe? What can airports change to make things safer?
We've tried to answer some of these questions and more here.

Empty terminals and no queues

Ed Habershon - BBC News
What strikes you most is just how grim the nature of air travel has become. Gone are the traditional travel tribes - the hen and stag groups, the relaxed-looking couples, the boisterous families, the lone backpackers. Most people I spoke to are just trying to get home.
I needed permission from the Spanish government - where I'm travelling for work - to fly, and was questioned quite seriously about it. It’s no longer light-hearted fun.
The terminal I went through at Heathrow was practically empty, and felt even more cavernous than usual. There were no bars, cafes, restaurants or children’s play areas open, just a newsagent and a chemist.
What also stands out is how almost everyone is wearing a mask, conspicuous given how few do in the UK.
One bonus is that there's hardly any queuing. With just 25 flights leaving that day though, perhaps it’s no surprise.
Social distancing is easy with so few people in the airport - but that is not the case on the plane. The narrow aisle funnels passengers as it always has, and it’s difficult to stay away from anyone.
Once the plane landed and the seat-belt sign went off, it was as if coronavirus didn’t exist - most people just joined the fight to get their bags back, and stood bunched together waiting to get off.
It’s hard to see how air travel will ever return to normal. Planes feel more confined than ever, and airports already feel like outdated, cavernous monuments to the heady, freewheeling travel of the past.

Fourteen deaths at Northern Ireland care home

Fourteen people from the same care home in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, have died from coronavirus-related symptoms, the BBC has learned.
The patients were residents of Glenabbey Manor in Glengormley.
However, as there is no clear breakdown of figures relating to deaths or confirmed cases in individual care homes, it is not clear whether Glenabbey is the worst affected in Northern Ireland.
It has also emerged at least 109 homes in Northern Ireland are coping with the virus or flu-like symptoms.
Read more here

When will UK schools return?

It's a question a lot of adults and children have been asking - but when will pupils start to go back to school in the UK?
While the government is due to announce its roadmap to end the lockdown on Sunday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said he believes opening all schools at once would create a "very real risk" of infections rising.
"At least to date the evidence has been that we wouldn't be able to open up all schools without a very real risk that the R rate - the transmission rate - would rise at such a level that we would risk a second spike," he said at Tuesday's Downing Street briefing, adding that the government would continue to follow scientific advice.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, meanwhile, has warned that opening all primary schools in Scotland at once could "overwhelm the NHS," saying that a return before summer holidays there begin in June may not be possible.
In England and Wales, there has been speculation that schools could start to return in June, although this has not been confirmed. In Northern Ireland, First Minister Arlene Foster said in March that the closures would last into the summer.

Obama to host virtual graduation ceremony

Former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle will host a prime-time televised graduation ceremony for high school seniors who have been stuck at home during the pandemic.
"Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020" will air on all major US networks on 16 May.
It will feature celebrities such as basketballer LeBron James, youth education activist Malala Yousafzai, pop stars the Jonas Brothers, and US soccer player Megan Rapinoe.
Then on 6 June, the Obamas will take part in a YouTube event called "Dear Class of 2020". They will each "deliver separate commencement addresses" and "a joint message to students," according to a statement from Obama's office.
The announcement of the events comes after students across the country asked Obama to speak virtually to their graduating class, making #ObamaCommencement2020 trend on Twitter.

Can you compare the UK with Italy?

Reality Check


The UK has now overtaken Italy to have the highest number of officially recorded coronavirus deaths in Europe.
The figures - announced by both governments daily - show a total of 29,427 deaths in the UK and 29,315 in Italy.
But can you make a fair comparison between the two countries?
There are challenges around doing this at the moment, so we've taken a look at some of the factors to consider.
Read more here.

Trump trip doubles as campaign reboot

Anthony Zurcher - BBC North America reporter
In the best of times, US presidents seeking re-election have a vast array of tools at their disposal to boost their electoral prospects. The ability to criss-cross the nation on Air Force One, to command media attention and to campaign with the trappings of the highest office in the land makes for a very powerful political advantage.
These are, of course, not the best of times in the US. After weeks spent largely in the confines of the White House, however, Donald Trump is starting to once again test the powers and privileges of the presidency on the campaign trail.
On Sunday, thanks to a waiver granted from his interior secretary, the president conducted a television interview inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Now he’s travelling to Arizona and Ohio – two pivotal presidential battleground states – for “official” visits that will double as political appearances.
With just under six months before election day, Trump essentially has to reboot his presidential campaign. Because of the financial devastation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, his planned pitch for re-election – that he will steward over continued economic prosperity – has become untenable. Now his appeal to the nation is that he is best positioned to oversee the recovery.
Recent polls suggest it will be a challenging task – but it wouldn’t be the first time this president has overcome the odds.

Doctor MP says 'government's lack of testing has cost lives

Labour MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan has criticised the government for its testing strategy, saying it has "cost lives".
The shadow health minister has been doing A&E shifts at a London hospital during the coronavirus outbreak.
She questioned the health secretary in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
Matt Hancock responded by saying there had been "a rapid acceleration in testing over the last few months".
Hancock added she "might do well to take a leaf out of" the shadow health secretary's book "in terms of tone".
That prompted Allin-Khan to later tweet she would not "watch her tone" when challenging the government.

UK top scientific adviser quits

Professor Neil Ferguson has quit his role as a government adviser after breaking social distancing rules.
"I accept I made an error of judgement and took the wrong course of action," Prof Ferguson of Imperial College London said.
"I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage," he said referring to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.
"I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic."
Prof Ferguson was instrumental in persuading the UK government to impose a lockdown last month.

Canadians fined for coronavirus infractions

An academic project has found that Canadians have been fined over C$5m ($3.6m, £2.9m) for coronavirus-related infractions.
Policing the Pandemic is a mapping project launched by two Canadian researchers tracking instances where citizens were ticketed, charged and/or arrested for Covid-19 related violations, such as breaking social distancing rules or mandated self-isolation.
It has not been peer reviewed.
Alex Luscombe, a PhD student at the University of Toronto and Alexander McClelland, found that more than 4,500 people have been ticketed or charged on separate occasions for these offenses.
Enforcing social distancing rules has become a hot topic of debate in Canada and elsewhere. Many are in favour of fines for people breaking the rules. But civil liberties organisations have warned that the pandemic has led to an unprecedented increase in police powers, and that marginalised people are more likely to be targeted.

Japan begins clinical trials on potential coronavirus treatment

Rachel Schraer - BBC Health Reporter
Fujifilm is better known for its cameras, but the Japanese company has begun clinical trials of a drug called favipiravir (marketed as Avigan) for the treatment of Covid-19.
It’s an anti-viral drug which can interrupt the machinery viruses use to replicate, and it’s approved for the treatment of flu in Japan – although it’s not commonly used.
These trials have not yet reported back so we don’t know whether it will prove effective in treating this coronavirus. It has been shown to stop the virus, SARS-CoV-2, from replicating in a culture in the lab, so it’s thought to have potential. But that’s no guarantee that the same effect will be seen in humans. It didn’t perform as well as Remdesivir - which has been authorised for emergency use in the US - at the laboratory stage.
There are also concerns about the drug because it’s been linked to birth defects if taken during pregnancy. It seems to share some structural similarities with thalidomide.
If it were to get to the stage of being used in humans – a big if – there would have to be strict safety checks and it wouldn’t be suitable during pregnancy, puberty or childhood, according to Dr Stephen Griffin, a professor of medicine at the University of Leeds.

Concern as child vaccinations drop in Portugal

Alison Roberts - Portugal Correspondent, Lisbon
The number of vaccines administered in Portugal last month was almost half those given in April 2019, despite warnings to new parents stressing the need for immunisation against serious diseases during the coronavirus pandemic.
In April a total of 247,810 doses of vaccine were given, down 48% from 473,057 in the same month last year, Portugal's national health service said.
Health officials have stressed that vaccines administered in the first year of life offer protection against 11 potentially serious illnesses, including measles and mumps, and should not be delayed.
The World Health Organization has also stressed the need to ensure the pandemic does not undermine programmes to vaccinate children against diseases such as polio or measles, warning that these could re-emerge as major threats.
Portugal has had 25,702 confirmed coronavirus infections and 1,074 deaths, according to its national health authority. A total of 1,743 people are deemed to have recovered.

Police investigate KKK hood worn at US grocery store

Police in San Diego County are investigating an incident in which a shopper wore a white hood symbolising membership in the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) hate group to a grocery store in order to comply with a mandatory facemask policy.
The incident took place on Saturday, one day after local health officials ordered masks to be worn by residents whenever they are in public.

  :tweet:   :Left Quotes: Tammy Gillies:
Don’t know which angers me more - the person wearing this or the fact that no one in management @Vons Santee did anything about it. ⁦@ADL_SD⁩ would be happy to educate your team. San Diego is #NoPlaceForHate

A spokeswoman for the Vons grocery chain said the shopper had been asked by employees to remove the racist hood, but he refused until he had reached the checkout line.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement Monday that they were not called to the scene on Saturday but are now investigating whether criminal charges are warranted.

Flouting your own rules

As mentioned, Professor Neil Ferguson has quit his role advising the government on coronavirus after admitting "undermining" the messages on social distancing rules.
Prof Ferguson leads the team at Imperial College London and their research claimed more than 500,000 Britons would die because of Covid-19 if no measures were taken, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson then introducing a lockdown in Britain on 23 March.
Prof Ferguson's departure comes after the Daily Telegraph reported he had allowed a woman to visit him.
He is not the first medical expert to have left their position after breaching the rules they were asking other Britons to observe. On 6 April, Scotland's chief medical officer, Dr Catherine Calderwood, resigned after making two trips to her second home during the lockdown.

'Too beautiful to be destroyed by cars'

Guy De Launey, BBC Balkans Correspondent
The mayor of Kosovo's capital, Pristina, says he wants the city's drastic reduction in traffic to become permanent.
The number of cars has fallen dramatically because of emergency restrictions to tackle Covid-19.
Shpend Ahmeti described Pristina as "too beautiful to be destroyed by cars”. He said the city authorities would implement measures including road pricing, more expensive parking and both permanent and temporary road closures.

Coronavirus found in the placenta

Michelle Roberts - Health editor, BBC News online
US researchers report the first known case of placental infection with pandemic coronavirus, also known as Sars-CoV-2. The experts from Yale School of Medicine say the 35-year-old woman was in the middle stage of her pregnancy (the second trimester) when she developed complications and needed hospital treatment.
She had very high blood pressure and some bleeding from her vagina -worrying signs in anyone expecting a baby. Ten days before that she had had the classic coronavirus fever and cough that we are all being told to look out for. An X-ray revealed signs of infection in her lungs.
Her blood pressure remained dangerously high - a condition that is called pre-eclampsia in pregnant women and can be fatal for the mother and the baby. The woman decided to opt for a termination of her pregnancy, which was at 22 weeks’ gestation, as her life was in danger.
Her doctors then sent off the placenta for further examination and found evidence of the virus. Experts say the pre-print publication, which is available online (but has not yet been peer-reviewed) is interesting but it is too soon to know what impact, if any, coronavirus has on pregnancies.
Prof Marian Knight, an expert in maternal health at the University of Oxford in the UK, advises: “The most important message for women must be that they should continue to attend for their antenatal check-ups while being vigilant about social distancing, particularly in the third trimester of pregnancy".

Lockdown risks to African countries

More than two thirds of people say they could run out of food and water if they had to stay at home for two weeks under coronavirus restrictions, a survey of people in 20 African countries has found.
More than half said they would face financial difficulties.
Many people on the continent work in the informal sector and have therefore been negatively impacted by lockdown measures.
The research, which was conducted on behalf of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, aims to advise countries on how to deal with the pandemic in the future.
The researchers urged policy makers to balance the pandemic and social and economic disruptions, or else risk unrest.
On Tuesday, Nigeria followed Egypt, Rwanda, South Africa and Tunisia in beginning to relax its coronavirus restrictions.

Food markets opened in Nigeria's financial capital Lagos for the first time in five weeks

Who is Prof Neil Ferguson?

James Gallagher - Health and science correspondent, BBC News
Professor Neil Ferguson, who has quit his role as a UK government adviser after breaking social distancing rules, is one of the world’s most influential disease modellers.
He is director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis. The centre’s mathematical predictions advise governments and the World Health Organization on outbreaks from Ebola in West Africa to the current pandemic.
It was that group’s work, in early January, that alerted the world to the threat of coronavirus. It showed hundreds if not thousands of people were likely to have been infected in Wuhan, at a time when Chinese officials said there were only a few dozen cases.
But he shot to public attention as “Professor Lockdown”.
In mid-March, the maths showed the UK needed to change course or a quarter of a million people would die in a "catastrophic epidemic". Those calculations helped transform government policy and all lives.

Canadian police investigate phone mast fires

Provincial police in Quebec are investigating a number of cellphone tower fires, which may be linked to conspiracy theories about 5G and coronavirus.
Two separate fires in the neighbouring towns of Piedmont and Prévost were put out on Monday. A similar incident had occured on Friday in Laval.
On Sunday, the town of Prévost had made a point of announcing on Facebook that there were no 5G towers in the area.
Town spokesperson Mariepier Des Lauriers told Canadian media that a number of the town's residents have brought up those conspiracy theories, which suggest that 5G - which is the name for a type of technology used in mobile phone networks and relies on signals carried by radio waves - is responsible for coronavirus.

• Reality Check: Scientists brand 5G claims 'complete rubbish'
  

The unfounded conspiracy is one of the most widespread pieces of coronavirus misinformation on the internet. Dozens of phone masts across the UK have been attacked.

Explorer hails hospital garden's role in his survival

The famous British conservationist and explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison has been through a few scrapes in his time and travels - and at the age of 83 he's just returned home after a five-week hospital battle against Covid-19. "I was in a pretty bad way, in an induced coma - it's a nasty business," he says. "I very nearly dropped out a lot of times".
He partly credits his survival to the "Secret Garden" at Plymouth's Derriford Hospital. "They wheeled me down into this wonderful new garden. It was extraordinary - the moment when I came through was when the sun was on my face. Suddenly I came out of it."
The garden is full of donated flowers from the cancelled Chelsea Flower and is a haven for both intensive care staff and recovering patients. Intensive care nurse Kate Tantam has posted pictures of the garden and its role in rehab on Twitter

Robin and Louella Hanbury-Tenison

Barbers offering haircuts in defiance of rules

Rules introduced by the British government to prevent the spread of Covid-19 have forced barber shops to close.
But some are still offering haircuts illicitly, sometimes doubling the price.
The BBC approached several barbers in south-east England to see how many are breaking the regulations.

Mink are latest animals to contract Covid-19

Helen Briggs - BBC Environment correspondent


Mink have contracted coronavirus, adding to the list of animals known to be at risk of catching the virus.
Mink at two fur farms in The Netherlands tested positive for Covid-19 a week ago.
Last month, it was revealed that lions and tigers at a New York zoo had caught the disease from their keepers.
Coronavirus could be "catastrophic" for endangered wildlife and we must act now to protect vulnerable species, Dr Peta Hitchens of the University of Melbourne said.
Animal protection groups say the potential for disease spread is another reason for all fashion companies to go fur-free and for governments to shut down "this dirty trade".
You can read the full story here

Cyber-spies hunt Covid-19 research

The UK and US have issued a joint warning that cyber-spies are targeting the health sector.
Hackers linked to foreign states have been hunting for information, including Covid-19 data and vaccine research, they say.
UK sources say they have seen extensive activity but do not believe there has been any data theft so far.
Those behind the activity are not named in the alert but are thought to include China, Russia and Iran. The three countries have all seen major outbreaks of the virus but have denied previous claims of involvement in such activity.

French government drops fact-checking page

The French government has taken down a controversial web page that aimed to expose fake news about coronavirus.
"Désinfox Coronavirus" was launched last week to promote "trusted, verified sources of information". It included fact-checking articles from five leading outlets.
The page drew fire from politicians and many journalists, who accused the government of favouring sympathetic media. The critics included editors from some of the newspapers singled out as "trusted".
Announcing the removal of the page late on Tuesday, Culture minister Franck Riester said it had never been intended to denigrate any news source, but added that he understood the concerns raised.

Argentina suspends prisoner release

A court in Argentina has suspended the release of prisoners during the pandemic after it emerged that violent offenders had been allowed to leave prison.
The inmates who were released were considered to be at higher risk from Covid-19.
The move had allowed hundreds of prisoners - including pregnant women - who had convicted of minor offences to return home in recent weeks.
But there has been growing criticised after it emerged that people convicted of serious crimes - including one man who sexually abused a child - had been released.
The court will decide whether to completely halt the releases in the coming days.

White House coronavirus taskforce to disband

President Trump has said a "different group" will replace the White House coronavirus taskforce after it is expected to disband later this month.
Speaking on a visit to the Honeywell facemask factory in Phoenix, Arizona, Mr Trump said the group - which includes health and disease experts - "have done a great job, but we’re now looking at a little bit of a different form, and that form is safety and opening".
"And we’ll have a different group probably set up for that."
According to US media, some members of the taskforce are just finding out through news reports that the group will be disbanded.
Coronavirus: White House plans to disband virus task force

Cinco De Mayo celebrations stay at home

Unusual celebrations are expected to take place for Cinco De Mayo today.
It marks the anniversary of the Mexican Army's victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla on 5 May 1862.
Although, these days it is mostly celebrated in the US, where it has moved away from its roots and is now seen as an excuse for tacos and a party.
On Twitter, people have used the hashtag #CincoAtHome as they seek to make the best of the situation, sharing pictures of homemade margaritas and plans to order deliveries of Mexican food.
Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria – who has Mexican heritage – was among those raising a glass to the occasion.
She has co-organised an online Cinco De Mayo event - featuring major Latin stars, including Gloria Estefan, Luis Fonsi and Juanes – to raise money for the farmworkers’ Covid-19 pandemic relief fund.
Altisimo Live starts with a variety show at 15:00 EST (20:00 BST).

  :tweet:  :Left Quotes: Eva Longoria Baston:
Cinco de Mayo falls on a Taco Tuesday?!!! This is like a Latino leap year!!  Feliz Cinco De Mayo!

Trump: 'No mission accomplished'

With the White House coronavirus taskforce soon to be disbanded, reporters travelling with US President Trump on one of his first visits outside of Washington DC in over a month are asking if they will continue to be briefed by scientific experts.
Mr Trump responds that the end of the taskforce is not a sign that the fight against the virus is over.
"No, not at all. The mission accomplished is when it's over," he says.
The president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner has been leading a parallel coronavirus group, which is more business focused.
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany has hit back at any suggestion that the scientific community is being sidelined by the US government.
"Reporting on the task force is being misconstrued to suggest the White House is no longer involving medical experts. This is totally false," she tweeted.
"President Donald Trump will continue his data-driven approach towards safely re-opening."

Top US general contradicts Wuhan lab theory

The highest-ranking military general in the US has contradicted reports that the coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
“Did it come out of the virology lab in Wuhan? Did it occur in a wet market there in Wuhan? Did it occur somewhere else?"
"And the answer to that is: 'We don’t know,'” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told Pentagon reporters on Tuesday.
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promoted the theory, saying there was “a significant amount of evidence” that the virus came out of Chinese labratory.
Other countries have been less quick to blame China, as BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera writes.
Coronavirus: US allies tread lightly around Trump lab claims

Don't rule out summer in Majorca

Spain's Balearic and Canary Islands (pictured) are heavily reliant on tourism


Well, some of those dreams we have referred to earlier may include people wondering what's going to happen to their summer holidays.
Germany's federal tourism commissioner Thomas Bareiss is sounding optimistic. In a newspaper interview, Mr Bareiss said holidays abroad in Europe might be possible if the outbreak stays under control.
While that probably means travel to neighbouring countries like France, Poland and Austria, "I would not yet write off other regions in Europe, such as the Balearic Islands or the Greek islands".
You can read more about it here

Thanks for joining us

And on that note, we pause today's live coverage of coronavirus developments.
Here's a reminder of the main stories from Tuesday:

• The number of people who have died in the UK has risen to 29,427 - the highest death toll from coronavirus in Europe
  
• Prof Neil Ferguson, whose advice to the UK prime minister led to the country's lockdown, has resigned after admitting breaking social distancing measures
  
• Evidence is emerging that the outbreak may have spread to Europe almost a month earlier than previously thought, after samples from a French patient tested positive for the virus
  
• The White House coronavirus task force is winding down
  
• The worldwide death toll in the pandemic has risen to over 255,000, with 3.6m confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University
  

Our live coverage was brought to you by: Yvette Tan, Saira Asher, Krutika Pathi, Frances Mao, Alix Kroeger, Alex Kleiderman, Rebecca Seales, Joshua Cheetham, Steve Sutcliffe, Emlyn Begley, Michael Emons, Doug Faulkner, Robin Levinson King, Max Matza, Vicky Bisset, Claudia Allen and Paulin Kola.