Four Swiss Guards - the papal protection force - have coronavirus symptoms and been placed in isolation, the Holy See's press office has announced.

There have been three other cases in recent weeks, said the director of the office Matteo Bruni. The Holy See has had 12 confirmed cases and no deaths, according to a world-wide tally kept by the Johns Hopkins University in the US.

The 110 member Swiss Guard are responsible for the personal security of the Pope. They have served the papacy for five centuries, first coming to Rome to protect Pope Julius II in 1506. Members of the Guard must be Swiss, Catholic, single and under the age of 30. They are also required to complete basic training with the Swiss army.

Image source, EPA

Earlier, Jonathan Van-Tam - England's deputy chief medical officer - was asked whether there was scientific evidence that closing bars, pubs and gyms would slow the virus.

He said closed spaces, crowded spaces and close contact all lead to increased virus transmission.

And he also said the level of noise has an impact, saying scientists "have increasingly strong evidence" that shouting and singing makes the "expulsion of virus-laden particles go further".

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

There are now more people in hospital with Covid-19 than there were when the UK went into lockdown in March.

That is alarming. But the NHS is also in a much better position to cope.

There are better treatments available and more knowledge of how best to care for patients who fall seriously ill.

The upwards trajectory in hospital admissions is also nowhere near what it was. Admissions are doubling every fortnight currently, compared to every five days or so during the UK's first wave.

There is also free capacity. Overall, about 3% of all hospital beds are occupied by Covid patients, while in the summer there were 30,000 beds free – three times what there normally is (unfortunately we don’t have a more recent figure because NHS England won’t publish one).

But the national picture does mask the real pressure being felt in particular areas.

There is most concern about hospitals in north-west England which are caring for more than a third of patients, with senior doctors warning it is starting to affect the ability of the NHS to care for other patients.

On current trajectories, North West hospitals could hit the numbers seen during the first wave in about three weeks, which is why the Nightingale hospitals in those regions are being stood up.

Some more detail now on what rules there might be for parts of the UK expecting to be put into the third - and most serious - tier of coronavirus restrictions later on today.

Our political correspondent says Merseyside MPs on a phone call with Health Secretary Matt Hancock have been told bars, pubs, gyms and betting shops will have to close, while restaurants will stay open for now.

Liverpool recorded 600 cases per 100,000 people in the week ending 6 October. The average for England was 74.

We're also following the update from Wales, where Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething is giving a briefing.

He says he and Wales' first minister joined the Cobra meeting that was chaired by the UK PM Boris Johnson this morning.

All four nations of the UK are in charge of making their own coronavirus lockdown rules and have different restrictions in place.

Asked whether the Welsh government could decide to ban travellers coming in from England, Mr Gething says he and the Welsh first minister are "deeply disappointed" that the PM Boris Johnson is "still taking the approach where there is only going to be guidance on whether people should or shouldn't travel in and out of highly infected areas".

Mr Gething adds: "There is clear evidence the virus is waking up for the winter."

He says coronavirus is moving quickly through the UK and through Wales.

"I do not want to scare people but I do want people to understand we potentially face a very difficult few months ahead of us," he says.

One person in every 500 has coronavirus in Wales, he adds.

He says the Welsh government is considering all options - including potentially national measures.

Reality Check

Image source, Getty Images

India has the second-largest number of coronavirus cases in the world with over seven million cases and could soon overtake the US with the most infections.

But while there are some signs of the pandemic slowing in India, could some of its neighbours be witnessing a second spike in cases?

Pakistan is witnessing a rise in daily cases in its Punjab province, but overall cases are still below the 1,000 a day mark.

Bangladesh saw its daily cases peak around mid-June before they dropped in the last week of July and beginning of August. Daily cases hover between 1,000 and 1,500.

Sri Lanka is witnessing a spike in cases after a cluster was found this month in a garment factory. It has had spikes in cases since April, but has had relatively low numbers overall.

Read more on Covid-19 in South Asia here.

The government has confirmed that GCSE, AS and A-level exams will go ahead in England next summer.

Most of them will take place three weeks later than usual. One paper in GCSE English and one in GCSE maths will still be sat in the week before half term, as well as some AS and A-levels which typically have low numbers of students.

It means students will "now have more time to prepare for their exams", the government said.

The summer exam series will begin on 7 June and end on 2 July for nearly all GCSEs, AS and A-levels.

Rather than results arriving on consecutive Thursdays as they usually do, results days for the exams will be in the same week - so Tuesday 24 August for AS and A-levels and Friday 27 August for GCSEs.

It comes after widespread criticism over the government's handling of exams this year.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: “Students have experienced considerable disruption and it’s right we give them, and their teachers, the certainty that exams will go ahead and more time to prepare."

Image source, Reuters

The drugs Donald Trump is touting as a cure for coronavirus need more testing, scientists say.

Speaking to CBS, David Ho, a physician and researcher who created the cocktail of drugs that made HIV/AIDS survivable, said it was too soon to claim it as a cure.

"Well, these are ongoing studies. They, I think, are going to enroll thousands of these patients. They have only entered the clinic in June, July. So we need to give it more time," he said.

Labatories, including Ho's, are searching thousands of natural antibodies from patients to find combinations against Covid-19.

Dr Leonard Schleifer, the CEO of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which developed the antibody cocktail which was given to Trump, has said that a $450m contract the firm won from the US federal government over the summer will ensure around 300,000 doses of the treatment.

But he said there are not enough doses are available yet and it would need to be rationed.

"Coming up with a distribution system where we take what's limited, and we try and give it to the people who most need it, who would most benefit from it - the vulnerable people, elderly people, people who are at high risk, household contacts perhaps," he said.

"We have to figure out ways to ration this."

Most A-level and GCSE exams in England will be delayed by three weeks next year due to the pandemic, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has confirmed.

The exams will go ahead but they will be delayed, he said.

Martin Patience
BBC Middle East correspondent, Beirut

Image source, EPA

Like many countries, Lebanon is currently witnessing a surge in the number of recorded coronavirus cases.

The big fear is that the country’s battered health system will simply be overwhelmed as it grapples with the effects of an economic meltdown and the destruction of the Beirut blast in August.

With relatively limited resources to fight the virus - there are, for example, just 206 beds in the country’s intensive care units set aside for coronavirus patients - the authorities are using tough lockdowns to try to curb its spread.

The caretaker government has ordered more than a 150 villages into lockdown for a week. It has also ordered bars and nightclubs to close until further notice.

But trust in the government is almost non-existent in Lebanon and many people may choose to ignore the latest restrictions.

Over 80% of International Monetary Fund (IMF) pandemic loans recommend poor countries hit hard by the economic fallout take up harsh new austerity measures, Oxfam says.

A total of 76 out of 91 IMF loans negotiated for 81 countries call for measures that could lead to in heavy cuts to public healthcare systems and social protection, the UK-based charity says.

The World Bank has predicted that up to 115 million more people will fall into extreme poverty this year, the first increase in over 20 years.

Ana Arendar, Oxfam Head of Inequality Policy, said: "At a time when the progress against poverty is being set back decades, this is exactly the wrong instruction for the IMF to be giving poor countries."

In case you missed the press conference held by top medical experts in the UK earlier, here's one of the key moments.

Asked how close the NHS is to having to cancel non-urgent surgeries - as it did during the country's first wave of coronavirus - Prof Stephen Powis says the "key to this" is controlling the infection in the community.

Image source, Getty Images

The US election campaign is to get back on the road after Donald Trump's bout of coronavirus.

The president, who tested positive on 1 October and stayed in hospital for three days, said on Sunday he was "totally negative", although the White House has not released a test result.

The White House physician has said Trump is no longer a Covid transmission risk to others.

Trump begins a full-on campaign burst on Monday with a big rally in Sanford, Florida, before moving on to Pennsylvania and Iowa.

His rival, Joe Biden, heads to Ohio on Monday, with events in Toledo and Cincinnati.

Polling suggests Biden has a single-digit lead over Trump and an ABC News/Ipsos poll found that just 35% of Americans approved of how the president has handled the pandemic But the contest remains close in key battleground states.

Trump's health in six graphics.

Workers and residents in Liverpool have been responding to the news that the Liverpool City Region is expected to face the tightest restrictions under a new "three-tier" lockdown system in England - due to be announced later.

Heather, who works with four hospitality venues in the Liverpool area, says she thinks it is unfair to blame hospitality.

"The universities and the schools have such high transmission rates," she says.

And Paul, a taxi driver in Knowsley, says if pubs, restaurants and gyms shut and there is no nightlife, "I personally can't see any way forward for myself".

He adds that he feels self-employed people are "being completely left out" in terms of support.

Image source, PA Media

We've been hearing from the government's scientific and medical advisers about the latest coronavirus data. Here's what we learned:

• Three Nightingale hospitals in the north of England have been asked to get ready to accept patients in the next few weeks. Nightingale hospitals were set up across the UK at the start of the first wave of the pandemic in the spring, to be used in the event of the NHS being overwhelmed. Nightingale hospitals in Manchester, Sunderland and Harrogate have been asked to "mobilise"
• It's "wishful thinking" that elderly people can somehow be "fenced off" from the risk of the virus, NHS England's medical director Prof Steve Powis said. There are already steep rises in the number of over-65s - and particularly over-85s - being admitted to hospital
• More people are now in hospital with Covid-19 than before the first batch of lockdown restrictions were introduced in March
• The executive medical director of Manchester University's Foundation Trust, Dr Jane Eddleston, urged people to take the virus "extremely seriously". She says nearly 40% of England's Covid cases are in north-west England
• Jonathan Van-Tam, England's deputy chief medical officer, made clear it's not just a problem for the North. On the contrary, he said: "Pretty much all areas of the UK are now seeing growths in the infection rate."

Image source, PA Media

England's deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van-Tam addressed the suggestion that Covid-19 is only a problem in the North and not a problem in the South.

"On the contrary," he says. "The epidemic this time has clearly picked up pace in the north of England earlier than it did in the first wave and that almost certainly relates to the fact that disease levels in the North never dropped... as far as they dropped in the summer as they did in the South.

"Pretty much all areas of the UK are now seeing growths in the infection rate," he says.

It's a "nationwide phenomenon" that infection rates are rising, he adds.

James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent, BBC News

We are in a crucial phase in the epidemic.

Either we choose the terms for controlling the virus now, or we wait and the virus will force our hand - as it did with lockdown in March.

Presenting this data is the easy bit. Deciding what to do about it is the challenge of our time.

This is still a virus that spreads easily between people and to which most of us have no immunity.

Cases are rising across nearly the whole of England, the North West is just leading the way.

And an initial surge in cases in young people is now bleeding into older age groups who are at most risk.

But every restriction on our lives has a knock-on effect on our physical and mental health, as well as to the economy.

The government is walking a tightrope. And with a strong desire to avoid a full lockdown and to keep schools and universities open, it is doing so with one hand tied behind its back.

Reducing the number of people we meet curbs the spread of the virus. Gyms, pubs and similar are in the firing line because this is where people are still gathering.

But it is still uncertain whether this will be enough to change the course of the epidemic.

Sun journalist Nick McDermott asks whether we are in a better or worse position than expected ahead of winter.

He also asks whether test and trace has "failed us".

Prof Powis says we are in a better position than in March and April, having learnt many things from the first wave.

We know better ways to deliver oxygen which are less invasive, he says, as one example.

He also says the rate of increasing infections is not at the doubling rate it was in March. But he notes that the R is above 1.

Prof Van-Tam says it is always difficult and challenging to build a test and trace system, and run it, at the same time.

He also says that testing and tracing in any system is always going to be more challenging as the number of infections pick up.

"Please keep on using this system," he says.

The scientific advisers were asked how confident they are that transmission is happening in the community and not other settings, such as schools.

Prof Steve Powis says he is "very confident" that infection rates are increasing in the community.

"The data is clear and of course the difference from the first wave in April is that we have that data," he says.

He says it's "obviously important" that infection is also controlled in hospitals - but stresses: "This is a problem of community infection rates increasing."

On the infection rate in schools, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam says: "Actually if you salami slice the infection data very carefully across the school age bands, what you actually see is very low rates of increase in infection up to the age of 16."

He says the infection rate then picks up a bit in the 17 and 18 age bracket.

"We already know children are not drivers of spread in the community" as they are for the flu virus, Prof Van-Tam adds.

The BBC's medical editor Fergus Walsh asks Prof Stephen Powis how close the NHS is to having to cancel non-urgent surgeries, as occurred during the first wave of coronavirus.

Prof Powis says during the first wave in April "we took a national approach" and unfortunately that did mean that we had to stand down elective services. We have seen an increase in waiting times as a result, he says.

"We are really determined to get back to normal in terms of treating those patients so we will do everything we possibly can to ensure to maintain those services."

But says "the key to this, is the control of infection in the community".

Our correspondent also asks whether there is scientific evidence behind closing pubs, bars and gyms.

Prof Van-Tam says that the virus thrives on human contact, particularly in closed spaces, crowded spaces and in close contact. He also says there is an emphasis on the duration people are likely to be in those spaces and the level of noise.

"All of those settings... are areas where the virus will thrive and spread if we allow it to," he says.