planned. the premier league will hold an emergency meeting later to discuss whether future matches should go ahead. that is after the arsenal manager, mikel arteta, and chelsea player callum hudson—odoi both tested positive for the virus. the canadian prime minister's wife tests positive for coronavirus. justin trudeau says he has no symptoms, but will self—isolate for m days. a terrible thursday on global stock markets as growing concern over the impact of the coronavirus outbreaks or nearly 11% wiped off the value of the top 100 companies on the stock exchange, the biggest drop since 1987. i will be here when the markets open this morning. we have a few showers on the cards today, but for much of the uk, a window of dry weather before things turn unsettled once again into the weekend. i will bring you all the details in about ten minutes. it is friday 13 march. our top story: new measures to help protect people from the coronavirus outbreak come into effect from today. anybody with a persistant cough or high temperature should self—isolate for seven days, as borisjohnson moves the uk response to the delay phase. the government is facing questions over whether the plans go far enough, but the prime minister said now was not the time for stricter measures. large—scale gathering have been cancelled in scotland, while schools and colleges in ireland are closed. later, the premier league will hold an emergency meeting after the arsenal manager tested positive for the virus. andy moore reports. the arsenal manager, the latest high—profile person to test positive for coronavirus. the entire first team squad is now in self isolation. and the same is true for their london rivals chelsea after the news was revealed overnight that one of their players, callum hudson—0doi, had tested positive. at downing street, the prime minister announced the country was moving from containment to the delay phase of combating this disease, and gave a sombre warning. i must level with you, level with the british public. more families, many more families, are going to lose loved ones before their time. there was also specific advice. anyone who shows symptoms, a new, continuous cough ora high temperature, must stay at home for at least seven days. in the nearfuture, all elderly and vulnerable people will be advised to stay at home, regardless of whether they show any symptoms, and this could last for three months. no school closures and no ban on large gatherings outside scotland, though that will be kept under review. 0n the question of large gatherings, scotland is taking a different view. the first minister, nicola sturgeon, says meetings of more than 500 people should be cancelled for the next week, to reduce the burden on emergency services. many countries are taking immediate action such as closing schools and colleges. there has been criticism that here the government is not doing enough. uk is said to be four weeks behind italy in the progress of the virus. but there is also some good news. the death toll continues to rise, but in the ten towns at the heart of the outbreak, there have been no new infections. the former health secretary jeremy hunt says the government's decision not to cancel public events because of the coronavirus outbreak is concerning. mr hunt told bbc newsnight that the uk was in a national emergency, and suggested the government's new approach did not go far enough. i don't want to second—guess what the precise social distancing measures are that we might adopt, because i think we have to look at the evidence as to what works. but i think it is surprising and concerning that we are not doing any of it at all, when we have just four weeks before we get to the stage that italy is at. and you would have thought that every single thing we do in that four weeks would have been designed to slow the spread of people catching the virus. a top health official in the united states says the system for testing coronavirus in the country is failing. there are currently more than 1,300 confirmed cases of the virus in the us, but the authorities have been criticised for carrying out far fewer tests than many other affected countries. 0ur correspondent david willis reports. how many people are infected here? there is a shortage of testing kits, so the us doesn't know, prompting the country's top infectious diseases doctor to concede they have a problem. this system is not really geared to what we need right now, what you are asking for. that is failing. a failing, yes. it is a failing. let's admit it. sensing opportunity in what some see as the trump administration's bungled response to this crisis, the man most likely to oppose president trump in november is weighing in. our ability to drive a global response is dramatically, dramatically undercut by the damage that trump has done to our credibility and our relationships around the world. broadway, in new york. the great white way is to fall dark for one month, as concerns grow here over large concentrations of people in public places. the city has declared a state of emergency, and in one suburb, the national guard has been brought in to provide food for needy families. schools are shutting down in some places. major sporting events are being cancelled. even mickey mouse is closing shop. disneyland, the happiest place on earth, no foilfor a pernicious virus that is claiming more lives every day. and if ireland's prime minister, leo varadkar, was looking to play up the close ties between his country and the us ahead of st patrick's day, he was soon to learn that most parades here have been cancelled. meanwhile, the president continues to pin the virus on forces beyond his orders. it is a world problem, and we do need separation in some cases. we have some areas that are heavily infected and some areas that are not, but they do need separation for a period of time, in some cases. congress is said to be close to agreeing on a package of financial measures designed to help those affected by the virus, but there is growing concern here that the full cost could be considerable. in canada, the wife of the prime minister, justin trudeau, has tested positive for coronavirus. officials say sophie gregoire trudeau has mild symptoms and is feeling well. mr trudeau will self—isolate with his wife for the next 1a days. tom hanks says he and his wife, rita wilson, are taking it one day at a time after they were both diagnosed with the coronavirus. the oscar—winning actor shared an update on social media revealing the pair remain in isolation, and joked that there is no crying in baseball. the tourism industry is warning the coronavirus pandemic could put millions ofjobs at risk. the world travel and tourism council says the outbreak presents a significant threat, and is calling for a range of measures including a reduction in taxes and a bigger budget for promoting tourist destinations. access to mt everest has been closed for the rest of the expedition season because of the outbreak. nepal's government says it will cancel all climbing permits from tomorrow until the end of april, and stop giving out tourist visas. china has also blocked access to everest from its side of the border. the united states says it has carried out airstrikes in iraq against a pro—iranian militia. the pentagon said the strikes were in retaliation for a rocket attack near baghdad on wednesday that killed two americans and a british soldier. mps are considering whether to back proposals to cut the cost of school uniforms in england. if passed, the legislation would force schools to keep compulsory branded items, like blazers, to a minimum. a survey by the charity the children's society has found that parents are paying an average of £337 a year on secondary school uniforms. it is 6:09am. not 9:06 a.m., nobody panicked. time has passed quickly this morning. that's what happens when i'm around. mike is in cheltenham, with the racing continuing today. there has been so much discussion. have you noticed that crowds have been down cheltenham? have you noticed that crowds have been down cheltenham7|j have you noticed that crowds have been down cheltenham? i will give you the figures a bit later on, down about 2500 last thursday, organiser still pretty pleased with those attendances. the sun is about to come up attendances. the sun is about to come up on attendances. the sun is about to come up on the famous slope here, and as planned, the 12 runners in the gold cup will be thundering up, cheered on by a crowd of 60,000, one of the few sporting events to go on as planned. elsewhere a very different story. i was up late last night, with immense unravelling. the big news, as you were hearing this morning, mikel arteta, the arsenal manager, one of those to test positive for the coronavirus. arteta along with the full first—team squad and coaching staff are all in self—isolation. arsenal were due to play brighton on saturday, but that match has now been postponed. the premier league will have an emergency meeting today to discuss future fixtures. chelsea and england player callum hudson—0doi has also had a positive test result for the virus. the full men's team squad, coaching staff and a number of backroom staff will now all self isolate. golf's players championship has also been cancelled with immediate effect along with the next three events on the pga tour schedule. the tournament started yesterday with fans in attendance, and had been due to continue without spectators. back here in cheltenham, as i say, racing still goes ahead today. what you notice around the stands is a lot more hand washing stations, temporary hand washing stations. 1a more toilets, as well, have been put up. there are signs up saying don't pass it on. the crowds have been down over the last few days but yesterday was still over 65,000 in attendance, that is just 2500 less than the 2019 record for thursday attendance, and we expect another big one today. down but over 60,000, which they are still very pleased given the circumstances. they are determined, that one of the biggest sporting events, what they called the greatest show on turf, still goes ahead. here's sarah with a look at this morning's weather. how are things looking? good morning, rachel and charlie. how are things looking? good morning, racheland charlie. it how are things looking? good morning, rachel and charlie. it is not looking too bad out there today. a bit ofa not looking too bad out there today. a bit of a chilly start today and we got a few showers in the forecast here and there. but we're not all going to see them. i think a window of drier and brighter weather and less windy than it was yesterday. so clear skies for many of us, as you can see from the satellite image. we have this area of cloud already starting starting to approach from the west. we look back into the atlantic, another area of cloud, this is another low pressure area which will be heading its way across uk during the course of the weekend. a few showers across the fun north of scotland, putting south across east anglia as well. elsewhere, quite a bit of dry weather with some sunshine. less windy than yesterday, but one or two heavy showers developing across parts of north wales, in towards the midlands, later on this afternoon, and more rain working in from the south—west later on as well. temperatures today somewhere between about nine and 11 for most of us, but cooler around these exposed north sea coasts for north—east england and eastern scotland, with a breeze coming in from the north sea. through the evening and overnight we see this area of rain working its way in from the west. that will follow snow over the west. that will follow snow over the higher ground of scotland, but ran further south. temperatures generally above freezing overnight, so generally above freezing overnight, so not a cold and frosty start, but still very chilly where you have the cloud and outbreaks of rain early tomorrow. unsettled outbreak all in all. it will be breezy as well, but there will be some drier interludes as well. here is the next area of low moving its way in through the weekend. particularly by sunday we have this cold front ringing some fairly heavy burst of rain. not too heavy, the rain on saturday morning. it will be pushing its way gradually eastwards. still some snow lingering for a time eastwards. still some snow lingering fora time in eastwards. still some snow lingering for a time in the rain working its way from east anglia and the south—east. for the afternoon, a bit of dry weather before rain and strengthening winds moving from the west once again. and those temperatures not great for the time of year. around 6— 11 degrees. the breeze picking up and making it feel a little bit cooler. by the time we get to sunday, we have this area of rain on this trailing cold front ringing some wet weather to north east england and wales initially, and sinking its way south eastwards. it will be followed by sunny spells and scattered showers rolling in from the north—west. some of them could be quite heavy. perhaps some hail, some thunder, and those fairly brisk winds to content with as well. 9- 12 brisk winds to content with as well. 9— 12 degrees, feeling a bit cooler, though, in the breeze. looking ahead into the new working week, and some slightly better conditions, i think. high—pressure building, particularly in the south. there will be some rain initially for parts of northern ireland and scotland through the start of the week. through the middle of the week, we could see some of that rain arriving across england and wales, but it looks like by the end of the week, high pressure at last. building a little bit more widely across the uk. thank you very much, sarah. it is looking a bit better towards the end of the week. it is 6:15am. let's take a look at today's papers. borisjohnson's warning that many more families will "lose loved ones" from the coronavirus, that's the front page of the daily express. the paper says it's a "bleak but frank assessment of the emergency facing the country. " the daily telegraph is critical saying the next steps announced by the prime minister amount to a "nuanced response." the paper says other countries have been more robust in their response. we will be speaking to the government's chief scientist in a moment asking why the uk's response isa moment asking why the uk's response is a difference to other —— is so different to other countries'. the mirror also asks "is it enough?" the paper carries quotes from former health secretaryjeremy hunt, who says many people will be surprised and concerned "we are not moving sooner". and the most read on bbc news online is the news that the canadian prime minister, justin trudeau, and his wife sophie are in 14—day isolation after she tested positive for the coronavirus. mr trudeau is in good health and has no symptoms. so, patrick coming up at 7:30am this morning. we have quite a bit of time with the chief scientific officer this morning. everyone has a huge thirst for information right now. if you have a question you would like to ask, after what was quite an extraordinary press conference yesterday, dealers —— detailing how we're going to live in the future and what to do if you are feeling ill, please send us in your questions and we will attempt to address them with the chief scientific officer. we were talking about the testing regime which seems to have changed. they won't be testing people anymore unless they are ina testing people anymore unless they are in a hospital setting and also the fact this isn't going to be over ina the fact this isn't going to be over in a couple of weeks, we are looking ata in a couple of weeks, we are looking at a 3—4 month period where life could be quite dramatically different for people. there will be ways already inevitably that this is affecting you. and all the talk around the schools at the moment is when either going to shut if they are going to shut. how will you manage it if they are going to shut, so we manage it if they are going to shut, so we will also speak to somebody from the head teachers' association later in the programme. in ordinary circumstances we would have given this story a little bit more attention but that was the doubts as a result of a strike —— deaths in a base near baghdad. she was described as determined to help others and gave practical experience. it was abundantly clear she was destined for great things in her civilian and military career. so the circumstances in which that happened, she was among 200 british personnel who were part of this camp in that particular part of iraq, helping authorities combat islamic state. that was lance corporal brody. —— brodie. state. that was lance corporal brody. -- brodie. the uncertainty regarding travel bands is already having an effect. let's speak to sam thompson, a tour guide in edinburgh. take you forjoining us. this is already having a direct impact on your business? yes, yeah. we were having 3—4 cancellations a day which normally we would only have maybe three cancellations in a year. so is having a huge impact. do — four cancellations a day. —— 3—4, are you doing tours at the moment? no. last week i had one torah, this week everything has been cancelled and in april everything in april has been cancelled as well —— last week i had one tour. it looks like we won't have a season this year, which will kill a lot of small businesses. what is it literally mean view day today in terms of the survival of your business? it's worrying. normally at this point we are taking all of our advanced bookings for the season. 0ur season in the summertime is when we make the money that then gets us through the wintertime and it has been a slow to this season already and now all of the advanced bookings we have had are being cancelled. what we're trying to is get people to do is postpone, rather than refined. perhaps come next year, just trying to cancelling out the damage. we don't have offices, we work from home, so there are a lot of things being put in place of business but they don't affect small businesses like ours. do you take payment in advance when you do the bookings in advance? yeah yes, usually it is payment in advance. sometimes we will take the payment eight days before the tour date, especially if it is a longer tour, but most people who book online pay for it and then take the tour but they are not taking the tour because some people can't get here. people are scared to travel and that is easy to understand. they were obligated to pay them back? our cancellation policy is all payments are final, but you don't want to do that to people. they have worked ha rd to that to people. they have worked hard to get their tour and trip but give the money back, even though you don't actually have two, is not easy because you don't have money coming infor because you don't have money coming in for the season and when you go into the season, that is probably when this will peak and no—one will be here. all of this didn't —— student groups we normally get won't be here and this will put a lot of people out of business. i've been doing this for 20 years. and you won't be the only one in edinburgh or in the whole uk. so what is your plan for the next few months? at the moment we are trying to get our clients that are cancelling i have to cancel because they can't get here to postpone, to let us hold the booking until the end of the year or into next year so when they can actually travel again, they can take the tour. that will help us survive. but otherwise, in terms of your long—term survival, how is it looking? it's not looking great. but what can you do? you've just got to keep getting on with it. you're talking about the fact that away from your business like you have a family life, a home life, ithink from your business like you have a family life, a home life, i think it was that even your daughter might have problems with her birthday? she will have her birthday in two weeks but we don't know if we could hold her birthday party because we don't know if the arrangements could stay in place. how can you explain that toa in place. how can you explain that to a six—year—old? in place. how can you explain that to a six-year-old? it's incredibly stressful. it really is. how do you think about how the authorities are managing this? nicola sturgeon was announcing she would be putting a ban on large gatherings of people after monday, gatherings of 500 people, do you think perhaps we need to be more proactive, try to nip this in the bud, try to get it over and done with, the peak more quickly if that would even work? how do you feel about that? ideally, it would be great to get it over quickly but we are dealing with an unknown. we don't know how this is going to affect everyone. we are seeing other countries further ahead than us and it is difficult to see with the best thing to do is. we need to make sure that once it is over scotland is still open and other places in the uk are still open for people to visit. it's the fear, i think, that is the problem. because it is the unknown and there is so much misinformation and people are getting really scared. and when people are scared they kind ofjust wa nts you people are scared they kind ofjust wants you borrow in and that isn't going to keep the economy going —— they just want to burrow in. going to keep the economy going —— theyjust want to burrow in. but what are we going to do, because nobody knows how to deal with this yet. thank you, we wish you all the very best and we hope things improve and pick up for you. bank u. so tough on small businesses who rely on people travelling, people moving around, people congregating, it is really, really difficult at the moment. it is 6:24am. -- thank you. the coronavirus outbreak has been described as "almost certainly the biggest crisis the nhs has ever seen." so, how are gps coping? faye kirkland is a journalist and a working family doctor — she's been given special access to a surgery in london to see how those on the front line are dealing with a massive surge in demand. a young patient needing to be seen in the isolation room. hello! i'm your doctor. a fever and a runny nose. what is on everyone's minds? could it be the coronavirus? i'm going to take your temperature quick. reassured it is likely to be a common cold, but covid—19 can't be ruled out. no-one i know has had it so ruled out. no-one i know has had it so i'm just worried about passing it on to elderly or more vulnerable people. she hasn't got any other symptoms. receptionists goal ahead of patients' appointments to make sure they don't have symptoms of the coronavirus. if doctors can treat people over the phone, they will. it's been a busy morning for this gp, returning an increasing number of calls to patients, including someone of calls to patients, including someone working for the nhs. you are at risk because you're a healthcare worker. have you been in contact with any patients that have been symptomatic or diagnosed with covid—19? symptomatic or diagnosed with covid-19? how worried are you about the health of gps here, the staff here and what impact that might have on the whole of the gp workforce?” don't want to get sick but i still wa nt to don't want to get sick but i still want to be able to do myjob. if i'm sick, or even expose don't have to self—isolate, that leaves our surgery self—isolate, that leaves our surgery without a doctor, which puts extra strain on colleagues and you don't want to do that. but i don't wa nt to don't want to do that. but i don't want to infect elderly and vulnerable people, i don't want to infect my colleagues, i don't want to infect my family. to protect herself, she needs the right equipment from the nhs. it arrived at the surgery just two days equipment from the nhs. it arrived at the surgeryjust two days ago. a massive impact on... we took these concerns to the chair of the royal couege concerns to the chair of the royal college of gps and ask you had there been enough done to protect staff? not enough, is i think is the answer. i think we need to be a little bit understanding of the pressures that the whole system is under and this is a massive crisis. probably the biggest growth is the nhs has ever had to face and we not saying health professionals are more important than patients, we'rejust saying they have a responsibility and we need to them as healthy as possible and keep them in the workforce as quickly as possible so we are having them tested early. we will do all we can to help you and your family during this period. the prime minister has asked patients with mild symptoms not to call the nhs 111 with mild symptoms not to call the nhs111 helpline. patients with mild symptoms will be very anxious and the only access to the energetic it isn't faye kirkland —— if it isn't 111 is the 111 number and their gps. faye kirkland, bbc news. you're watching breakfast. so many people have questions about how their day—to—day lives will be affected. still to come: with elderly people among those most at risk from the coronavirus, we'll look at how care homes are dealing with the outbreak. time now to get the news, travel and weather where you are. good morning from bbc london. i'm victoria hollins. the london school of economics is to end face—to—face lessons due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. taught exams and other scheduled assessments will also be delivered online. the lse campus and halls of residence will remain open. a university spokesman said these actions are a precaution. king's college london is also to end face—to—face classes. the insurance market lloyd's of london will shut its underwriting floors for the first time in its history today. the 24—hour closure will be a test of coronavirus contingency plans. the group said it will close four of its 12—floor building on lime street. it will also take the opportunity to deep—clean the underwriting room and all public areas in the building. well, the closures follow the deaths of two more people in london who had tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of uk deaths to ten. one of the most recent victims was an 89—year—old at charing cross hospital and a woman in her 60s at queen's hospital in romford. nhs england said they both had underlying health conditions. around 50 woolwich ferry workers will go on strike today. that will cause the service to be suspended. that's in addition to two separate 24—hour strikes which have been announced. they're striking over a long—running pay dispute. transport for london will take over the running of the woolwich ferry, which is due to be completed by the end of the year. let's take a look at the travel situation now. 0n the tube, the central line suspended west ruislip to ruislip gardens due signalfailure. minor delays on the bakerloo line following earlier overrunning overrunning engineering work. southern are running a reduced service via selhurst following a points failure at the depot. south western railway are running a replacement bus service between guildford and aldershot following a landslip in the guildford area. westbound traffic on the a13 is building heading out of dagenham into barking. in brentford, boston manor road is closed btw a4 great west road and windmill road due collision overnight. now the weather. hello. it's a bit of equal stouts of the morning, a lot of early sunshine. the winds have east significantly so we will lose the wind chill. lots of blue sky, plenty of sunshine around, the winds will continue to ease, still quite busy for the first half of the day —— breezy. what upper showers in the late afternoon into the first part of the evening, but they certainly won't be everywhere. top temperatures between 9— 11 celsius. through this evening and overnight showers at first then some spells closing in. we will have overnight lows between 4— six celsius, so it isa lows between 4— six celsius, so it is a rather wet start to the weekend but the early rain is set to clear with some brighter skies do the afternoon. the wind will pick up again on saturday night into sunday, rather breezy on sunday with a bit of rain through the afternoon. i'm back with the latest from the bbc london newsroom in half an hour. plenty more on our website at the usual address. bye for now. hello, this is breakfast, with charlie stayt and rachel burden. it is 6:30am. coming up on breakfast this morning: mike has got the latest live from cheltenham, where thousands of people are expected for today's gold cup. later, strictly‘s aj and 0ti will be here to tell us about their big dance challenge for this year's sport relief. and from x factor rejects to britain's biggest—selling country act, the shiresjoin us on the sofa after 9:00am. good morning. here is a summary of today's main stories from bbc news: from today, people with a persistant cough or high temperature are being told to self—isolate for seven days. it is part of new measures unveiled by the prime minister to help tackle the spread of coronavirus, but the government is facing questions over whether they go far enough. schools, colleges and childcare facilities are beginning the first day of a shutdown in the republic of ireland. the government is asking people to work from home if possible, and to reduce social contact. the country has 70 confirmed cases and one person has died. in canada, the wife of the prime minister, justin trudeau, has tested positive for coronavirus. officials say sophie gregoire trudeau has mild symptoms and is feeling well. mr trudeau will self—isolate with his wife for the next 1a days. yes, the ftse100, the index of leading companies, closed the day yesterday down over 600 points, or nearly 11%, the biggest fall since 1987. our business correspondent katy austin is in the city of london for us this morning to explain. give us a sense of the atmosphere. well, i am give us a sense of the atmosphere. well, iam here give us a sense of the atmosphere. well, i am here at ig group, this is a global online trading company, and at the moment things are pretty quiet. there are not many people here. these desks are empty. yesterday it was a very, very different story. a frantic day for traders. and i will bring you some numbers that illustrate why that is. when we talk about the uk and how markets here reacted, the ftse100, thatis markets here reacted, the ftse100, that is the list of the 100 biggest on the london stock exchange, it on the london stock exchange, that is the list of the 100 biggest on the london stock exchange, it had its biggest one—day drop since 0ctober1987. what does that mean in practice? that means £160 billion was wiped off the value of shares in one day. and you might be thinking why does that matter for me? one of the reasons is that some people's pension pots are invested on stock markets, so it can have a material effect on their value, at least in the short—term. it is also a sign of just how seriously investors are taking the coronavirus outbreak, and just how bad they think its impact could be on the global economy. in the us, a particularly bad day for the us, a particularly bad day for the there was triggered by donald trump district thing most travel to the us from mainland europe. so there was a really big day globally for the markets, and i am joined by josh mahoney, a senior market a nalyst josh mahoney, a senior market analyst here, to tell me a bit more. firstly, this big drop in the uk happened before the prime minister, borisjohnson, made happened before the prime minister, boris johnson, made an happened before the prime minister, borisjohnson, made an announcement about the next phase of action in the uk. will that reassure the markets or have an impact? we are moving into the so—called delay phase, and people can look at it very differently. what donald trump has done in terms of limiting travel to europe has freaked some people out, so this is more of a passive action from boris johnson. out, so this is more of a passive action from borisjohnson. i personally think he needs to take harder measures, though. and just put into a bit of context yesterday's drop. have you ever seen anything like it? this is a once in anything like it? this is a once in a generational move, certainly. just six days ago we saw us markets at re cord six days ago we saw us markets at record highs, now we are seeing a huge sell—off in global markets. certainly this is something that does show significant fear throughout markets, and at the moment, while we are seeing a reprieve this morning, there are no signs it is actually going to let up in the medium term. and the coronavirus outbreak has an impact particularly on the airlines and the leisure sector. are those sectors being particularly hard hit, or is it across—the—boa rd ? being particularly hard hit, or is it across-the-board? certainly you have seen it in china, in italy, the us, india. everyone is limiting global travel. that will take a hit in terms of oil prices, demand for cruise ships, hotels, they will be at the forefront of this. and as we see it worldwide and we expect to see it worldwide and we expect to see more shutdowns in europe in particular, the numbers high in the likes of france and germany, i would expect those airlines to continue to get hit. and give us the latest picture. 0bviously get hit. and give us the latest picture. obviously the uk markets have closed —— us markets have closed for the day, but what has been happening in asia overnight? we have seen a significant bounce coming into trade here in europe so we expect to see the likes of the ftse 100 actually higher, it seems like a rarity considering the amount of selling we have seen so far. but what we have been seeing is an expansion of shortselling which could limit the declines for the time being. if we look back at 2008, ultimately we did continue to see downsides despite that coming into play. well, it seems like there are some green shoots in the asian markets overnight, but we will have to wait and see what happens in the uk when the markets open after eight a.m.. thank you very much indeed. here is sarah with a look at this morning's weather. so tell us what the picture is, sarah. good morning to you, charlie and rachel. a bit of a mixed picture out there this morning. most of us ina bit out there this morning. most of us in a bit of dry weather through the course of the day and it is a serene sunrise in bridlington, the sun coming up now. mostly dry out there, but we have got a few hit and miss showers. later on we will see more rain arriving from the west. in the meantime, some sunnier and clearer conditions. less windy than it was yesterday. the satellite images shows we have those clear skies across much of the uk, but cloud moving from the west already. this is the first low pressure system thatis is the first low pressure system that is going to ring us some rain later on. the next one waiting in the winds, and that will bring some further wet and windy weather through the course of the weekend. this morning most of the showers across east england. they will filter further south into east anglia into the afternoon. we've got the next area of cloud and rain approaching from the south—west, gradually through the day. in between, lots of dry weather, plenty of sunshine. there will be a few hit and miss heavy showers for the likes of north wales down towards the midlands as well, and temperatures around eight to 11 degrees for most of us, but it will feel a bit cooler where you are exposed to that breeze along the north sea coast. into the evening and overnight, this area are fairly patchy rain in the west sta rts fairly patchy rain in the west starts to move its way eastwards. it will be falling snow over the higher ground of scotland. but rain further south down at lower levels as well. tomorrow morning, above freezing, but a fairly chilly start with outbreaks of rain around as well. so a mixed picture through the weekend. there will be rain at times, some brighter weather in between, and it will feel quite windy, quite blustery through the course of the weekend. so the first area of clears towards the towards the east. the next one moves in from the atlantic saturday and overnight into sunday, with a trailing cold front set to bring some fairly heavy bursts of rain at times. the rain on saturday morning will be fairly light and patchy for most of us, gradually clearing its way eastwards. still some more snow to come for the higher ground of scotland but then a window of dry weather, with some sunshine, before the next area of cloud and rain approaches from the west later on sunday. so in between, in the brighter spells, shouldn't feel too bad, with temperatures up to about 12 degrees at best. but i think we're stuck in single figures for central and northern parts of scotland. into we have the tail end of that low pressure system, the cold front bringing some rain initially for northern and western england and wales. that will slowly shift its way eastwards, tending to die outa shift its way eastwards, tending to die out a bit as it does so, and it will be followed by sunny spells and further blustery showers. some of them could be heavy on the north—west, with some hail possible as well, and some thunder here and there. temperature about 9— 12 degrees, feeling a bit cooler where you are exposed to that breeze. as we look further ahead into the coming week, we will start to see high pressure bringing at last some drier weather. initially some rain around for scotland and northern ireland through the first part of the week. that will sink further south, so cardiff could well see a bit of rain through the middle part of the week. but fingers crossed, towards the end of the week, it looks like high pressure builds more widely, bringing us a dry and eventually a more settled spell of springlike weather. we could all do with a bit of sunshine these days, couldn't we, for sure. the government is facing questions over whether its latest health measures will do enough to slow the spread of coronavirus. unlike many countries, the uk hasn't closed schools or banned large gatherings of people. 0ur political correspondent iain watson is in westminster for us now. so this was a very sombre press conference, with a number of measures announced , conference, with a number of measures announced, but in the wake of that there have been questions as to why in the uk we are not going further. that's right. we seem to be out of step with ireland, for example, who have closed schools and childcare facilities from today, from other countries in europe such as denmark. the argument has been put forward by the government, and indeed by the advice from the chief scientific officer and indeed the chief medical officer has been that if you introduce measures to soon, people will get fatigued, they will get fed people will get fatigued, they will getfed up, people will get fatigued, they will get fed up, they may not actually stick to them when things are at the most dangerous. so for example, they are estimating at the peak of this virus it could be 10—14 weeks away. that is a long time for vulnerable people, for example, to stay in isolation. it is a long time for schools to remain closed. so they are suggesting that measures get stepped up the closer we get to the peak. but that's not the approach that has been taken in some other countries, and i think we are seeing not so much a political attack on the government's approach, but we are beginning to see some questions being gently raised about the strategy. so the former health secretaryjeremy strategy. so the former health secretary jeremy hunt was strategy. so the former health secretaryjeremy hunt was saying that people might be concerned that we seem that people might be concerned that we seem to be out of step with the measures that other countries are taking, and may be surprised that some other measures haven't been taken, given that the government itself says we are about four weeks behind where italy is now. again, the government would suggest that perhaps we can avoid being in the situation italy is in, if other measures are followed in between. they have given advice for example to vulnerable people not to take cruises, they have told people with symptoms to take seven days off work, but they haven't yet banned mass gatherings. they haven't yet closed schools. and interestingly, the shadow health spokesmanjonathan as hworth the shadow health spokesmanjonathan ashworth was saying he thought perhaps the government was underestimating the willingness of the public to take what he called social distancing measures, and that people were beginning to vote with their feet. they were taking their own actions, beginning to work from home, for example. as we know, the scottish government is banning gatherings of more than 500 people from next week as well, something which the uk wide government, boris johnson, has said he may look at if this will help relieve pressure in the emergency services further down the emergency services further down the line, but the science doesn't support it at this stage. i think we are beginning to see, if you like, this broad political coalitionjust beginning to fray at this stage, and some people privately, as well, some mps within boris johnson's some people privately, as well, some mps within borisjohnson's own party, saying they hope we have got this right, they are putting a lot of eggs in one basket. but again, borisjohnson does have cover when he is flanked by scientific and medical experts, saying this is the best way to deal with the virus at this stage in its trajectory. thank you very much, and those two men either side of the prime minister yesterday at the press conference, one of those, sir patrick vallance, the chief scientific officer, will be joining the chief scientific officer, will bejoining us this morning. we will bejoining us this morning. we will be putting any questions that we have and that you have to him. please let us know on the programme if you have any specific things you would like to know from what you have heard so far about how you should behave, how yourfamily is, and what the health concerns are at this time. life goes on in the sporting world, mostly as it has been, for the moment at least. mike is in cheltenham with the sport this morning. and it is gold cup day. it is indeed, one of the blue events of thejump indeed, one of the blue events of the jump racing calendar. indeed, one of the blue events of thejump racing calendar. the highest profile horses will be thundering up at around 3:40pm this afternoon at the end of the gold cup on this famous course on this famous slope, one of the few big sporting events a re slope, one of the few big sporting events are still going on as planned. normally my preparation last night and this week will have been about the tips, the horses, the runners and the riders. it is so different because of the impact the coronavirus is having around the world on sporting events. let's go through the most recent of the sporting events affected and cancelled because of the coronavirus. let's start with the football and the big news you have heard about is the arsenal manager. arsenal puzzlement game against brighton tomorrow has been postponed because the arsenal leader mikel arteta has tested positive. manchester city puzzlement game against real madrid has been postponed, this is because the real madrid basketball team tested positive and the footballers have been ordered to go is quarantine because they share the same facilities as the basketballers. and the leaguer announced it will suspend the competition for at least 14 suspend the competition for at least 1a days. let's move rugby union. the france versus ireland and italy versus england games in the final round of the six nations were postponed while ago. that means is it currently stands, wellsboro scotla nd it currently stands, wellsboro scotland is the only six nations game due to go ahead as planned tomorrow —— wales against scotland. but for the teams wales, scotland and ireland, that has been postponed for the time being but the european cup and challenge cup competitions, they see the quarterfinal ties due to be played between april three and aprilfive i still to to be played between april three and april five i still to go ahead. to be played between april three and aprilfive i still to go ahead. the season—opening to the australian grand prix this weekend has been cold, this was after a mclaren team member tested positive for coronavirus and what is more, a number of drivers including sebastien sl from ferrari —— sebastian vettel, and others decided to fly home. and the races in bahrain due to take place between 20-22 bahrain due to take place between 20—22 march will take place behind closed doors with no spectators in attendance. the chinese grand prix will not go ahead. dennis, a big day of cancellations in this. there will be no personal tennis tournament anywhere in the world now until at least april 20. that includes high profile bnp paribas open indian wells where novak djokovic and rafael nadal were due to be competing, that has been cold off stop —— called. the otherfootball news overnight coming into us in the last few hours, the chelsea and england start callum hudson—0doi tested positive for the coronavirus. the full men's team squad at chelsea and the coaching staff and a number of backroom staff will now all self—isolate. kelsey was scheduled to play aston villa tomorrow but that mass will have to be cancelled. more information on that when the premier league have that emergency meeting later today. some football did go ahead last night, though, this was in the europa league. it was a great night for manchester united, they thrust lask 5—0, no coward in attendance in this last 16 tie. securing the biggest away win in europe in years. now wolves also playing behind closed doors in greece, but renato scored what could bea greece, but renato scored what could be a vital away goal for them as they came to a 1—1 goal against 0lympiacos. and here at ibrox, leon bailey scoring the final goal in the 87th minute, the second leg of that i will be played in germany behind closed jaws — doors, due to the coronavirus outbreak. the players championship was cancelled with immediate effect. it was going to have spectators for the next three days, that is now off and the next three events on the pga tour schedule have been taken off as well. so putting the plan for the masters in april— may injeopardy. as they say, the show does go on and iamjoined by as they say, the show does go on and i am joined by a senior writer with the racing post. lee, you have been all week, i only got here this morning. what has it been like? people have been behaving differently and there are hand washing stations but what is it like? racing famously exists within a bubble. but that hasn't been the case this week. this cheltenham festival has felt different because it has been different. still very much mass gatherings, numbers have been slightly down but the atmosphere is not different. i think from the start right up until this point now there has been that sense of his actually going to happen? will it be curtailed at some point through the week? and there is also a sensor we don't know if what we're doing here is the right thing. when the history of this pandemic is written we want know right now if this will turn out to be a huge mistake or the absolute correct policy. we can say here the team at cheltenham racecourse and the british horseracing authority have absolutely followed government advised of the scientific advice, they are doing as they are told to do, it hasn't been reckless behaviour. but it has not a very strange festival. that is interesting from someone who has been here all week. thank you, lee. and album photo and best mates have done extremely well? we will be going out with a bang. it could be big, album photo trying to win back—to—back big, album photo trying to win back—to— back renewals, big, album photo trying to win back—to—back renewals, he could do it, he is vying for favourite but it isa it, he is vying for favourite but it is a wide—open contest. 12 runners, but none of those of you could they have no chance. plenty more build-up to come to the racing and all of the atmosphere here. one thing that doesn't change that chapman —— josema is it is pretty cold. we will get a josema is it is pretty cold. we will geta cup josema is it is pretty cold. we will get a cup of tea. —— at cheltenham. see you later! thank you, mike. it is 6:52am. how much do you spend on your child's school uniform? new research suggests some parents are being put off applying for certain schools because they are struggling to afford items such as blazers. the children's society found that on average parents spent £337 every year on uniform for each child at a state secondary school. and £315 per yearfor primary school children. parents said they thought a reasonable cost would be £105 for secondary school uniforms and £85 for primary uniforms — that's almost a third of the actual cost. now mps are debating whether more can be done to keep costs down. 0ur political correspondent helen catt reports. peter is a primary school. his sister melissa, at secondary. for their parents that means a lot of uniform. it gets expensive. we - anything from secondary school ranges from £10 for a pair of socks right up to £25 for a rugby shirt or jumper. ican right up to £25 for a rugby shirt or jumper. i can get a right up to £25 for a rugby shirt or jumper. i can geta plain right up to £25 for a rugby shirt or jumper. i can get a plain navy blue jumper. i can get a plain navy blue jumperforfour or £5 jumper. i can get a plain navy blue jumper for four or £5 from a source. i could get three of them for one named item. we budget as well as we can but when you aren't expecting it, you have to wait. it gets expensive when they grow out of it and they have only been in it for like, two minutes. it's like, hang ona minute? like, two minutes. it's like, hang on a minute? where is the money going to come from? it gets expensive, it really does. melissa's school has decided to scrap some branded items. the uniform no longer includes a blazer, for example. a labourmp is going includes a blazer, for example. a labour mp is going to pass a law that would force schools to restrict costs. it can be a great leveller, uniforms, but it has to be inclusive and affordable. and i thought this is about. you've done a lot of research into this, what are the things you came across that thought this was really outrageous or unnecessary? jim socks with logos required on them, on size, on t—shirts, on shirts, on hats, on bags and codes —— on ties, and just for one school. that drives up the cost. goods already get government guidance that says they should use uniforms that can be bought cheaply ina uniforms that can be bought cheaply in a supermarket, for example, and keep compulsorily branded items to a minimum. but not legally enforceable and that is what this bill would change. in peter bowes mix without our plain, bluejumper is as change. in peter bowes mix without our plain, blue jumper is as well as their branded ones. that many items, they come from one supplier, which they come from one supplier, which the bill would encourage to change. uniform is important for us and making children feel part of the school. we know it is expensive. when you are talking about hundreds of children, we know it is not still the numbers are practicalfor several companies to run. suppliers say branded items are often good—quality and more durable. the government says it will help this bill becomes law. they are required to have regard to the cost of the uniform stop so we expect schools to abide by that. ultimately there are complaints that can be made to the governing body for school by parents if they are concerned that the school is not abiding by statutory requirements. it would make good on a government pledged from 2015 and bring the situation in english schools in line with that in wales was d, it's about choice. i'm bringing make it up to respect what they are given. —— in wales. they should be happy without, or not. helen catt, bbc news, east sussex. —— with that or not. time to get the news, travel and weather where you are. good morning from bbc london, i'm victoria hollins. the london school of economics is to end face—to—face lessons due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. taught exams and other scheduled assessments will also be delivered online. the lse campus and halls of residence will remain open. a university spokesman said these actions are a precaution. king's college london is also to end face—to—face classes. meanwhile, the insurance market lloyd's of london will shut its underwriting floors for the first time in its history today. the 24—hour closure will be a test of the coronavirus contingency plans. the group said it will close four of the 12 floors in its building on lime street. it will also take the opportunity to deep—clean the underwriting room and all public areas in the building. well, the closures follow the deaths of two more people in london who had tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of uk deaths to 10. one of the most recent victims was an 89—year—old at charing cross hospital and a woman in her 60s at queen's hospital in romford. nhs england said they both had underlying health conditions. in other news, around 50 woolwich ferry workers will go on strike today, causing the service to be suspended. that's in addition to two separate 24—hour strikes which have been announced. they're striking over a long—running pay dispute. transport for london will take over the running of the woolwich ferry which is due to be completed by the end of the year. let's take a look at the travel situation now. 0n the tube, the central line suspended west ruislip to ruislip gardens due signalfailure. minor delays on the bakerloo line following earlier overrunning engineering work. southern are running a reduced service via selhurst following a points failure at the depot. westbound traffic on the a13 is building heading out of dagenham into barking. in brentford, boston manor road is closed between a4 great west road and windmill road due collision overnight towards brentford station. now the weather with elizabeth rizzini. hello. good morning. it's a fairly pleasant day of weatherhead for most of us. —— whether ahead. the winds have east significantly so we will lose the wind chill. lots of blue sky, plenty of sunshine around, the winds will continue to ease down, still quite breezy for the first half of the day. more cloud in the afternoon. showers in the late afternoon into the first part of the evening, but they certainly won't be everywhere. top temperatures between 9—11 celsius. then through this evening and overnight showers at first then some spells clouding over. we will have overnight lows between 4—6 celsius, so it's a rather wet start to the weekend but that early rain is set to clear with some brighter skies through the afternoon. the wind will pick up again on saturday night into sunday, rather breezy on sunday with a bit of rain through the afternoon. i'm back with the latest from the bbc london newsroom in half an hour. plenty more on our website at the usual address. bye for now. good morning. welcome to breakfast, with charlie stayt and rachel burden. 0ur headlines today: a new phase in the fight against coronavirus. from today, the government says anyone with a new, persistent cough or high temperature should self—isolate for seven days. the prime minister declares coronavirus the worst public health crisis in a generation, and will be more dangerous than flu. more families, many more families, are going to lose loved ones before their time. good morning from cheltenham on gold cup day. the premier league will hold an emergency meeting later to discuss whether future matches should go ahead. that is after the arsenal manager, mikel arteta, and chelsea player callum hudson—0doi both tested positive for the virus. the canadian prime minister's wife tests positive for coronavirus. justin trudeau says he has no symptoms, but will self—isolate for 1h days. and we will find out why it is a family affair when strictly‘s aj and 0ti join us to tell us about their big dance challenge for this year's sport relief. good morning. we have got a few showers around today, but for most places a window of drier weather before things turn unsettled, with some rain in the forecast for the weekend. not a washout. they will be some sunshine as well. i will bring you all the details in about ten minutes. —— there will be some sunshine. it is friday 13 march. our top story: new measures to help protect people from the coronavirus outbreak come into effect from today. anybody with a persistant cough or high temperature should self—isolate for seven days, as borisjohnson moves the uk response to the delay phase. the government is facing questions over whether the plans go far enough, but the prime minister said now was not the time for stricter measures. we are not, repeat not, closing schools now. the scientific advice is that this could do more harm than good at this time. but of course, we and this again may change as the disease spreads. in scotland, large—scale gatherings have been cancelled, but there is criticism over the decision not to do the same in england. the former health secretary jeremy hunt told bbc newsnight that the uk was in a national emergency, and suggested the government's new approach did not go far enough. i don't want to second—guess what the precise social distancing measures are that we might adopt, because i think, you know, we have to look at the evidence as to what works. but i think it is surprising and concerning that we're not doing any of it at all, when we have just four weeks before we get to the stage that italy is at, and you would have thought that every single thing we do in that four weeks would be designed to slow the spread of people catching the virus. in ireland, schools, universities and nurseries are set to close. elsewhere in europe, france's president, emmanuel macron, has called it the worst health crisis in france for a century. in a moment we will hear from our correspondents in paris and ireland. but first, let's hear from our scotland correspondent lorna gordon. so we know measures have been announced in scotland that are different from england. yes, that's right. a slight divergence in policy between the devolved nations. a sharp spike in the number of cases here in scotland yesterday, 60 positive cases, and yesterday scotland's first minister, nicola sturgeon, announcing that the government advice here will be that from monday, mass gatherings of more than 500 people should be cancelled. so that is events like football matches, rugby matches, perhaps concerts as well. she said anything really that police or paramedics might be in attendance. she said that advice, the rationale behind it is that it will ease pressure on the nhs, rather, she said, than being an effective way of delaying the spread of covid—19. she rejected the idea that there were any tensions between the different devolved nations, but of course health is a devolved matter, so it is a decision for her to make. because it is from monday, that means the football games this weekend will go ahead. the old firm game in glasgow, but the advice stands that anyone who has a persistent cough or fever should be self isolating so if they are not feeling well in those areas, they shouldn't go to those games this weekend. the football authorities say they are seeking clarification about what this will mean going forward , about what this will mean going forward, whether it means the end of the football season, in effect, or whether it means the games next week being played behind closed doors. another interesting thing which came out yesterday was the fact the number of intensive care beds with ventilators here in scotland, the scottish government saying we have around 200 here, they are looking to double the number of beds, intensive ca re double the number of beds, intensive care beds, and capacity. but at least one health board here in scotla nd least one health board here in scotland confirming they are already cancelling nonurgent procedures. that is the situation in scotland. hugh schofield can tell us more about what is happening in france. it is interesting here in france because we are in a way in the same kind of situation as the uk. we are a bit further head down the road of infection, 3000 known cases and 61 damp, but broadly the same interpretation of phases and stages. we are moving in france now into what they call stage iii, which is essentially where you recognise that the viruses out there and there is no point containing it anymore but you are trying to slow down the spread. that is essentially what is happening in britain as well. the big differences here in france, president macron announced what borisjohnson did not, which is the closure of schools. and all nurseries, primary and secondary schools and universities are going to be closed, and that will mark a very big change in people's lives. of course there will be special measures put in place for the children of health workers, because i think one of the big concerns here is that if children are staying at home, that means children with health workers as parents will be staying at home, and that will be pressure on them. this is not a situation like italy. the view here is that the italians have been too drastic and the more gradual approach is required. so there are no closures of shops or anything like that, and the elections, crucially, that have taken place here on sunday, will go ahead as planned —— are taking place on sunday. the government has promised big economic measures on the french and european level. now over to chris paige in dublin. this would usually be the start of rush hour in dublin, but it is striking how quiet it is. this is the start of a shutdown the likes of which no—one here has seen before —— chris page. schools, colleges and childcare facilities have closed and people are being asked to work from home wherever they possibly can and generally cut down on their socialising. mass gatherings of more than 100 people if they are indoor or 500 if they are outdoor are being called off, so already we are hearing stories that that is for example affecting people who are planning to get married over the busy st patrick's day holiday period. they are having to drastically cut down on the number of guests they are inviting to their weddings. not every aspect of life here in the republic of ireland is being stopped, for example shops are staying open, public transport is still running. nonetheless, there is no doubt this will have a major impact on the economy. that is something that has been acknowledged by the irish prime minister, leo varadkar, himself, when he announced these restrictions. it is notable that business leaders have said that if this is what has to be done to lessen the impact of the virus, then it is necessary. across the border in northern ireland, the restrictions in place here are not in place, schools remain open and ministers at stormont say they are continuing to follow the advice of the uk government, and the scientific evidence suggests that restrictions like this are not necessary at the moment. chris, thank you, and thanks to hugh and lorna as well. later, the premier league will hold an emergency meeting, after the arsenal manager and a chelsea player tested positive for the virus. so what will it mean for the rest of the season? 0ur sports reporter laura scott is outside the premier league hq for us now. we expect a meeting a little bit later on. exactly. this emergency meeting was called last night by the premier league. it was interesting that the situation rapidly evolved last night. as recently as 9:30pm last night. as recently as 9:30pm last night, the premier league had said all fixtures this weekend would go ahead, and then we got a statement at 10:30pm saying that because mikel arteta, the arsenal manager, had tested positive, they we re manager, had tested positive, they were going to hold this emergency meeting today to discuss future fixtures. so they have to make some pretty big decisions today. and also, i mean, overnight, callum hudson—0doi, the chelsea winger, we found out that he has also tested positive to the virus. that brings up positive to the virus. that brings up to four clubs who are now affected either with players who have the virus or a self isolating. and that means they have got to make a decision quite immediately on this weekend's fixtures, and then they have a big decision to make about what it means for the season. and they could, following the example of serie a in italy and la liga in spain, they have shut down for two weeks. they could decide to go with that kind of decision, or they could try to play the fixtures involving clu bs try to play the fixtures involving clubs that are currently unaffected it, but some really big decisions to be made at the premier league here today. thank you very much, laura. we will let you know on the bbc later on whether there has been any specific development there. you can follow all the developments around coronavirus via the bbc website. in canada, the wife of the prime minister, justin trudeau, has tested positive for coronavirus. officials say sophie gregoire trudeau has mild symptoms and is feeling well. mr trudeau will self—isolate with his wife for the next 1a days. the tourism industry is warning the coronavirus pandemic could put millions ofjobs at risk. the world travel and tourism council says the outbreak presents a significant threat, and is calling for a range of measures, including a reduction in taxes and a bigger budget for promoting tourist destinations. access to mount everest has been closed for the rest of the expedition season because of the outbreak. nepal's government says it will cancel all climbing permits from tomorrow until the end of april and stop giving out tourist visas. china has also blocked access to everest from its side of the border. the united states says it has carried out airstrikes in iraq against a pro—iranian militia. the pentagon said the strikes were in retaliation for a rocket attack near baghdad on wednesday that killed two americans and a british soldier. mps are considering whether to back proposals to cut the cost of school uniforms in england. if passed, the legislation would force schools to keep compulsory branded items like blazers to a minimum. a survey by the charity the children's society has found that parents are paying an average of £337 a year on secondary school uniforms. it is just worth saying at 7:30am this morning we will be speaking to the chief scientific officer, sir patrick vallance, about the advice given out yesterday which of course kicks in this morning. that includes keeping yourself at home if you have a cough ora keeping yourself at home if you have a cough or a temperature, for seven days, and looking ahead to how it might transpire over the next few weeks in terms of social distancing. people have many, many questions. keep them coming in for us this morning. at 7:30am the chief scientific officer will be speaking to us on bbc breakfast. a couple of days ago we were told they were going to test more, and now it seems they might not be, so we will try and get clarity on that little bit later on. let's get a look at the weather now. we are heading into the weekend then people may have plans, regardless everything else regardless everything weekend then people may have plans, regardless everything else that is going on. how is it looking? things are looking a bit mixed through the weekend, another area of low pressure bring you some fairly u nsettled pressure bring you some fairly unsettled weather. a bit of rain around at times through the course of the weekend but not a complete washout. there will be some brighter weather as well. and certainly today a window of dry weather for most places. there will be some sunny spells, a few showers on the cards as well, but we won't all see them through the course of today. if we look at the showers we have had over the last few hours, they have been across parts of eastern scotland, north east england, down towards the midlands as well, and they are fairly isolated. so in between any of those showers, a lot of dry weather as well. and the showers will gradually ease away towards the south and east as we head through the day. so lots of dry weather across scotland, northern ireland, northern england as well. further south, more showers developing for north wales down towards the south midlands as well, and then more rain working in from the south—west later on. so if we take a look at this afternoon, into the afternoon rush hour, around 5pm, some rain for the likes of devon and cornwall and some showers for the likes of kent right up showers for the likes of kent right up towards liverpool as well. some dry weather for up towards liverpool as well. some dry weatherfor much up towards liverpool as well. some dry weather for much of northern england and northern ireland, and across much of scotland as we end the day as well. the cloud will be creeping in from the south—west, though, head of that next area of rain, and it will be sweeping its way gradually eastwards through this evening and overnight. so, by the middle of the night, i think we will all see that wet weather creeping its way in. it will be falling as snow across the higher ground of scotland, but certainly rain further south. and it is going to be turning a little bit drier and clearer to the west to start off your saturday morning, with temperatures generally a little bit above freezing. a chilly start to the day once that rain clears away. some dry weather for a time on saturday, before saturday evening and overnight into sunday the next area of rain pushes its way eastwards. so it is a little bit next through the course of the weekend, fairly blustery winds as well. as we've been hearing this morning, we've now officially moved to the delay phase of the government's action plan to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. it's an acknowledgement that the virus can no longer be contained. the aim now is to push the peak impact of the virus later, when the nhs is under less pressure. so, what does that look like? well, the advice to anyone with a new persistent cough or a fever is to stay at home for seven days. older people and those with pre—existing health conditions should avoid cruises. schools have been advised to cancel trips abroad. however, for now schools will remain open, unlike in other european countries including italy, ireland and france. and there is currently no uk—wide ban on large sporting events. but in scotland, a ban on gatherings of more than 500 people is due to come into effect on monday. breakfast‘s tim muffett has been looking at how care homes are dealing with the outbreak. cared for but cut off. insult us in cornwall, this care home is no longer allowing visitors inside, and that includes us. hello, bbc here. 0h, hello. hello. so we touch elbows? it's the hardest decision mike has everfaced. elbows? it's the hardest decision mike has ever faced. we came to the conclusion we would cut the visitors down dramatically and unfortunately that has to include families and friends. it's really tough. because it does impinge on the quality of our residents' lives. i'd rather kick myself in a couple of weeks' time for overreacting than kick myself were not doing anything and having dreadful consequences as a result. this is life—and—death stuff good morning, how are you today! this is now the only way heather can see or speak to her mother valerie. we are very sad we can't come and see you but you do understand why, don't you? yes. what you make of the situation where families are asked not to visit their relatives? it has to be done, i think. it's reg retta ble, to be done, i think. it's regrettable, being elderly, vulnerable, they all have underlying health conditions. we are going to see dad tomorrow. valerie's grandmotherjill had come down from leicester especially to visit her. it's been difficult because she is not very good with technology and communication is difficult. there arejust under 500,000 communication is difficult. there are just under 500,000 people living in care homes in the uk. for residents, families and staff, coronavirus is posing an enormous challenge. it's really difficult. we had to go to a shop yesterday to get hand soap because we couldn't do it the normally —— normal way. hand soap because we couldn't do it the normally -- normalway. people are bulk buying. what impact would it have on residents, the fact visitors won't be able to come in to see relatives? their emotional wellbeing is that they are able to see theirfamilies, wellbeing is that they are able to see their families, they might not recognise their family member but they recognise their face are not being able to see that face—to—face isa being able to see that face—to—face is a very difficult challenge for them. it's just ensuring that the virus doesn't get within the home. the situation is evolving but as things stand it's up to the care homes themselves to decide whether or not to allow visitors. i care homes giving an official guidance as you are concerned “— homes giving an official guidance as you are concerned —— getting? homes giving an official guidance as you are concerned -- getting? no. 0ur residents can't go anywhere. if they are ill or dying, and if our staff are ill, we need help. it is the worst public health crisis regeneration, according to the prime minister. in care homes commit difficult decisions will have to be made. tim muffett, abc news. let's speak now to jan shortt from the national pensioners convention, anita dawn, who runs a wellbeing and fitness centre for the over 50s, and louise taylor, the executive director of social care at lancashire county council. let's ask you about what the plans ca re let's ask you about what the plans care homes are implementing? you can imagine for the older and more vulnerable people of lancashire who may be more susceptible to contracting this virus, our priority is to continue the continuity of care. we are working with other agencies through the resilience forum to make sure we can start abilities in the event some staff aren't well enough to come into work orare at aren't well enough to come into work or are at home caring for family members. what are your contingency plans for a situation like that?” do want to reassure the public we have plans and we have had to mobilise them this year. so we had flooding in lancashire and we had staff coming to the homes of people who needed care. clearly these are exceptional circumstances but we do have a large workforce. while we anticipate people will be off we will use staff lacks ability —— flexibly, and doing what we can. you mentioned using library staff to help support stop start in our libraries have a high level of skill, particularly working with normal people and meeting with them ona normal people and meeting with them on a daily basis. i know libraries area on a daily basis. i know libraries are a safe haven for people to visit but we will have to get to people's homes. they are staff we have a lot of confidence in. they have no medical training. no, of confidence in. they have no medicaltraining. no, they don't. and not everyone we see is in need of medical support. some of this is meeting basic care needs. so picking up meeting basic care needs. so picking up from where the prime minister left off yesterday, there is concern about older people in the community and care homes as well. what are you hearing from people about them, about their main concerns?” hearing from people about them, about their main concerns? i think the main concern, it is to stick with the very vulnerable and our main concern is for those very vulnerable people with health conditions who are already isolated because they live alone. they don't have a family, there is often not anyone to make sure they haven't falle n anyone to make sure they haven't fallen through the net. so they are already isolated. in one of our regions, recently, there are people with long—term health conditions that would normally get a regular appointment with their gp. that would be either to monitor the condition or their medication. and one of our members phoned his gp surgery one of our members phoned his gp surgery to be met with an answering machine, saying they had to book an appointment online. it was all right for him, his online, but if you look at 67% of the population of people over 65 not having access, even to a mobile phone, certainly not a computer, perhaps they can't afford broadband, within that percentage, the largest number of people off—line are over 75, the exact vulnerable group we are talking about. this drive to online is a cause of concern. anyway. in this situation it is even more concerning because what does a person do if they can't get through to a gp on they can't get through to a gp on the phone? that is a very good question. and anita dawn, just to pick up on what you do. you help people with fitness, especially those over 50? 2596 of my market are over 70, some of them are classified as vulnerable adults. they come to you? they come to me. i have a studio, they are my livelihood, as well as fulfilling my passion. sol am very well as fulfilling my passion. sol am very concerned. well as fulfilling my passion. sol am very concerned. have people not been coming because of concerns?” started asking people and one of my personal training clients who doesn't come into group exercise, she told me her husband won't be coming anymore. she was almost in tears because she had such a great benefit from seeing me once a week. hopefully i'll be able to work with her outside where we are in close contact with people. so i'm waiting for the guidelines on that, i'm doing some walking and exercises out in nature as well. it is difficult, this contradiction. obviously keeping fit will help protect older people but also if people are feeling very isolated, very lonely, they can impact on wellbeing and mental health. that will also impact on physical health, too. loneliness is one of the main health epidemics of this century. and of course with loneliness and depression, i'm no —— i know when i come in by choice, i feel a bit depressed when i don't speak with people. it's a concern but i'm hoping to go live with my classes with these people, most of them all have smartphones and a tv at home and they can stream it live through the tv. perhaps these are for the more engaged members of the order community. yes. can ijust pick up? we will be speaking to the chief scientific advisor. you feel there is enough information out there? there is a pending period we had the scientific advise, the medical advice is you should go and see people but that might change. what areas you need more clarity, do you think? i'm pretty satisfied we are getting regular information and we have to balance that with the fa ct we have to balance that with the fact that people are genuinely feeling anxious. it is an uncertain situation. but the advice we're getting is clear. it is business that usual at the moment, good hygiene, which i would expect people working with the vulnerable anyway to be applying, that is important. and the advice we have been given is to rescue a situation we start to come into contact with people can be detrimental to people's emotional health. —— completely stopped coming into contact. so clearly we are in discussion with our care providers. we will have discussions to talk to those challenges in the event somebody does get diagnosed. and how you safely and sensibly managed that. but there is always a balance because as we have said from anita andjan, to because as we have said from anita and jan, to deprive people from contact and jan, to deprive people from co nta ct ca n and jan, to deprive people from contact can be damaging. so i think the advice at the moment is fairly measured and obviously, we know it is based on what we're learning from other countries. can i ask you about the testing? if someone is tested to haveit the testing? if someone is tested to have it we know people are now not going to be unless they are in hospital. presumably that applies to ca re hospital. presumably that applies to care homes, too? it does. the vast majority of people, the symptoms i understand will be fairly mild and moderate. so it is possible people haven't stepped forward for testing. but the information we got is fairly clear in terms of how the symptoms will exhibit. and for people, who are expected to work and care homes anyway, even in normal circumstances, they take a judgement about whether it is appropriate to going to work anyway and pass infection onto someone else someone who may be at risk. thank you all for coming in. thank you, our pleasure. jan, anita, and louise. right now it is time to get the news, travel and weather where you are. good morning from bbc london, i'm victoria hollins. the london school of economics is to end face—to—face lessons due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. taught exams and other scheduled assessments will also be delivered online. the lse campus and halls of residence will remain open. a university spokesman said these actions are a precaution. king's college london is also to end face—to—face classes. the insurance market lloyd's of london will shut its underwriting floors for the first time in its history today. the 24—hour closure will be a test of the coronavirus contingency plans. the group said it will close four of the 12 floors in its building on lime street. it will also take the opportunity to deep—clean the underwriting room and all public areas in the building. the closures follow the deaths of two more people in london who had tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of uk deaths to 10. one of the most recent victims was an 89—year—old at charing cross hospital and a woman in her 60s at queen's hospital in romford. nhs england said they both had underlying health conditions. around 50 woolwich ferry workers will go on strike today, causing the service to be suspended. that's in addition to two separate 24—hour strikes which have been announced. they're striking over a long—running pay dispute. transport for london will take over the running of the woolwich ferry which is due to be completed by the end of the year. let's take a look at the travel situation now. central line is suspended west ruislip to ruislip gardens due to signalfailure. all of the other lines are running well. southern are running a reduced service via selhurst following a points failure at the depot. northern traffic on the blackwall tunnel southern approach is slow from the sun in the sands at blackheath. things are moving, as you can see there. westbound traffic on the a205 south circular is slow heading towards the temporary lights at the catford gyratory, so delays building back through hither green. now the weather with elizabeth rizzini. hello. good morning. it's a fairly pleasant day of weather ahead for most of us. the winds have eased significantly so we will lose the wind chill. lots of blue sky, plenty of morning sunshine around, the winds will continue to ease down, it's still quite breezy for the first part of the day and we will see more cloud feeding through in the afternoon. showers in the late afternoon into the first part of the evening, but they certainly won't be everywhere. top temperatures between 9—11 celsius. then through this evening and overnight showers at first then some spells clouding over into the first part of saturday morning. we will have overnight lows between 4—6 celsius, so it's a rather wet start to the weekend but that early rain is set to clear and leave us with some brighter skies through the afternoon. the wind will pick up again on saturday night into sunday, rather breezy on sunday with a bit of rain through the afternoon. iam back i am back from the latest in 30 minutes —— with the latest. see you soon, goodbye for now. hello, this is breakfast, with charlie stayt and rachel burden. belgium and portugal have become the latest eu countries to close down schools in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus. this morning, the prime minister is facing criticism for not doing the same here. borisjohnson says he is acting on the advice of the uk's most senior scientists and doctors, including the government's chief scientific adviser, sir patrick vallance, who joins us now from westminster. thank you very much for your time this morning, sir patrick. many, many questions from many people, so i wonder if first of all we could start with the new advice which has begun today around if anyone has minor symptoms, a cough or a temperature, and there will be a lot of people this morning this time of year thinking maybe that applies to me to year thinking maybe that applies to metoa year thinking maybe that applies to me to a certain degree. tell us what people should be doing. you're absolutely right to pick up that this is quite a big intervention. this about trying to reduce the speed of transmission and we know that households and individuals and small groups are often the way these things spread. so the advice is that anyone who has a raised temperature ora anyone who has a raised temperature or a cough should self isolate for seven days. and the seven day that is the period over which this disease is infectious, after that it trails off very, very quickly. and so trails off very, very quickly. and so by doing that, we are hoping that we can break or reduce the transmission rate across society, to try to do what i described yesterday, which is bringing down the peak of the epidemic, getting it down to a lower level, and spreading it out bits, and that is important to sure the health service can cope, it doesn't get overwhelmed, and we don't end up having to have an impact on other types of treatment as well. we have got a lot of people getting in touch with us today. a question from steve on that theme. he says if i have the symptoms, what is the specific process to get myself tested to rule out covid—19 or seasonal flu myself tested to rule out covid—19 or seasonalflu or a myself tested to rule out covid—19 or seasonal flu or a cold? what has been happening up until now is there has been individual case finding and testing and about 30,000 tests have been done in the uk, of which 590 have been positive. as you move to this approach of saying now we want people to stay at home if they have got the symptoms, you can't test everybody. the public health england la bs everybody. the public health england labs have ramped up to be able to do over 2000 tests a day. those tests should be used particularly for critical situations, for sicker patients, for people coming into hospital and other situations, and to make sure that we can monitor the outbreak. it is neither sensible or necessary to test everybody, and thatis necessary to test everybody, and that is why this is such a big move, because it is asking people to stay at home. some will have coronavirus, probably a minority at the moment. some will have a common cold, some may have something else. this is the type of measure we need to make, which is why it is quite a big change, in order to try to reduce the speed of transition across society. —— transmission. and this is not about something that is necessarily going to protect the individual. it is about protecting all of us. so at what point does someone all of us. so at what point does someone need to take another measure? so you have started off feeling a little bit ill, may be feeling a little bit ill, may be feeling something like a common cold ora feeling something like a common cold or a slight temperature. at what point does that change in terms of what action you should take, and what action you should take, and what should you do then? so for most people this is a mild illness, better after about five days or so. and that's the pattern you would expect. if it follows that sort of pattern, which feels like a normal cold or a mild flu and is getting better, there is nothing else to be done. if as it is going on you are feel worse, or you have something that you would normally want to call the doctor about, or 111, that is when you would do that, so use your normal sense of when you would do that. and in some patients, the way this disease is going is that for most people, after a week or so it is gone. in some small minority of people, you get a second phase of the disease, which then gets worse over the subsequent week, the shortness of breath, other symptoms, which are not like the first lot, and people think they are not getting better and this is getting worse, that is the time to make contact. so we will not have the information we have had up until now of the number of people that have tested positive, because that is not being done on a routine basis anymore. what information will you be giving us? for example, will be begetting hospital admissions in relation to coronavirus? well, the chief medical officer has been clear that the thing he is not going to do is give away information that could in any way compromise patient confidentiality, so i don't expect to hear anything in detail of any individuals at all. what you can expect, though, is that as we do testing, the number positive across the country, the screening that we have started both in intensive care units, patients with severe pneumonia and through general practices, and other tests that may be done for certain groups and so on, those numbers will be made public. and i am personally very keen that we make as much of this, both those sorts of numbers and the science underlying our thinking, as open and transparent as we possibly can. this is something we are all in it together, we need to be able to see the information and get the best advice we can to make sure we tackle this properly. can i ask you to address the concerns of many people, some scientists, but also jeremy hunt, the health secretary, asking about the new advice which is not including cancelling large gatherings, other people about why we are not closing schools. jeremy hunt says i think it is surprising and concerning that we are not doing any of it at all, when we have just four weeks before we get to the stage that italy is at stop and i have to say, this is being picked up bya have to say, this is being picked up by a lot of people getting in touch with us today. we have karen, for example, who says why are the scientific and medical advisors in the uk advising different measures than their counterparts in other countries. france, for example, as you know, said yesterday that schools and colleges will close.” think broadly the scientific community is aligned over the measures that should be taken, and the question is at what time and in what way. the first set of measures are actually rather large. we have just asked a lot of people to isolate, stay at home, if they have got symptoms of mild upper respiratory tract infection, cough or fever. that is a respiratory tract infection, cough orfever. that is a big change. that is the intervention which is going to have the biggest impact at the moment. we have also talked about the possibility of whole households staying at home if one person has got it. that may come in later. and importantly, we're also talking about making that, during the peak, when people are most likely to get infected, the elderly and vulnerable are properly protected, which will be over many week period. this is not a short—term thing. this is going to go on for weeks. so there are things that will come in due course, at the right time. and of those, just to deal with the schools one, closing schools is a very effective way of dealing with pandemic flu. it is often a way to deal with it. in this disease, the role of children is less clear in terms of spreading the disease, and you would have to close the schools for a very prolonged period, so months, four months or so, in order for this to be effective. it is inconceivable that those children are not going to mix anyway, and of course, many of them may also be sent to be looked after by their grandparents during that period. the consequences of those have other impacts, of course, on this illness. so although school closures may be something that needs to be done at something that needs to be done at some point, we need to get these other, bigger, more impactful measures in place first. so if closing schools is relevant to how you are going to tackle it more generally, it seems to be that you are saying that it is because you don't think people would take it seriously for long enough, rather thanit seriously for long enough, rather than it is relevant... it could be done now, and that would be useful, but you think that people would not be ready for that and wouldn't sustain it over a long period of time, along with large gatherings, for example? no, ithink time, along with large gatherings, for example? no, i think with large gatherings it is a different point. but i want to be clear that there are three interventions that we think will have the biggest impact, and those other three we are focusing on getting in place, and are big, and they things we need to get in place at the right time. schools would have a lesser impact on those, and would need to be done at the right time of the outbreak in order to have the effect. and that right time isn't yet. it doesn't mean it won't come, it doesn't mean that it isn't something we will keep in regular update. mass gatherings area in regular update. mass gatherings are a different question, and most of the infections will be spread by small groups. actually, the most likely people you will be infected by other people you know best, your friends and family who you come into contact with a lot. the closure of mass gatherings, one person who is infectious and either have a higher probability of infecting a small number of people in a small space or a very low probability of infecting a very low probability of infecting a larger number of people in a big space. so that closing mass gatherings may have an effect on its own. it is a relatively small effect, really quite small compared to the other things we're about. but again, on its own, doesn't make a difference, and isn't one of the top things that you need to do to try and control this sort of epidemic. so we need to get the important things done first and properly implemented. those are the things that will really create the social distancing that is so important to try and break or reduce the transmission of this disease. now, one of the lines from the press conference yesterday, and you were standing next to borisjohnson when he made these comments and it has been picked up by many of the papers this morning, he said many more families will lose loved ones before their time. and he phrased it saying i have two level with you. now, people will possibly be interpreting that in different ways. i wonder if you can just explain a little that in different ways. i wonder if you canjust explain a little more about what that means in real terms. i think we can see across the world, this is a pandemic, and we can see what is happening in other countries. it is worth noting at the moment, in the uk, we have had 11 deaths, and obviously that is a tragedy for those families and friends of those people. but it is still a relatively small number, when you think that about 8000 people die from seasonal flu every year. so we definitely will see more deaths, and that may be quite a large number that we see, and that is something that we are trying to reduce as much as possible. and that's why, during the peak, at the time when you are most likely to become infected, it is crucial that we then have in place measures that protect the elderly and the vulnerable, who are at most risk of getting serious illness from this disease. now, yesterday i believe you restated a worst possible scenario estimate of the percentage of the british population who could be infected, at 80%, in a reasonable worst case scenario. be infected, at 80%, in a reasonable worst case scenario. what other scenarios are there, and how might that work? in any of these situations, what governments do is they work at a reasonable worst case scenario, and that is obviously really important for planning. because that could happen, and it is important to be ready for it. so thatis important to be ready for it. so that is what the reasonable worst case scenario is. it is not the most likely scenario. and the most likely scenario will be less than that. we can't exactly tell how much less it will be at the moment, because we don't know how this outbreak is going. if you look at wuhan or singapore, the numbers are less in the uk. we are going to have to monitor the effects of the measures we are putting into place. so to come up with a number and say it is not that, it is this, it is not the most reasonable worst case, it is exactly this, it is just not something that can be done at the moment. but i think it is less then the reasonable worst case scenario. and are you confident, a lot of people asking this question, are you confident that there are enough nhs beds available when this gets to peak? we're talking about intensive ca re peak? we're talking about intensive care beds. are you confident that we are prepared, and there is enough equipment and beds? well, you are right to focus on it is intensive ca re right to focus on it is intensive care beds, it is ventilators, it is that end of the spectrum which is the important one, and the nhs i know is working flat out to try and ensure that all of that capacity is got into place. we do need to know that, if it is a very big peak and it isa that, if it is a very big peak and it is a very sharp peak, and that is why we are trying to flatten this thing, that is such that it would potentially swamp any healthcare system, and that is what we're trying to avoid. so there is at this stage a genuine concern that, if the numbers are at the worst case scenario, the nhs would be swamped? at the worst case scenario, the nhs would not cope with the number of ventilator beds that were required, nor could any healthcare system, and asi nor could any healthcare system, and as i say, the worst case scenario is not the one that is the most realistic one. the nhs is working flat out to increase ventilator capacity, and not just flat out to increase ventilator capacity, and notjust ventilators, but of course, importantly, the people, and it is really important we have the right people there to be able to run those. lots of people, even the very sequence, will not require ventilation, but will simply require ventilation, but will simply require oxygen, and there are many other ways to deliver that. can i ask you in relation to elderly people, and many people have been getting in touch with us this morning suggesting they are a little bit confused, because obviously your instinct is, if it is a loved one or afamily instinct is, if it is a loved one or a family friend, the instinct is that you want to go and see them, you would want to spend time with them and help them out. is the advice at this stage changing as to what you should do in relation to making sure those people who are most vulnerable, the elderly, will remain coronavirus free? well, definitely don't go and see them if you have got symptoms, because you should be keeping yourself at home. so if you have got symptoms, stay at home, stay isolated for one week, as we have discussed. i think common sense practice things. washing hands. it is sort of boring, but it is the most important thing. lots of evidence over many years shows that washing hands is the most important thing you can do. we know that you reduce the transmission possibility if you are more than two metres away. those are the sort of simple, practical things that can be done. and you are quite right. the elderly, who will need to be even more intensely protected around the time ofa more intensely protected around the time of a peak, it is more important that we don't leave people isolated, don't leave them feeling as though they have been neglected, don't leave them vulnerable for other reasons. and that is why that measure needs to come in place at the right time as this epidemic grows. sir patrick balance, thank you very much for your time this morning. sir patrick vallance is the chief scientific advisor. we will read some of your comments shortly. but now to cheltenham with mike. good morning. this was the original gold cup handed out in 1926 before coming back into the hands of the ownership of the rest was a year ago. this one stays in the museum but later a replica will be lifted. the first horses out on the course as well. it does go on as planned on gold cup day, one of the blue ribbon events of the jump racing season. the few sporting events planned. elsewhere, it has been very different. football affected in the last 26 hours. this all happened arsenal manager mikel arteta has tested positive for the coronavirus. arteta along with the full first—team squad and coaching staff are all in self—isolation. arsenal were due to play brighton tomorrow, but that match has now been postponed. the premier league will have an emergency meeting today to discuss future fixtures. another thing on the agenda will be chelsea and england player callum hudson—0doi who returned positive with a test for the coronavirus. the squad and coaching staff will now all self—isolate. chelsea had been scheduled to play aston villa tomorrow, but that match will surely be cancelled. confirmation coming up later on. golf's players championship has been cancelled with immediate effect. the tournament started yesterday with fans in attendance, and had been due to continue without spectators for the next three days. the next three events on the pga tour schedule have also been cancelled, putting the hopes of the masters taking place in majorjeopardy. back here at cheltenham, i'm delighted to say i am joined by the regional director of the cheltenham racecourse. good morning. thank you for joining racecourse. good morning. thank you forjoining us. how strange has it been for you this morning with cheltenham continuing as planned with all of these other sporting events being wiped out for the moment and postpone? yes, it has been an interesting footnote for us. we have been liaising closely with the government over the last footnote and there has been a lot under way to start the festival on tuesday and reach the combination today with the magnus gold cup is something we are really looking forward to —— combination. something we are really looking forward to -- combination. sport in the last 24—hour is, raising and ireland starting to be done behind closed doors —— last 26 hours and with racing. what you think will happen next? it's difficult to speculate that we look forward to the gold cup taking place and the cracking race in front of the thousands of people that will be here. what measures have you put in place to try how combat the virus. we have advised all our race—goers and participants do hear government health guidelines and if there is any sign they should not come, they should stay at home. we have put a number of measures in place, such as dirty for number of measures in place, such as dirtyfor our hand number of measures in place, such as dirty for our hand sanitisation units which we had made for us just before the festival. and the crowds, just looking at yesterday you had around 2.5 thousand with the make two and a half thousand layers, numbers down on last year —— lass, but you are still pretty please?” think it's a great sign of the popularity of the festival. we have seen popularity of the festival. we have seen ticket sales over the last fortnight drop a bit, which is hardly surprising, despite that they have held up very well. i think race—goers have had a great three days so far. it would be a great story if album photo retained the gold cup? yes, i think he has a good chance of retaining it this year. thank you forjoining us was that i know you are very busy and that you get on with the day. in an hour we will play it out, speaking with minor league, one of the many jockeys styrene here at the chosen investa ble. jockeys styrene here at the chosen investable. what a beautiful pink— blue sky for michael. does that bode well for the weather? it is quite a serene start of the day for many of us out there. we do have some blue sky. this is the picture in cambridgeshire. some blue sky and there are a few showers in the forecast through today but we won't all see them. so will be a day of says bells, dry weather and a few showers? it won't be as windy as it has been of the past couple of days. the satellite pictures shows we have mostly clear skies out there, kite dipping into towards the west, this isa dipping into towards the west, this is a low pressure system that will bring some rain later today, tonight and into tomorrow morning. 0ut bring some rain later today, tonight and into tomorrow morning. out in the atlantic, another area of low pressure developing will bring wet and windy weather late in the weekend. the here and now, not a bad picture. so is down is coast of england, got than mostly dry, as is northern ireland first thing. one or two isolated showers across north wales, and before this area of rain creeps in late in the afternoon from the south—west. most of we have a fairamount of dry the south—west. most of we have a fair amount of dry and great weather, temperatures 8— 12 degrees, it will call the eastern scotland and eastern england as the breeze comes in from the north sea. through this evening and is a note this area of rain moves it way eastwards across much of the uk, it turns to snow over the high ground of scotland, so quite a cold, wintry start to saturday, some icy stretches over the higher ground here. it will be patchy at lower levels. some rain this weekend, could feel quite blustery as well but it won't be a complete washout. this vast frontal system moves away quite quickly, the then head zinfandel and take, particularly later saturday and into sunday morning. we will see a few heavier bursts of rain on the cold front. 0n saturday, the rain pretty light and patchy, still some snow over the high ground of scotland that clears the course of the course of the morning. a day as well for many parts of the date. the next area of what and windy weather moving from ireland into wales late in the afternoon on saturday, ahead of that temperatures up to 16 in warmer spots, that won't feel too bad. cooler across parts of scotland on saturday. into sunday and we have this area of rain, it's a cold front so this area of rain, it's a cold front so wet weather for much of northern england and wales. it will push its way eastwards and start to fade away and it will be replaced by sunshine and it will be replaced by sunshine and showers from the west. back to you both. sarah, thank you very much. just a couple of comments quickly in response to the government's chief scientific advisor patrick vallance talking to charlie a moment ago. the government warns against everyone getting sick at once, dealing with a tsunami of illness. another, no panic, do what you can, it will pass. and there will be more coverage on coronavirus on breakfast this morning later, including a warning up morning later, including a warning up to 50 million jobs in travel and tourism could be at risk as the industry deals with the coronavirus pandemic. let's speak now to the chief executive of the world travel and tourism council, gloria guevara, whojoins us from our london newsroom. about is it for your members at the moment? -- how bad? the world health emergency has become a world economic emergency, unfortunately. the ban on tourism, as we saw those travel bans we imposed some decisions. this has affected the sector heavily. what did you make of president trump announcing this week they would be not accepting flights from 26 european countries? we don't believe that is the resolution. travel bans have not been the best solution. the virus is already in the us. what the who is advising us is to do testing and isolating people so that they can contain the spread. travel bans are going to hurt the economy, unfortunately. spread. travel bans are going to hurt the economy, unfortunatelym is clear that this virus did travel asa is clear that this virus did travel as a result of people moving between countries, so it seems a logical, commonsense thing to do to restrict that in way. yes, the restrictions are interesting, but as we say, 850,000 travellers from europe in the next 30 days are not going to visit the country, and that is equivalent to almost $4 billion. that being said, we are also shocking our impact in the economy at the same time. one in ten jobs on the planet are depending in the sector and the world health emergency is becoming an economic emergency. when you think about the restau ra nts, emergency. when you think about the restaurants, bars, the hotels, travel agencies that depend on the travellers, you don't have those travellers, you don't have those travellers anymore, it is becoming a huge economic problem as that i understand your ambition, your desire to protect the tourism industry, but it might simply be we have to take an economic hit in order to protect particularly vulnerable people. don't get me wrong, health is our priority and we should protect individuals and we should protect individuals and we should do everything in our power to control the spread, but at the same time we need to make two digit decisions based on data and science —— strategic. decisions based on data and science -- strategic. i think people are really stuck at the moment was that you have a holiday book, the travel advice is changing all the time, what individual nations are doing is changing all the time. do you just stick with what the foreign and commonwealth office is saying here? go ahead with your holiday regardless but run the risk restrictions might be put in place once you get there or a case might come up at your hotel? so i think people are generally really confused i don't have huge confidence in getting on a plane —— and don't have. we need to follow the advice we have from governments. and as you said, pending on investigations. we need to protect vulnerable groups. there are a lot of things we know about this virus but a lot of things we don't know. we have a lot of information as well. what i would say is to monitor the situation and, imean, say is to monitor the situation and, i mean, there is a lot going on later in the year, so you should look at that as well. the decision is based on information you have, check with your doctor, check with your experts and in this case, listen to what the government is telling you and make the best decision. every individual should make the best decision based on their information. thank you very much indeed, gloria guevara from the world travel tourism council. 7:57am now, that means it's time to get the news, travel and weather where you are. good morning from bbc london, i'm victoria hollins. some universities in london are ending face—to—face lessons due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. the london school of economics is doing all taught assessments online. the lse campus and halls of residence will remain open. a university spokesman said these actions are a precaution. king's college london is also to end face—to—face classes. the insurance market lloyd's of london will shut its underwriting floors for the first time in its history today. the 24 hour closure will be a test of the coronavirus contingency plans. the group said it will close four of the 12 floors in its building on lime street. it will also take the opportunity to deep—clean the underwriting room and all public areas in the building. the closures follow the deaths of two more people in london who had tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of uk deaths to 10. one of the most recent victims was an 89—year—old at charing cross hospital and a woman in her 60s at queen's hospital in romford. nhs england said they both had underlying health conditions. around 50 woolwich ferry workers will go on strike today, causing the service to be suspended. that's in addition to two seperate 24 hour strikes which have been announced. they're striking over a long—running pay dispute. transport for london will take over the running of the woolwich ferry which is due to be completed by the end of the year. let's take a look at the travel situation now. 0n the tube, all lines are running a good service. southern are running a reduced service via selhurst following a points failure at the depot. northern traffic on the blackwall tunnel southern approach is slow from the sun in sands roundabout at blackheath. the a1 holloway road down to one lane at hornsey street following a burst water main near holloway road station, with tailbacks to the nags head at parkhurst road. now the weather with elizabeth rizzini. hello. good morning. it's a fairly pleasant day of weather ahead for most of us today. it's a bit of a cool start to the morning, there'll be a lot of early sunshine. the winds have eased significantly so we've lost a lot of yesterday's wind chill. watch out for one or two showers as we head to the latter part of the afternoon. we are starting off with lots of blue sky, plenty of morning sunshine around. the winds will continue to ease down, it's still quite breezy for the first part of the day and we'll see a bit more cloud feeding through into the afternoon. watch out for one or two showers, they'll be mostly through the first part of the afternoon into the first part of the evening, but they certainly won't be everywhere. top temperatures between 9—11 celsius. then through this evening and overnight some showers at first then some clear spells clouding over into the first part of saturday morning which will start off with some outbreaks of rain. 0vernight lows between 4—6 celsius, so it's a rather wet start to the weekend but that early rain is set to clear and it leave us with some brighter skies through the afternoon. the wind will pick up again on saturday night into sunday, rather breezy on sunday with perhaps a bit of rain through the afternoon. i'm back with the latest from the bbc london newsroom in half an hour. plenty more on our website at the usual address. good morning. welcome to breakfast with charlie stayt and rachel burden. 0ur headlines today... a new phase in the fight against coronavirus — from today the government says anyone with a new, persistent cough or high temperature should self—isolate for seven days. an increasing number of countries including ireland and france are closing schools and nurseries. the government's top scientist has just told breakfast it's not the right time forthe uk to do the same although school closures may be something that needs to be done at something that needs to be done at some point, we need to get these other, or bigger impactful measures in place first. good morning from cheltenham, gold cup days, one of the few big sporting events going ahead as planned. elsewhere the premier league holds an emergency meeting later this morning to discuss a future magis can go ahead. this is after the arsenal manager mikel arteta and also the chelsea player hudson—0doi tested positive for the virus. more from here at 830. the canadian prime minister's wife tests positive for coronavirus. justin trudeau says he has no symptom but will self—isolate for 14 days. fears over the coronavirus triggered a plunge on the markets. we'll be live in the city of this morning, the stock markets have just opened for trading. and we will find out why it's a family affair. strictly‘s aj and 0ti join us to tell us about their big dance challenge for this year's sport relief. dry weather on the cards today, the weekend looking unsettled. fairly dry, blustery winds. more details ten minutes. it's friday 13th march. our top story. new measures to help protect people from the coronavirus outbreak come into effect from today. anybody with a persistent cough or high temperature should self—isolate for seven days, as borisjohnson moves the uk response to the ‘delay‘ phase. the government is facing questions over whether the plans go far enough. but the prime minister said now was not the time for stricter measures. we are not, repeat not, closing schools now. the scientific advice is that this could do more harm than good at this time. but of course, we are keeping this under review, and this, again, may change as the disease spreads. earlier, the government's chief scientific adviser said the response to coronavirus needed to be a long—term plan and defended the decision not to immediately close schools in england. this is not a short—term thing, this is going to go on for weeks. so there are things that will come in due course at the right time. and of those, just to deal with schools, schools are, closing schools is a very effective way actually of dealing with pandemic flu, it's often the way to deal with it. this disease, the role of children is less clear in terms of spreading the disease. and you would have to close the schools for a very prolonged period, so months. four months or so in orderfor this to be period, so months. four months or so in order for this to be effective. it is inconceivable that those children are not going to mix anyway. and of them may also be sent to be looked after by their grandparents during this period. the consequences of those have other impacts, of course, on this illness so impacts, of course, on this illness so although school closures may be something that needs to be done at something that needs to be done at some point, we need to get these other, bigger, more impactful measures in place first. in ireland, schools, universities and nurseries are set to close. elsewhere in europe, france's president emmanuel macron has called it "the worst health crisis in france for a century". in a moment, we'll hear from our correspondents in paris and ireland, but first let's hear from our scotland correspondent lorna gordon. norma, good morning, we know there are differences in the way scotland is looking, for example, gatherings of people. tell us more. there is a divergence in policy between the devolved nations with the scottish government advising that from monday, mass gatherings of more than 500 people should be cancelled. nicola sturgeon the scottish first minister said it's less about stemming the spread of the disease, the scientific advice does not support that, more about easing pressure on front line services like police or ambulance crews who may be in attendance at big events like foot ball in attendance at big events like football games, rugby matches are perhaps concerts as well. so what that means is that events will still go ahead this weekend. the old firm game will go ahead in glasgow this weekend because the resources have already been allocated. but it's less clear what it will mean going forward. will it mean for instance, this weekend is the end of the foot ball this weekend is the end of the football season or will it mean the matches going forward will be played behind closed doors? 0ther matches going forward will be played behind closed doors? other areas of interest, there are around 200 intensive care beds with ventilators here in scotland. plans to double the numberof here in scotland. plans to double the number of those and the wider capacity in the health service. those plans will be revealed more next week. but we are already hearing at least two macro health boards in scotland, nhs highland and lothian confirming they are cancelling nonurgent procedures to help free up capacity. with their bets. that's the situation in scotland. what about in france? my colleague hugh schofield is there. indeed, france shares the same kind of analysis as britain on the kind of analysis as britain on the kind of crisis we have, maybe a little bit more advanced but we have moved to what they are calling stage three, the equivalent of the delay face in britain, in other words the stage where you are no longer counting victims because there are so counting victims because there are so many of them out there. you are trying to slow down the spread of the virus. but there is a big difference because emmanuel macron we nt difference because emmanuel macron went on television yesterday saying the big measure that we are taking here is the closure of schools. which as we were hearing in britain is not being done yet anyway. schools, universities, creches, nurseries, are going to be closed from monday for an indefinite period, certainly up until the easter holidays which will take us through towards the end of april. 0ther through towards the end of april. other measures announced are more of the kind of rotatory type, encouraging people to stay at home as much as possible, people who are over 70 being told where possible stay at home, if you have a disability, stay at home. people are being really urged to take seriously the various guidelines about shaking hands, keeping your distance from one another and so on but what is also evident as we are not going down the road at the very, very drastic approach taken by italy, in other words, public transport, drastic approach taken by italy, in otherwords, public transport, shops remaining open and crucially, these elections due on sunday will go ahead as well. now we join chris pagein ahead as well. now we join chris page in dublin. he has come at rush hourin page in dublin. he has come at rush hour in dublin is pretty nonexistent this morning. restrictions, the like of which no one here has ever seen before have kicked in. schools, colleges, child care facilities, all closed, indoor gatherings for more than 100 people, outdoor events for more than 500 called off and that's affecting all sorts of things, for example church services, funerals, weddings, people planning to get married over the busy st patrick's day parade which is coming up are having to diss invite we are told many guests who are on the guest list. not every aspect of life in the republic of ireland is grinding toa the republic of ireland is grinding to a halt, for example shops are staying open, public transport still running, newspaper still being published. to give you an idea of what a couple of them are saying this morning, the irish independent talking about a war on the virus as lockdown begins. the irish examiner quoting the prime minister at leo varadkar yesterday saying things we re varadkar yesterday saying things were going to be tough but we will prevail again. people are were going to be tough but we will prevailagain. people are being asked to work from home for ebutt they possibly can and also generally reduce and socialising. the irish deputy prime minister simon coveney put it like this, to pull together asa put it like this, to pull together as a nation people have to be prepared to stay apart. by the way, cross the border in northern ireland, ministers and the devolved government at stormont aren't putting in place restrictions on the scale we are seeing here in the republic, schools are going to remain open. and ministers in belfast say essentially they are continuing to follow the advice of the government in london. that scientific evidence is that restrictions on the scale we are seeing in dublin aren't necessary at the moment. chris, thank you, lorna and q the moment. chris, thank you, lorna and 0 thank you both as well. so, sorry, later, the premier league will hold an emergency meeting, after the arsenal manager and a chelsea player tested positive for the virus. so what will it mean for the rest of the season? 0ur sports reporter laura scott is outside the premier league hq for us now. i know lots of people have been speculating this could be the end of the season, the season behind closed doors. it looks like the footballing authorities were pretty bullish earlier on this week, this emergency meeting, they could be considering drastic measures, couldn't they? exactly. some really big decisions to be made here today. as recently as last night all the premier league fixtures this weekend were going ahead unaffected. and then we got a statement at 10:30pm about mikel arteta saying he had tested positive and there would be this emergency meeting today. that will involve all of the premier league clubs and they are expected to discuss what they do this weekend with their fixtures, especially in light as you say of the chelsea winger callum hudson—odoi also now having the virus. they will also really have to make a decision about the season. and whether they follow the precedent set by italy and spain, temporarily suspending the leaks. that would mean they could tide them over until the international break perhaps, at the end of march. and they might choose to do that to try to weather this storm a bit and carry them into april but i mean, there are stilljust over 90 premier league fixtures to complete this season. so it is a really significant development that now, four premier league clubs are effective. by the virus. really big decisions to be made here at the premier league today. that's true, thank you. let's talk to adrian bevington. the former managing director of the football association, we will speak to him in about 30 minutes. in canada, the wife of the prime minister, justin trudeau, has tested positive for coronavirus. officials say she has mild symptoms and is feeling well. mr trudeau will self—isolate with his wife for the next 14 days. it's 11 minutes past eight. here's sarah with a look at this morning's weather. anything to make us feel cheerful? good morning to both of you. blue sky and sunshine in the forecast today. some showers around, very few and far between. not a bad day today, the weekend looking fairly u nsettled. today, the weekend looking fairly unsettled. 0ver today, the weekend looking fairly unsettled. over the past few hours, this radar, showers across eastern scotland, north—east england, one or two further south across eastern england. these will filter south and east and a lot of dry weather arriving across the british isles. more rain working in from the southwest later this afternoon. ahead of that, perhaps one or two more showers developing for north wales come into the midlands as well. largely try for scotland, northern ireland, much of northern england. temperatures 8—11d for most. we have the rain, 5pm this afternoon into the likes of devon and cornwall, anglesey, some showers elsewhere across southern and central england but for northern england, northern ireland, scotland, largely try and clear end to the day, quite chilly priest in scotland, the breeze coming from the north from the north sea. as we head into this evening and overnight the theory of rain initially in the west will creep eastwards. fairly light and patchy. but it will fall as snow over the higher ground of scotland, at lower levels and further south, patchy outbreaks of rain. damp start to your saturday morning, fairly chilly first thing especially in the weekend first area of low pressure gets out of the way, this amusing come into sunday trailing cold front which will bring some rain and blustery winds. there will be some sunshine in between the showers, today and throughout the weekend. back to you. sarah, thank you. there are now almost 600 confirmed coronavirus cases here in the uk — a jump of 140 in 24 hours. but according to the government's chief scientific adviser, it's likely up to 10,000 people could be infected. 10 people have now died. worldwide, more than 125,000 people have been diagnosed with the virus in 118 countries. and here in the uk, experts say peak infection rates are still up to three months away, possibly heading into june. schools and colleges in ireland have been closed until the end of march, as part of measures to stop the spread of coronavirus. downing street says schools here will remain open for now, after taking into consideration the latest scientific advice. let's speak to geoff barton who's the general secretary of the association of school and college leaders. presumably you would for the moment agree with the government decision, would you? absolutely. i think it's reassuring. there's been two phases here, when the virus first broke it was half term for lots of schools and maybe they'd had school trips to northern italy, skiing trips and so on or its staff away and they were in the position of having to make a decision in terms of reassuring pa rents decision in terms of reassuring parents that it was fine for their child to go to school. that was the first phase. if you are a healthy child and adult, school is a really good environment to be in and the more we can keep children there it's good for them but also for parents who aren't having to take time off work which would have a knock—on effect to wider society. it seems so at odds with what's going on in the rest of europe, my parents are scratching their heads and saying white schools are shutting in france, poland, italy, spain, ireland? absolutely, i'm not a health expert but what i know from education, what we might call policy tourism, picking and choosing which bits of the world are similar actually doesn't very often take you everywhere and it might be to do with an ageing population, it might be to do with the kind of health ca re system be to do with the kind of health care system we've got. i would just say what we need to do and what stu d e nts say what we need to do and what students preparing for exams need to do is focus on the stock that we can control in our schools and that is learning. i'm hearing at my kids comprehensive, for example, they are firing up systems whereby they might in the future be able to communicate with children online, doing lessons remotely. those sorts of measures being put in all over the place? yes, i think two things will be happening, but will be happening visibly in schools is that heads and other staff will simply be using the schools rhythms and routines to keep a sense of normality and puncture some of the drama that children are seeing beyond in terms of the headlines but behind the scenes, i think what leaders will be doing is having a look at contingency plans, what resources, whether online or paper resources, past papers might be needed for children doing revision at home. all of that contingency planning will be going on across schools and colleges. there is real concern, isn't, for stu d e nts there is real concern, isn't, for students who are about to go through gcses, a—levels, exams, hires in scotla nd gcses, a—levels, exams, hires in scotland as well? what reassurance can you give to them that their exams will be disrupted and if they are, if they're learning is disrupted, this will perhaps be taken into disrupted, this will perhaps be ta ken into account disrupted, this will perhaps be taken into account further down the line. yes, those young people and their parents are bound to feel anxious about that and i think i would say two things. firstly, we should worry about the stuff we are able to control and try and do something around that and therefore focus on your revision, learning, and don't catastrophes what may or may not happen and my second point would be, we got examination boards, we've got the regulator which has got experience of difficult circumstances suddenly happening we re circumstances suddenly happening were a child can sit an exam because something in their life has happened orfor a something in their life has happened or for a school can't be used because there's been a fire or something like that. there's a huge amount of expertise, it's not about scenario planning and i know for a fight with the regulator is doing is two things, looking to do everything to make sure important exams can go ahead but secondly to make sure of some child cannot sit one of their exams are some of their exams, we can make the system as fair as possible for them because we know how much these matter to them. geoff barton, thank you so much. let's speak now to ciara and david sheridan — parents to two children who live in longford in the republic of ireland. dealing now with the lockdown of things there, school shutting, tell us how you are managing. good morning. we are fine, we are in a position i work remotely, i am a sales rep and david are self—employed. so we are kind of probably better off than others would be. but one of my children has a childminder and we are trying to avoid sending her to the childminder, she's in her 605. david, have you planned out the next few weeks, what are you going to do? i know you are self—employed. few weeks, what are you going to do? i know you are self-employed. are you able to be at home? for the foreseeable future i am, i travelled to europe quite a lot with work, depending on the spread of coronavirus in europe will depend whether i travel for the foreseeable future. but for the next 2—3 weeks, i'm glad to be at home and minding the kids. because you know, we have no other choice but i feel like it the right step to take in order to prevent the coronavirus growing around the island of ireland. prevent the coronavirus growing around the island of irelandm 5ound5 around the island of irelandm sounds like you are happy with that but what do you do at home with them all day? are you planning on doing home—schooling, keeping them away other children? a bit of both, to be honest. matthew our son is 14 and in secondary school, his school is sending home work via online, you'll be able to undertake gas activities which is a great advantage and in his own school, they are prioritising any students who are taking any leaving cert orjunior cert examinations over the next few weeks so school work will still be done which is a great advantage in the time we are living in but look, we are going to be letting the kids be outside and watch tv, just to pass the day but it's something we feel is very important. you are therefore supported and keira, i believe your work takes you to belfast and of course, in northern ireland, we haven't introduced 5uch strict measures so how are you going to manage? well, i work for a company that's very forward thinking so company that's very forward thinking so because of the fact we have an office in athlone, belfast and then northamptonshire they've applied the measures from the south in the north already. we don't have any vi5itors visiting art factories, we've asked for a little to no visitation5 even from staff. a5 for a little to no visitation5 even from staff. as i said sales staff are able to work remotely anyway but my employer has put measures in place that other staff can work from home. so needless to say, recently orders have decreased because of everything that's going on so we don't have as much of a workload as we would have had so it's kind of affecting the factories itself in general. it feels like the tentacles of this virus are reaching every four at the moment but finally, the grandparents, are you staying away, how do you manage that one? well, we are not staying away with them just yet. but both our parents are in their mid—to late 60s, it's imperative that people at that age who are very susceptible to the disease are looked after and that's at the forefront of our mind. we are young and fit but it's people in their late 60s, young and fit but it's people in their late 605, early 70s, young and fit but it's people in their late 605, early 705, you really need to keep an eye on some the health and well—being of our family, friends and neighbours, you know, is paramount. we would ask people tojust, you know, take care of people in that age group and make sure you are checking in on them, especially family. at the end of the day, life will go on but we want our loved ones close to us for as long as possible. thank you so much for talking to us, lots of quality family time coming up, whether you like it or not, make the most of it! thank you so much. calum semple is a professor of child health at the university of liverpool, and joins us now. good morning to you. we heard from professor patrick vallance earlier on and was outlining very clearly the government position on school closures. we got lots of responses from people saying effectively they don't buy it, they don't understand why in ireland, france, and many other countries now is the time but not now, here, can you help us with that? i think i can. the not now, here, can you help us with that? i think! can. the issue with children is a little bit more unclear than it is with flu. children are being affected but not actually getting particularly sick and we are not certain what their role in transmission is. take children out of school, their pa rents a re children out of school, their parents are part of the emergency services, delivering petrol, running the hospitals, and so you can actually reduce the capacity of our country to cope with this outbreak so country to cope with this outbreak so timing is very important. closing schools to early actually causes greater problems in society. so in some ways this decision is not based necessarily on the medicine because it seems clear, according to what the professor was saying this morning, that is something that might happen in the future but not now. that's right, you might start closing schools at the peak of the outbreak in order to smooth the amount of disease in a particular community at a particular time. but doing a nature, blanket response now when you've got three or four months of misery ahead of yourself, is simply going to put of misery ahead of yourself, is ' h e of misery ahead of yourself, is simply going to put huge pressure on all the other services that the pa rents of all the other services that the parents of these children are trying to provide. in what is quite a worrying time for many people particularly the elderly and the vulnerable, some people are taking some comfort from how few children are being affected badly, in terms of infection, i think you said already they will be infected, possibly, but how they are affected is different. that's right. we are not quite sure why that is, we think it could be something to do with lung development, probably not to do with the immune system but so far children are very rarely badly affected. we've looked at reports coming out of china. we've got about 30 children have gone into hospital, we've looked at them very carefully. it seems to be very rare for them to need mechanical ventilation, for example, that is a silver lining. talk us through some of the issues around what we thought was a 14 day isolation period which is what children have been thinking about up until now, the new guidelines is seven day isolation period in which you don't call 111 and hopefully you get better after five days or so. white the change? this is purely practical. people will be shedding less virus after seven days and will be able to get back into society and function and do stuff, do the day job and actually it's very important to go into this mode of keep calm and carry on so if after seven days people are less infectious, they can get back into work and start providing their services. we've moved beyond the attempt to com pletely moved beyond the attempt to completely contain this virus. so up until now, the 14 day exclusion was an attempt to stop it, we've lost that, we are now trying to slow it down. there's going to be a lot of emphasis in the coming period on the practical applications, how we are dealing with this. you work with alder hey hospital. can you tell us what's happening, how is, so far, how is coronavirus affecting staff and how you are operating? already we are starting to see some staff going off sick with apparent coronavirus disease. the sensible thing is we are doing, these staff are not coming into work for starters, they are not going to spread it amongst the patients and that's very important. the front door of the hospital we've got volu nteers door of the hospital we've got volunteers standing there with hand gel and you can't get through the front doors unless you are jelled up before you go in. we are asking people not to visit unless they are immediate relatives, mums, dads, trying to keep kids away if they can. it's all very basic, practical stuff but it's important. what's really important is to get society back in, we need to get away from the naysayers who say it's just another flu, it's really not another flu, this is much more infectious and potentially, could be killing a lot of people. there seems to be a consensus building now what we need is as many healthy, strong people in the community to get it is possible in order to develop immunity. do you agree with that? i do, we need to catch it but we need to catch it slowly. in a very managed way. managed, controlled by anti—putin can do that we will have made a huge difference in how it affects society and that way we will keep the petrol petrol stations, food and the shops and we will avoid the sort of hysteria that we've seen in some other countries, we are not at that stage yet. to make changes now, when we don't need to do it, we might need to do it in four weeks but that's four weeks, we can empty beds from hospitals, make a capacity, help develop vaccines, do further research. four weeks is a very long time in an outbreak. professor, good to have you here this morning, thank you. my pleasure. it's 8:27am. time to get the news, travel, weather where you are. it's going to remain fairly mixed over the next few days. this morning we have a few showers drifting south and east across england and wales but for most of us, it's a dry start with sunny spells. a few more showers to come this afternoon. those will crop up across parts of wales, the north west of england and the south—east. but for most of us for most of the day, it is dry with sunshine. but we will see rain spreading into south—west england and south—west wales later in the day. lighter winds compared to yesterday as well. this rain will move its way north and eastwards. it will tend to fragment, but it will push its way up into scotland and the south—east as we go into the early hours of saturday morning. there will be snow over the high ground of scotland. we will have that rain around first thing on saturday. it will generally clear away but then we will see something a bit drier. for the weekend, this area of low pressure is moving in. that will bring the strengthening winds and then this area of low pressure will move south and eastwards throughout sunday. the first batch of rain on saturday will generally clear from england and wales. there will be brighter skies developing. some sunshine across many areas into the afternoon, but then further rain spreads to northern ireland, western scotland by the afternoon on saturday. by sunday, that rain will have pushed its way further south and east. it's a wet start to the day for northern and western areas. that rain gradually moves to the south—east. it will break up as it does and then there will be sunny spells and a few showers developing on sunday. fairly mixed over the weekend, but signs that as we go into next week, things are becoming a bit more settled. this is worklife from bbc news, with susannah streeter and david eades. after black thursday comes friday the 13th. wild swings on global markets continure after the worst day on the markets since 1987. live from london, that's our top story on friday the 13th of march. after a day of fear and panic, european markets rebound with the ftse100 surging during early trading. we'll also be crossing to our asia business hub in singapore, to find

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