Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific is suffering a huge drop in passenger numbers and is scaling back its flights further.

The airline carried just 582 passengers on one day this week, compared to 100,000 customers on a normal day, according to an internal memo seen by news agency Reuters.

The airline said it would make further cuts, with just two flights a week to four destinations, in the note to employees. The skeleton network will fly from Hong Kong to London, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Sydney.

The global death toll is now more than 53,000. Those are deaths that have been linked to Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.

Italy 13,915 deaths

Spain 10,348 deaths

US 5,911 deaths

France 5,387 deaths

China 3,322 deaths

Iran 3,160 deaths

UK 2,926 deaths

Netherlands 1,341 deaths

Germany 1,107 deaths

Belgium 1,011 deaths

Again, the data is from Johns Hopkins University, external - where you can always check for the latest updates.

Today's big headline is that we're past one million confirmed infections around the globe. So let's look back for a moment, to exactly one month ago, 3 March.

Back then, the World Health Organization had recorded 90,869 cases. What then seemed like a staggering figure, is now the increase we see every few days.

The outbreak was then largely confined to China, with more than 80,000 cases there.

At that time, 95% of deaths (2,946) had been in China - and only 166 outside the country where the outbreak started.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to make his first video address since the country was put under lockdown 10 days ago.

Via a tweet on Thursday, Mr Modi said he would share "a small video" at 09:00 local time on 3 April.

We're not entirely sure if he will announce any new measures - some correspondents here think it could just be a "pep talk", since we're nearing the half-way mark of a three-week shutdown.

The country has more than 2,000 cases so far and 53 deaths - the majority of infections were confirmed in the past 10 days, prompting concerns over whether India is going to have a huge spike in coming days.

As global numbers now exceed one million, here's a breakdown of the 10 worst-hit countries.

Keep in mind these are only the confirmed cases - and those numbers depend on the level of testing.

US 244,678 infections - 9,058 recovered

Italy 115,242 infections - 18,278 recovered

Spain 112,065 infections - 26,743 recovered

Germany 84,794 infections - 22,440 recovered

China 82,433 infections - 76,566 recovered

France 59,929 infections - 12,548 recovered

Iran 50,468 infections - 16,711 recovered

UK 34,173 infections - 192 recovered

Switzerland 18,827 infections - 4,013 recovered

Turkey 18,135 infections - 415 recovered

The data is from Johns Hopkins University in the US, external.

Spain has one of the world's highest numbers of positive cases, and their hospitals are struggling to cope.The Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Catalonia, one of the country's biggest hospitals, is seeing overcrowding of patients in its intensive care unit. This is what the head of the ICU showed us on our recent visit:

Image source, AFP

China has released its latest data, and the trickle of imported cases continues.

By the end of Thursday, 29 new imported cases were registered on the mainland, slightly fewer than the 35 of the previous day. Two additional cases were locally transmitted.

Four more deaths were reported for Thursday, all in Wuhan, the epicentre of China's outbreak.

The country's overall death toll now stands at 3,322, with the number of confirmed cases at 81,620. More than 76,500 have already recovered.

China has also begun releasing numbers for its asymptomatic positive tests - there were 60 such cases yesterday.

Yvette Tan
BBC News

We're writing to you from Singapore this morning, on a particularly wet and rainy Friday. Cases here are continuing to rise as new clusters pop up across the country, bringing the total to more than 1,000.

Here's what's happening elsewhere in Asia:

• China is set to hold a national day of mourning for "martyrs" who died in the virus outbreak, says state agency Xinhua. Three minutes of silence will be held at 10:00 on 4 April across the country
• North Korea says it remains totally free of the virus, saying "not a single person" has been infected. This has been seriously questioned by experts - US military commander General Robert Abrams called it an "impossible claim". The North sits on the border with China and South Korea - who are among the worst hit countries in the world
• The WHO says the number of virus cases in Malaysia is expected to peak in mind-April. Malaysia, which has the largest number of cases in South East Asia, is currently under a national lockdown
• But it's Indonesia that has the highest death toll in Asia outside China, with 170 deaths recorded and 1,790 cases. South Korea comparatively has 9,976 infections and 169 deaths.

Image source, EPA

There were 1,169 coronavirus-related deaths in the US in the past 24 hours, America's Johns Hopkins University reported on Thursday. , external

This represents the biggest daily death toll in any country since the outbreak began in China late last year.

Nearly 6,000 people have now died in the US, with more than 244,000 confirmed infections.

New York City is the worst hit place, with more than 1,500 deaths.

Owen Amos
BBC News, Singapore

On 12 January - less than three months ago - the coronavirus was confined to China. Not a single case had been found outside the country where it emerged.

And then, on 13 January, the virus became a global problem. A case was recorded in Thailand before Japan, South Korea and the United States soon followed.

Across the world, a trickle of cases became a flood.

There have now been almost 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.

• Read more here.

India will be given a $1bn emergency financing package from the World Bank to help it tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

In total the World Bank will give almost $2bn across 25 countries to help them prevent the spread of the virus.

The largest chunk of the emergency financial assistance will go to India “to support better screening, contact tracing, and laboratory diagnostics; procure personal protective equipment; and set up new isolation wards," the World Bank said.

The bank has also approved $200m for Pakistan, $100m for Afghanistan, $7.3m for Maldives and $128.6 million for Sri Lanka within South Asia.

Image source, AFP

The US Navy has removed a captain from his post after he warned that urgent action was needed to contain a coronavirus outbreak on his ship.

The captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Brett Crozier, wrote a letter to his bosses saying that urgent action was needed to prevent American troops from dying. The letter was later published in the San Francisco Chronicle, having apparently been leaked.

"He exercised extremely poor judgement," said Acting US Navy Secretary Thomas Modly.

He said the letter "created the impression the navy was not responding to his questions".

Read the full story here.

At least 100 people aboard the vessel have been infected, reports say.

Uninfected members of the 4,000 crew are being quarantined on the US island territory Guam.

We've been reporting this week on a stalemate in Australia between cruise ships and government officials.

Several vessels - reporting illnesses on board - had been ignoring requests to leave waters off New South Wales (NSW) and Western Australia. Officials had been reluctant to let thousands on board disembark over fears they might overload local hospitals.

• Cruise ship stand-off in Western Australia

But NSW now says two ships left Sydney Harbour overnight to return to their original port. They confirmed five more will depart this weekend after refuelling.

The government chart below, external shows how cruise ships (represented in light blue) have been one of the biggest sources of virus cases in Australia.

Image source, AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT

Spain has become the second country after Italy to report more than 10,000 deaths linked to Covid-19.

Official data on Thursday showed there were 950 deaths in a 24-hour period, the highest daily death toll the country has seen so far.

There are now more than 112,000 confirmed infections in the country, and the overall death toll stands at 10,348.

Authorities however hope the virus is peaking - and hope to see a drop in numbers in the coming days.

Frances Mao
Sydney

Hello from Sydney. There are more than 5,200 cases, including 26 deaths, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the daily rate of increase has dropped to 6% from double-digit figures last week.

“We’ve been able to get the growth in the virus down, but we need to get that down further,” he said this morning.

• Sweeping restrictions on public movement have helped this, but the laws have been criticised. In just two days, more than 50 people – including a man eating a kebab on a bench and a couple sitting in their parked car – have been fined A$1,000 (£490; $600) for being outside without a “reasonable excuse”
• More state borders have also been shut. New South Wales residents won't be able to travel into Queensland without good reason from today, while Western Australia has announced it will temporarily become its “own country” (a nod to long-held but unrealistic dreams of secession) and close its borders to eastern states from Sunday
• Canberra announced free childcare for one million families yesterday – but there are still questions on who will get priority in the scheme
• And 16,000 Australians have left the country in the past two weeks, despite a government warning and later ban on overseas travel.

Welcome back to our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. We're writing from across Asia and Australia and will later be joined by our colleagues in Europe and the US.

Here's a rundown of the latest this Friday morning.

• There have now been more than one million confirmed infections around the globe - although the actual number of cases is thought to be much higher
• Nearly 53,000 deaths have been linked to the virus while more than 210,000 people have recovered
• The US has almost 6,000 deaths and more than 243,000 confirmed cases
• US unemployment figures have hit a record high of 6.6 million as businesses struggle to cope
• Europe continues to see the highest death tolls - Spain on Thursday reported its highest number of deaths in a single day, at 950
• The WHO has urged Middle East countries to do more to contain the virus spread