India has sent three naval ships to bring back stranded citizens in the Maldives and the UAE, defence officials said on Tuesday.

Two of them left for the Maldives on Monday night while the third went to Dubai, a spokesperson told PTI news agency.

Some 200,000 people have reportedly registered with the Indian embassies in Dubai and Abu Dhabi,, external according to the Times of India. Authorities have not officially confirmed the number of citizens stranded abroad.

Meanwhile, the government is organising efforts to bring back stranded Indians abroad in a "phased manner" from 7 May, reported local media. Naval ships and aircraft are being prepared while embassies compile a list of citizens.

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A French doctor has claimed to have found evidence that a patient diagnosed with pneumonia on 27 December actually had the coronavirus.

If this is verified, it would prove that the virus was already circulating in France weeks before the first known cases were reported there.

The country's first three cases of coronavirus were confirmed on 24 January - almost a whole month afterwards.

Dr Cohen, head of emergency medicine at Avicenne and Jean-Verdier hospitals near Paris, told a French broadcaster that he had re-tested the nasal swabs of patients who had flu-like symptoms in December and January.

"Out of 14 patients, one tested positive. We tested it two more times to make sure there was no mistake. And twice, it came back positive."

Read more about this here.

Chinese state media has hit back at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over remarks he made on the origins of the virus outbreak - calling them "insane and evasive".

Pompeo had said on Sunday that "enormous evidence" showed the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus first emerged last year.

State broadcaster CCTV responded with a commentary titled "Evil Pompeo is wantonly spewing poison and spreading lies", according to an AFP report.

The CCTV report went on to say that the theory was a "complete and utter lie," saying "American politicians are rushing to shift the blame... their own domestic anti-epidemic efforts are a mess."

The World Health Organization has said that the US has so far provided no evidence to support "speculative" claims that the virus originated in a Chinese lab.

Despite this, the lab theory has continued to gain traction. But is there any evidence supporting it at all? Read more about what we actually know here.

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The US has said it will borrow a record-breaking three trillion dollars in its second quarter, in a bid to offset the huge costs of coronavirus-related rescue packages.

The figure is more than five times the previous quarterly record, set at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

The US has approved about $3tn (£2.4tn) in virus-related relief, including health funding and direct payouts. The country's national debt now stands near $25 trillion.

Read more on the US debt load here.

From a flower drop to a star performance - here's a look at some of the ways that people around the world have expressed thanks to the workers on the front line against Covid-19.

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This morning, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joined Australia's official virus cabinet meeting (via phone) to discuss a potential "travel bubble" between the two nations.

The South Pacific neighbours, separated by the Tasman Sea, have both found relative success in containing the virus' spread. New Zealand has reported no new cases for a second day, while Australia's numbers remain low.

Both want a "trans-Tasman" travel channel given their close economic and cultural ties. However Ms Ardern stressed that health measures would need to be in place first:

"We have seen across the ditch very low numbers and then it can only take one outbreak... to suddenly have an uptick and that's why it is so important to stick with our restrictions," she told reporters in Wellington.

"Neither of us want cases of Covid coming between our countries," she said.

More details on this proposed travel opening are expected to come in the next few hours.

Image source, EPA

The US has recorded 1,015 new deaths linked to Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, the lowest daily number in a month. Overall, 68,920 people have died with the virus.

There have been 1,180,332 confirmed infections in the US, more than five times the number of cases that Spain has and more than 14 times the number of cases in China where the outbreak started at the end of 2019.

Fewer than 200,000 of those infected have so far recovered.

An internal US government document projects a sharp rise in coronavirus infections and a surge in daily deaths by 1 June, the New York Times reported on Monday. The projections foresee around 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month and a daily death toll of about 3,000.

Hello and welcome back to the BBC's live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. We're writing to you from our homes in Singapore, Australia and India today, and will be joined by our colleagues in London as the UK wakes up.

We're starting off with rather grim news this morning. More than 250,000 people have now lost their lives to the virus outbreak, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

This number includes those who have died with the virus, and not necessarily because of it. However it's likely that some countries have under-reported deaths, which means the true death toll could be higher.

But a glimmer of hope in the US. The country has recorded 1,015 virus deaths over the past 24 hours - its lowest one-day tally in a month. There are currently close to 1.2 million confirmed cases in the US - which has more virus cases than any other country.

The good news continues in New Zealand, which has recorded no new cases for a second day in a row. The government had last week eased lockdown restrictions, but these could be further relaxed if the number of cases stays low.