UK government measures to protect the economy during the coronavirus crisis are forecast to cost £123bn for the current financial year, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said.

The OBR said it also estimates that the direct impact of policy measures, such as the furlough scheme, will raise cash borrowing by £103.7bn for the year.

On Tuesday, UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the furlough scheme - ie paying a percentage of wages to workers on leave because of coronavirus - would be extended to October.

The government is also offering grants for self-employed people whose businesses are affected by coronavirus.

• Chancellor warns of 'significant' recession

The OBR estimated that a three-month lockdown, followed by a partial lifting for three months, would necessitate public sector borrowing of £298.4bn.

That represents a £25.5bn increase on the forecast from last month.

The OBR estimates that the UK economy is likely to contract by 35% in the second quarter of 2020, before bouncing back quickly.

Venezuela has the world's largest reserves of oil, but Covid-19 has worsened the current crisis.

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Thousands of businesses in New Zealand reopened on Thursday as the country relaxed its coronavirus restrictions, leading to some hairdressers seeing overnight queues round the block.

Shops, cafes, and public parks are all open as the country moves into Level 2 of lockdown, described as a "safer new normal".

New Zealand has reported no new cases of the virus in the past three days.

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BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

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Questions are mounting over Russia's extraordinarily low reported mortality rate - only 2,305 deaths with 252,000 infected. Moscow's department of health says it does not include most deaths of Covid-19 patients in official statistics because they had other potentially lethal illnesses. St Petersburg has reported an unexplained spike in deaths from pneumonia - five-and-a-half times the usual number and 10 times the official number of Covid-19 deaths in the city.Meduza, an independent Russian website, says official statistics are doctored and Russians are effectively “not allowed to die from coronavirus”. Many of those who find official numbers hard to believe keep their own tally.

Medical workers have their own list of colleagues they say have been killed by coronavirus. Even Orthodox priests have launched their own list "because official statistics are incomplete". Earlier, the Financial Times said Russia’s Covid-19 death toll could be 70% higher than official figure, but officials in Moscow dismissed such reports as "fake".

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US folk legend John Prine died on 7 April, aged 73, after contracting Covid-19.

During his lifetime he was revered by many, including Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.

His wife Fiona Whelan Prine has spoken emotionally on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme about their final moments together:

“At around midnight on 6 April, our wedding anniversary, a doctor called and said I should come to the hospital immediately. I felt like throwing up.

“I spent the next 17 hours with John, he was in deep sedation.

“In the end I told him my heart would be broken forever but that he could go on ahead and be with his mum and dad and be with his brother. I told him I would be okay and would hold our three boys close."

A 98-year-old has recovered from coronavirus after receiving treatment at one of Lagos state’s isolation centres, authorities there say.

State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu announced on Wednesday that the woman was discharged along with 25 others who had previously tested positive for the virus.

“Today, we discharged a 98-year-old woman, our oldest #COVID19 patient in Lagos,” Mr Sanwo-Olu tweeted.

Lagos is the epicentre of the virus in Nigeria, with 2,041 of the 4,971 cases recorded in the country.

Lagos state has recorded 33 deaths and discharged 528 patients.

Image source, Reuters

It would be "unacceptable" for French drug giant Sanofi to give priority to the US market if it develops a Covid-19 vaccine, a French minister has warned.

Deputy Finance Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher was responding to comments by Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson, who said "the US government has the right to the largest pre-order because it's invested in taking the risk".

Many labs worldwide are involved in research to find a Covid-19 vaccine.

"For us, it would be unacceptable for there to be privileged access to such and such a country for financial reasons," Pannier-Runacher told France's Sud Radio.

Read more here

Another 34 people have died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, the nation's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said at her daily briefing.

This brings the total in Scotland to 2,007.

Sturgeon said 14,117 people have tested positive for the virus in Scotland, up by 188 from 13,929 the day before.

There are 71 people in intensive care with coronavirus or coronavirus symptoms, an increase of one on Wednesday, she added.

Health officials in England have approved a test that will show if someone has had coronavirus in the past.

The UK government has been looking for a reliable antibody test for some time. In March, it was announced the government had bought 3.5 million antibody tests but these turned out to be ineffective.

There is an antibody test already in use at government research facility Porton Down, in Wiltshire, but it is not accurate enough to give individuals information about their infection status.

Image source, PA Media

How does the new test work?

The new test - from Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche - looks for antibodies in the blood to see if a person has had the virus and might now have some form of immunity.

Can I get tested?

If the Roche test becomes available in large numbers, it might first be used on health and social care staff.

What about the other type of test?

The Roche test is the "have I had it?" test.

The daily UK government update on testing refers to the "do I have it now?" test.

Those tests, which take a swab up your nose or from the back of your throat, have been the main focus of the government's efforts so far.

• Read the full explainer from our health reporter Rachel Schraer

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A pop-up cycle lane has opened on one of London's most prestigious roads in a bid to lower the numbers of people using public transport.

Bollards have been added to Park Lane (pictured above) to create a bike path as part of Mayor Sadiq Khan's London Streetspace programme.

The programme includes the rapid construction of a cycling network using temporary infrastructure to reduce crowding on the Tube, train and bus routes.

Some people in England returned to work as restrictions were eased on Wednesday, and many commuters in London reported finding social distancing impossible.

Khan said: "I'm determined to give Londoners more safe and sustainable alternatives to travelling by car, especially when our public transport system is under strain due to Covid-19."

Covid-19 has brought many challenges for our daily lives - including some rather unusual ones for those returning to playing sports after weeks of inactivity.

In tennis, the challenges include serving the ball without actually touching it. Tennis coach Sebastien shows us how in the video below.

If you're just joining us, here are some of the latest updates from the UK:

• A test to find out whether people have been infected with coronavirus in the past has been approved by health officials in England. Public Heath England say it is a "positive step" but it is not yet clear if having coronavirus antibodies makes us immune
• It could take months for the National Health Service to return to normal, experts have warned. A&E visits in England have halved since the coronavirus outbreak started with many other important services disrupted
• The chair of a national body says care homes felt "completely abandoned" as the crisis hit. A health minister says the government did not receive "bad advice" on the risks to those in care
• A leading UK economist expects GDP to drop by 25% in the second quarter of the year. The economy shrank by 2% in the first three months of 2020 after just a few days of lockdown, with chancellor Rishi Sunak pointing to “a significant recession”
• Finally, the BBC says Top Gear and Eastenders will resume filming, but the stars will be socially distanced

Ben Weisz
Political reporter, BBC Sussex

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The UK government wants to hear more from young people about how to tackle loneliness during lockdown, Civil Society minister Baroness Diana Barran told the BBC.

"Survey after survey shows that loneliness is actually a bigger problem for young people than it is for older people," Barran told The Next Episode podcast.

A survey, external carried out last month as part of a major study for the Mental Health Foundation found that 44% of 18-24-year-olds felt lonely because of coronavirus - compared to 24% of adults in general.

Asked how often she and her government colleagues discussed young people specifically when planning how to tackle the problem, she said “probably not enough. I'll be doing it more next week I promise you”.

This week, a £5m ($6m) fund was launched to combat loneliness during the pandemic - but Barran said it wasn’t yet clear how much of that funding would reach under-25s.

Hear more about young people’s experiences tackling loneliness in lockdown here

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Plans to make 12,000 British Airways workers redundant remain unchanged despite the UK government's extension of the coronavirus furlough scheme to the end of October, the airline's owner has said.

IAG chief executive Willie Walsh, in a letter to the Transport Select Committee where he gave evidence on Monday, said that British Airways had processed cash refunds on 921,000 bookings, with vouchers given on a further 346,000 bookings.

The furlough scheme is designed to help people put on leave due to the coronavirus outbreak and to prevent employers having to make mass redundancies.

UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced on Tuesday that employees would continue to receive 80% of their monthly wages up to £2,500 ($3,050) until October.

But he said the government would ask companies to "start sharing" the cost of the scheme from August.

A quarter of the workforce, some 7.5 million people, are now covered by the scheme, which is costing £14bn a month.

• What does it mean if I've been furloughed by work?

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

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Emergency hospital visits in England have halved since the coronavirus outbreak started, dropping to their lowest level since records began.

Before the pandemic, more than 2.1 million patients a month were visiting Accident & Emergency departments. In April that dropped to 916,581 patients.

Everything from cancer care to routine surgery has been disrupted by coronavirus, although ministers have called for services to be restored.

But restarting NHS services could take many months, experts say.

• Read more on this story here

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Care homes felt "completely abandoned" as the coronavirus crisis swept across the UK, the National Care Association has said.

Nadra Ahmed, chair of the association, told the BBC that advice to the UK government to prioritise the health service without adequately protecting elderly people in care homes may have been "wrong".

Ahmed said that care homes had been happy to support the NHS but struggled with a lack of protective equipment as well as with people being discharged from hospital into their facilities without being tested for coronavirus.

"Here we were, suddenly left completely abandoned. And we understand the mantra that was about save the NHS - but our concern was, at what cost was that going to happen?" she said.

The government has now said it will make £600m ($730m) available to improve infection control in care homes. Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, Health Minister Edward Argar denied the government had received "bad advice" on the risk to care home residents at the start of the pandemic.

• Read more on this story here

A US pharmaceutical firm has signed agreements with drug makers in South Asia to expand supply of the drug remdesivir for treating Covid-19.

The agreement between Gilead and five generic pharmaceutical companies in India and Pakistan will help make the medicine for 127 countries.

Remdesivir cut the duration of symptoms from 15 days to 11 in clinical trials at hospitals around the world. The antiviral drug was originally developed as an Ebola treatment.

A clinical trial of the drug by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases led to favourable results.

But their impact on deaths is not as clear-cut and the BBC's health and science correspondent James Gallagher says it is also not yet clear who is benefiting from the drug.

• Read the full story here

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Laurel Chor, a photographer, tweeted the step-by-step process she was instructed to take upon arrival at Hong Kong airport, offering a stark contrast with much laxer restrictions in other countries, including the UK.

Her widely-shared insight into the new normal of global travel describes a mandatory coronavirus test with a wait of several hours in a large hall for the results to come back, then having to put on a tracking bracelet and install an app on her phone to enable contact tracing.

Hong Kong has recorded just four deaths and about 1,000 confirmed cases of the virus.

In the UK, the government has suggested it may introduce a 14-day quarantine for arrivals from all countries except Ireland and France. But no start or end date for the measures have been announced.

Chris Morris
BBC Reality Check

Public Health England’s approval of a new antibody test for coronavirus is good news. Previous tests have proved unreliable, but officials say this one is different.

Antibody tests aim to find out if an individual has had the virus in the past, which may mean they have some immunity from reinfection.

But government ministers say they don’t know when the new tests will be available to the public.

Other European countries are ahead of the UK and have already been carrying out limited antibody testing programmes.

In Germany, the Accredited Laboratories for Medicine association (ALM) said 61,299 antibody tests were conducted last week. ALM warned that taking the test should not be a reason for ending social distancing measures.

And in Spain, the Health Ministry said yesterday that preliminary results of a study, based on more than 60,000 antibody tests around the country, suggested that about 5% of the population had been infected by coronavirus so far.

Reality Check

Image source, Reuters

A claim being widely shared on social media that the prolonged wearing of masks can be dangerous is "not true at all", the World Health Organization has said.

An article making the claim first appeared online in Spanish towards the end of April. It circulated widely in Spanish-speaking countries, before a translation appeared on English outlets and a Nigerian news site.

The report alleged that prolonged breathing while wearing masks leads to inhalation of carbon dioxide, which makes people dizzy and deprives the body of oxygen.

It also claimed people should lift masks “every 10 minutes to continue feeling healthy".

Dr Richard Mihigo from the WHO told the BBC the claims could actually pose a health risk.

He said people could be exposed to contamination if they keep lifting masks to inhale.

He added that masks made following WHO guidelines should have two or more cloth layers to be effective, and "should allow you to breathe normally and prevent particles from passing through".

The only risk is for children under two years old whose lungs have not fully developed. They are not advised to wear homemade masks.