Prince Charles has officially opened London's new NHS Nightingale Hospital via video link.

He joined live from his home in Scotland, where he self-isolated after being diagnosed with coronavirus.

He says he was "enormously touched" to be asked to open the hospital, calling it a "spectacular" feat of work in every sense and was above all "the result of extraordinary collaboration".

He said he was "one of the lucky ones to have Covid-19 mildly" but for some "it will be a much harder journey".

He added that the new hospital offered an "intensely practical message of hope" during the outbreak.

Image source, Getty Images

The BBC will offer daily programmes to help parents and children with schoolwork at home during the lockdown.

Starting on 20 April, videos, quizzes, podcasts and articles will appear on BBC Bitesize Daily via the BBC iPlayer, red button, BBC Four and BBC Sounds.

Children's lessons will feature presenters including Oti Mabuse, Katie Thistleton and Karim Zeroual.

BBC director general Tony Hall called it "the biggest education effort the BBC has ever undertaken".

Farmers in Wales say they are concerned their families could be at risk of catching coronavirus because of an increase in walkers using footpaths on their land.

Under official guidance, people can go for a walk or run close to home once a day but some farmers say paths should be closed or diverted because of fears the virus could be spread unwittingly via stiles and gates.

Jacob Anthony, who farms near Bridgend, says he's seen a significant increase in walkers coming through his land and is worried for his family members who are at increased risk of serious illness from coronavirus.

The Welsh government says it has already shut some of the busiest paths, including those in Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons, where crowds flocked for exercise at the start of the restrictions.

French Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has been outlining the way national school exams will be reorganised this year in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

"So we have ruled out a mixed solution: one or two exams, and validate the rest through continuous assessment. All the tests of the [middle-school] brevet and [high-school] bac exams will be validated via continuous assessment," he said in a televised address.

Some 2.1 million pupils are due to take the exams this year, he added. French schools and universities have been closed for about a month.

As school and colleges around Europe remain closed, there have been mounting concerns about the impact on exams.

Image source, Getty Images

The first of the government's new Nightingale hospitals will officially open in London later this morning.

The UK's largest hospital facility will open its doors to take in coronavirus patients needing intensive care treatment.

East London's ExCeL exhibition centre has been converted into the temporary hospital, with space for 4,000 beds.

In nine days, the 87,328 square metres of double exhibition halls, have been fitted out with the framework for more than 80 wards, each with 42 beds.

The Prince of Wales, who recently completed self-isolation after testing positive for coronavirus, will open the new medical facility virtually - via video-link.

Ruth May, chief nursing officer for England, will host the event, alongside Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Professor Charles Knight, chief executive of NHS Nightingale.

Read more: How NHS Nightingale was built in just nine days, external

The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in Spain has risen by 932 over the past 24 hours, official figures show.

It brings the total there to 10,935, the second highest in the world behind Italy.

It's a word that's been creeping into conversation but you may never have heard of it until recently.

Being furloughed means being kept on a company's payroll even though you are not working.

The UK government's furlough scheme has been designed to support firms that have been badly hit by coronavirus and to prevent mass unemployment.

It will temporarily help pay the wages of people who can't do their jobs, to help companies retain them.

Read more here.

Katya Adler
Europe Editor

The coronavirus crisis really brings into question what the European Union is all about.

Clearly not a United States of Europe, as eurosceptics have often claimed. Far from it.

Right now, every European government is struggling to protect its population, its jobs, its health and its economy.

But rich europhile countries like Germany are not yet digging deeper into their pockets to help out poorer Italy and Spain.

Therein lies the question: what does "European union" really mean in a crisis like this?

Read my analysis here.

As we mentioned in earlier posts, England's health secretary has been sharing his experience of having coronavirus. You can watch him speak about it here.

In France the government is bringing in measures to stop people travelling over Easter, with checks being introduced at stations, airports and main junctions. More than 400 patients in France have been transferred by high-speed train, or TGV, for treatment since 18 March.

In other developments:

• The number of deaths in Germany has risen to more than 1,000. It now has more cases than China, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University
• On Thursday, Spain recorded its highest single-day rise in fatalities as 950 new deaths were recorded. More people have died of coronavirus in Spain than anywhere apart from Italy
• The president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has said that talks are under way on whether to extend EU border closures after Easter

• A migrant camp and a passenger ferry moored off the port of Piraeus have been identified as the main sources of coronavirus in Greece. Of the 380 people on board the ferry, 119 tested positive while 24 migrants at the Ritsona camp near Athens were also found to have the virus, officials say

Image source, EPA

The Mexican brewer behind Corona beer is temporarily halting production owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

The brand has been the punchline for jokes throughout this crisis owing to its somewhat unfortunate name.

An online rumour even said sales in the US had dropped significantly, but this was later denied by the company that owns the brand.

In fact, the decision to stop brewing Corona in Mexico has nothing to do with its name.

Grupo Modelo, which produces the beer, has been declared a non-essential business by the government. This means its work has been suspended until 30 April as part of measures intended to stop the virus from spreading.

The brewing group will stop producing Corona, which is exported to 180 countries, from Sunday.

Mexico has more than 1,500 confirmed infections and at least 50 deaths have been linked to the virus so far.

BBC Radio 5 Live

The UK is focused on increasing the number of swab tests for coronavirus over antibody blood tests, a senior Public Health England (PHE) official has said.

"What we need at the moment are the swab tests because they are the ones that allow staff to return [to work], so those are the tests that we are focusing on," Prof John Newton, director of health improvement for Public Health England, said.

Prof Newton, who has been advising English Health Secretary Matt Hancock on testing, said: "The requirement for the antibody tests will be later down the line."

He added that work was under way to improve antibody blood tests for coronavirus "so that we can get one that is good enough to be relied on".

"There’s no point doing a test if you can’t rely on the results," he said.

An antibody test would determine whether someone has had the virus in the past but didn't know it because they had few or no symptoms.

All schools and most workplaces will be closed for a month, starting next week, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has announced.

All businesses except food establishments, markets, supermarkets, clinics, hospitals, utilities, transport and key banking services will have to shut.

The government is also changing its advice on masks and will no longer discourage citizens from wearing them, given growing research that people with no symptoms could transmit the virus. The government will give out reusable masks to every household.

Friday's announcement is a drastic move for Singapore, which has mostly managed to successfully control its outbreak. The country of about six million people has recorded five deaths and 1,049 infections. Schools, workplaces, malls and restaurants have up to now remained open, with some social distancing restrictions.

But in recent weeks, the city-state has faced a second wave caused by imported cases. In the last few days the number of local infections grew again, indicating community transmission was on the rise.

"Looking at the trend, I am worried that unless we take further steps, things will gradually get worse, or another big cluster may push things over the edge," said Mr Lee.

There have now been more than a million Covid-19 cases worldwide, in countries from Nepal to Nicaragua. But as the death tolls rise, and the hospitals overflow, is anywhere still coronavirus-free?

The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is yes.

There are 193 countries which are members of the United Nations.

As of 2 April, 18 countries had not reported a Covid-19 case, according to a BBC tally using data from Johns Hopkins University.

Read more about where they are here.

Steve Rosenberg
BBC Moscow Correspondent

In Russian media today, Komsomolskaya Pravda recounts the story of a couple forced to break off their long-distance train journey and go into coronavirus quarantine at the husband's parents' house in the village of Melniki, in Russia's far east. The couple were threatened by locals, with some demanding the parents be deprived of their pension, while others threatened to damage their property and kill their dogs.

Elsewhere, Vedomosti quotes analysts predicting economic losses because of the imposed isolation could amount to 20% of GDP.

Moskovsky Komsomolets says local tobacco companies have temporarily stopped work at all their factories, which could lead to a shortage of cigarettes in Russia and an increase in counterfeit products via Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Finally, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports Russians have started to buy more vodka. But according to the speaker of the upper house of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, they're not buying it to drink, they're using it as a disinfectant.

Image source, Getty Images

North Korea says not a single person in the country has been infected with the virus despite the fact it has now spread to almost every single country in the world.

A US top military commander called this an "impossible claim", and an expert told the BBC it was unlikely that North Korea - which borders both South Korea and China, two major virus hotspots - had no cases itself.

But why might North Korea be trying to hide this - and are people in the country even aware there's an outbreak happening in the world?

We speak to several experts to find out what the situation is like in the hermit kingdom. Read about it here.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

The UK has not yet found a reliable antibody blood test for coronavirus, England's Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.

"At the moment we haven't got a reliable home test," he said.

The UK government is aiming to carry out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day in England by the end of April.

Mr Hancock confirmed the 100,000 might all be swab tests for the virus itself.

He said he was "not assuming any [antibody tests] come on stream" in order to hit the target by the end of the month.

You may be washing your hands a lot these days, but what about your phone? Here's a quick guide on how to do a thorough wipe-down, and what to use when cleaning it.

A third person, a 35-year-old doctor, in Mumbai's Dharavi slum has tested positive, external, local media report. His family have been quarantined and will probably be tested later on Friday.

The man runs a clinic in the slum, which lies in the centre of India's financial capital and is home to more than a million people.

On Wednesday, a 56-year-old became the first person in the slum to test positive - he died later that evening. On Thursday, a sweeper who lived elsewhere in the city but worked in Dharavi tested positive for coronavirus.

A city within a city, the slum is one unending stretch of narrow dirty lanes, open sewers and cramped huts.

Residents often share overcrowded quarters, raising fears over the potential impact of coronavirus in such a congested area as tracking it will be prove challenging.

In case you missed this last night, people across the UK took part in a second "Clap for Carers" tribute, saluting NHS staff and other key workers dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

Delivery drivers, supermarket staff, care workers and bin collectors were among those honoured by the nation.