Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norward Helen Hayes asks Gavin Williamson how the catch-up tutoring will take place when many pupils have been unable to work during lockdown because they do not have computers.

She said the number of laptops issued by the government "barely scratches the surface".

Williamson said the laptop programme had been "incredibly ambitious" and 202,000 had been sent out.

But the catch-up tutoring would take place in schools with the support of teachers, he said.

More now on Gavin Williamson's speech in the House of Commons. The education secretary also said a small number of testing kits would be provided to schools to catch outbreaks.

"These will be taken home by children or staff who develop symptoms while on site but who would struggle to access a testing centre. This is so that they can have a test quickly and that they can get results back quickly," he said.

Public Health England teams will advise schools on how to respond to positive tests, he said.

The new shadow education secretary Kate Green says while some children have been able to maintain their learning during the pandemic, there has been a "huge gap" in learning for others, especially the most disadvantaged.

She adds that a senior official in Williamson's own department said the attainment gap could widen by as much as 75% as a result of the crisis.

Thursday's announcement, she says, "finally recognises the desperate pleas" of headteachers, staff and governors for "information and certainty" for plans for the next academic year.

"For too long the government has been asleep at the wheel. The announcement today comes just three weeks before the end of term and an immense amount needs to be done to prepare."

Williamson says that limits on group sizes in nurseries, childminders and other childcare providers will be removed from 20 July.

He also says that mandatory attendances at school will be reintroduced.

"It's critical to ensure that no child loses more time in education and that from September all children who can be in school are at school," he says.

Referring to the £1bn previously announced for catch-up tutoring, Williamson said the evidence showed that six to 12 weeks of tutoring could be equivalent to five months of schooling.

Williamson says the government expects schools to move back to a broad and balanced curriculum.

He adds exams are expected to go ahead in the summer of 2021.

"In these challenging times we are committed to the nation's children’s to have not only a safe education, but an excellent one," he says.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has begun outlining the plans for England's schools to fully reopen in September.

He says that what schools have achieved during lockdown is "remarkable" but students experienced "unprecedented disruption".

Stay with us as we bring you more of his speech.

In Northern Ireland, Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill has been urged to step aside while police probe if there were social distancing breaches at a funeral on Tuesday.

Calling on Sinn Fein to respond, DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he did not want Stormont to collapse, but that O'Neill should "step aside" while police investigate.

Current coronavirus regulations in Northern Ireland state a maximum of 30 people , externalare allowed to gather together outdoors.

There has been widespread criticism of O'Neill and her party colleagues, including leader Mary Lou McDonald and former leader Gerry Adams, who attended the funeral of Bobby Storey, who was considered the head of intelligence of the IRA for a period from the mid-1990s.

O'Neill said her actions were in line with social distancing, with a source close to her saying she "will not be standing aside temporarily, or standing down".

As we reported earlier, the US had a new record high of daily infections on Wednesday - more than 52,000.

A number of southern and western states are seeing a spike in cases, and some have reversed or paused reopening plans.

The US now has nearly 2.7 million confirmed Covid-19 infections and more than 128,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the pandemic.

The graphic below shows how cases are on the rise across the country. We have been tracking the pandemic here.

We are expecting to hear from UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson in the House of Commons shortly, as the government outlines how it plans to get all pupils back to school safely in England in September.

Earlier, Williamson said in a statement that "we are doing everything we can to make sure schools, nurseries, colleges and other providers are as safe as possible for children and staff".

But a headteachers' union has described the logistics of the plan to keep children apart in separate year-group "bubbles" as "mind-boggling".

Image source, AFP

Teachers will be asked to keep their distance from each other and older students when schools in England fully return in September, government guidance published earlier says.

Since the reopening plan relies on year groups being kept apart in "bubbles" to reduce social contacts, teachers who work with multiple year groups are advised to try to maintain social distancing "as much as they can".

Schools will have testing kits to give to parents if children show symptoms.

If there are two confirmed coronavirus cases in 14 days, all the pupils in that group could have to be sent home. But closing a whole school "will not generally be necessary", the guidance says, and should only be considered on advice from health officials.

The guidance also recommends separate times for starting, finishing lunch and breaks, regular hand-washing, an end to group events like school assemblies, separate groups on school buses and discouraging the use of public transport.

You can read the guidance in full here., external

Image source, EPA

Both Arizona and California have seen rising numbers of infections and they - along with other states and local authorities - have included bars among the locations they will close in a bid to deal with new outbreaks.

Now scientists have backed up the logic behind this.

"Can you do social distancing at a bar? Can you wear a mask while drinking?" Dr David Hamer of the Boston University School of Medicine told the Associated Press news agency. "Bars are the perfect place to break all those rules."

According to a study into the spread of coronavirus clusters in Japan, external earlier this year, "many Covid-19 clusters were associated with heavy breathing in close proximity, such as singing at karaoke parties, cheering at clubs, having conversations in bars, and exercising in gymnasiums".

The potential of bars to help the virus spread may also be explained by the fact that alcohol lowers inhibitions, according to AP.

In addition, younger people who become infected there are more likely to experience mild or no symptoms and therefore spread the virus through the community.

Tom Burridge
Transport correspondent

So the government is about to announce something which aviation bosses, many MPs and some scientists have advocated from the beginning: a targeted quarantine which only impacts people arriving into the UK from high-risk "red" countries.

It is the opposite of the government’s blanket-style approach which has been in place for less than four weeks. You could call it a U-turn.

For days, if not weeks, the government has indicated that it wanted a relatively small number of bilateral "travel corridors" with European nations where the virus is under control.

It appears that approach of a selected number of exemptions hit a number of hurdles. Some countries, like Greece, were not willing to reciprocate in the short-term. And there was nothing to stop people travelling into the UK from a higher risk country, via a lower risk one to avoid the quarantine.

The optics concerning Portugal are illuminating. First it seemed to be top of the list of exemptions. Then, last week, sources indicated it was off the list. The situation regarding Portugal now is unclear.

The process was further complicated by both the Welsh and Scottish governments saying they might follow a separate approach.

Travel companies will be pleased about a much longer list of exemptions but they have been pulling their hair out over the confusion, and the delay in making a final announcement, which is now expected by the end of this week.

And critics will question why the government did not go for a more nuanced approach in the first place.

Image source, Reuters

As the NHS marks its 72nd anniversary on Sunday, the UK is resuming its doorstep applause for medics and other key workers - with professional sports across England joining in the tributes.

Team GB's Olympians, the Football Association, the England and Wales Cricket Board and Rugby Football Union are among the organisations taking part in the "Thank You Together" moment at 17:00 BST (16:00 GMT).

Premier League and English Football League matches this weekend will be preceded by a moment of applause, Wembley Stadium's screens will display a #ThankYouTogether mosaic and England's rugby team will record a personal thank you message.

As we told you earlier, the UK government is expected to publish plans for all students to return to school in September in England. But the chair of a parliamentary education committee said the missed months of education are "nothing short of a national disaster".

Conservative MP Robert Halfon told BBC Breakfast that with two million students not doing any work at home and four million having very little contact with teachers during lockdown, the country could have a "lost generation".

He said that some risk would remain in September and some schools may have to temporarily close during local virus outbreaks.

But Halfon said it was essential for schools to reopen fully to prevent an "epidemic of educational poverty".

If you are just joining us, here's a reminder of the top stories from around the world:

• As the US announced a new record high of 52,000 daily infections, President Donald Trump appears to have reversed his stance on wearing masks. A number of states have also announced the reintroduction of lockdown measures in response to the rise in cases
• There have been sharp rises in Latin America too. In Brazil, which is only behind the US in numbers of cases and fatalities, the death toll has now passed 60,000
• South Africa has reported a new daily record of cases, with more than 8,100 announced on Thursday. The country has the highest number of infections on the continent
• The UN Security Council has issued its first resolution since the pandemic began calling for a three-month ceasefire in all conflicts to help deal with the spread of coronavirus
• The World Health Organization has warned that countries in the Middle East have reached a "critical threshold" in the fight against coronavirus, noting that conflict zones including Syria and Yemen are ill-equipped to track or contain and outbreak
• New Zealand's health minister has stepped down. He had previously been forced to apologise after breaking lockdown measures

Image source, Getty Images

Liam Gallagher, Dua Lipa and Sir Paul McCartney are among 1,500 artists who have signed an open letter calling for support for the UK's live music scene.

Ed Sheeran, the Rolling Stones and Coldplay also signed the letter to the culture secretary warning of the impact of Covid-19 on venues and musicians.

It says the music industry faces "mass insolvencies", with gigs and festivals unlikely to return until 2021.

The organisers said there had already been "hundreds of redundancies".

Job losses have been reported across venues, agencies and promoters, they said.

Image source, EPA

The closure of borders has been devastating for the travel industry, so airlines are very keen to get their planes moving again.

As lockdowns ease, a lot of countries are in talks about creating travel bubbles between safe areas.

Subhas Menon, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, told the BBC's Asia Business Report that governments in the region were being overly cautious about opening up air bridges.

"They have started routes for essential travel but they're very restrictive. There is no confidence among the travelling public that they can travel conveniently and safely."

He said authorities needed to communicate better with the public about the mitigation measures in airports and on planes, and lift restrictions and quarantine requirements "so people will finally get onto aeroplanes".

It may of course be some time yet before governments feel it is safe to take those steps.

Sean Coughlan
BBC News, education correspondent

The full-time return to school in September for all pupils in England will be based on keeping year groups apart in separate "bubbles".

The Department for Education is expected to confirm safety plans later based on reducing contact, rather than social distancing.

The bubble system also means that if there are infections - either in a class or a year group - that all the children in that group could have to be sent home.

Attendance will be compulsory, with the threat of penalty fines for parents.

The safety plans will be an expansion of the "protective bubble" system already used in schools - in which classes or year groups are kept apart, with separate starting, finishing, lunch and break times.

Image source, Getty Images

The top US expert in infectious diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci, has expressed his concern over the rise in coronavirus cases in the country, warning of the risk of a greater outbreak if the latest surge is not controlled.

"We got hit very badly, worse than any country, with regard to the number of cases and the number of deaths. The problem we're facing now is that in an attempt to so-called reopen or open the government and get it back to some form of normality, we're seeing very disturbing spikes in different individual states in the US," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"We've got to get that under control or we risk an even greater outbreak in the United States."

Comparing the situation in the US to how some European countries controlled the spread of the virus, Dr Fauci said: "They closed down to the tune of about 97%. In the US, even in the most strict lockdown, only about 50% of the country locked down. That allowed the perpetuation of the outbreak."

"We need to engender some societal responsibility in people, particularly the younger people," he explained, noting that young people were less likely to be seriously affected by Covid-19 but could still spread the disease.

Image source, Reuters

On Wednesday it emerged that the US was buying nearly all the next three months' projected production of Covid-19 drug remdesivir from US manufacturer Gilead.

But a handful of generic drug makers in India, Pakistan and Egypt are also licensed to make the drug.

Tests suggest remdesivir cuts recovery times, though it is not yet clear if it improves survival rates.

Hetero Labs in the Indian city of Hyderabad told BBC Telugu's Deepthi Bathini that it was already manufacturing the drug. It said it had sent around 30,000 vials of the drug to hospitals across the country and planned to scale up production to 100,000 vials in the next two weeks.

In Pakistan, health authorities are hopeful that the drug will hit the local market soon. Officials told BBC Urdu's Umer Nangiana that remdesivir produced by Ferozsons Laboratories will be available from 15 July.

Gilead has reached agreements with these generic drug firms, external, allowing them to produce it for 127 low-income and lower-middle income countries, according to CNN.