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A prominent statistician says there's been a huge rise in people dying at home, including 1,700 that are "unexplained".

Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, says few of these deaths have been linked to the coronavirus.

He says there were around 8,800 fewer non-Covid deaths in hospitals in the seven weeks leading up to 15 May - but during the same period, there was a "huge rise" of 10,500 more deaths in private homes.

"These could be cases - and this is a big assumption - of people whose lives might have been prolonged had they gone to hospital, which is about equal to the number of Covid deaths," he says.

Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford, adds this is "an urgent area for inquiry".

"Whether people have been discharged too early, or whether they're not presenting sufficiently enough, there are issues here, because these people, this number is significantly higher than what we'd normally expect in the home setting."

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Katie Miller, the spokeswoman for US Vice-President Mike Pence, is back at work after testing positive for Covid-19 on 8 March.

In a tweet, Miller said she had taken three negative coronavirus tests and announced that she was pregnant, as she thanked her husband and top aide to US President Donald Trump, Stephen Miller.

Jonathan Blake
BBC political correspondent

After a ministerial resignation and hourly calls by Conservative MPs for Dominic Cummings to resign, it was inevitable that the actions of the prime minister’s senior adviser overshadowed today’s news conference.

Downing Street is clearly still hoping the media and the public will eventually move on.

But for now, questions remain about what Mr Cummings did and about what some see as double standards.

Significant announcements were made about a drug which can shorten the recovery time of coronavirus sufferers and vast amounts of PPE being manufactured in the UK.

But for better or worse, neither of those will make the headlines tonight. When the government has something even more important to say, it will need to have confidence that the public will take notice.

Reality Check

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China has been carrying out an ambitious plan to test everyone in Wuhan, the city where the Covid-19 pandemic began, following the emergence of a cluster of new infections.

The authorities had pledged to test the city's 11 million inhabitants over a 10-day period, starting on 14 May.

They later suggested different districts within the city would be starting at different times.

Health officials in Wuhan say they carried out 1.47 million tests on a single day, 22 May - a huge increase from the 100,000 a day prior to this testing campaign starting.

In total, according to the Hubei health commission website, nine million test samples had been taken by 24 May - 10 days after the campaign started. Of these, the commission says 6.57 million had been processed.

We've looked at what was achieved, and over what period of time. Read more here.

Nick Thorpe, BBC News

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The Hungarian government could give up its extraordinary powers on 20 June, Justice Minister Judit Varga has announced. The necessary legislation could be voted by parliament on 2 June.

The original Lex-Covid, passed on 30 March, provoked a tide of domestic and international criticism. It included no end date, and changed the criminal code to increase punishments for those who spread misleading or false information about the pandemic.

According to Atlatszo, an investigative news site, the government has passed 104 decrees during the "state of danger".

The government appeared unnerved by the extent of criticism, and hit back fiercely, blaming "the Brussels-based and Hungarian left wing" for "unfounded and politically motivated allegations" about the Hungarian law.

The government is keen to appear conciliatory, ahead of crucial talks on the next seven-year EU budget.

Shayan Sardarizadeh and Alistair Coleman
Disinformation specialists at BBC Monitoring

A row has broken out over the definition of social media bots after Twitter rejected a study that suggested nearly half of the accounts tweeting about coronavirus since January are bots.

Twitter's head of site security, Yoel Roth, says the company has seen “no evidence to support the claim”, external.

It comes after a study by Carnegie Mellon University found 45% of 200m tweets about the pandemic were sent by accounts "that behave more like computerised robots than humans", external.

The term bot is often ill-defined "and doesn't necessarily refer to co-ordinated, manipulative, or inauthentic behaviour", Mr Roth said.

Spam or troll accounts can sometimes be mistaken for bots. Real people can also engage in excessive posting if they are passionate about an issue.

Only social media companies have the necessary data to detect automated accounts.

BBC Bitesize has a guide about bots and the fake news they can spread.

Reality Check

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Health secretary Matt Hancock says he has heeded calls from the front line for ‘’more and better’’ personal protective equipment.

He says the government has signed contracts to manufacture two billion PPE items in the UK and agreed international contracts with over 100 suppliers, including for 3.7 billion gloves.

However, the government has previously said gloves are counted individually, rather than in pairs.

From 25 February to 10 May the Department of Health and Social Care said over 1.22bn PPE items were delivered across the health and social care system in England.

However, over half that figure – 711 million – were individually counted gloves.

Read more here

Reality Check

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Matt Hancock was asked whether the government would review all penalty fines imposed on families travelling for childcare purposes in lockdown (in a similar way to the prime minister’s chief advisor Dominic Cummings).

So, how many have been fined for doing this?

13,445 fines have been handed out for breaching lockdown rules in England up to 11 May.

Most of these – 10,999 – were issued to those not abiding by the restrictions on movement introduced towards the end of March, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

But that data doesn’t tell us how many people were fined – if any – for reasons similar to Dominic Cummings’s trip to Durham.

It also doesn’t show how many of those people had made trips across the country or how many were within a more localised area.

Just 137 fines have been handed out by the Durham Constabulary to 11 May – the fifth lowest out of England’s 39 police forces.

Image source, EPA

Here are the latest stories from Europe this afternoon:

• A French NGO has posted a video showing latex gloves and masks floating in the Mediterranean. The group’s founder called it “the beginnings of a new type of pollution”
• An Ikea branch in Germany has given its car park over to a local mosque to hold socially distanced prayers marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan
• From Wednesday, Spain will hold 10 days of mourning for all the victims of the coronavirus. The country has officially recorded 27,117 deaths
• Russia will hold a parade to mark the 75th anniversary of its victory in World War Two, President Vladimir Putin has said. The pandemic forced Russia to cancel the event held annually on 9 May
• Boyfriends and girlfriends are now allowed to travel to Denmark, provided they’re from the Nordic countries and Germany. Some who have partners outside these countries are growing frustrated by the time spent apart from their loved ones

The daily press conference was led by Health Secretary Matt Hancock. He was joined by Prof John Newton, who is responsible for the UK's testing scheme.

Here's what they told us:

• The government has signed contracts to procure two billion pieces of personal protective equipment from within the UK, with a further 3.7 billion gloves coming from abroad
• A trial of antiviral drug remsedivir is starting in the NHS. It is thought to reduce recovery times by about four days
• The government commits to "look at" rescinding fines for people breaking lockdown for childcare reasons
• The most likely place for transmission of the virus is within households, which is why the advice on mixing households is different to shopping or meeting outside
• Mr Hancock said he believed Dominic Cummings behaved within the guidelines and did not think he undermined the government's messaging. However, he said reasonable people could disagree and he could understand people's anger
• In future, there will be local lockdowns where there are local flair-ups of the virus

The last question is from News and Star in Cumbria. The reporter says Cumbria is one of the hardest hit areas and there is a genuine fear of a second wave of deaths, with visitors potentially "flooding back to our county" including the Lake District.

Hancock says he has been talking to the local MP on potential flare-ups and he says, "Yes we will have local lockdowns in future where there are flare-ups."

Prof Newton says "all different areas will have different considerations".

He says the measures are a mixture of national resources of the track and trace programme, a regional resource in NHS England's public health protection teams and the local resources.

Citing a YouGov poll conducted today, external, a journalist from the Financial Times says 71% of the public believed Mr Cummings's drive to Durham broke the lockdown rules. He asks whether all those people misunderstood the rules.

Mr Hancock doesn't answer the question directly but says: "The guidelines were drafted with exceptional circumstances in mind."

If you have adults that are unable to look after a small child, that is an exceptional circumstance, he says.

"It is reasonable to conclude that the description of events that Mr Cummings put out yesterday was within the guidelines."

Ellie from Kent writes in to ask: "If people can start to shop for un-essential items, and kids can go back to school when we don't know where those people have been, why can't we visit another household who we know have been self-isolating - such as grandparents and partners?"

Matt Hancock says seeing our loved ones is a "natural instinct", and that the government is "looking at how we can make this happen in a safe way".

Prof John Newton adds that "the highest risk of transmission is within households" - but they will work towards a "gradual increase in contact".

The Evening Standard asks how important is it that people obey contact tracers - should they follow their instincts to obey this guidance?

Hancock says the NHS test-and-trace programme is "incredibly important".

"The whole purpose here is to try to move to a system that is a more targeted lockdown," he says.

On people without symptoms who are asked to isolate, Mr Hancock says it is their "civil duty" to isolate.

Prof John Newton adds that the test-and-trace programme will "allow us to control the virus" but it must be used alongside social distancing and also basic hygiene.

Robert Peston, from ITV, asks what the "relevant difference" is between Dominic Cummings' situation and Matt Hancock's - the health secretary and his wife both tested positive for coronavirus, have young children, and chose to stay in London.

Giving a very swift answer, Mr Hancock says: "We had childcare readily available at home and Mr Cummings didn't."

LBC asks about an apparent loss in people's confidence in the government and its public health message over the Dominic Cummings row.

Hancock says he "of course" understands the anger that some people feel.

But he says: "Mr Cummings himself said he should have got the facts out earlier".

And he says it is "important" as a country "we focus on what we need to do now".

Hancock adds that he thinks it reasonable that some people disagree with his view.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg asks about the Dominic Cummings row - did Hancock stand by his past comments that the virus stay-at-home guidelines were instructions?

Hancock says Dominic Cummings set out what happened in "extensive detail" yesterday.

He says she can understand why "reasonable people" have a different view, but his view is the same as the PM's and he believes Dominic Cummings' actions were reasonable.

"If you are unable to look after a small child that is an exceptional circumstance," he says.

Prof John Newton, national co-ordinator of the UK's Covid-19 testing programme, says the number of deaths occurring in hospitals and care homes is declining.

The trend in deaths in care homes occurred later and was smaller, he says. In total, 28.3% of deaths have occurred in care homes.

The first question is from Martin from Brighton, who asks whether the government will review all penalty fines for families travelling for childcare purposes during lockdown.

Hancock says they do understand the impact and the need for making sure that children get adequate childcare.

He says it is “perfectly reasonable to take away that question” and he will look at it with his Treasury colleagues.

The question comes a day after the PM's chief aide said he travelled to Durham for childcare reasons - but he is accused of breaking lockdown rules and is facing calls to resign.

Here’s more on the Dominic Cummings row.

National Covid-19 testing coordinator Prof John Newton says the number of coronavirus hospital admissions in England was down to 471, adding: "That's the lowest number recorded since we started collecting this data."

He also says the seven-day rolling average of the number of new cases of coronavirus continues to decrease.