Image source, Getty

YouTube has banned any coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts World Health Organization (WHO) advice.

The Google-owned service says it will remove anything it deems "medically unsubstantiated".

Chief executive Susan Wojcicki said the media giant wanted to stamp out "misinformation on the platform".

The move follows YouTube banning conspiracy theories falsely linking Covid-19 to 5G networks.

Residents of a rural village claim life is "abysmal" due to poor broadband speeds.

Speeds of 1MB or less are typical in Pandy, near Wrexham, and villagers say they have limited mobile phone signal and no 4G service.

Resident Alison Bendall said her internet was "intermittent", adding it was "so frustrating".

The Welsh Government said it had spent £200m extending superfast broadband to rural areas and called on Westminster to do more.

The UK government said it was "vital" all areas of Wales had connectivity and said £5bn had been allocated to the rollout of gigabit-capable broadband to the hardest-to-reach areas.

BBC Radio 4

Dogs are being trained to detect coronavirus in passengers arriving at UK airports once the lockdown has been lifted.

The Medical Detection Dogs, external charity, based in Milton Keynes, said its animals have previously been used to find cancer and malaria in patients.

Dr Claire Guest, from the charity, said: "You walk through and as you do a dog is sniffing each person in turn. It takes 0.5 seconds, the dog quickly identifies which people need a test and need to go into isolation to prevent the further spread around the UK."

Image source, Medical Detection Dogs

Real Madrid and Wales footballer Gareth Bale has posted an emotional video after donating £500,000 to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff to help it respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

He thanked NHS staff and said: "It holds a special place in my heart. It is where I was born."

Image source, Carmarthenshire County Council

Four field hospitals created in Carmarthenshire have been handed over to the NHS by the county council.

The facilities at Carmarthen Leisure Centre, Llanelli Leisure Centre, the Selwyn Samuel Centre in Llanelli and Parc y Scarlets will be used by Hywel Dda University Health Board.

Between them they will hold 600 new beds, with £4.7m spent on creating them.

Council leader Emlyn Dole said: “I am proud of the way we have pulled together to make these facilities available, but as I’ve said previously, my only hope is that they are not needed.”

Image source, Carmarthenshire council

Wales' health minister has apologised after swearing about a fellow Labour member of the Welsh Assembly.

During a virtual Senedd session, Vaughan Gething left his microphone on by mistake, and was caught saying "What the **** is the matter with her?" about Cardiff Central AM Jenny Rathbone.

He has since apologised to Ms Rathbone. She had been asking questions about the Welsh Government's coronavirus response.

Mr Gething has tweeted a further apology, saying he is "embarrassed" and that it was an "unwelcome distraction at a time of unprecedented challenge".

A Swansea hospital worker has died after contracting Covid-19.

Sharon Bamford was described as a "dedicated" healthcare assistant who had worked on the haemotology/oncology ward at Singleton Hospital since 2005.

"What makes her death particularly poignant is that it follows the recent death of her much-loved husband, Malcolm, who also succumbed to Covid-19," a statement from the Swansea Bay health board said.

Both had been cared for at Morriston Hospital in Swansea.

Their son Christian was also treated in hospital but has since been discharged.

Singleton Hospital director Jan Worthing said: “Sharon was highly thought of by all the patients who have used the services and loved by her colleagues and friends within the team.

“Sharon’s sad death will leave a massive void within the team and within the Singleton family."

Image source, Bamford family

Facebook is to begin asking selected UK users whether they have had symptoms of Covid-19, starting today.

It is part of a joint effort with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to track the spread of the disease.

Image source, Facebook

Facebook said it would not have access to users’ health data but would simply pass it on to CMU.

One expert said data from the surveys would be useful to scientists but probably not, on its own, reveal much about the disease.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says his “heart goes out” to every bereaved family, as he speaks at the daily Downing Street briefing.

He confirmed the number of deaths in UK hospitals had gone up by 759 to 18,100.

But Mr Raab insisted the UK government had been guided by the scientific advice at all times, and insisted that social distancing measures had helped save lives and protected the NHS.

He said there were “tough times” for businesses, families and the vulnerable, describing it as an “economic, physical and mental strain” for the whole nation.

Mr Raab said there was “no hiding from the tragedy” that the virus had wrought, and stressed the UK was “not out of the woods yet”.

While he acknowledged there continued to be “challenges” in many areas, such as providing protective kit for NHS and care staff, he praised the way the nation had pulled together.

Image source, Reuters

The head of the UK's armed forces says they have faced "the greatest logistical challenge" he had ever experienced.

Speaking at the daily Downing Street briefing, chief of the defence staff General Sir Nick Carter said officers had been supporting "our heroic health service workers on the front line".

He said the challenges have included aiding the devolved administrations and central government in creating 260,000 sq ft - or four football fields - of distribution warehouses and to help 50,000 people.

Wales' economy minister says governments across the UK should do "everything in their power to shelter businesses through this storm".

Speaking in a virtual session of the Senedd, Ken Skates warned that there was "no avoiding a recession" as a result of the coronavirus crisis and that workers should be protected from "the very great threat of unemployment".

Mr Skates said that as of 06:00 BST, the Welsh Government's Economic Resilience Fund - which was launched last Friday - had received 8,109 applications totalling £184m.

"That demand speaks to the scale of the crisis we now find ourselves in," he said.

Image source, National Assembly for Wales

Former Wales and Liverpool striker Ian Rush believes the return of football, even behind closed doors, could lift the public's mood during the coronavirus pandemic.

Wales' health minister has been heard swearing about a Labour colleague during a virtual Senedd session after he left his microphone on by mistake.

Vaughan Gething had come to the end of his time answering health questions from assembly members via an online video conference.

Referring to Cardiff Central AM Jenny Rathbone, Mr Gething told an unknown person: “What the **** is the matter with her?”

On hearing the comments, Presiding Officer Elin Jones told the minister to turn his microphone off.

A number of assembly members taking part in the session could be seen laughing.

Mss Rathbone eventually walked away from her camera.

She had raised concerns from Nobel Prize-winning Welsh scientist Sir Martin Evans about the response of the UK and Welsh governments to the coronavirus pandemic.

Ms Rathbone had also asked what thought had been given to the re-use of personal protective equipment (PPE), and asked for more information on home testing and the possibility of mobile testing at care homes.

A Welsh Government spokesman said the minister had contacted Ms Rathbone to apologise.

Image source, National Assembly for Wales

Greig Watson
Reporter, BBC News Online

Pharmacy chain Boots has recruited an extra 500 drivers to help it deliver prescriptions across the UK during the coronavirus pandemic.

The company said it had gone from delivering 90,000 prescriptions a week to an estimated 150,000.

Image source, Boots

Throughout March, Boots said it hired an average of 80 drivers a day - up from an average of one per day over the last six months.

Along with the new employees, the pharmacy chain has added 400 new vehicles to its fleet and introduced prescription delivery in another 40 stores.

A woman whose son died in a car crash earlier this year has described the "cruel" pain of losing her father little more than two months later with coronavirus.

John Griffiths, 78, from Abersoch, Gwynedd, died after testing positive for Covid-19, just weeks after his grandson Rhun was killed.

"We've buried two people in a little over nine weeks," said Linda Jones.

"It is cruel and I don't know how we cope. If we stopped to think about it, I don't think we'd get out of bed."

Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price has criticised the Welsh Government for dropping its target of testing 5,000 people for coronavirus every day, tweeting: "Where’s the ambition?

"How can it be that Wales will be the only nation in Britain without a Mega-lab and why have we not accredited a university testing lab almost 6 weeks after academics offered?

"We need urgency not passive resignation."

The Welsh Government dropped its testing target on Sunday after problems around capacity, but Health Minister Vaughan Gething has claimed the impact of the lockdown meant there was no longer any need for so many tests.

Welsh businesses are in desperate need of financial support from the UK government to stay viable during the coronavirus crisis, Labour has said.

Speaking at Welsh Questions in the Commons via video link, shadow Welsh secretary Nia Griffith said there had been a "very low" take-up for a scheme to lend money to small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) "not because firms don't need the money, but because of the personal risk involved".

She urged the UK government to underwrite 100 per cent of the loans.

Responding, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart said: "There has been probably as much support offered by UK Government for UK business than any nation on the planet affected by coronavirus."

He also "fundamentally" rejected an assertion by Plaid Cymru's Jonathan Edwards that the UK government, via Public Health England, instructed major manufacturers of personal protective equipment (PPE) "not to supply care providers registered in Wales".

Mr Hart said making a "cheap political point" was "not an especially helpful contribution in this debate".

"We are determined to sort of put our political differences aside in order to achieve the goal that businesses and residents in Wales want us to achieve, which is to defeat Covid-19 for good," he added.

Brendon Williams
BBC Wales News

Image source, GEOGRAPH/PETER CRAINE

Residents of a rural village say they feel "cut off" during lockdown due to their slow broadband speeds.

People in Pandy, near Wrexham, say they typically get broadband speeds of 1MB or less, have limited mobile phone signal and no 4G service.

Resident Alison Bendall said it was "very frustrating" she could not make video calls to her grandchildren.

The Welsh Government said it had spent more than £200m to extend superfast broadband beyond urban areas and called on Westminster to do more.

The UK government has been asked to comment.

Data usage across the UK has seen a huge surge since the coronavirus lockdown came into effect, but not necessarily in Pandy.

Mrs Bendall said: "We don't have any terrestrial television. We don't have a proper mobile phone signal at all. So, we're a bit cut off really, without the internet.

"It's really difficult right now, because of lockdown."

Rules on exercise during the coronavirus pandemic will be changed in Wales to help autistic children and others with medical needs to exercise more than once a day.

First Minister Mark Drakeford told a virtual meeting of the assembly that regulations needed to be reviewed every 21 days, and that the change would be brought in at the next review.

He was answering a question from Conservative member Mark Isherwood who asked if the rules could be brought into line with England, where more exercise is allowed in such circumstances, external.

Wales' health minister has said he is "acutely conscious of the stress and anxiety felt by frontline staff" concerned about the availability of vital equipment as they respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

Vaughan Gething told assembly members meeting via video conference there was a "multi-faceted approach" to ensuring the required ongoing supply of personal protective equipment (PPE).

He said this included efforts via Wales' national procurement service, working with Welsh businesses to produce extra PPE, and joint efforts with the other UK nations to bring in new stocks.

"The demand for PPE will continue to be well above normal for the foreseeable future," Mr Gething told AMs.

Image source, National Assembly for Wales