The country already has the most deaths in south-east Asia, but research suggests the official 800 infections so far may only be 2% of the total

Nicola Davis speaks to Dr Ian Bailey about the current guidance on taking ibuprofen and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs during a Sars-CoV-2 infection. And, why there was concern about whether these medications could make symptoms of the disease worse Continue reading...

Respiratory physician John Wilson explains the range of Covid-19 impacts, from no symptoms to severe illness featuring pneumonia

India locks down; Prince Charles tests positive for coronavirus; Senate and White House reach stimulus deal. This blog is now closed

Prototype of revolutionary running device being worked on by scientists at US university

Work on the Orion capsule and the Space Launch System suspended until Covid-19 outbreak has passedWelcome to a new semi-regular column about Nasa’s progress towards landing astronauts on the moon during 2024.This challenging schedule, which was mandated by the White House, has now been made more difficult by the coronavirus outbreak. On 19 March, the Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that the agency’s Michoud assembly facility and Stennis Space Center are in effect shutting down due to the rising number of cases in their local areas. Continue reading...

Rolling updates on all the UK developments, as they happened. This blog is now closed, please follow the global coronavirus liveblog6.20pm GMTFor more coronavirus updates, do read our global coronavirus live blog.Related: Coronavirus live news: global death toll passes 20,000, as Spain overtakes China as second worst-hit country6.18pm GMTHere are the main points from Boris Johnson’s press conference. His headline announcement related to the NHS “volunteer army”, but what was equally interesting was the defensiveness that seems to be creeping in to his public statements about coronavirus. He did not have a proper answer at all to Gary Gibbon’s questions about why coronavirus testing in the UK was not as thorough as in some other countries, and he opened his statement with the words “from the very beginning of this crisis I have followed the advice of our world-leading scientists” - which did sound a little like someone starting to make excuses.Here are the main points.When we launched the appeal last night we hoped to get 250,000 over a few days.But I can tell you that in just 24 hours 405,000 people have responded to the call.We are going up from 5,000 to 10,000 tests per day, to 25,000, hopefully very soon up to 250,000 per day.This is a global problem. Basically, every country is wanting this new test for a disease that wasn’t actually being tested for anywhere three months ago. So everybody wants, so there is a global shortage, and that’s a bottleneck for us ...There are multiple components in these tests, including the chemicals that make them up, the swabs that you use, and there are shortages along many of these supply chains, essentially because every county in the world is simultaneously wanting this new thing. Some components of this are old, but the scale of this is something which has obviously occurred at an extraordinary speed. And that’s just a practical reality. Anyone who understands how supply chains work, and the huge demand for this globally, would understand that.I dislike it very much and I do not want to see people profiteering, exploiting people’s need at a critical time, in a national emergency.We are indeed looking very carefully at what is going on.I do not think, and I want to be clear, that this is something that we’ll suddenly be ordering on the internet next week. We need to go through the evaluation, then the first critical uses, then spread it out from that point of view. We need to do that in a systematic way.We have to remember that many of the things we have to do are going to have to be sustained for a reasonably long period of time. Continue reading...

Models based on assumptions in the absence of data can be over-speculative and ‘open to gross over-interpretation’

As a teenager I had chronic hypochondria. Yet in the face of a global pandemic I am surprisingly calm. Maybe it’s because we are all in this togetherI have noticed something odd about my anxiety at this time: I am not as anxious as I should be. I have been anxious for as long as I can remember: man, boy, child, baby and, for all I know, foetus. It just seems to be in my nature. I have a physical manifestation of it in the shape of a long furrow right across the middle of my brow. If I pull the skin on my forehead right back to stretch away this crevice, a white streak appears in its place. For this troubled trench is so deep that no sunlight finds a way to its depths.When I was a kid, I worried about everything. I worried whether my friends liked me, whether girls liked me and, most of all, whether West Brom would win their next game. I worried about my grandparents dying and my parents dying. And, logically enough, by the time I got to my teens I started to worry about dying myself. This manifested itself in chronic hypochondria. I was convinced I had pretty much everything at some time or other, but the main focus of my concern was my testicles. To be fair, I had nearly lost them when I was 11 in a bicycle crash at my nan’s house on the day of the 1978 cup final, but that’s another story. Continue reading...

The 15-minute coronavirus tests may provide a semblance of normality as UK regions track the spread of coronavirus• Anthony Costello is a former director of maternal and child health at the World Health Organization

Teachers in England say they are getting requests for eyewear and other protective equipment

Viruses such as Covid-19 wouldn’t emerge in food markets if it wasn’t for factory farming, globalised industry and rapid urbanisation

Although Trump’s claim about the drug was false it might play a role in tackling the pandemicClaims by Donald Trump regarding the effectiveness against coronavirus of an anti-malarial drug untested against the disease have led to it being hoarded, as well as to at least one death in the US and a number of overdoses around the world.Trump called the drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine potential “gamechangers” during a press conference last week, spurring a rush by some individuals – and even countries, including Algeria and Indonesia – to stockpile the drugs. India, meanwhile, has announced it will ban export of the drug. Continue reading...

Dental tissue is revealing in same way annual tree rings can tell much about environment tree grew inTelltale signs of stressful life events can be found in our teeth, say researchers who have found that birth, menopause and even imprisonment appear to leave their mark in tissue that is laid down throughout life.The phenomenon is similar to the way the thickness of annual tree rings can tell us about the climate and environment in which the tree grew – however in teeth it is changes to the way the tissue interacts with light that offers the clues. Continue reading...

Dominic Cummings loves to theorise about complexity, but he’s getting it all wrong

Anna Ahmatova, David Malouf, Yukio Mishima and more explore the emotion that tears us apart but leads us into compassion, writes Christos TsiolkasI was an adolescent when I first came across the letters of St Paul. Though I had been raised Greek Orthodox, at 13 I had joined an evangelical church in the hope that God would banish my shame. The shame of being different. The shame of hurting my immigrant parents’ honour. The shame of being gay. At that age, all I could hear from Paul was his admonishment in his first letter to the Corinthians that my homosexuality would banish me for ever from God’s love and grace. I battled with that for over two years before finally abandoning my faith. It was a relief to declare myself atheist, and a relief to begin the slow, difficult process of extricating myself from shame.In my late 20s, however, I experienced another form of shame. I had betrayed a man I loved. I had betrayed my ideals. In a state of misery I found myself walking into a small Uniting Church. My body fell to weeping and prayer – for aid from a God in whom I no longer believed. On the pew in front of me there was a copy of the New Testament and I began to read it. I read Paul’s letter to the Romans and this time I heard the voice of a man struggling with doubt and confusion, shame and regret. And I heard his words of solace and compassion. My novel Damascus is my attempt to reconcile these two versions of Paul. It is the story of a man, not a saint, since it is the living, breathing, conflicted man who interests me. This is the man we can still hear 2,000 years later through the letters he left us. Continue reading...

UK experts say easing physical distancing would depend on rigorous testing and isolation

Human trials will begin imminently – but even if they go well and a cure is found, there are many barriers before global immunisation is feasible

Latest figures from public health authorities on the spread of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom. Find out how many cases have been reported near you

Debate on adjournment until 21 April will take place once emergency laws passCoronavirus - latestSee all our coronavirus coverageParliament is to close for Easter a week early amid fears that coronavirus has been spreading fast through Westminster.Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons, laid a motion saying parliament will adjourn on Wednesday night for a month until 21 April. Continue reading...

What are the symptoms caused by the Covid-19 virus, how does it spread, and should you see a doctor?

As a prostate cancer surgeon, I’m concerned we may be losing sight of those who aren’t getting the treatment they need to stay alive

Li Keqiang’s comments come as Hubei province - except for Wuhan - lifts travel restrictions for the first time in two months

A bubble has finally been burst – but will we now attend to the other threats facing humanity?

Brazil’s president uses national televised address to dismiss state-based health measures ‘scorched earth’ tactics

WHO says US could be next virus hotspot; EU urged to evacuate Greek refugee camps; Greta Thunberg says she believes she had Covid-19. This blog is now closed.12.43am GMTThat’s it for this live blog. Follow me, Helen Sullivan, to the link below for the latest coronavirus pandemic news:Related: Coronavirus live news: India locks down population of 1.3bn as Hubei eases restrictions12.36am GMTNew Zealand has declared a national state of emergency, Reuters reports. More on this soon. Continue reading...

Covid-19-related developments throughout the Pacific Islands

Physical distancing on the roads | Geordie greetings | Clocks going forward | Receiving the Guardian | The Archers | Unseen, not herd

Lockdown may lead to awkward conversations as government issues clarification

Monitoring of adults aged 40 or over shows any activity is good and doing more is betterIt may be worth dusting off the fitness tracker when you head out on your government-approved stroll: researchers have found higher step counts are associated with a lower risk of early death.While the figure of 10,000 steps a day is a popular goal, researchers have long criticised the fact it has its roots in a Japanese marketing campaign, rather than scientific research. Continue reading...

Corporate chiefs may not like it – but a heavy-handed state is now essential to help the country truly adapt to our new way of life

Covid Symptom Tracker will also help experts understand who is most at risk of disease

Confirmed cases of Covid-19 have spanned the globe, and now exceed 380,000. Travel bans and closed borders have been put in place in an attempt to curtail the spread

Rightwing governments have denied the problem and been slow to act. With coronavirus and the climate, this costs lives• Coronavirus latest updates• See all our coronavirus coverageThe coronavirus pandemic has brought urgency to the defining political question of our age: how to distribute risk. As with the climate crisis, neoliberal capitalism is proving particularly ill-suited to this.Like global warming, but in close-up and fast-forward, the Covid-19 outbreak shows how lives are lost or saved depending on a government’s propensity to acknowledge risk, act rapidly to contain it, and share the consequences. Continue reading...

Respiratory physician John Wilson explains the range of Covid-19 impacts, from no symptoms to severe illness featuring pneumonia

Covid-19 essential guide: how is it different from the seasonal flu, can you pick it up from public transport and how sick will I get?Coronavirus – latest updatesWhat are the coronavirus symptoms?The Covid-19 virus is a member of the coronavirus family that made the jump from animals to humans late last year. Unusually for a virus that has made the jump from one species to another, it appears to transmit effectively in humans. The virus also appears to have a higher mortality rate than common illnesses such as seasonal flu. The combination of coronavirus’s ability to spread and cause serious illness has prompted many countries, including the UK, to introduce or plan extensive public health measures aimed at containing and limiting the impact of the epidemic. Continue reading...

Latest figures from public health authorities on the spread of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom. Find out how many cases have been reported near you

Ministers call on mobile companies to send mass broadcast to reach up to 60m people

Millions will be able to move around the region after weeks of stringent measures to stem the spread of Covid-19

Sarah Boseley speaks to Prof Deenan Pillay about how the virus contaminates surfaces and why headlines about how long it can survive may be misleading. And, following a number of listener questions, we find out whether or not Sars-CoV-2 can survive in a swimming pool Continue reading...

Here are some questions that all chemotherapy patients should ask their oncologistFrom a clinic emptied of patients but not their problems, I begin a series of phone consults, the first of which is to an increasingly fatigued man who lives alone. For a while I have rued the day someone suggested he have chemotherapy because now he has poured all his energies into having intensifying toxic treatment for a terminal illness. I know that he appreciates seeing the nurses but suddenly the stakes have risen.Careful not to sound punitive, I say: “Let’s consider a chemotherapy break.” Continue reading...

To watch Trump is to witness the awesome and terrifying power of the American president over life and death – a burden he is unqualified to bear

This blog is now closed.

A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak

As borders close and social distancing increases, what are our responsibilities to the people who keep working?Amid coronavirus-induced stockpiling and empty supermarket shelves, politicians have been quick to assure us of the reliability of Australia’s food supply systems.Writing for the Guardian last week, agriculture minister David Littleproud slammed “ridiculous” panic-buying, saying: “It is important to understand that Australian farmers produce enough food for 75 million people: three times what we need”. Farmers, he continued, are “calmly going about the business of food production”, “preparing to sow and pick their crops and making sure their produce makes it to market”. Continue reading...

Prime minister escalates UK response to coronavirus with series of strict measures

Sources say existing models will be used to meet expected demand for 30,000 machines