Image source, Reuters

The Unites States has seen 1,150 people die with the virus during the past 24 hours, the highest number among the worst-hit countries, according to Johns Hopkins University.

It's followed by France with more than 830 deaths on Monday, and Spain with more than 630 deaths linked to Covid-19.

The overall US death toll now stands at 10,783 and the country has more than 367,000 confirmed infections - including more than 30,000 positive tests from the last 24 hours alone. Around 19,600 people have so far recovered.

Richie Mo'unga of the Christchurch Crusaders and NZ national side All Blacks has apologised after pictures showed him kicking the ball with other players in a park, breaking the lockdown rules as they are from different households.

The incident has been widely criticised - New Zealand Rugby has labelled it as "unacceptable". The Crusaders said it was not an organised team training.

Mo'unga has since used Instagram to apologise and explain it was a coincidental meeting where he eventually broke the rules by accident.

He says he talked to the other players "from afar, asking how they were and got ready for my running session. As I had finished one of my running sessions, the ball had been kicked over and instinctively I went and picked the ball up and threw it back to them".

"I didn't think twice about it. It's something I need to be more careful of and I will be more careful of."

Image source, Getty Images

A short while ago, US President Trump said he had spoken to former vice president - and possible election challenger - Joe Biden about Covid-19.

Trump said they had had a "very friendly conversation", but had agreed not to share the details of the call.

The two men have had a bitter relationship, and Biden has been critical of Trump's handling of the crisis.

Image source, Getty Images

As Asia wakes up this Tuesday morning, the region's main focus will be Japan's expected state of emergency. The drastic measure was announced only yesterday and might go into effect as early as today. It won't cover the entire country but only large cities like Tokyo and Osaka after urban centres have seen a sharp rise in infections.

China and South Korea are expected to once again report low figures of new infections with Beijing's focus now on imported cases of travellers bringing the virus back in.

Indonesia has seen ever bigger daily infection numbers over the past days with at least 24 doctors among the 209 dead.

India remains under lockdown and the current focus is to step up testing to be able to contain the spread. The government there has said it hopes to double its testing capacity to 20,000 a day by the end of this week.

Intensive care is reserved for the sickest of patients and is designed to support a person's body when some of their organs can no longer do it alone.

Around 6% of coronavirus cases become critical and some require ventilators.

This video report by our medical correspondent Fergus Welsh shows the conditions inside an intensive care unit fighting coronavirus.

"None of us have ever seen anything like this," one doctor in the unit at University College Hospital in London told him.

Image source, AFP

Some of the UK's "volunteer army" of 750,000 people who signed up to support the NHS will begin their first tasks later today.

Their main role is to support those who are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus.

They'll be delivering medicines from pharmacies; driving patients to appointments and bringing them home from hospital; calling people to check they are well, and transporting medical supplies and equipment for the NHS.

The process will be managed through a mobile app called GoodSAM - health professionals, pharmacists and local authorities can upload requests for help, and volunteers can then pick which tasks they want to complete in their local area.

Image source, Getty Images

Many countries have closed schools to help stop the spread of coronavirus.

But one team of scientists, based at a London university, says we should ask hard questions about whether this is now the right policy.

They suggest that keeping pupils off has little impact, even with other lockdown measures.

Their research, published inThe Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, external, looked at 16 studies - some based on the spread of coronavirus, and others on seasonal flu and the 2003 Sars outbreak.

We've summarised the findings, and policymakers' response to them, in this article.

In his White House briefing, President Trump said he had spoken to "major" drug companies, to see if they could offer any help to the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

"I've asked them to contact London immediately...more than major, more than size, they're geniuses."

Michelle Roberts
Health editor, BBC News online

Coronavirus can attack the lungs and it appears Boris Johnson is now having difficulties with his breathing - although he is not yet on a ventilator machine.

Not every patient in ICU with coronavirus will need a ventilator to take over the job of breathing.

Some may be put on a breathing support machine called CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) that uses mild pressure to push oxygen into the airways via a mask.

Patients can be awake and not sedated for this, unlike those who need a ventilator.

Patients on ICU will be connected to lots of different machines, via tubes, wires and cables, to monitor how their body is coping.

And they can be given intravenous drugs and other supportive treatments, including nutrition.

St Thomas' Hospital has experience in treating coronavirus patients in its ICU. For extremely serious cases it can use a life support machine called ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) which replaces some of the function of the heart and lungs. There are only a handful of these machines around the country.

Towards the end of that White House coronavirus task force briefing, Dr Deborah Birx offered a note of hope.

Last week, the task force said government models suggested that between 100,000 and 240,000 people in the US could die from coronavirus. But New York's governor has pointed to a recent flattening of that curve.

Dr Birx, the coronavirus response co-ordinator, said she believed that "if we work as hard as we can over the next several weeks, we will see potential to go under the numbers that were predicted by the models."

She said this was down to two factors - the first was "extraordinary compliance of American people and the diligence they have", by changing behaviours and social distancing.

The second factor, she added, was the "incredible insights Washington state provided on how to better care for people in hospital".

"Those two pieces are coming together," she concluded.

Image source, EPA

Image source, Getty Images

It goes without saying that all sorts of organisations across the UK are struggling financially because of the pandemic.

But for hospices, the sudden drop in revenue is particularly acute, and many are warning they will need government and public support to continue to provide palliative care.

With charity shops closed and fundraising events such as the London Marathon postponed, the charities that run end of life facilities say services may have to be closed if they are not helped soon.

Heidi Travis, chief executive of Sue Ryder, said hospices "cannot wait any longer".

You can read more about her plea for government help, here.

If you didn't know much about him before this, here are some key points on the man deputising for Boris Johnson:

• 46-year-old former lawyer
• Son of a Czech-born Jewish refugee who fled the Nazis in 1938
• Degrees from Oxford and Cambridge
• Conservative MP since 2010
• Current foreign secretary and first secretary of state
• Supporter of campaign to leave the European Union
• Black belt in karate

Read our full profile here.

The daily briefing from the US has closed but top infectious diseases expert, Dr Anthony Fauci cited figures from New York state showing that the number of hospitalisations has "started to level off".

"We got there through mitigation - we cut off the stream of people who ultimately require hospitalisation and intubation," he says. "This is an indication - despite all the suffering and death that's occurred - that what we had been doing has been working."

"The call is - just keep it up - this is going to get us out of it," he said, appearing to refer to social distancing measures.

He said the country could "get back to a degree of normalcy" even before a vaccine was developed and hoped for a situation where antibody testing would allow experts to establish how far the virus had penetrated society, and how many people had some immunity.

Image source, Getty Images

To our audiences waking up in Asia, welcome to our rolling coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Here's what you need to know:

• The UK PM Boris Johnson is in intensive care. He tested positive on 27 March and was admitted to hospital on Sunday, before his condition worsened
• France has recorded its highest daily death toll - 833
• Japan is to declare a state of emergency in the capital Tokyo and six other regions, possibly on Tuesday
• Globally, there have been more than 1.3m cases and almost 75,000 people with Covid-19 have died

Chris Mason
Political Correspondent

Just a few months ago Dominic Raab was one of the contenders for the Conservative leadership and had aspirations to be prime minister himself.

He was appointed foreign secretary, and added to that, first secretary of state - a title that, in so many instances, is an honorific one.

But now, the very reality of being first secretary of state is landing upon his shoulders as he takes on a good number of the prime minister's usual obligations.

The burdens placed upon this government are unprecedented in our lifetime, with every department being asked to consider things, and attempt to do things that they have never been asked to do before.

There's a vast amount of pressure on the Whitehall system at the moment.

And ultimately, all decisions are channeled into Downing Street.

Clearly, Dominic Raab is going have to step up and fill in for the prime minister, who would normally be the one signing on the dotted line.

Matthew Hill
BBC West health correspondent

Ear, nose and throat surgery is highly risky when it comes to infectious disease, with Covid-19 already claiming the lives of two ENT consultants.

And now a survey of specialists across the UK shows full personal protective equipment (PPE) was only available to around a third of respondents.

Professional body ENT UK found that only 36% of members who responded to their survey had full PPE readily available last week for Aerosol-Generating Procedures in Covid-19 patients.

Dedicated PPE was unavailable in one in five trusts.

And, perhaps most worryingly, 95% of ENT surgeons predict PPE will run out during the crisis.

The honorary secretary of ENT UK says some members are even resorting to DIY protection.

The government has acknowledged distribution problems, but says a national supply team, supported by the armed forces, is now "working around the clock" to deliver equipment.

NHS England also said more than one million respiratory face masks were delivered on 1 April - but made no mention of the much-needed head protection and long-sleeved gowns.

Image source, Reuters

We reported last week on two French doctors who, in a TV debate, said we should test potential coronavirus vaccines in Africa - a suggestion that sparked widespread anger, and accusations of treating Africans like guinea pigs.

Now the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has joined in the condemnation, in very strong terms.

Speaking in the WHO's briefing today, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: "Africa cannot and will not be a testing ground for any vaccine."

He also said the comments were a hangover from a "colonial mentality".

"It was a disgrace, appalling, to hear during the 21st Century, to hear from scientists, that kind of remark," he said. "We condemn this in the strongest terms possible, and we assure you that this will not happen."

Read the full story here.

The Australian state of South Australia has recorded its first Covid-19 death. Until now, it was the only Australian state without a death.

SA has had 411 confirmed cases of the disease so far. The country has had almost 6,000 cases and 41 deaths.

Image source, Getty Images

Hong Kong international Airport has extended its ban on foreign arrivals for the foreseeable future.

All non-Hong Kong residents flying in will be denied entry to the region.

Those coming to Hong Kong from mainland China, Macau and Taiwan have to undergo a 14-day quarantine.

Hong Kong has recorded 914 cases and four deaths.

According to the South China Morning Post, external, nearly all of the 24 news cases on Monday were imported.

Mr Trump has finished speaking at the press briefing, ending by offering "my best to the UK and the family of Boris Johnson. We just hope he’s going to be OK, he’s a fine guy".

He's now handed over to Vice President Mike Pence, who leads the coronavirus task force.