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We have just had it confirmed that the UK government will give its daily press conference at 17:00 BST (16:00 GMT).

The briefing will be led by Business Secretary Alok Sharma, while Boris Johnson continues to recover from coronavirus.

Mr Sharma will be joined by chief scientific adviser to the government, Sir Patrick Vallance, and the medical director of Public Health England, Professor Yvonne Doyle.

Tal Kalai and Yuvel Edelman – the performers behind drag queens Talula Bonet and Ziona Patriot – found themselves short of work as coronavirus closed down theatres, clubs and bars across Israel.

But they decided to stream shows on Facebook instead and said the reaction was "amazing". Their show, called Quarantined, has been picked up by the Israeli television station Channel 24. Have a watch...

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As we mentioned earlier, Germany's health minister has said the outbreak there is under control.

Jens Spahn said the country's infection rate had dropped to 0.7 - which means that each infected person has passed the virus to fewer than one other.

In Germany 3,868 people have died with Covid-19 - fewer than in Italy, Spain, France or the UK. So far almost 134,000 people have been infected in Germany.

Companies there are expected to be producing up to 50 million face masks a week by August.

Some smaller shops will reopen next week and schools will start reopening in early May, with the focus on students due to sit exams soon.

Read more about how Germany is handling the pandemic here.

Maddy Savage
BBC News, Stockholm

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The head of the Swedish public health agency, Johan Carlson has defended Sweden’s approach to the Covid-19 pandemic.

There is no formal lockdown in Sweden, with schools, restaurants and shopping malls still open - an approach that has placed the country under intense scrutiny.

However, at a news conference, Carlson insisted his country was taking the virus seriously, with a mixture of social distancing recommendations and laws including a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people.

He also raised concerns about the impact of stricter lockdowns on mental and physical health as well as domestic violence levels - saying he couldn’t see any rationale for people sitting indoors listening to radio announcements asking them not to go out.

The scientist said Sweden’s strategy was designed for the longer term - even until 2022 if necessary - but he hoped any restrictions could be eased before the start of the summer holidays, which usually begin in late June.

(Curious how the county's position has been going down with Swedes? We asked a few back in March...)

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Earlier we brought you details of French President Emmanuel Macron's criticism of China's handling of the outbreak during a new interview with the Financial Times.

He also told the newspaper how the unprecedented action nations have taken to combat the coronavirus pandemic could lead to pressure to take more radical action on climate change.

Pollution levels have plummeted as a result of social distancing and lockdown measures.

“When we get out of this crisis people will no longer accept breathing dirty air,” Macron told the newspaper, external.

“People will say . . . ‘I do not agree with the choices of societies where I’ll breathe such air, where my baby will have bronchitis because of it. And remember you stopped everything for this Covid thing but now you want to make me breathe bad air!’”

BBC World Service

The interior ministry in Tunisia says that two men, including a suspected jihadist, have been arrested over an alleged plot to infect members of the security forces with coronavirus.

The ministry says that the suspected jihadist - recently released from prison - had tried to encourage those who might have the virus to cough on police and security officials.

The other man says that he was told to deliberately cough everywhere when he reported to his local police station - as part of the surveillance he was under.

He is being tested to see if he has coronavirus.

Ecuador's official coronavirus death toll is 403, but new figures from just one province suggest many thousands have died in the country.

The government said 6,700 people had died in the Guayas province alone in the first two weeks of April, far more than the usual 1,000 deaths there in the same period.

Guayas is home to the nation's largest city Guayaquil - the worst affected part of the country.

Footage obtained by the BBC earlier this week showed residents of the city forced to store bodies of relatives in their homes for up to five days. They said authorities had been unable to keep up with rate of death, leaving corpses wrapped in sheets in family homes and even on the street.

City authorities last week began distributing thousands of cardboard coffins and set up a dedicated helpline for families that needed a body removed from their home.

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says the World Health Organization (WHO) has issues that need to be inspected when the pandemic is over.

But he said his government was not planning to withdraw funding for the WHO.

"Now is time to support the WHO," he said. "But the truth is, there are issues and challenges. We need to inspect this after this situation is contained."

His comments come just days after US President Donald Trump announced he would be withdrawing funding for the WHO.

Mr Trump accused the WHO of making deadly mistakes and overly trusting China.

The BBC's Reality Check team have been looking into his claims - more here.

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Former UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said it is "not the moment for pointing fingers" in relation to a prediction that the UK's death toll could end up being the worst in Europe.

He said it was instead important to look at international best practice, including mass community testing to trace where the virus was spreading, as has been done in South Korea and Germany.

Mr Hunt, who now chairs the Common's health select committee, said that while testing was “not a cure” it gives “vital information…that means you don’t have to lock down". South Korea’s intensive testing regime has meant it has avoided a lockdown, despite having cases of the virus as early as January.

Mr Hunt, whose committee heard from the Health Secretary Matt Hancock earlier today, said that in some parts of Britain infection rates were low enough that mass testing could be started immediately, citing parts of Yorkshire and Cornwall as examples.

Considering the possibility that coronavirus outbreaks could come in waves, Mr Hunt said if a mass testing regime was started then “the next time it comes back we won’t have to have this kind of lockdown”.

Those of us in countries under lockdown have been advised not to leave home except for very specific reasons. But why is it so important? Here's a video breaking down the numbers...

Claims by the UK opposition Labour party that the government's plans for ending the lockdown are "in limbo" are "wrong", a government official has said.

Labour's leader, Sir Keir Starmer, said on Thursday's BBC coronavirus podcast: “I think that throughout this they've struggled with taking decisions quickly enough".

He added: “We've all been pleased to see that [Boris Johnson]'s come out [of hospital] and is feeling better. And it feels as though they've been in a position probably for a week or 10 days now where it's been difficult for the government to make big decisions."

A Downing St spokesman said: "We have set out five tests which we believe need to be met for us to be able to consider relaxing some of the social distancing measures in place.

"We are at a critical point in our response and we do want people to remain focussed on that core message to stay at home to reduce the transmission of this disease and to save lives."

The UK has reported 847 more virus-related deaths in hospitals, taking the total to 14,576.

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Germany's Health Minister Jens Spahn says the country’s coronavirus outbreak is under control, after a decline in the infection rate.

As we mentioned earlier, Mr Spahn says the number of recovered patients has recently been consistently higher than the number of new infections - showing the lockdown has been successful.

"The outbreak has, as of today, become controllable and manageable again," he told a news conference, adding that the health care system had "at no time been overwhelmed so far".

Figures published by Germany's disease control agency indicate the infection rate had dropped to 0.7 - meaning each infected person passed the virus to less than one other.

However, the number of fatalities is still rising, as is the number of infected health care workers.

Germany has been praised for its aggressive testing efforts. It has almost 138,000 positive cases, according to Johns Hopkins University tracking, and 3,868 people have died nationally with the virus, which is a relatively low number.

Image source, Getty Images/Sopa Images

Vodka and chocolate are among the most bought items at convenience stores during the lockdown, according to new UK data.

The luxuries are being snapped up alongside isolation essentials such as bread, milk and toilet roll, payments provider Paypoint said.

The company, which serves 28,000 stores across the UK, said sales were up 56% compared with the same time last year.

Paypoint has also announced it will work with takeaway service Deliveroo to help small shops reach their customers.

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

The government has announced it is arranging an extra 17 charter flights to bring a further 4,000 British nationals back home from India.

Jan Thompson, the acting high commissioner in Delhi, said the flights would leave from Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Goa, Mumbai and Bangalore next week. The Foreign Office said the most vulnerable would be given priority for the flights, which would cost up to £591.

So far the UK has arranged the repatriation of about 5,000 Britons on 19 chartered flights.

Officials estimate there are still a further 15,000 Britons in India seeking to return after the country was subject to severe transport restrictions to combat Covid-19.

Ms Thompson said the existing waiting list was “large” and only those travellers who had previously registered with the High Commission were likely to get a seat on these latest charters.

But she acknowledged there would have to be future flights to continue returning one of the largest groups of UK nationals still stranded overseas.

Many UK travellers in India have expressed their frustration at the Foreign Office’s handling of the repatriation effort, which some have said was slow and lacking transparency compared with other countries.

There are now more than 2.1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in 185 countries.

Our colleagues form the BBC Visual and Data Journalism Team have been tracking the outbreak around the world.

See more of their graphs and charts of the spread.

Downing St has said that government guidelines and official foreign office advice "do not allow for people going on holiday".

The prime minister's spokesman said that travelling within the UK for holidays was "not something which the current guidelines allow for" and Foreign Office advice "continues to be that you should go abroad for essential travel only".

Earlier Transport Secretary Grant Shapps suggested people should not book summer holidays for later this year.

In some much needed good news, a four-year-old UK boy with a rare form of cancer has recovered from the coronavirus.

Archie Wilks was diagnosed with stage-four neuroblastoma in January 2019.

His parents said it's "definitely a weight lifted" to have their son home after he was in hospital for six days, during which they were isolated in a room together.

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It's lunchtime if you're joining us in the UK so here's a recap of what we've covered so far on this Friday.

Our top story: China has denied a cover-up over its coronavirus death figures after it revised up the number who died in the city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, by 50% to 3,869.

Wuhan officials attributed the new figure to updated reporting and deaths outside hospitals. We have more on that here.

Also in the headlines:

• Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the UK's Health and Social Care Committee more than 50,000 NHS workers had been tested for Covid-19 with testing planned to be rolled out to other services from today. He was also quizzed on a shortage of gowns in the UK and admitted it was "incredibly difficult" to get personal protective equipment to everyone who needed it
• At the same committee meeting Prof Anthony Costello of University College London's Institute for Global Health warned that the UK was "going to face further waves" of infections, warning "40,000 deaths" could be reported
• The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Spain rose to 188,068 on Friday as the daily death toll increased from 551 to 585. The Spanish authorities have vowed to include people who have died outside hospitals in their figures
• US President Donald Trump has given governors guidance for the reopening of state economies

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The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Spain rose to 188,068 on Friday as the daily death toll increased from 551 on Thursday, to 585.

Only the US and Italy have had more confirmed fatalities than Spain, which has recorded 19,478 deaths in total. And Spain has the second highest amount of confirmed cases anywhere in the world, behind the US.

Spanish health authorities have identified 5,252 new cases of the virus - which represents an increase of 2.9%.

The update comes a day after figures from regional officials suggested the true national death toll could be much higher than previously reported.

On Thursday Catalonia almost doubled its regional tally as it changed its methodology to also include suspected and confirmed coronavirus deaths in nursing homes and private homes for the first time.