Now have enough tests to be testing those people in Critical Condition in hospital is. We need the test that will tell if you have got it now, and the new test which will come on stream soon to say whether you have had it. 16,000 staff may be needed when the newly converted Nightingale Hospital in east london reaches capacity. President trump warns the us to expect a rough two weeks and to stick to social distancing saying its a matter of life and death. Italy mourns the thousands of victims of its coronavirus outbreak as some question whether doctors have been given the necessary equipment. The prince of wales who has himself recovered from coronavirus sends a message of support particularly to older people. None of us can say when this will end, but end it will. Until it does, let us try and live with hope and with faith in ourselves and each other, look forward to better times to come. Hello and welcome to a bbc news special on the latest developments in the coronavirus pandemic. Well be crossing live to downing street later for the latest Government News conference, which comes after the uks biggest increase in deaths from the virus. There have been 563 further deaths, according to figures released this afternoon. It brings the total number in the uk to 2,352. 29,104 people have tested positive for the virus. The majority of the deaths have been in england. We know there have been 98 in wales, 76 in scotland and 30 in Northern Ireland. Well have reports around the world on the Global Response to coronavirus but our first report is by Richard Galpin on the uks response. According to a recent estimate, a quarter of all nhs doctors have either fallen quarter of all nhs doctors have eitherfallen ill or had quarter of all nhs doctors have either fallen ill or had to self isolate because of concerns about a Family Member showing symptoms. It is the same for many nurses. Testing them for coronavirus would enable many to return to work if found to be in the clear. But the governments been slow to focus on testing in general, and in particular for health workers. Many doctors reportedly still having no idea where or how they can get tested. What were really calling for now is a National Testing strategy, a strategy to ramp up the Community Testing and Contact Tracing like we are seeing in other countries. Thats how other countries. Thats how other countries have been able to beat this virus will get this virus under control and suppressed. So now nhs england is calling on hospitals to use a 15 of their testing capability on staff. The government is going further, saying hospitals should use any spare Laboratory Capacity they have to test as many nhs staff for the virus as possible. We want to see more people tested very rapidly. We do now have enough tests to be testing those people in Critical Conditions in hospitals, so much so that we can now move forward and test nhs workers, and that is extremely important, because anyone going to work in those situations and doing frankly heroic tasks for us and doing frankly heroic tasks for us should be given the equipment that they need. But at the same time, the government and nhs are claiming shortages of vital material are hampering capacity to ramp up testing. A top nhs executive has said laboratories could be providing around 100,000 tests a day, but because of a shortage of swabs and chemicals, this is being limited to around 13,000 a day. However, the Chemical IndustriesAssociation Says it can help. There are three different problems. The first problem is that weve got shortages of swa bs, problem is that weve got shortages of swabs, so i was speaking to one trust today that can only test three members of staff because they dont have enough swabs. There is a second problem which is chemical reagent, andi problem which is chemical reagent, and i was talking to one of the largest trust in the country would like to do three times the number of test they are currently doing but cant because they cant get the reagent, and then third that different trust use different types of equipment, and you have to match the swabs and the reagent to that equipment, so if youve got some Spare Capacity in another part of the country, it is not always easy to actually get the testing done because its on a different platform. Such as the concern about the slow pace at which testing is being increased that today a volunteer network of laboratories has been launched across the country, offering to provide hundreds of labs which could switch to coronavirus testing. These, its claimed, could deliver tens of thousands of tests a week. In this fight, each one of these labs and the people in it i like the fighters and Fighter Pilots of the battle of britain. An awful lot of what we do isjust to give britain. An awful lot of what we do is just to give the britain. An awful lot of what we do isjust to give the gps britain. An awful lot of what we do is just to give the gps confidence that they are not infected, and we have had quite a few that we have tested that have gone immediately into isolation and we were able to either confirm that they were infected or that they were not. Meanwhile today, more problems for the government about the supply of protective equipment or ppe, for health workers. At this hospital in southend, medical staff are warning management they may have to limit services in the Emergency Department because, they say, theyre not being given equipment which will actually protect them. The hospital says its committed to keeping staff safe. Around the country, though, there is no doubt some nhs staff are worried about the risks theyre having to take. Weve seen what its doing to people, and it is frightening. I think when youre on shift, you get on with it. You are looking after patients and the patients are your priority, and it is when you are off shift that you start to worry about what might happen. Among those who have died so far in this outbreak, another tragic development. A year old boy died here at kings couege year old boy died here at Kings College hospital in london from coronavirus. The youngest reported victim of the disease the uk. Temporary morgues are now being set up temporary morgues are now being set up in preparation for a surge in the number of deaths over the next few weeks as we approach the peak. Already today another Record Number of deaths has been announced, 563 people dying between monday and tuesday. Richard galpin, bbc news. 0ur Health Correspondent nick triggle is with me. 563, the biggest day on day increase. Are we getting near the peak of this, our are we a few days or weeks off . It is hard to tell, and Health Officials have been careful not to put exact predictions on this, but we have been told to expect rising numbers of cases and deaths. What is important is not to ta ke deaths. What is important is not to take a single day in isolation but to look at the trend over the past few days. We know the total numbers of deaths are rising every two to three days, and we have seen other countries on similar trajectories, so countries on similar trajectories, so that is to be expected. Yesterday Health Officials were talking about green shoots of recovery, a sign that cases were plateauing. So todays figures are very interesting. We have seen over 4000 new cases announced today, but if we look back over the last few days, it has been hovering around 2500 3000, so whilst this is a big increase today, if you take the past week as a whole, the trajectory upwards is slower than it was some weeks ago. So that perhaps as a positive sign, but we will have to see what happens in the next few days, and i think all eyes will be on that. If we see the figures hovering around 4000, even dropping in the coming days, that could be a positive sign, and if that happens, you would expect a couple of weeks later the number of deaths to start plateauing. So we will have to see, but all eyes will be on these figures in the coming days was white so we are getting increases, but it is shadowing out, that that curve is ever so slightly beginning to be squashed down a little bit . 563 deaths, however. Where are we in relation to our position compared to italy, because the suggestion has always been that we are two weeks behind them that they have had terrible difficulty dealing with this and an increasing number of deaths. Where were we in relation to them . At the same stage of the outbreak in italy, they are perhaps two weeks ahead of us, we are slightly below that level. We are slightly below that level. We are pegging with france, whereas italy and spain had a higher number of deaths per head of the population. So in a sense, that is an encouraging sign. But what the officials were stressing yesterday, and theyve stressed day after day, is that we must not take our foot off the pedal. We must keep to the social distancing rules and guidance the government has given, and if we do, we might begin to see things turn. But it is ever so subtle at the moment. A couple of encouraging signs, but certainly todays rises are still concerning. 0k, signs, but certainly todays rises are still concerning. Ok, lets move on to testing. Test, test, test is the governments mantra. But it isnt happening, certainly not in the numbers that we all expected and hoped, and certainly the government hoped. Why . You are right, there has been a lot of criticism for the government for this. They have pointed to the lack of chemical rea g e nts pointed to the lack of chemical reagents available, also the shortage of testing kits, and there is certainly a lot of truth to that. 0ther is certainly a lot of truth to that. Other countries are struggling too. The likes of france, the us and italy are only testing the same numbers of people per head of population that we are in the uk, but other countries are testing three times as many people, like south korea and germany. That is because they have better infrastructure, more labs, and have planned better. So there is some catching up to do, but todays figures show that there were just shy of 10,000 tests carried out in the past 24 hour is, up from about 8000 a day in the last couple of days, so it is edging slowly upwards but it is still some way short of the 25,000 that the government wants to get to at the end of the month was what we have Chemical Company saying we could produce the stuff, we dont understand what the problem is. You have alluded to this slightly, nick. Is there a breakdown in the planning that went ahead of ahead of all of this . Certainly questions have been asked about that planning. 0ther questions have been asked about that planning. Other countries are struggling to get hold of this kit. You have got to think there are eight National Testing labs, 40 hospital labs. We are now also Getting Research institutes, universities and private Companies Involved in testing. There is a logistical challenge distributing the kit to all these different centres, but the government is adamant they will start to see increasing numbers being tested, and thatis increasing numbers being tested, and that is important because at the moment we are largely testing hospital patients. A few hundred, to date a few thousand nhs staff have been testing, these are members who may be have symptoms themselves or are isolated at home. Many of them are isolated at home. Many of them are not positive carriers of coronavirus, so they could be getting back to work, and the ones that are tested have got back to work. So if we can increase that and allow a lot of nhs staff to be tested, it will help the front line in terms of getting people back to work. Very important. Nick triggle, many thanks. You will be with us later on in the programme as well. Lets speak to doris ann williams, chief executive of bivda the british in Vitro Diagnostics association which represents companies that make diagnostic tests. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Do you understand why there has been a problem in testing and our response to this coronavirus pandemic . Good afternoon. It really is as everyone has been saying, a complex situation and set of problems, but the chief problem has been availability of the reagent kits which the manufacturers make to work on their instruments. In the clamour of a global crisis, where every country wants these products, the manufacturing capacity are struggling to cope. But british Chemical Companies are saying that they could be producing this stuff, we are hearing. Yes, they can produce reagents that could be used on open systems. The government will need to have an agreement with the manufacturers to have the formulation for the reagents to be able to produce them using chemicals from this country, and i think thats something that theyre discussing right now. One wonders, given that we had clear indications that there were going to be huge problems with this coronavirus back injanuary, problems with this coronavirus back in january, late january, february, why wasnt that done in advance . M is easy to be wise with hindsight. The germans managed it. Yes, the planning has obviously had floors. I believe everything was planned as well as it could be, but i think nobody anticipated quite the amount that there is. And yes, maybe the germans have got better capacity and perhaps they have better stocks ready to go from the onset. There is a suggestion as well that we, or at least the british government, is wa nted least the british government, is wanted to centralise testing instead of trying as well as using whatever government labs there may be around the country, using university labs, private companies, and perhaps that was a mistake . Yes, i think again its very hard. The planning was quite thorough, and its quite hard to get everyone up to speed, no matter. They are very capable in research and so on, but it is difficult in a clinical environment, so difficult in a clinical environment, so it is getting the training in place, and im sure that that capacity will be taken on as we proceed. But we are still very early in this crisis. It seems like it has been going on forever, but we are only still a matter of weeks into it, and the Testing Capacity is being ramped up. Also, the suggestion that perhaps the emphasis solely on testing patients, and not leaving any Spare Capacity for nhs staff, that is a criticism that has been levelled at the government, too . Yes, and again, it isa the government, too . Yes, and again, it is a fine line to tread. Patients need to be tested, and it is a balance to try and make sure that you get the capacity of staff against testing patients. And i think were learning as we go along, certainly, the government are adjusting everything every day, and from the industry side, were doing everything we can to support my in very difficult circumstances. So, what is it you guys can do, then, do you think . Well, or the uk representatives of the Major Companies have been working closely with government, smaller suppliers are also looking at what their capacity is to ramp up. We have one company who might be able to supply several thousand tests a week, in a matter of weeks. But again, its impossible to do it from a standing start, it all takes time to make sure that not only are the tests available, but that they are safe and reliable to use as well. Doris ann williams, chief executive of the british in Vitro Diagnostics association. Thanks for that. Youre watching a bbc news special on the latest developments in the coronavirus pandemic. Well bring you todays downing street Conference Live and in full with the business secretary, alok sharma, and dr yvonne doyle, Public Health englands medical director, in about an hours time. Weve got a bit of breaking news for you. The uks all England Tennis Club has announced that the wimbledon 2020 tennis championship has been cancelled. The announcement follows a series of emergency meetings to decide whether to go ahead with the tournament or cancel it, amid the coronavirus crisis. So, confirmation that wimbledon has been cancelled this year. And frankly, it is to be expected. We will keep you abreast of the latest developments on this when we get more details. 16,000 members of staff may be needed to run the new Nightingale Hospital in east london, when it is at full capacity. It should be ready to receive its first patient by the end of the week. Angus crawford reports. Commentator welcome back to excel arena down in the royal docks in east london. Crowds still pouring into this 10,000 seater. From a time of national celebration. To one of national crisis. The excel has a new role and name. Now, nhs nightingale. An army of civilian contractors, and the military, too, transforming this vast space. Cubicles marching towards the camera. This is my last week in the army well, it was, until i got the phone call. So, ive built hospitals, planned hospitals around the world, ive been a commander in med in afghanistan, ive built hospitals in oman, iraq and the balkans, so this is what ive prepared for. Its what i do. In excels two huge exhibition halls, plans for 80 wards, a pharmacy and mortuary. 500 beds to start with, scaling up to 4,000 if needed, at full capacity, with a team of 16,000 people. It will only admit patients already on ventilators, and should be operational by the end of this week. But there are still questions about whether they will get enough ventilators and staff, and how they will cope with the hundreds, possibly thousands of patients who will come through the doors. Some of them will not survive, despite the treatment they receive here. Senior doctors are aware of how stressful the job may become. Those staff would be quite used to the