Image source, PA Media

Former Conservative Party leader William Hague is the latest senior Tory to call for the two-metre distancing rule to be scrapped, saying lockdown is an "economic catastrophe".

Writing in the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper, Lord Hague said lockdown was increasing inequality, social tension and debt - and was so "destructive" that it could "only ever be allowed to happen once".

"We can now see that it is not necessary to have a two-metre separation between people to keep the virus in retreat where it is already at a low level," he writes.

"We know this from the experience of countries such as Denmark, France and Germany where the recommended distance is shorter, and we should not have to spend weeks agonising over it."

So far England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all maintained the two-metre rule but the UK government has said a review into the rule will be completed "in the coming weeks".

Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris

Image source, EPA

Doctors, nurses and carers are staging a rally outside the health ministry in Paris, and dozens of other demonstrations are planned across the country.

Unions say they’ve been delighted by the expressions of public support through the Covid-19 crisis but now they want action: specifically pay rises, a recruitment drive and more beds in hospitals.

The government of President Emmanuel Macron is actually three weeks into a major consultation on the health service, and they’ve also announced bonuses for hospital and care home staff who worked through the crisis.

But unions say Covid-19 exposed the weaknesses of the French system, and want a major boost in investment.

The number of excess deaths in the UK since the coronavirus outbreak began has reached 64,402.

This morning's figures from the Office for National Statistics show 58,693 excess deaths in England and Wales between March 21 and June 5.

It follows the release of figures from Scotland and Northern Ireland last week. All these figures are based on death registrations.

• In graphs: Coronavirus in the UK
• Your tributes to those who have died

The weekly death registrations in the UK have fallen closer to the five-year average after spiking in spring.

Emmanuel Igunza
BBC News, Nairobi

Image source, Getty Images

The Kenyan authorities are investigating the disappearance of medical equipment donated to help stop the spread of Covid- 19.

The Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from the Chinese government included surgical masks, protective suits, isolation gowns and thermometers worth $2m (£1.6m).

An investigation by local TV station KTN News revealed how a private company working with government officials and Chinese businessmen in Kenya laid claim to the donation when it arrived in the country.

During the bizarre incident, the company went on to donate part of the stolen supplies to other Kenyan government ministries.

Kenya has received millions of dollars from countries and organisations around the world to help in the fight against coronavirus.

Some of the donors include Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and various European nations.

But the government has faced serious questions from Kenyans on how the donations have been used as health workers in the country complain of insufficient protective gear, testing kits and reagents.

Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe has admitted that there are “rogue elements” at the ministry's headquarters and vowed to bring to justice all the perpetrators.

But Kenyans have reacted angrily online, saying the ministry is no stranger to corruption allegations. It’s previously been involved in allegations of misuse of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money.

Image source, Callum O'Dwyer

Twelve weeks after his first Covid-19 symptoms, 28-year-old Callum O'Dwyer is still not better.

A fit and healthy young man, he had no underlying health conditions before he caught the virus.

But after five weeks of fighting the main symptoms, he could no longer look after himself and had to move in with his parents.

Recovery has taken much longer than he imagined and his ongoing symptoms mean he still can't live on his own or work.

Read Callum's full story here.

Flat racing's biggest meeting, Royal Ascot, starts today behind closed doors with jockeys wearing face masks.

The Queen will be missing the event for the first time in her 68-year reign but is expected to follow from her Windsor Castle home down the road.

There will be no Royal procession or much of the glitz and glamour so associated with one of Britain's most famous sporting occasions but there will be elite sport and plenty of it.

An expanded programme sees six additional races for a total of 36 contests over five days.

Image source, Getty Images

We reported earlier that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had withdrawn the use of anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus.

The FDA, which had authorised the drug for emergency use in March, says clinical trials have shown it is no longer reasonable to believe it will produce an antiviral effect.

Since early on in the outbreak, there's been widespread interest in hydroxychloroquine as both a preventative measure and for treating patients with coronavirus.

Read more about the controversy surrounding the drug here.

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

The number of people dying in England and Wales is still above normal – despite the falling number of fatalities linked to coronavirus.

The review of death certificates by the Office for National Statistics showed there were 10,700 deaths in the week ending 5 June – 7% above the five-year average for this time of year.

The figure represented a small rise on the week before, although this was put down to the previous week being artificially lower because it contained a bank holiday, which slows the recording of deaths.

Nearly 1,600 of the deaths were linked to the virus – the lowest since March.

Joshua Cheetham
BBC News

Image source, AFP

When coronavirus reached the Native American reservation on which she lived, Valentina warned her family to stay indoors and take precautions.

Weeks later her boyfriend Bobby fell ill and she tended to him at their home in Kayenta, a small town near the sandstone buttes of Arizona's Monument Valley.

Before long, she tested positive herself.

The next day, when Valentina's breathing got worse, Bobby rushed her to a health clinic. She died hours later, aged 28.

"She overcame a lot of things in her life," said her sister, Vanielle. "I thought she was strong enough to pull through."

Valentina was one of the youngest victims of coronavirus in the Navajo Nation, a Native American reservation grappling with what is America's worst outbreak.

Read the full story here.

Stephen McDonell
BBC News, China correspondent

Image source, Reuters

The new coronavirus outbreak in Beijing which we reported about earlier has been described as "extremely severe" by a Chinese official.

"Beijing will take the most resolute, decisive and strict measures to contain the outbreak," a spokesman for the Chinese capital's government said at a press conference.

Residents living in the district around the massive Xinfadi wholesale market, which has been linked to the new outbreak, have been told they can’t leave Beijing.

All taxis are also now banned from driving beyond the city limits.

In addition, tens of thousands of people who’ve been inside the market where the new infections appeared – as well as several other smaller markets – have been told to report to the authorities and then remain at home in quarantine.

Beijing is conducting mass testing for anyone who has had contact with these food distribution centres.

Even though the overall number of infections so far remains relatively low, officials are trying to control the virus outbreak so as to avoid having to shut down this city of 20 million people.

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

The Nigerian government says it is developing a three-year action plan for its response to the pandemic.

It also said it is not yet safe to reopen schools and other places where large gatherings could take place.

Health Minister Osagie Ehanire told journalists that the pandemic "will be with us for a long time and we shall keep learning as we go along".

He said the response plan covers the short, middle and long term effect of the pandemic.

Tracing, testing and case management will also be driven by data and evidence.

The minister decried what he described as an escalation in the level of non-compliance with social distancing and wearing of face masks especially in markets and motor parks.

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic in April, the BBC reported on the devastating effect the crisis was having on organ transplants in the UK.

A shortage of donors and space in intensive care units meant the transplant programme was struggling to continue. Only the most urgent cases were going ahead and even they were under threat.

In April, the BBC spoke to Ana-Rose Thorpe who desperately needed a liver transplant. As a baby she had been infected with two strains of hepatitis which attacked her liver function. A few weeks after the report, Ana fell seriously ill but then received some good news and a life-changing operation.

The BBC's health correspondent, Dominic Hughes, has been catching up with Ana-Rose’s story.

Jonah Fisher
BBC News, Kyiv

Image source, Getty Images

The wife of Ukraine's president has been admitted to hospital with coronavirus.

It was announced last week that Olena Zelensky, 42, had tested positive for Covid-19 but that her husband Volodymyr and two children had not.

It was confirmed this morning that Mrs Zelensky had been moved to a hospital where she is said to be in a stable condition and not requiring supplementary oxygen.

"The president's wife is in isolation [and] doctors are observing her," the presidential office said in a statement.

The number of new Covid-19 cases in Ukraine has been rising for the past week after most quarantine restrictions were eased.

Faisal Islam
BBC Economics Editor

This morning's quarterly employment and unemployment numbers have stayed surprisingly stable, as all the furloughed workers count as having jobs.

However, if you look under the hood of the statistics, the economic stress is pretty clear.

The claimant count, which measures the number of people claiming work-related benefits, is a wider measure of economic stress. It is at a 27-year high of 2.8m, up 126% or 1.6m in two months.

Self-employment - even on the headline number - has seen a record fall, especially for men. That's down 131,000 in the quarter. You can also see it in the number of hours worked, down a record 9%.

The government's job retention scheme has prevented an extraordinarily cataclysmic rise in unemployment but the real test of the furlough scheme is what happens now.

The point of it was to maintain the contractual relationship between employer and employee through this severe but temporary crisis. The test of it will be whether those jobs reappear as the taxpayer wage support is eased away.

It requires the government to inject as much confidence as possible into the minds of employers facing uncertainty and declining bank balances.

Little wonder ministers have been trying to gee up the public to get shopping again but further rescue packages and employment supports will be required too.

On Monday, shops across England selling non-essential goods reopened for the first time since the lockdown began.

We spoke to shoppers in Milton Keynes to see what items they were desperate to buy after being stuck at home for several weeks.

Some were picking up goods they had been waiting months to buy, such as baby clothes and home furnishings. Others were there for the sales.

Read more here.

As we've been reporting, the number of workers on UK payrolls dived more than 600,000 between March and May, official figures out this morning suggest.

Lots of small businesses in the UK have been hit hard by coronavirus, especially in the hospitality sector.

Peter and Elaine Kinsella own a small chain of restaurants in the north west of England and describe the heartache of closing one of their branches, with the loss of more than 30 jobs.

Rajini Vaidyanathan
BBC News

Image source, Reuters

As hospitals in Bangladesh turn patients away, and frontline workers bear the brunt of rising case numbers, there are fears the densely populated South Asian country could become a new global hotspot.

Bangladesh has one of the lowest ratios of hospital beds to patients in the world. There has been a shortage of intensive care unit beds during the coronavirus outbreak - figures vary but it is estimated that there are just over 1,000 beds for a population of more than 160 million.

And with limited beds, stories of patients being turned away from hospitals continue to emerge. Dr Moyeen Uddin tested positive for the virus at the end of March but was unable to get on to a ventilator at the very hospital he worked at, in his home city of Syhlet.

"At that time there were no ventilators dedicated to Covid patients," said Salahuddin Ahmed, another doctor who had been his friend for decades.

Dr Uddin was transferred to a hospital in Dhaka, more than 200km (124 miles) away, but he later died, leaving behind a wife and two young children.

Read more

Anisa Kadri
BBC Asian Network

Marium Ahmad has spent time during lockdown looking at TikTok, reading up on her latest "obsession" - star signs - and making packages for elderly care-home residents with her mum.

The 12-year-old, who has autism and chronic fatigue, describes herself as "more of an introvert" who likes staying in. When lockdown ends, she says "it will be a lot to take in" for her.

There are 700,000 autistic people in the UK, the National Autistic Society says.

A spokesperson said: "If you're autistic, small changes and unexpected events can trigger intense anxiety. So the scale and pace of change over the past three months have been incredibly hard.

"Now we've started easing the lockdown and adjusting to the new rules, different anxieties will be creeping in."

Read the full story here.

Image source, AFP

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps defends the government's plan to stop its voucher scheme for children who qualify for free school meals in England over the summer.

Responding to a letter by footballer Marcus Rashford, who urged the government to reconsider its plans as he spoke about experiencing poverty as a child, Shapps says free school meals are not usually available over summer.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Shapps says the government has been "wrapping its arms around the community" via the furlough scheme and payments to local bodies.

Shadow education secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey says "it's only right" the government extends the scheme, so that children don't go hungry and can spend the summer "building up their academic base".

Read more on the story here.

As we reported earlier, the number of global cases of Covid-19 infection has now reached 8m, and there have been more than 436,000 deaths, according to figures collated by Johns Hopkins University.

The US still predominates, according to the figures, with more than 2.1m cases and more than 116,000 deaths.

But the epicentre of the outbreak now seems to have shifted to Latin America. Brazil has reported nearly 890,000 confirmed cases, while other countries in the region, including Mexico, Chile and Peru, are struggling to contain major outbreaks.

Read more