BBC Question Time

BBC's Question Time has kicked off in Weston Super-Mare with a question to the panel on vital equipment for NHS staff in light of the coronavirus outbreak.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock praises workers in the health service, saying they will be "called on for a heroic effort" in the coming weeks.

He seeks to reassure them more kit is on the way, saying over the last 24 hours, 2.6 million masks have been shipped to hospitals, along with 10,000 bottles of hand sanitiser, and there is a "growing effort to get that equipment to the front line".

Mr Hancock adds that overnight, 150 hospitals will get their next packs of protective equipment, with "lorries on the road right now", and the next load will be reaching all hospitals by the end of the weekend.

The health secretary also says a call-out at the weekend for British businesses to make ventilators saw 1,400 companies come forward.

He adds: "This is going to be an national effort and we are going to have to turn the resources of the country to stop the spread of the virus and boost NHS resources."

Reality Check

Misleading posts claiming to show "looting" in London have been taken down on a number of Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The videos circulating appear to be using old footage of the London riots from August 2011, filmed in Peckham.

BBC Reality Check and BBC Monitoring have been examining the posts and they appear to be near-identical to YouTube footage of those events in August 2011.

Some of the clues include: people wearing T-shirts, trees in full leaf and a film poster on the side of a bus advertising Captain America, which was released in 2011.

Image source, Getty Images

Talking about the cancellation of cultural events like Cannes and Glastonbury might seem somewhat frivolous at a time like this, but actually these things do really matter.

Pauline McLean, BBC Scotland arts correspondent, has looked closely at just why it's a serious business. Read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

After days of speculation, the Cannes Film Festival has announced that it's being postponed.

The festival - one of the film world's most prestigious - was due to be held in the south of France from 12 to 23 May.

Organisers have said in a statement they're considering several options, including holding it at the end of June.

"As soon as the development of the French and international health situation will allow us to assess the real possibility, we will make our decision known," they said, adding that they were working with local and national governments to come up with an alternative.

The BBC’s flagship political debate programme, Question Time, is moving to an earlier slot tonight in light of the coronavirus crisis.

UK viewers will be able to watch it on BBC One from 20:00 GMT and later on BBC iPlayer.

Host Fiona Bruce will be joined by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Labour’s Andy Burnham, Dr Tom Solomon, union chief Frances O’Grady and chef Angela Hartnett.

But there will not be a studio audience tonight due to the outbreak.

We will be following the show on this page, so stay tuned for updates.

James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent, BBC News

Even if the tide starts to turn in the UK in 12 weeks and the number of cases starts to fall, then we will still be far from the end.

It can take a long time for the tide to go out.

It is clear the current strategy of shutting down large parts of society is not sustainable in the long term.

But the coronavirus is not going to disappear.

For as long as large numbers of people in the UK have no immunity then cases will soar as soon as restrictions are lifted.

A vaccine would help, but that could be 18 months away.

If enough people are exposed and become immune then that would help too, however, this is likely to take even longer than a vaccine.

Efforts to rigorously test and then isolate anyone infected can help suppress the numbers of people infected.

But this is what we were doing just a few weeks ago.

We may enter a period of restrictions being lifted and then re-imposed until a long-term solution is found.

At a press conference earlier, the prime minister said the UK could "turn the tide" within 12 weeks, but only if people followed official advice.

Watch him face questioning about that suggestion.

Image source, Getty Images

There has been a lot of discussion around the amount of testing different nations are undertaking.

South Korea has made mass testing a priority, for example, but in the UK right now, only hospital patients are being routinely screened.

The UK government aims to reach 25,000 tests a day, so what exactly is going on? Read more here.

Just after we mentioned the impact on sport, another event has fallen victim to the virus.

Prince Harry has posted a video online talking about the "incredibly difficult decision" to postpone May's Invictus Games.

He said he was "so grateful" for those who had been working to find an alternative, but postponing for a year was the "most sensible" and the "safest" option.

He said he was "really excited about the games next year", and urged competitors and their families to "please look after yourselves".

Competitors - injured service personnel and veterans - from 20 nations had been due to take part at the event in the Hague.

Image source, Getty Images

Sport has been hit hard by the virus, with countless events, leagues and so on cancelled. Stories of generosity from the world of sport continue to come in though.

In the latest, we've learned that Manchester United will continue to pay all casual matchday staff even if the remainder of their season is cancelled or played behind closed doors.

Earlier in the week, former Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville said he would open his hotels free of charge to health workers to help with the coronavirus crisis. It followed a similar move by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.

Following that news from France and earlier updates from the UK, Italy and other nations today, let us point you towards this piece which uses a series of charts to show how the virus has spread around the world and how it is being dealt with.

The death toll in France has increased by 108 in the past 24 hours - bringing the total number of coronavirus-related deaths in the country to 372.

Jerome Salomon, France's top health official, said the number of infections was "doubling every four days", and the virus was spreading "rapidly and intensely".

We're doing our very best to sort the fact from fiction for you on coronavirus, but there's a huge amount of misleading information circulating online. Everything from dodgy health tips to speculation about government plans.

The BBC's Olga Robinson and Marianna Spring have traced the journey of one viral coronavirus claim - dubbed the "uncle with master's degree" post, because of the alleged source of the information.

It's graced the Facebook profile of an 84-year-old British man, the Instagram account of a Ghanaian TV presenter, and Facebook groups for Indian Catholics - as well as coronavirus-specific forums, WhatsApp groups, and Twitter accounts.

Read their full story of how this post went viral.

Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst

Police in the Chinese city of Wuhan have apologised for punishing the doctor who tried to warn people about Covid-19 before perishing himself.

Back in December 2019, Dr Li Wenliang sent social media messages to his colleagues in Wuhan, warning of the mysterious viral illness.

He was subsequently interrogated by the police for “rumour-mongering” in early January, and made to sign a letter promising that he wouldn’t do this again or would face prosecution.

Today, the police retracted a letter they initially wrote criticising Dr Li and also apologised to Dr Li’s family.

In the letter, Dr Li was accused of "making false comments" that had "severely disturbed the social order".

Li Wenliang contracted the virus in January while treating his patients and passed away at the age of 34 in early February. His death sparked nationwide anger and led to criticisms that China's leadership had downplayed the severity of the virus - and initially tried to keep it secret.

Image source, Getty Images

Georgina Rannard
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

Syria so far has officially reported no cases of coronavirus but some doctors are sceptical and believe the virus is spreading in a country torn by civil war.

While the government in Damascus has taken measures to limit the spread, like closing some public transport and encouraging hand-washing, medical workers in some regions warn that without a functioning health system, they would be devastated by an outbreak.

Dr Mohammad Allsa, who works for the Syrian American Medical Society, says there are no testing kits or intensive care beds in parts of the north-west where many hospitals were destroyed by bombing.

“The risk of an outbreak is very high," he believes. "Four million people are living in a small area, half of them in camps. The World Health Organization says social distancing is required - but that’s almost impossible with people living in such close quarters."

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

The PM talked at the UK's daily press conference earlier about "beating" coronavirus. But what he didn’t set out was, actually, what does that mean?

There’s a hope that if we can suppress the number of infections, the virus will just go away - but people think that’s unlikely. Chief Medical Officer Prof Chris Whitty said earlier today it would be unrealistic to expect the virus simply to disappear.

It was interesting that Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance mentioned testing and tracing, because if you can suppress the virus, you can then go back to trying to contain it.

The problem is, once you lift those restrictions on our movements and on our socialising the risk is that the virus will just shoot back up.

So, if you start containing it - tracing and testing the cases again, like we saw at the start - they might be able to curb that spread.

If that doesn’t work, you then have to put those measures back in place again. We could be in a cycle of those measures being put on and off for maybe 18 months.

So I think "turning the tide" and "beating" the coronavirus is very optimistic language.

A warm welcome - especially if you're reading this from self-isolation.

The biggest news right now is that Italy has reported 427 more deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing its total death toll to 3,405. This means that more people have now died after getting the virus there than in China, where it originated.

Here are the other headlines from around the world.

• The confirmed number of deaths globally is now more than 9,000, and confirmed cases have risen to more than 222,000.
• Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, has tested positive. He tweeted that he's "doing well and in good spirits".
• UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has urged world leaders to work together, warning that if the virus were left to spread unchecked "it would kill millions of people".

• In the UK, the Queen has issued a message to the nation about "coming together to work as one" during this "period of great concern and uncertainty".

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 38% of people hospitalised so far with coronavirus in the US were aged between 20 and 54.
• And in hard-hit Iran, the authorities hope people will stay home for Nowruz - Persian New Year - instead of going to public celebrations.

Image source, Getty Images

In Italy, the US - and indeed much of the rest of the world - the term "self-isolation" has entered all of our vocabularies in recent days.

But when you're used to going to a workplace and having an active social life, self-isolating can sound pretty daunting.

However, it doesn't have to be.

Our medical correspondent Fergus Walsh has gone through the top five things you need to know in order to do it successfully.

Image source, Getty Images

In the US, the immigration agency says its officers won't arrest undocumented migrants at healthcare facilities, apart from in exceptional circumstances.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice) says that during the coronavirus crisis, people "should not avoid seeking medical care because they fear civil immigration enforcement".

Ice also says it will narrow the scope of its arrests to undocumented migrants who they say pose "public safety risks" or face serious criminal charges.

Over the past year, Ice intensified its campaign against undocumented people in the US after President Donald Trump ordered them to round up and deport them.

Image source, AFP

Let's move away from the UK to elsewhere in the world for a while.

As we reported earlier, Italy has passed a grim milestone today - its death toll has now surpassed the official Chinese figure of 3,245.

The latest numbers are striking: 3,405 deaths; 33,190 current infections and 4,440 people who have recovered.

Behind each death is a human tragedy and almost two-thirds have been in the northern region of Lombardy. Five more doctors in Lombardy have died, bringing the number to 13. These include a Bergamo doctor, a lung specialist in Como, and the former head of Crema hospital.

Bergamo hospital doctor Stephano Fagiuoli reached out on Thursday in English: "We are in desperate need of both nurses and physicians together with ventilators and [protective clothing]."