Following the UK government’s insistence that the supply of PPE is a “four nations strategy”, and that no nation was being prioritised over any other, Donald Macaskill, head of the umbrella body Scottish Care, insisted on Tuesday afternoon that he had “good evidence” of care homes in Scotland being told by UK manufacturers that they cannot supply north of the border. He said:

In practice we have a number of organisations telling us that their traditional producers are no longer supplying to Scotland because they are supplying the NHS, which of course goes into the four nations supply, but it effectively means they are disadvantaged because it’s not coming to social care.

Describing the situation as “a real dog’s breakfast”, Mackaskill said that care homes were reporting that some firms would only deliver to the NHS, while others had hiked their prices to deliver to Scotland.

Meanwhile, the Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman tweeted that she had managed to speak directly to her UK counterpart Matt Hancock and had been reassured:

The Welsh government has been heavily criticised for still only being able to carry out 1,300 Covid-19 tests a day.

The Tory shadow health minister in Wales, Angela Burns, said:

The testing regime is overly complicated, drowning in bureaucracy, and fragmented.

At the end of last month the health minister, Vaughan Gething, said that within two to three weeks from then Wales would be carrying out 5,000 tests a day.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Gething expressed frustration that not all its current testing capacity was being taken up and called for more frontline staff to be referred.

But the Gwynedd council leader, Dyfrig Siencyn, said:

Local authorities have been clamouring for an efficient full testing regime for our frontline staff over the last three weeks.

Instead, what we have is a complex shambolic system which involves reference to the health boards, Public Health Wales, Data Cymru and local authorities. There is a long chain of bureaucracy, complexities and layers before results reach us.

Furthermore, we find that many of the names put forward for testing are ineligible for reasons difficult to understand.

The speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has outlined plans for a virtual Commons to return on 21 April, including enabling MPs to partake remotely in PMQs, urgent questions and statements via live video link.

Once this is established to be working well, the model could be extended to debates on motions and legislation, and a system of remote voting in divisions of the House, he added.

The speaker has approved the “draft operating model” and it is now with the government and main opposition parties for review. A virtual meeting of the procedure committee will consider the model on 15 April.

If the House of Commons Commission gives its approval on 16 April, it would be for the Leader of the House, following consultation with the parties, to put forward motions setting out any temporary arrangements for the House to consider on 21 April.

Disability campaigners who fear they could be denied life-saving treatment if they contract coronavirus are threatening the government with legal action.

Letters have been sent to the health secretary, Matt Hancock, and NHS England calling on them to publish guidance on how doctors assign priority to patients during the pandemic – or else face a courtroom challenge.

Disability campaigners are worried, according to the law firm Rook Irwin Sweeney, that if they contract the virus they may be deemed less likely to benefit from life-saving treatment so instead would receive only palliative care.

The failure to produce guidance on how decisions will be made is discriminatory and amounts to a breach of their clients’ human rights, it is alleged. The letter said legal action will be launched next week if there is no satisfactory response.

Among the campaigners are Doug Paulley, 42, a stroke-sufferer who lives in in a care home in Wetherby, West Yorkshire. He has already won a landmark case at the supreme court on the rights of wheelchair users on buses. He said:

This is an extremely worrying time for me, as it is for all disabled people. I understand that difficult decisions will have to be made, but at the moment we just don’t know how doctors are going to prioritise life-saving treatment for coronavirus. I’m concerned that without proper guidance, doctors may decide not to treat me, simply because of my impairments.

I feel strongly that I should be given the same chance as anyone else - all I’m asking for is some reassurance that my life will be valued as much as the next person.

Anne-Marie Irwin, a partner at Rook Irwin Sweeney who acts for the campaigners, said:

My clients are not asking for special treatment, and they know how hard NHS staff up and down the country are working to save lives. Having said that, they are entitled to know how they will be treated if they contract coronavirus and need life-saving treatment.

Our clients consider it irrational that national guidance has not been put in place, and that the government is failing in its duty to protect their human rights. They also believe that clear guidance is crucial to assist the doctors who will have to make these difficult decisions.

The Department of Health and Social Care has been asked for comment.

Sir Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, self-isolated for more than week after experiencing coronavirus symptoms, the BBC’s health editor Hugh Pym reports.

In Pym’s tweet, he says Stevens “has revealed he has had coronavirus”, indicating he might have been tested, though this remains unclear.

Sunak wraps up the press conference by thanking the public for continuing to follow the social distancing guidelines, particularly over the sunny weekend.

I’ll post a summary of the press conference soon.

Q: One thing that might make the economy even worse is a no-deal Brexit. So why is that still an option?

Sunak says the UK has left the EU with a deal. The government is committed to getting a trade deal with the EU. He says Michel Barnier and David Frost have discussed how the talks can continue. He is confident that those talks can reach a conclusion.

Q: If universal credit really an adequate safety net? Are you open to a universal basic income?

Sunak says he does not think that is the right response. He thinks universal credit is working well. The DWP is under pressure, but given the circumstances it is processing claims effectively. He says the government has put extra money into the welfare system too.

Q: The Nightingale hospital in London is largely empty. Why cannot it be used for people from care homes?

Doyle says she does know why care home patients have not been admitted. But there is no reason why they should not be admitted, she says.

Powis says the NHS has made sure it has extra capacity so that, if clinicians want to sent patients to hospital, they can.

Q: How are you going to find the money to help address the deficit this will create?

Sunak says he cannot write tax policy now. It will cost a lot. But the best way out is just to grow the economy, he says. He says if that were to happen, the long-term impact on the public finances would be reduced.

Q: Can you name things you wish we had done differently? Or has the UK response been without fault?

Doyle says her colleagues have been working since mid-January, sometimes seven days a week. They have learned so much. She says she wishes they knew what they now know then. It would have been wonderful to know when the virus was first around.

She says they have so much to learn.

Yes, of course we could do things better. That’s why we keep talking to our neighbours.

She says she is humble about this.

Powis says as a doctor he is always looking back to see what you can learn. But he says it is too early to say what the main lessons are. He says the answers at this end of this will be different from what they would be today. But it will be important to learn lessons, he says.

Sunak says they have been faced with an unprecedented challenge. Of course there will be things to learn, he says.

Q: Will you consider the proposal from George Osborne [see 3.40pm] for the Treasury to offer 100% loan guarantees in some circumstances?

Sunak says he will look at this. But he says it would not be him taking 100% of the risk. It would be the taxpayer. Banks would have no incentives to scrutinise loans, he says. But he says Germany and Switzerland have adopted this approach. He says he will consider it.

• Sunak says he will consider making some of the coronavirus business loans 100% guaranteed by the government, not just 80% guaranteed.

Q: Isn’t is just unfair to produce a graph comparing UK figures, without care home deaths, to French figures, with care home deaths? (See 5.10pm.) On a like by like basis, the UK would be ahead of France, wouldn’t it?

Doyle accepts it would be better if the figures did compare like with like. The government is always ready to learn, she says.

Sunak says the Treasury is plannning to open its coronavirus job retention scheme on 20 April.

• The coronavirus job retention scheme is due to open on 20 April, Sunak says. He says people should be able to get money from it before the end of the month.

Q: The economic fallout from this will disproportionately hit the young. So is it fair to keep policies like the triple lock on pensions?

Sunak says he cannot write future budgets today. But he will pay tribute to the young, whether it is people at school missing out on exams, or young people in the labour market. Young people have been volunteering, he says. He says this amounts to society coming together.

He says, whatever age people are, the government’s job is to provide economic opportunity. That might mean giving opportunities to start your own business. He will look at the plans in place to make sure they are the right ones, and he will turbo-charge them.

Q: How many coronavirus infections are acquired in hospital?

Powis says the UK has a good record of dealing with hospital-acquired infections.

But he says there will be some coronavirus infections acquired in hospitals.

Hospitals are doing what they can to avoid this. He says the NHS is actively looking at this now.

Sunak says the government remains very committed to its levelling up agenda.

That can be a critical part of getting back to normal, he says.

He says the levelling up agenda, and investing in infrastructure, will only become more important.

Q: Can you confirm that no company has been told not to supply PPE to Scotland?

Sunak says the national clinical director in Scotland dismissed this story as “rubbish”. He says there has been close collaboration between the four countries of the UK.

Doyle says the four chief medical officers in the UK work closely. They want to make sure each country gets what it needs. She says Public Health England has not directed any of the countries to be at a disadvantage.

(This answer is hard to square with the claim on the Gompels website. See 4.41pm.)

Q: Have people in care homes been forgotten?

Absolutely not, says Sunak.

He says the government wants to speed up the publication of care home data.

Doyle says she would like to have the best possible data on a daily basis. The care sector is seen as part of the care home family, she says.

But it is a very dispersed sector, she says.

Powis says there are fewer hospitals than care homes. And they are used to providing information to government quickly. Those are two reasons why hospital figures come out more quickly.

Sunak says there are 200 NHS trusts. But there are tens of thousands of social care sectors.

Q: Your slides include figures for France, which include care home data. So isn’t it unfair to compare those to the UK figures, which do not include care home data?

Doyle says different countries report data in different ways. She says the UK is trying to learn from that.

Powis is now presented the latest slides with data about the lockdown strategy.

Transport use is down, he says.

He says the number of new cases is plateauing, although he accepts that, because not everyone is being tested, these figures do not show all new cases.

But the number of hospital admissions is stabilising, he says.

On the death figures, Powis says these are the numbers that will be the last to level off.

Sunak says taking action to save lives now is also the right thing to do for the economy. He says it is a common sense approach.

He says the health secretary, Matt Hancock, will make an announcement about social care tomorrow.

Sunak reads out the latest UK figures. The data is here.

Sunak says the OBR has said that the policies followed by the government will allow the economy to bounce back. Without those policies, the situation would be much worse, he says. He says this means the OBR is saying the government plan is the right plan.

Sunak starts by talking about the OBR report.

• The OBR report is not a forecast or a prediction, Sunak says. He says it is just one scenario.

He says the economic impact of the lockdown will be significant.

But it will also be temporary, he says.

London’s Nightingale hospital has remained largely empty, with just 19 patients being treated at the facility over the Easter weekend, the Health Service Journal understands.

The temporary Docklands facility was designed to hold 2,900 intensive care beds, plus 750 additional beds, but internal data seen by the HSJ suggested established hospitals have been able to double their ICU capacity on their existing estates and are so far coping with the surge in demand.

The low numbers at the Nightingale are also likely to be influenced by the tight criteria that was agreed for patients to be admitted there, which excluded the most frail patients.

Read the HSJ story here.

As the Daily Record reports, a firm called Gompels, which makes PPE (personal protective equipment), has got a notice on its website saying that it can only sell certain items, like surgical masks and aprons, to customers in England. It says:

Gompels are helping the Covid-19 response by distributing this product on behalf of Public Health England to ensure that essential supplies get to care homes and domiciliary care providers. As such this product has a number of restrictions on who can purchase it.

You must be registered and operating within England - apologies to Wales and Scotland, we are told you have different processes for getting emergency supplies

You need to be a Care Home or Domiciliary Care Agency

These restrictions are not something we have decided, they are a criteria given to us by Public Health England.

We have been told that there are alternative arrangements in place for Wales and Scotland, but we have not been able to find out what they are. Please do not think this is us discriminating against our lovely and loyal Welsh and Scottish customers.

This will fuel claims that, contrary to assurances from No 10, Scottish organisations trying to buy PPE are at a disadvantaged compared to their English counterparts.

This may well come up at the government press conference, which is due to start at 5pm.

A total of 207 prisoners have tested positive for coronavirus in 57 prisons in England and Wales as of 5pm on Monday, the Ministry of Justice said.

Some 62 prison staff have tested positive for Covid-19 in 28 prisons as well as five prisoner escort and custody services staff.

Just four prisoners have been released since the government announced plans 10 days ago to release up to 4,000 inmates to combat the spread of the coronavirus, MPs have heard, but a “few hundred” will be temporarily freed tomorrow.

Lucy Frazer, the justice minister, told a remote session of the justice committee 14 pregnant women or female inmates held in mother and baby units have now been released, out of a potential 70, while four men had been released early under broader plans announced on 4 April. Frazer said:

In relation to the wider release, the early releases, that we identified, we released four men last week and are planning to release a significant number this week.

We have over the last days been conducting the absolutely necessary checks to ensure that the people we will be releasing do not post a risk to the public.

Pressed on what “a significant number” means, Frazer said:

I don’t want to give precise figures because obviously that’s subject to the risk assessments taking place and the other matters to ensure that people can be released safely but I would expect that tomorrow we would have a few hundred people released and that will continue.

Penal reform campaigners and charities working with offenders have called on the government to speed up releases from prison as well as to go further and release more than currently proposed. As well as releasing prisoners, the Ministry of Justice is building 500 temporary cells across the existing prison estate to increase single cell occupancy.

In the latest episode of our Science Weekly podcast, the Guardian’s science correspondent Nicola Davis speaks to Dr Andy Whittamore about the effects of Covid-19 on people with asthma and what they can do to protect themselves. You can listen to the episode here.

As the Press and Journal reports, Donald Macaskill, CEO of Scottish Care, which represents the care home sector in Scotland, claimed on BBC Radio Scotland that suppliers of PPE (personal protective equipment) were prioritising customers in England. Last week a care home owner in Wales made the same allegation.

Downing Street has rejected the claim that England is taking precedence. (See 2.27pm.) As our colleague Libby Brooks reported earlier (see 1.07pm), the Scottish government is more reluctant to dismiss it outright.

The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 among prison staff in England and Wales has more than doubled in five days, according to the most recent update from the Ministry of Justice.

There were 62 prison staff across 28 prisons who had tested positive for the coronavirus as of 5pm on Monday, compared to the last available figures for 8 April, when 28 prison staff had tested positive across 17 prisons.

The number of confirmed infected prisoners rose by 38% in the same period to 207 inmates across 57 prisons. The number of infected prisoner escort and custody services (Pecs) staff remained at five.

There are 83,000 prisoners in England and Wales across 117 prisons. The number of prisoners who have contracted Covid-19 and died currently stands at 13, while the number of staff who contracted the disease and died is three.

The Ministry of Justice has announced plans to build 500 temporary cells on the current prison estate to increase single-cell occupancy, while up to 4,000 risk-assessed prisoners who are within two months of their release date are to be temporarily released from jail.

George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor who now edits the Evening Standard, told the World at One that the Office for Budget Responsibility assessment of how the lockdown might damage the economy (see 12.16pm) was “staggering” and that some people who lost their jobs would not get them back. He said:

They’re not particularly surprising numbers in the sense that they’ve been out there in the market, and other economists have made these predictions but they’re still shocking numbers, this staggering loss of economic output, this staggering increase in the national debt, and of course the real tragedy here is a massive increase in unemployment, not all of which comes back. In other words, many people don’t simply get their job back later this year under this scenario and it’s just a reminder that the effects of this virus will be with us long after we’ve hopefully found a cure.

Osborne also said that the Treasury should “tweak” its loan scheme offering support to businesses. Instead of the Treasury saying it would guarantee 80% of the loan for small businesses, or for loans worth up to £250,000, the government should guarantee 100% of the loan, Osborne said (meaning banks would not risk losing 20% if a loan were not repaid). Osborne said that if the government did not do this, some small businesses might just “shut up shop”.

Here is our colleague Richard Partington’s story about the OBR report.

There is mounting anger in Northern Ireland over authorities’ failure to disclose the number of coronavirus-related deaths in care homes.

The health minister, Robin Swann, said on Tuesday that 32 care homes had been affected but their death toll remains unclear, prompting protests from politicians and advocacy groups.

Dr Michael McBride, the country’s chief medical officer, said the process of registering deaths was complicated, involving death certificates, the General Register Office and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. “Every death counts. Behind every death is a person. It is wrong to create an impression that those lives lost don’t matter,” McBride told BBC Radio Ulster.

Northern Ireland’s official death toll – 134 – relates only to hospital deaths. Northern Ireland has 484 care homes, with 16,000 beds.

The pandemic has wrought a severe toll on nursing homes across the border in the Republic of Ireland, accounting for around half of the country’s 365 deaths.

The Medical Protection Society (MPS) has called on the government to introduce emergency laws to safeguard doctors from claims against their decisions during the coronavirus crisis.

It is calling on the UK to support new laws, already adopted in New York state, to ensure healthcare professionals are not exposed to “criminal and regulatory investigations following decisions they may have to make in terms of when emergency treatment can be withheld or withdrawn”.

Decisions on whether to administer or withdraw life-prolonging treatments are normally made on a basis of what is in the best interest of the patient, the MPS said, but “that normal decision-making processes will be put under enormous strain during a pandemic, especially when surges in demand temporarily exceed supply”.

The society points to lack of clarity when it comes to whether it would be lawful for a ventilator to be withheld or removed from one patient in order to sustain the life of another.

Dr Rob Hendry, medical director at the Medical Protection Society, said:

Doctors have been telling us they have concerns about the decisions they are having to make in very challenging circumstances and how they can be sure that they are acting lawfully.

It is simply not fair for doctors already under immense pressure to be asked to make difficult treatment decisions based on a hope that the courts and the General Medical Council will treat them favourably and protect them in the future if their decisions and actions are challenged.

The UK government has already shown that it can introduce sweeping new laws very quickly. Similar laws [to New York] need to be introduced quickly to protect doctors and other healthcare professionals in the NHS for decisions they make in good faith and in compliance with the relevant local and national guidance.

The number of offenders being sentenced to short-term prison sentences will outstrip the number of prisoners set to be released early as part of plans to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, MPs have been told.

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Justice announced plans to release up to 4,000 risk-assessed prisoners who are within two months of their release date will be temporarily released from jail.

During a remote session of the justice committee broadcast online, Katie Lomas, national chair of rehabilitation charity Nacro, said:

More people are being sentenced to short prison sentences than are going to be released early on temporary licence so we’re not actually resolving the problem for the prisons because we’re feeding more people into the system than we are bringing out.”

Justice reform campaigners have long called for the government to introduce a presumption against short sentences of six months or less as evidence has shown the jail terms do little to reduce reoffending. In Scotland, there is a presumption against sentences of 12 months.

Scotland’s Care Inspectorate has confirmed at least two deaths at the Wastview Care Centre in Shetland, as the Scottish government prepares to publish what first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has promised will be “full and robust” data on care home deaths on Wednesday.

Jeane Freeman, the Scottish health secretary, said on Sunday that the Care Inspectorate had been told of Covid-19 cases in 406 adult care homes, 37% of the total, amidst growing anxiety about a surge in deaths, with clusters including 13 reported dead after contracting coronavirus at a care home in Glasgow last week.

On Wednesday, National Records of Scotland will publish weekly data on all registered deaths from Covid-19, which includes deaths where the virus was a suspected or probable cause.

This week for the first time those figures will be broken down by the location of someone’s death, indicating whether an individual dies in hospital, in a care home, at home or at another location.

Amid continuing speculation about when schools will reopen in England, the National Education Union (NEU) has written to the prime minister expressing that its members were “disturbed” by the continuing speculation and called for the government to share its modelling, evidence and plans for any return to school as a matter of urgency.

Last Wednesday, Number 10 intervened to clarify that schools would not be reopening straight after the Easter holidays after media speculation based on comments said to have been made by an unnamed minister.

Then on Friday, two other unions representing headteachers suggested that schools should reopen for a number of weeks ahead of the summer holidays instead of waiting until September, if the scientific evidence said it was safe to do so.

The NEU’s letter said:

We consider this speculation to be most unhelpful: it may undermine people’s resolve to stick to social isolation.

We are disturbed that it is seemingly being stimulated by unnamed government ministers.

Given that an early return to full school populations will mean an increased risk to our members and the children in their care, we are writing to ask you to share your modelling, evidence and plans.

In the letter, the NEU asked whether plans to reopen schools would address problems with social distancing in schools, testing of children staff and availability of personal protective equipment.

It also asked about children and staff in vulnerable health categories and called on the government to share its modelling of the increased number of cases and deaths among children, their families, teachers and support staff as a result of reopening schools.

In addition to the virtual first minister’s questions, which started last Thursday, the Scottish parliament’s presiding officer, Ken Macintosh, has just announced a new virtual members’ question time this Friday, where up to 19 MSPs will have the chance to put questions to four cabinet secretaries most deeply involved in the Covid-19 response, including the health secretary, Jeane Freeman.

Mackintosh said that Holyrood’s governing body was continuing to discuss arrangements for chamber and committee business in the coming weeks:

I know that members share my view that we must strike a balance between enabling our parliament to continue to function effectively during this uncertain and difficult time, while ensuring we don’t put others at undue risk. In exploring new technologies and extending virtual scrutiny arrangements to more and more members and to different formats, I believe we can successfully strike that balance.

The first UK-built ventilators backed by a consortium of leading manufacturers have been delivered to hospitals over the weekend, with another device now in final clinical trials, the PA Media reports:

It is understood a number of ParaPac devices, made by Smiths Medical - whose production lines have been boosted by the involvement of The Ventilator Challenge UK (TVUK) group - were sent to wards across the UK in the last few days.

Production of the model, which was already being built before the Covid-19 outbreak, was scaled up by the involvement of the consortium, which includes Formula One racing teams Mercedes, McLaren and Williams.

The group, which also involves Rolls-Royce, Airbus, and BAE Systems, has also put its manufacturing and design muscle behind improving another ventilator, made by Oxfordshire-based Penlon, which is now in the “final stage” of regulatory approval, according to the Cabinet Office.

A separate machine being designed and built from scratch by Dyson was also being considered by the government, which had ordered 10,000 units.

It comes as the government scrapped plans to buy a fourth device called BlueSky, which was created by another consortium also involving Formula One teams.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said:

We are no longer supporting the production of the BlueSky device following a reassessment of the product’s viability in light of the ever-developing picture around what is needed to most effectively treat Covid-19.

We are continuing to work at unprecedented speed with a number of other manufacturers to scale up UK production of ventilators.

As yet, none of the new-build ventilators have received approval by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), although the Penlon-made device, now in clinical trials, appears to be leading its peers.

More on ventilators from my colleague Rob Davies here:

And here again is The Guardian’s front page today, which reveals how the UK missed three chances to join EU scheme to bulk-buy PPE and ventilators

An NHS boss has said a new Nightingale Hospital being built in north-east England will not need to open if people maintain social distancing rules, PA Media reports.

Workers have transformed an empty unit close to the Nissan car plant into a 460-bed facility which could be ready to take patients at the end of the month.

But the Nightingale Hospital in Washington, Tyne and Wear, will only open to patients if hospitals in the north-east are unable to cope with the influx of coronavirus patients.

Martin Wilson, chief operating officer for Newcastle hospitals NHS foundation trust, which is overseeing the project, said he does not think that will happen.

He said:

I don’t think we will need to open. If people can all play their part in social distancing, if a vaccine comes along, my hope is that we don’t need to open.

If we do, we will be ready.

The brand new unit is owned by Sunderland council and was due to be used by Newcastle and Sunderland Universities as an innovation centre, focusing on the future of manufacturing including electric cars.

The main hall where the beds will be located measures more than 9,000 square metres – a standard football pitch is 7,140 sq metres.

Six other NHS Nightingale Hospitals have been announced so far - in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Harrogate and Exeter.

The Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, has expressed frustration that not all the Covid-19 tests it has made available are being taken up, writes Steven Morris.

A drive-through testing centre in Cardiff did not open on Monday but Gething said this was because there were not enough referrals of frontline staff for it to operate.

Gething said: “We need to do much more to maximise the capacity that exists and it’s really frustrating for me that we haven’t maximised that capacity. Every part of the system needs to refer their frontline staff.

“If I was a social care worker or frontline health worker sat at home self-isolating I’d be deeply frustrated to know there is capacity I can’t make use of.”

Gething said that there have been confirmed Covid-19 cases in 75 of the 1,073 care homes in Wales. There have been another 217 suspected cases.

The minister denied that Wales was being “gazumped” by England when it came to sourcing PPE equipment and ventilators.

He said orders from England were “helping crowd out” the global market but argued that the best way for Wales to make sure it had what it needed was to be part of a UK-wide procurement system.

Gething added: “If we want to go it alone, then we are a relatively small country in a global market that is tightening and getting more expensive.”

A care home nurse from Birmingham who died after contracting coronavirus was ‘loving and dedicated to helping people’, reports the Birmingham Mail.

Elsie Sazuze, 44, fell ill at home before being taken to Good Hope hospital in Sutton Coldfield where she died on Wednesday 8 April.

The mother-of-two leaves behind husband Ken, son Andrew, 22, and daughter Anna, aged 16.

Her childhood friend William Fungatira has today paid tribute as he released an album of pictures on behalf of her family.

He said:

I have known her all my life. Elsie was as a naturally quiet person but very caring, friendly, cheerful and resilient. She had a passion to always help others.

She was dedicated to helping people. I remember every time we visited their home she always welcomed us with great hospitality.

In her lunchtime briefing, Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon addressed reports that private firms were prioritising the NHS in England for PPE delivery, with supplies destined for Scottish care homes being diverted to England. While earlier this morning the Scottish government’s national clinical director dismissed the reports as “rubbish”, Sturgeon appeared to take them far more seriously, describing it as “unconscionable” if the case.

Sturgeon said that she was not currently aware of any such issue affecting national supplies, but that it would be “completely unacceptable” if it was causing problems for individual organisations. She added that the Scottish health secretary, Jeane Freeman, would be seeking clarification on this from her UK counterpart, Matt Hancock, later today.

As the press conference went on, Freeman revealed that Hancock had cancelled the call but emphasised how seriously she was taking the reports, and said that she would now be writing to the UK health secretary for urgent clarification.

Following the OBR’s publication of coronavirus economic scenarios, the SNP has called on the government to deliver comprehensive financial support to ensure “no one is left behind”.

The SNP’s leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, underlined the need for the UK government to fix the serious gaps in the support being offered to millions of people who have lost their jobs or seen their incomes reduced.

He renewed calls for a guaranteed minimum income and warned the UK government against lifting the lockdown too early saying “protecting lives must be the priority”. He said:

The chancellor must ensure that businesses have access to cash to stay afloat - and that all households get the support they need. This must include a guaranteed minimum income for everyone and strengthened welfare protections - so no one is left behind.

Too many people have been left out of the current schemes - and millions are struggling to pay their bills and support their families when their incomes have been slashed.

Ensuring the right support is crucial but I would also warn the UK government against any rash decision to lift the lockdown too early. Protecting lives must be the priority. The lockdown must be in place for as long as is necessary to ensure people do not lose their lives needlessly.

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald has confirmed that on Monday she received a positive diagnosis for Covid-19, having been tested on 28 March. She confirmed that she was no longer infectious and after weeks of feeling really unwell, expressed “great relief” at recovering from the illness.

In a statement she thanked everyone who has sent their good wishes over the past number of weeks and said she hopes to be back at work next Monday. She said:

My thoughts and solidarity are with everyone who is sick at this time, and my gratitude is with our doctors, nurses, carers and everyone who looks after us.

My appeal to everyone is to stay safe, stay home and stay apart. You do not want to get this virus.

The former Welsh AM William Powell is now conscious and “responding to treatment” after being treated for coronavirus. He remains in intensive care, two and a half weeks after he was admitted to hospital.

Responding to the OBR economic scenario, Anneliese Dodds MP, the shadow chancellor, said it was clear additional action was needed to ensure take-up of the economic measures introduced by the government was increased. She said:

Behind these very concerning figures lie many businesses which have gone bust and many people who have lost their jobs.

Labour has been working constructively with government on its economic support package. It is clear that additional action needs to be taken to increase the take-up of the different measures. We have called for urgent action in relation to the loans scheme in particular, as take-up is worryingly low.

It is absolutely critical that government now does all it can to minimise the depth and length of the economic impact from necessary anti-coronavirus measures.

From BBC Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall

One in 10 hospital nurses is off work due to coronavirus, internal NHS figures suggest.

Data from the Covid-19 national operational dashboard from Saturday, seen by the Health Service Journal, show that across English acute trusts there were 28,063 Covid-19-related absences reported among nurses and midwives - 10% of a headcount of around 280,000.

This could include staff who have symptoms themselves or those who are in isolation due to someone in their home showing signs of illness.

The news comes as the NHS has increased testing capacity to include family members of health service staff and ministers said they are “confident” the government will achieve its target of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of the month.

The Health Service Journal story is here.

From Sky’s economics editor Ed Conway

A serious concern since the emergence of Covid-19 has been whether those who have had it can get it a second time – and what that means for exiting this crisis.

In this video explainer, the Guardian’s science correspondent Hannah Devlin looks at how our bodies fight coronavirus when infected, how we develop immunity and if we can get reinfected with Covid-19.

Sky’s Ed Conway has another graph illustrating the ONS figures showing how the death rate is now soaring above what is normal for this time of year. (See 11.41am.)

The UK Space Agency is making £2.6m of funding available to the space sector for solutions that can help the NHS respond to coronavirus.

In partnership with the European Space Agency, this will fund a number of projects that could include using drones to deliver test kits and PPE, or using satellite communications to carry out some appointments online rather than face-to-face.

Here are two charts from the ONS figures for weekly deaths in England and Wales published earlier.

This shows how the weekly death toll is now starting to soar above what is normal for this time of year.

According to Nick Stripe, head of health analysis and life events at the ONS, “the 16,387 deaths that were registered in England and Wales during the week ending 3 April is the highest weekly total since we started compiling weekly deaths data in 2005.”

And this chart shows how more men than women are dying with coronavirus.

The ONS figures for coronavirus deaths include all deaths where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate. The Department for Health and Social Care figures for coronavirus deaths cover people who died in hospital who had tested positive for coronavirus. The ONS figures included people who died outside hospital and people who were not tested. As the ONS says, “a doctor can certify the involvement of Covid-19 based on symptoms and clinical findings – a positive test result is not required [for coronavirus to be mentioned on the death certificate].”

The former commercial director for the London Olympics will lead efforts to get supplies to vulnerable people during the lockdown, the communities secretary Robert Jenrick has announced.

Leaving his role as commercial director at Chelsea Football Club, Chris Townsend OBE has volunteered three months of his time to lead the government’s shielding programme, where he will oversee the cross-government effort getting vital food and medicine to those who are clinically vulnerable people and shielding.

Around 250,000 boxes of food have been delivered by wholesalers to those at highest risk from the disease who have been advised to shield themselves from exposure to coronavirus by staying in strict isolation.

But around 1.5m people have been advised to shield and the government insisted that “hundreds of thousands” more food parcels would be delivered in the coming weeks.

Townsend said:

This is a top priority and I call on everyone to remember the important role they have to play in stopping the spread of coronavirus and to shield those most at risk.

A fund-raising campaign by a second world war veteran who is aiming to walk one hundred lengths of his back garden (25m in length) before his 100th birthday at the end of the month has smashed through the £1m barrier.

Tom Moore, aged 99, had hoped to raise £1,000 for the NHS but huge public interest in his initiative led to a surge in donations over the Easter weekend, which now stands at nearly £1.5m.

Donations are still rolling in from tens of thousands of supporters, with every penny going to NHS Charities Together to support healthcare workers who are battling the coronavirus pandemic.

On his 100th birthday on 30 April, Tom was due to celebrate by having a large party with 100 guests, but this has been cancelled. Dozens of celebrities, including Jason Donovan, have sent Tom good luck messages and birthday wishes via social media.

Tom is now ahead of schedule and hoping to complete the 2.5km (1.6 miles) distance by Thursday, instead of his initial target of 30 April.

Hailing the NHS for the “incredible” service that he has received in the past – including treatment for a broken hip and skin cancer – he said: “I thank the British public from the bottom of my heart.”

Born in Keighley, West Yorkshire, Tom trained as a civil engineer before enlisting in the army for the second world war, rising to captain and serving in India and Burma. He now lives in Marston Moretaine in Bedfordshire.

This should be interesting.

More than 1,000 people who were rough sleeping in London have been found accommodation in hotels or other safe locations to allow them to self-isolate, according to the mayor of London’s office. The accommodation is being paid for a £10m fund provided by City Hall and central government. In a press notice the mayor’s office said:

The initiative, launched just three weeks ago, involves City Hall working with government and charity bodies to block-book rooms, allowing highly vulnerable rough sleepers to follow government self-isolation guidelines. The InterContinental Hotel Group, Travelodge, Best Western and Accor Group have all allowed their hotels to be used in this way ...

Rough sleepers are significantly more likely to have underlying health conditions – including respiratory problems – than the wider population. They are also far less likely to be able to follow Public Health England advice, such as self-isolation, social distancing and hand washing. Much existing accommodation available to rough sleepers, while vitally important, is unsuitable for self-isolation.

Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of those on the frontline, a number of homeless people will develop symptoms of Covid19. From this week these people will be referred to a specialist Covid19 care facility in a hotel in east London where their symptoms can be monitored and they can receive appropriate care and medical support.

Labour is calling for the publication of daily figures showing how many people have died with coronavirus in care homes. This is from Liz Kendall, the shadow minister for social care.

The increase in Covid-19 deaths in care homes is extremely worrying, but the true picture will sadly be even worse because these figures [see 9.52am] are only up to the week ending 3 April.

We urgently need these figures on a daily basis to help deal with the emerging crisis in social care and ensure everything possible is being done to protect more than 400,000 elderly and disabled people who live in nursing and residential care homes.

Avrohom Pinter, a rabbi who commanded respect far beyond the strictly-Orthodox Jewish community in Stamford Hill, north London, that he served, has died after contracting Covid-19.

Pinter was a long-time member of the Labour party, a former local councillor, the principal of a Jewish girls’ school and an unofficial spokesmanfor Europe’s biggest ultra-Orthodox community. He was admitted to a central London hospital last week, and died on Monday.

Tributes were paid by communal and political figures. The Jewish Leadership Council said Pinter was “an undoubted leader of exceptional talent and a strong advocate for his community with a broad sympathy for and understanding of the needs of Jews from across religious observance.”

Pinter - who was a critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party - was a “giant of community politics” and would be mourned by all, tweeted Diane Abbott, his local MP and the former shadow home secretary.

According to David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, Pinter was a “true leader … clever, erudite and inclusive. This is a huge loss. I will miss his counsel and good humour immensely.”

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said Pinter “did so much to help community relations in London and will be missed by so many”.

Hackney Muslims said his passing “will be felt widely through the community. So many times the first to reach out, bonding and strengthening our wonderfully diverse community here ... & beyond ... Gonna miss ya heaps Rabbi P.”

Pinter spoke to the Guardian three weeks ago about claims that guidance on social distancing was not being followed in some pockets of the ultra-Orthodox community in Stamford Hill.

He said most people were heeding the messages about physical distancing, but the government was “to a certain degree, abdicating responsibility” by not being clear and consistent in its advice. “People need to be told.”

The Tour de France will not begin on 27 June in Nice as originally planned after the French president Emmanuel Macron extended the country’s ban on public events with large crowds until mid-July.

As we reported earlier, Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, was asked on the Today programme this morning why the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has not taken up an invitation to attend the government’s Cobra emergency committee meetings discussing coronavirus. As Today subsequently made clear in a correction, one very good reason is that no such invitation has actually been offered. See the update at 8.28am for more.

It is not just HC-One that is saying that the prevalence of coronavirus in its care homes is much higher than the official figures suggest. (See 9.27am.) As Robert Booth and Rowena Mason reports, MHA, another leading care home provider, says Covid-19 has affected around half of its homes. They report:

HC-One, which operates about 350 homes, said that as of 8pm on Monday there had been 311 deaths from confirmed or suspected Covid-19 with outbreaks in two thirds of its homes. MHA, a charitable operator, said there have been 210 deaths across 131 homes, with outbreaks in about half of its homes ...

MHA’s figures up to Monday also suggest a considerable increase of 89 fatalities in the last six days. Last Tuesday, it told the Guardian, there had been 121 deaths.

The full story is here.

A third of call centre workers continue to be required to work despite being non-essential workers, while only 2% of those who asked to work from home have had their request granted.

These are the interim results from an online survey by Strathclyde University which has received over 2,000 responses since it was opened on 7 April, with a high proportion of Scottish respondents but spanning UK-wide workers.

Key findings include: almost 60% of workers are still working having been designated as essential by their employer, with only 17.9% of those believing they are essential, stating they are working on mortgages, PPI and credit issues; 50% state they are working face-to-face with a co-worker; only a third of workers report that their employer is successfully implementing workplace distancing.

Call centre expert Professor Phil Taylor, who is leading the study, said:

This survey lifts the lid on the nightmare being endured by many agents, with insufficient social distancing, multi-occupation workstations, over-crowded lifts, poor sanitation, re-used headsets, heating and ventilation systems spreading germs.

The Conservative peer and former work and pensions minister, Ros Altmann, has said she is “really concerned” about what is happening in the care sector. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

We seem to have this artificial distinction between the NHS and what is called social care or elderly care in particular, and that is being overlooked, it seems to me.

You know the government has real problems and of course it has got difficult decisions to make, but we must not forget that the mark of a civilised society must reflect how it treats its most vulnerable and oldest citizens.

Altmann said “one or two people from care homes” have told her they feel as though elderly people are being treated “like lambs to the slaughter”. She added:

I’m sure that the government really cares about what’s happening and it’s an enormous task.

We must not forget the most elderly in our population – the average age of people in our care homes is 85 – their lives are also valuable and they need the treatment and the equipment and the care that we would expect for anyone else in society as well.

The shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, said Labour are seeking to have “as constructive a relationship as possible” with the government to defeat coronavirus.

Asked why the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is not taking up the government’s offer of joining the emergency Cobra meetings, Dodds told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

I know that Keir has been seeking to work with government as much as is possible and he’s had a number of discussions, as I understand it, with different individuals involved with government.

We’re seeking to have as constructive a relationship as possible and obviously we’re trying to do that in a spirit to get us to the best place that we can be as a nation.

She added:

I don’t know the circumstances under which that may have been offered and the decision making around that.

I do know that Keir is absolutely determined for us to do all we can as an opposition to try and support efforts to support people and indeed the health of the country.

But I would also say there’s something very important about ensuring we have accountability and transparency as well.

UPDATE: The Today programme subsequently broadcasted a correction, saying that Starmer had not been invited to attend Cobra meetings (which explained why Dodds sounded a bit thrown by the question.) But Labour and other opposition parties have been invited to government briefings on the coronavirus, and the Labour politicians Mark Drakeford and Sadiq Khan have participated in Cobra meetings in respective capacities as first minister of Wales and mayor of London.

Sir David Behan, non-executive director of HC-One, Britain’s largest care home operator, said Covid-19 is present in two-thirds of its care homes.

The former chief executive of the Care Quality Commission told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that as of 8pm on Monday, there were 2,447 suspected and confirmed cases of Covid-19 in HC-One care homes.

“It’s present in 232 of our homes which is about two-thirds of the total number of homes that we run,” he said.

He said 311 residents have died as a result of, or suspected, Covid-19, along with one member of staff. Sir David added:

Covid-19 deaths are representative of about ... just under about a third of all deaths that we’ve had over the past three weeks.

So this isn’t just an issue of deaths from Covid-19 as I’ve already said, this is a very frail group of older people and we’d normally have a number of deaths taking place throughout the winter months and we’re also dealing with that as well.

Global governments should agree a common standard on medical screening at airports, the boss of Heathrow has said.

Chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, claimed a single system for assessing passengers’ health will help demand for air travel recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

He added that this would be an important boost to Britain’s economy.

Heathrow continues to serve the nation by keeping vital supply lines open, and helping people get home.

Now is the time to agree a common international standard for healthcare screening in airports so that when this crisis recedes, people can travel with confidence and we can get the British economy moving again.

He made the comments as Heathrow announced that passenger numbers for March fell by 52% compared with the same month in 2019.

Many of the 3.1 m journeys were repatriations, as people flew to and from the west London hub to reach their homes.

The UK missed three chances to be part of an EU scheme to bulk buy personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers, according to reports.

The Guardian revealed that Britain failed to utilise opportunities to get items such as masks, gowns and gloves under an EU initiative.

The government has come under severe criticism for it’s failure to provide PPE to NHS staff.

European medical staff are set to receive the first of £1.3bn-worth of PPE within days, or a maximum of two weeks, under the EU scheme involving 25 countries.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We will continue to work with European countries and others in order to make sure that we can increase the capacity within the NHS, and we will consider participating in future EU joint procurement schemes on the basis of public health requirements at the time.”

At the daily Downing Street briefing on the coronavirus emergency on Monday, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the government was trying to give frontline staff reassurance over PPE.

“I think the strongest practical reassurance they will want and that we can give them is that over the Bank Holiday weekend, over 16m items were delivered and we are straining every sinew to roll them out even further and even faster,” he said.

Motorists were caught driving at “extreme speeds” over the Easter weekend, with one driver clocked at 151mph.

The Metropolitan police also caught a driver travelling at 97mph in a 40 zone and four drivers going over 100mph on the A13.

Detective Sergeant Andy Cox, Scotland Yard’s lead officer on roads policing, posted video footage of a pursuit on the M1 where speeds reached more than double the limit.

He said: “Extreme speeds this weekend in London. Many enforced including 97mph (40) on A10.

“This driver reached 151mph on M1 before decamping car & evading on foot. We will do upmost to identify & take action.”

Drivers have been taking advantage of quieter roads created by the coronavirus lockdown, with four in 10 cars exceeding the speed limit in Greater Manchester, mayor Andy Burnham said last week.

Nadra Ahmed, chairwoman of the National Care Association, has called on the government to remove VAT on protective equipment for care homes.

She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that care homes were struggling to source and pay for personal protective equipment and prices were “not sustainable” for the care sector.

She said the government had removed VAT on the essential kit for the NHS and urged it to do the same for the social care sector.

Ahmed said one provider had paid £8,500 for just one week’s worth of PPE, adding:

We’ve said to the chancellor, ‘take the VAT off PPE, these are essential items’.

They’ve taken it off for the NHS but they’ve not moved it for social care... without our staff we can’t deliver the care.

Therese Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, said: “People will start to receive financial support if they haven’t already had an advance.”

She also said that people who started work after 28 February, and are therefore excluded from the government’s job retention scheme, “can go back to their original employers to ask to be furloughed”.

Responding to Coffey’s interview, the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, said: “We’re getting to the stage now where it’s not just opposition figures, it’s actually the public and the business community who really need to have more information, for example about how a number of different schemes are working.

“It has taken quite a long time to get information about how many of those business interruption loans have been provided - actually the figures are significantly lower than any of us had hoped they would be at this stage.”

She added: “Unless we get that support to businesses within the next two weeks or so we could have really quite a big spike in businesses going bust and in people potentially being laid off.”

The shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, said she is concerned about the low take-up of the coronavirus business loan scheme, and that more information is needed to establish whether the government intervention is effective.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Dodds said: “We really think the government needs to be actually publishing statistics around these different programmes. We need to know how many applications have been made, how many have then been successfully awarded.”

She added: “We need to know whether the right systems are in place and unless we have the right data we can’t do that, we can’t identify where they need to change if we don’t have that information.”

Dodds said that “we’ve got two weeks, as people watching this will know - if we’re going to have any chance of getting these schemes working fully before the next pay day - so unless they’re actually sorted out very soon, then we potentially could have an even deeper impact on our economy then already that which has occurred”.

She added that she is “quite concerned about the low take-up of that loan scheme”.

Good morning, it’s Jessica Murray here, and I’ll be taking you through the latest coronavirus developments in the UK this morning.

As always feel free to get in touch via email - jessica.murray@theguardian.com - or via Twitter - @journojess_

The government’s scientific advisers are due to meet later today to review the impact of the UK’s coronavirus lockdown measures.

At a Downing Street press conference yesterday, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, suggested it is unlikely there will be any changes to the lockdown this week and it could be extended by at least a month.

At the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) meeting on Tuesday, experts will consider hospital admissions, intensive care capacity, testing and the effectiveness of restrictions.

The government insisted its plan to tackle the coronavirus pandemic “is working” and said the latest data suggested the UK was “starting to win this struggle”, three weeks after restrictions were imposed.

But Raab said the virus was not yet past its peak and that it was “far too early” to talk about relaxing the measures

Details of how the lockdown will eventually be lifted remain unclear, however, with the government repeatedly refusing to outline its “exit strategy”.

It came as the World Health Organisation said restrictions should be lifted slowly and not “all at once” to avoid a resurgence of the virus, and only if appropriate measures are in place, including “significant” capacity for contact tracing.

But experts have also warned that the public’s strong support to stick to the lockdown measures “won’t last” and the government needs to find a way to tell the nation about how it will be eased.