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England and Scotland's contact tracing systems will be launched on Thursday, in a move which could limit future outbreaks of coronavirus.

A team of 25,000 contact tracers in England will track down people who have been near someone infected with coronavirus, and ask them to self-isolate for 14 days from the time of contact with the infected person.

Northern Ireland's version has already started, while Wales is due to begin its own in early June.

Contact tracing has been used around the world, including in Hong Kong, Singapore and Germany.

The BBC's Eleanor Lawrie has been looking into the method.

Jessica Parker
BBC political correspondent

The UK government is launching what it sees as a pivotal part of this country slowly emerging from the current lockdown: its test and trace programme.

It’s a change that’s going to require people in England to absorb and act on new rules around self-isolation.

Matt Hancock said that sticking by those rules will be voluntary for now, but added it could become mandatory.

The Health Secretary appealed to people’s “civic duty” and said that he trusted the public “to do the right thing”.

But the actions of Dominic Cummings – and the debate about whether he did the right thing – could hang over this command.

There have been numerous warnings, including from some Tory MPs, that trust is something of a two-way street. However, it may only be clear once this new way of combating the virus actually starts to bed in, whether public trust has been really eroded and to what extent.

Welcome. A lot has happened today, so here are some of the main developments from around the world so far:

• UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been grilled again about his top adviser Dominic Cummings, who is accused of breaking lockdown rules. Johnson today ruled out an inquiry, insisting it was time to "move on" from the row
• The prime minister also announced a massive test and trace system, which aims to find people who come into close contact with those infected with coronavirus
• A recovery fund worth €750bn (£670bn; $825bn) has been proposed by the EU's executive Commission to help the bloc tackle an "unprecedented crisis"
• The World Health Organization (WHO) has set up a foundation that will allow it to target new sources of funding - including the general public
• A UN agency has warned that younger workers are being disproportionately hit by a global surge in unemployment caused by the pandemic. Covid-19, it says, could impact on the career opportunities of a "lockdown generation" for decades to come

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

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The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on Donald Trump’s re-election plans. His promise to maintain record-breaking economic expansion and “keep America great” has been swept away by record unemployment and the financial toll that the nationwide business-closure and shelter-in-place orders have taken.

During the outbreak, the president has leaned heavily on a favourite method of communication, Twitter, to bypass the filters of mainstream media.

However, some of the president’s sharpest attacks have been reserved for Twitter itself, which on Tuesday added a “fact check” label to his tweets - a first. Just a few hours after Twitter’s move, the president began threatening “big action” against the company (although it is unclear what authority the president has to do so).

Donald Trump has touted his “unpredictablity” and willingness to counter-punch when threatened as two of his biggest strengths, but Twitter has taken steps that could blunt one of his most effective weapons.

Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst

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One hundred mini-parks are going to be opened by the end of the year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicentre of the Covid-19 coronavirus.

The swift move appears to be aimed at encouraging locals to spend more time in green, outdoor spaces, rather than in condensed, urban areas.

According to the official People’s Daily newspaper, normally about 40 “mini-parks” are built in the city every year. If this new goal is realised, most citizens will have a park within a five-minute walk of home.

The local government has been seeking to reassure people that a second wave of Covid-19 is unlikely in the city in recent days. Wuhan has just concluded a drive to test all of its 11 million citizens in order to identify any asymptomatic carriers of the virus.

The People’s Daily says the parks will be between 300 and 5,000 square metres (3229 - 53819 sq ft), and will serve additional purposes in special circumstances, such as being a place “to put up shelters when major natural disasters occur”.

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

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The UK has been forced to close its embassy in North Korea because of coronavirus travel restrictions imposed by Pyongyang, the Foreign Office says.

The lockdown in the country has made it "impossible" to rotate the small number of staff and sustain work at the diplomatic compound in the capital, it adds.

"The UK has temporarily closed its embassy in Pyongyang and our staff have departed the country," the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office said.

It added that diplomatic relations with North Korea were being maintained, and attempts to "re-establish our presence in Pyongyang" were ongoing.

Local reports have suggested that Pyongyang placed all foreign diplomats under effective house arrest, meaning that they were unable to leave their compounds.

Four Premier League footballers or coaches have tested positive for coronavirus in the latest round of testing.

The unnamed quartet - who work for three different clubs - will now self-isolate for seven days.

Eight people tested positive in the Premier League's first two rounds of testing - making it a total of 12 from 2,752 tests.

Premier League clubs today unanimously voted to resume contact training.

England's top flight is hoping to return in June, with no set date yet.

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Sarah Rainsford
BBC Moscow Correspondent

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The coronavirus situation in Moscow has improved and restrictions will soon be eased, the city's mayor has said.

Sergei Sobyanin said the lockdown measures in the Russian capital would be partially relaxed from 1 June, with full details provided in the coming days.

Non-essential shops will reopen, as will providers of basic services such as dry cleaning.

"We can now talk about the next steps out of this crisis," the mayor told President Vladimir Putin during a televised video conference.

Moscow residents have been instructed to stay at home since 30 March, but the city's mayor said walks would soon be permitted with some restrictions.

It’s been a busy afternoon, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson appearing before senior MPs and Health Secretary Matt Hancock giving the daily UK briefing.

Here’s what we’ve learned:

• A system to track down people with coronavirus symptoms will start tomorrow in England
• The health secretary said anyone displaying symptoms, including under-fives, will now be eligible for testing
• Boris Johnson ruled out an inquiry into the conduct of Dominic Cummings, insisting it was time to "move on" from the row over his top adviser's lockdown trip to County Durham
• He also conceded the UK had failed to "learn the lessons" of the Sars and Mers outbreaks, and did not have a virus testing operation "ready to go on the scale that we needed"
• He added that he hoped the two-metre social distancing rule could be reduced, and has asked scientists to review it
• The PM also said the government was aiming to turn around tests in 24 hours - but would not set a timeline for when that will happen.

Image source, Getty Images

The World Health Organization (WHO) has set up a foundation that will allow it to target new sources of funding, including the general public.

The WHO Foundation, which will be based in Geneva but independent from the main body, will initially use any contributions to address the pandemic response. It will later look to tackle other global health emergencies.

"An important part of WHO's future success is broadening its donor base and increasing both the quantity and quality of funds at its disposal," said the head of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The WHO itself is funded by a combination of members' fees based on wealth and population, and voluntary contributions.

News of the foundation comes just days after President Donald Trump threatened to end all US funding for the WHO, criticising the group's response to the outbreak.

Trump, who has been under fire for his own handling of the pandemic, temporarily halted funding to the WHO last month.

Jessica Parker
BBC political correspondent

Testy at moments? Yes.

Did Boris Johnson appear irked at the repeated questions about his chief aide? Sure.

Did he budge on that issue? No.

Instead, there was an almighty heave to try and move the agenda on when he appeared before the Liaison Committee of senior MPs earlier.

We’ll have to wait for the next few days to see whether Downing Street has actually weathered the Dominic Cummings storm.

Notably, a couple more Tories emerged during the hearing to say they too thought Cummings should go.

More broadly, there were detailed questions across a range of Covid-related topics.

This is a committee of fairly seasoned politicians – some of whom aren’t remotely shy of trying to give the PM a good public grilling.

And there were some sticky moments where Johnson did appear to wobble - whether it was on the proportion of women helping make high-level decisions in government, or his grasp of the fact that some migrants can’t access certain benefits.

You might be able to see why prime ministers don’t always rush to appear before this particular panel of senior MPs.

Reality Check

During his appearance at the Liaison Committee earlier, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "I don't think there is any country that has done anything like the furlough scheme."

He also said, "the furlough scheme is more generous than any other scheme around the world."

The UK scheme currently pays 80% of a furloughed worker's salary and will run until October.

However, in the Netherlands, workers are entitled to as much as 90% of their previous earnings for three months. Meanwhile, in Italy, workers are eligible for 80% of their pay, the same as in the UK.

In Germany, workers with children can currently receive 67% of their salary from the government and are paid as much as €6,700 (£6,000) per month.

In France, furloughed workers are entitled to 70% of their salary, while minimum wage workers receive 100%.

Many countries in Europe have programmes similar to the UK's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

While most of them pay a smaller portion of the worker's salary, many of them are able to pay out more than the UK's maximum of £2,500 a month.

The health secretary is pressed on who gets to decide on the grey areas of whether something is in keeping with the law.

He responds that in areas where regulations have been made mandatory, there is a normal police process and the court system is there to make decisions.

But he insists NHS test and trace will not be a mandatory system. He says it is a civic duty and personal responsibility for people to follow the rules of test and trace.

There's a question about the communities secretary talking this morning about the law allowing people to use their good judgement when interpreting the guidance.

Matt Hancock says the test and trace scheme will be voluntary in the first instance.

"We think there is very strong instinct from the British people to follow the rules," he says.

We could mandate that, but we're not going to at the start, he adds.

Baroness Harding again stresses they want people to feel safe to tell the NHS as soon as they have symptoms.

Matt Hancock is asked what more the government can do to reassure parents ahead of the return of some schoolchildren in England next week.

In response, he says ministers "wouldn't have made this decision unless it was safe".

He says the Department of Education has put measures in place to ensure schools that reopen are safe.

Dido Harding says the new test and trace programme will also provide an "early warning system" for schools.

James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent, BBC News

England's Health Secretary Matt Hancock says test and trace “must become a new way of life”.

A phone call could confine you to your home for a fortnight and you will not be told who infected you.

That will be the price of shifting from lockdown-for-all to isolation for some.

But it is important to be realistic about what test and trace can achieve - it cannot restore life to normal.

Analysis by the Royal Society shows in the best case scenario, only 15% of infections will be prevented by test and trace.

That is an important number, but is still far less than the impact of other measures, such as social distancing or isolating whenever symptoms start.

Professor Jonathan Van Tam says how the virus will be controlled depends on how well people cooperate with test and trace.

"Put simply," he says, "the more we do so, the greater room for manoeuvre the government will have in making life as normal as possible while still keeping this virus under control."

There's a question about why the roll-out of the NHS symptom-tracker app has been delayed.

Matt Hancock says the app is a "complement" to the tracing system, which can be successful without it.

He says the tracing app "starts better" once the self-isolation guidance and information is in place.

"It's not because of any technical glitches," he adds.

The BBC's Sophie Hutchinson asks the health secretary if he is sure there is sufficient capacity to test all the contacts of those infected.

Matt Hancock says as many people as possible who think they've had coronavirus must come forward and be tested so they can find those contacts and the system can be used to trace and hunt down the virus.

Baroness Harding says they expect to scale up the service as lockdown measures are relaxed.

She insists there is large capacity today and that will only increase as the app is rolled out.