Image source, EPA

Religious groups in South Korea have resumed services after the government relaxed restrictions on such gatherings.

A religious sect, the Shincheonji Church, was blamed for the early outbreak in South Korea after thousands of its members were infected.

After the relaxation of restrictions, many churches and temples still required worshippers to register online ahead of the service and to have their temperature checked before entering the building.

Worshippers also had to sit well apart and wear face masks.

A further 368 people have died with coronavirus across England, Scotland and Wales, according to the latest figures from hospitals.

NHS England said 336 deaths had been recorded, taking the total to 18,420.

In Wales 14 more deaths have been recorded taking the total to 788 while in Scotland there have been 18 more deaths, a total of 1,249.

The figures do not include deaths in care homes or other settings.

The latest figures for Northern Ireland and the UK as a whole are expected later.

Michelle Roberts
Health editor, BBC News online

Government ministers in the UK still won’t be drawn on when or how easing of the lockdown measures will happen.

What is clear is that we shouldn’t expect things to return to normal any time soon. Instead, we need to find a "new normal" for many months to come as scientists continue to work on a vaccine and treatments.

That new normal will have to include more testing to spot new cases. It will also require some social distancing measures in shops, schools and workplaces, and any other locations where people mix.

That raises some big questions, not least around transport. How do you keep commuters safely apart? And what should be done about travellers arriving in the UK who may be carrying coronavirus?

If restrictions are lifted too much or too quickly, infections could soar. That would risk another peak and more lockdown measures – things none of us want.

Image source, EPA

Two mink farms in the Netherlands have confirmed cases of coronavirus among its animals.

According to a ministry of agriculture statement, the minks showed various symptoms including respiratory problems.

The ministry said previous research had found that ferrets, in the same family as mink, are susceptible to Covid-19 contamination.

An investigation has been launched to determine the source of the infections.

The farms, in Brabant province, both had employees who showed symptoms of Covid-19.

Officials stressed that there was currently no evidence that farm animals or pets could spread the virus.

• Can my dog or cat catch coronavirus?

Walkers and cyclists have been told to stay at least 400m (437 yards) away.

It is not the first time an animal has become infected with coronavirus. Earlier this month a tiger at the Bronx Zoo in the US tested positive.

Image source, Reuters

Spain has reported its lowest daily death toll since 20 March, with 288 fatalities.

The figure is a steep drop from the 378 deaths recorded on Saturday.

The health ministry said the total number of fatalities now stood at 23,190.

Fernando Simon, director of the Spanish Health Alert and Emergency Co-ordination Centre said: “For the first time in a long time, we are below 300.

"Although it may be hard to give these statistics, it's a figure which indicates a clear, positive direction in the evolution of the epidemic."

On Sunday, Spain allowed children under the age of 14 to leave their homes for the first time in six weeks. Lockdown rules had banned them from leaving the house. They are now allowed outside for one hour a day between 09:00 and 21:00.

Read more about the lockdown here.

Fergus Walsh
Medical correspondent

Fake news has been circulating on social media that the first volunteer in the Oxford vaccine trial has died. This is not true.

I spent several minutes this morning chatting with Elisa Granato via Skype.

She is very much alive and told me she was feeling “absolutely fine”.

Dr Granato, who is a microbiologist, said she was going to "chill and enjoy the nice weather today".

She had a group chat with her family and reassured them in case they saw reports of her death. The rumours seem to have originated on a website that mixes fake and real news reports.

It is written in poor English with lots of grammatical errors, often a clue to disinformation.

The head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, Prof Andrew Pollard, who is leading the trial, said: “This sort of fake news could damage our ability to tackle a pandemic. We can’t let that happen.”

Image source, Dr Elisa Granato

Dr Granato was the first person in Europe to be immunised as part of a coronavirus vaccine trial.

That happened on Thursday afternoon. When I spoke to her this morning she told me that she had just been to her first follow-up appointment at the vaccine centre, where they had taken a blood sample.

Marianna Spring, a specialist reporter covering disinformation, said a number of the posts, which were circulating in several languages, had now been removed.

"Careful steps" are needed when easing the lockdown so social distancing will be with us for "some time", Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said.

He told the BBC that passing 20,000 deaths in the UK was "heartbreaking" but the toll could have been "much worse" without the strict measures.

However, Mr Raab did hint at some ways schools, sport and businesses could begin to return to "a new normal".

Labour's Rachel Reeves said the UK should "potentially" be following the example of countries like Belgium, Germany and Denmark which have already signalled partial reopening of some businesses and schools.

"We want to work with the government in bringing forward a plan and getting it right," she told Andrew Marr.

Read more

Mark Lowen
BBC News, Rome

Bookshops are places of refuge, discovery – and in today’s Italy, liberation: one of the few stores allowed to reopen.

And business at one of Rome’s largest, La Feltrinelli, has been brisk as people seized the chance for a touch of normality, albeit with mandatory facemasks, gloves and hand sanitising at the door.

“Without books, I would have had a mental breakdown,” said Fabiola, a student in Rome.

She was buying The Cazalet Chronicles, by Elizabeth Jane Howard, “a story of a family”, she says.

“Because I’m alone here, it makes me feel like I have a dad and a mum. Being alone is awful during this quarantine.”

Another customer, Julie, chose Albert Camus’s La Peste – The Plague – one of the most bought novels at the moment, given its relevance.

Coming here was “a breath of fresh air”, she told me. “The first thing we did with the lockdown was to order books.”

There’s already a section with new works on coronavirus – one called Il Nimico Invisible, or The Invisible Enemy.

But the outbreak is influencing other purchases too.

One lady was buying The Story of a Seagull and a Cat who Taught her to Fly, by the Chilean author Luis Sepulveda. He died of the coronavirus 10 days ago.

Vitaliy Shevchenko
BBC Monitoring

Top officials in the Russian republic of Chechnya have shaved their heads in response to pressure to reopen hairdressers amid the lockdown.

When asked about the closure of barber shops, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov suggested people shaved their heads. Two days later, the authoritarian leader appeared in an Instagram video with no hair.

He said: "All our beauty salons are closed, so I've done what our ancestors did and shaved my head. I suggest you do the same."

Top officials took his advice posting pictures of their shaved heads on Instagram.

Chechen police chief Apti Alaudinov said: "Mr Kadyrov's team follows his example in everything."

Chechnya's deputy prime minister (and Kadyrov's former bodyguard) Abuzayd Vismuradov posted a picture of himself, his brother and two nephews, all without hair.

The Chechen Emergencies Directorate has posted numerous pictures of its hairless officers, boasting on Instagram that "100% of our male staff have now shaved their heads".

It encouraged colleagues from other regions to do the same.

There have been no reports of other emergency workers doing the same so far.

Image source, Getty Images

Coronavirus affects us all differently with some people shrugging off the illness quickly and others left with longer-lasting problems.

Age, gender and other health issues all have a bearing on whether you become more seriously ill from Covid-19.

As is well known now, the main symptoms are a cough or a fever, with some people developing muscle aches. People with these mild symptoms should make a good and speedy recovery.

However, some people will develop more serious symptoms, including breathing difficulties and may need oxygen treatment in hospital. GP Sarah Jarvis says it could take two to eight weeks to recover from these symptoms.

The World Health Organization estimates one person in 20, external will need intensive care treatment, which can include being sedated and put on a ventilator.

It will take time to recover from any spell in an intensive or critical care unit (ICU), no matter what the illness.

Dr Alison Pittard, Dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, says it can take 12 to 18 months to get back to normal after any spell in critical care.

Read more here

One of the last Belgian survivors of the Holocaust, Henri Kichka, has died with coronavirus at the age of 94.

Kichka spent two-and-a-half years in Nazi concentration camps from September 1942 to April 1945 after he and his entire family were taken from their home in Belgium.

After the war he returned to Belgium and in recent years wrote a memoir and gave lectures in schools.

Kichka spoke to the BBC's Kevin Connolly in January, 75 years after Auschwitz was liberated.

Image source, AFP

With Prime Minister Boris Johnson having spent more than three weeks out of action after contracting Covid-19, his deputy says he is now "raring to go".

Mr Johnson is due to resume full-time duties in Downing Street on Monday after spending a week in hospital - including three nights in intensive care.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who has been standing in for the prime minister in his absence, told the BBC's Andrew Marr his return would be a "boost for the country".

On medical advice, Mr Johnson has officially not been doing any work during his convalescence at the prime minister's country estate, Chequers.

But last week he spoke to the Queen and US President Donald Trump, and also met senior ministers to discuss the next stage of the UK's response to the pandemic.

Read more

David Shukman
Science editor, BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

The key measure that all governments are worrying about is the rate of infection, what is known as the ‘R’ number.

Last month in the UK, people who had the virus were spreading it to about three others on average.

Now, with the help of the lockdown and other measures, that rate has been driven down to an estimated 0.7.

Crucially that’s below the threshold of 1.0 – anything above that means an infected person is passing the virus to more than one other and that allows the infection rate to become exponential again.

At the moment, estimates from Imperial College London show that allowing public gatherings could force the rate up by 0.6 – taking us above the critical line.

However they reckon that it might be possible to stay just below it while reopening schools – the move might nudge the rate up by 0.2 -- but there’s huge uncertainty about this.

No one is yet sure of the role of children in spreading the virus between households. One of the scientists advising the government described this as “one of our biggest research questions”.

Image source, Getty Images

The military is to begin testing essential workers around the UK for coronavirus in mobile units operating in "hard-to-reach" areas.

At least 96 new pop-up facilities, which will travel to care homes, police and fire stations, prisons and benefits centres, are due to be running by May.

The testing units, which can be set up in 20 minutes, will see swabs collected by "specially trained" military personnel and taken to one of three "mega labs" to be processed, with results expected within 48 hours.

The number of mobile centres is being scaled up after a successful pilot last week, with eight units testing key workers on Sunday at sites including Salisbury, Southport and Teesside.

Figures on Saturday showed that 28,760 coronavirus tests were conducted in the previous 24 hours, well below the government's daily target of 100,000 - which it aims to achieve by the end of April.

Read more

On his final day filling in for the prime minister, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab stressed "caution" on the issue of easing the lockdown measures so as to make a "sure-footed step forward".

But he reiterated that social distancing measures are going to be with us "for sometime", when he appeared on the Andrew Marr Show.

• Raab said it would be very difficult for sport to be played outside this summer; but it may be different for professionals because of the "scale of testing" that could be introduced.
• On the lack of testing at airports, he said the scientific advice was that "it wouldn't make much difference" due to the low numbers travelling. Raab added he asked about it every week.
• On businesses reopening, he said it would be important they followed the same practices put in place by firms in essential sectors when it came to social-distancing and cleaning.

Celia Hatton
BBC Asia Pacific Regional Editor

Image source, Getty Images

The richest man in China opened his own Twitter account last month - in the middle of the Covid-19 outbreak. So far, every one of his posts has been devoted to his unrivalled campaign to deliver medical supplies to almost every country around the world.

"One world, one fight!" Jack Ma enthused in one of his first messages. "Together, we can do this!" he cheered in another.

The billionaire entrepreneur is the driving force behind an extensive operation to ship medical supplies to more than 150 countries so far, sending face masks and ventilators to many places that have been elbowed out of the global scrap for life-saving equipment.

But Ma's critics and even some of his supporters aren't sure what he's getting himself into.

Has this bold venture into global philanthropy unveiled him as the friendly face of China's Communist Party? Or is he an independent player who is being used by the Party for propaganda purposes?

He appears to be following China's diplomatic rules, particularly when choosing which countries should benefit from his donations, but his growing clout might put him in the crosshairs of the jealous leaders at the top of China's political pyramid.

Read more - The billionaire trying to stop coronavirus (and fix China's reputation)

Image source, @SandraWyness

A Scottish woman has made a plea to the public to take lockdown measures seriously after her husband died with Covid-19.

Andy Wyness was 53 when he passed away on 6 April, just six months after he married his partner of 25 years.

His widow Sandra last saw him when he left the house to go to an assessment centre as his symptoms worsened.

Mrs Wyness said: "He drove himself. The nurse practitioner phoned to say they were concerned about his breathing and his oxygen levels and that they would be getting him an ambulance from there."

Mr Wyness was taken to Wishaw General Hospital in North Lanarkshire where he died without his wife seeing him.

Read more

Image source, Getty Images

Premier League club Everton said they were "appalled" after images emerged appearing to show their player Moise Kean at a house party despite the UK's lockdown.

The Daily Star Sunday reported, external that Italian striker Kean, 20, filmed himself at the party in his apartment.

Everton said they were "appalled to learn of an incident in which a first-team player ignored government guidance and club policy in relation to the coronavirus crisis".

The club has "strongly expressed its disappointment to the player".

Image source, PA Media

Cicero is trending on Twitter in response to an article on Prime Minister Boris Johnson in The Sunday Telgraph.

The paper reports that the PM, who studied Classics at Oxford, quoted the Roman statesman and orator when speaking to aides.

The health of the nation should be "supreme", he said - or "salus populi suprema lex esto" - interpreted by some as suggesting that the PM is against any easing of the restrictions at present.

Johnson’s comments come as he prepares to return to work on Monday, two weeks after he was released from intensive care.

One of his first tasks will be working out a strategy for easing restrictions and reviving economic activity.

Dominic Raab who has been standing in for him, said Johnson was “raring to go”.

Image source, reuters

More now on the approach taken in Germany, which has suffered fewer deaths than other major European countries.

German foreign ministry official Andreas Michaelis told the BBC's Andrew Marr that the first steps to lifting Germany’s lockdown would be to send certain age groups of children back to school, and to allow some non-essential shops to open.

Other measures include introducing a contact-tracing app by June and hiring staff at district levels.

“I think this is a careful way of moving forward and seeing if we can still remain below one in the (infection) rate of (Covid-19),” he said.

“We think roughly a team of five for 20,000 people is what we have to come up with – that is 650 teams only in the case of Bavaria, which is not easy.

“The app is important in moving into that phase but it has to be complemented by other measures as well.”