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?

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

The truth about how you can catch coronavirus, how much more elderly people are at risk and what you can do to avoid infection

What are the symptoms caused by the new coronavirus, how does it spread, and should you call a doctor?

Australia rolls out new social distancing rules as number of people testing positive for Covid-19 nationally passes 1,000 and New Zealand reports its biggest single-day rise in cases. This blog is now closed.

What’s it like being in charge of a minute-by-minute update on a global pandemic that 7 million people are following?It started out as a bit of an experiment in 2007, an attempt to take what sports journalists were doing with minute-by-minute coverage of cricket and football and see if it would work with fast-paced news events.It did. More than a dozen years later, the Guardian’s live blog format (a rolling screed of real-time news updates written by journalists like me) is one of our most successful digital innovations ever, prodigiously utilised, much copied – and so well read that it can be daunting for those doing the writing. Continue reading...

Australia closes Bondi Beach as cases rise past 1,000; South Korea raises concerns over ‘imported cases’; US tells millions to stay home

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Death toll in Spain reaches 1,000 as Germany threatens further curfews and UK government discusses new London clampdown. This blog is now closed

Ten million British children are about to get a taste of home schooling. Increased inequality will be the result

Cafes and leisure centres also ordered to close from Friday evening due to Covid-19 crisis

Video of Tara Jane Langston, 39, in hospital struggling to breathe was originally posted on WhatsApp

Fears that lack of coronavirus testing and supplies could mean refugees and those caught in crises are left behind

Doctors not currently practising respond to government ‘your NHS needs you’ plea

While the world outside panicked over coronavirus, I was to be the calm, efficient teacher to my child. It didn’t last long

There’s something unsettling in seeing the prime minister repurpose his Brexit media strategy for a deadly contagion

Report on Li Wenliang’s death says he did not disrupt public order, but fought bravely

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

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. Many of those initially infected either worked or frequently shopped in the Huanan seafood wholesale market in the centre of the Chinese city of Wuhan. Unusually for a virus that has made the jump from one species to another, it appears to transmit effectively in humans – current estimates show that without strong containment measures the average person who catches Covid-19 will pass it on to two others. 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...

Most people don’t understand exponential growth. If they did, they’d be far more frightened

Health secretary says government looking ‘very closely’ at hotspot where 28 deaths recorded

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

What are the symptoms caused by the new coronavirus, how does it spread, and should you call a doctor?

The country acted fast when the virus began to spread. Strict quarantine measures and testing have helped to curb itSouth Koreans are famously nonchalant about North Korean nuclear weapons. Bewilderingly to the rest of us, they “keep calm and carry on” whenever Pyongyang threatens to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire”. The South Korean approach to Covid-19 could not have been more different.On 16 January, the South Korean biotech executive Chun Jong-yoon grasped the reality unfolding in China and directed his lab to work to stem the virus’s inevitable spread; within days, his team developed detection kits now in high demand around the world. Continue reading...

By identifying and isolating clusters of infected people, we wiped out Covid-19 in Vò

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

US says vaccine is 12 months away, Hubei reports no new cases and cases in Peru rise 61% in single day. This blog is now closed

Researchers hope to conduct animal tests next week and safety trials as early as next month

Four proposals will get funds for nine months of study before two are chosen to go aheadNasa has shortlisted four proposals for its next astrophysics missions, due for launch in 2025. The agency has funding to fly two of them, and the four will now each receive funds for a nine-month period of technical study. The two missions will be chosen next year.The competing proposals are: the extreme-ultraviolet stellar characterization for atmospheric physics and evolution (Escape) mission, which would study nearby stars to determine the severity of their flaring activity; the Compton spectrometer and imager (Cosi), which would look for the results of recent stellar explosions in the Milky Way; the gravitational-wave ultraviolet counterpart imager mission, which would look for the explosions associated with gravitational wave detections; and Leap – a large area burst polarimeter, which would look for jets of particles ejected from exploding stars. Continue reading...

Guardian readers lament Boris Johnson’s failure to grasp the scale of the crisis, which was foreshadowed by cuts to the NHS and public services

France’s premier event will not go ahead in its traditional May slot after government measures forced its handThe Cannes film festival has postponed this year’s edition, it has announced.The festival made the news public on Thursday, saying that “several options are considered in order to preserve its running” – its preferred one being a shift of the festival to the end of June. The festival’s management added: “As soon as the development of the French and international health situation will allow us to assess the real possibility, we will make our decision known.” Continue reading...

Rome announces 427 new fatalities as lockdown measures are extended in France

Guardian science journalists pick out the most promising remedies and ask whether there is any evidence that they could workChloroquine is a cheap, widely available drug that has been routinely used since 1945 against malaria and other conditions and can be safely taken by pregnant women and children. Lab studies found the antiviral drug was effective against the coronavirus, at least in a petri dish, and results from a small French study in 24 patients, announced this week, suggested that it could quicken recovery. Doctors said 25% of patients who received the drug tested positive for the virus after six days, compared with 90% of those who did not receive it. Chloroquine and a related drug, hydroxychloroquine, are among the four treatments tested in an international clinical trial, announced on Wednesday by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the UK has added chloroquine to its list of medicines under export controls. Continue reading...

Bill allows police and officials to order anyone believed to be infected to undergo testing

It will be tough, but this is what medical staff are trained to do. Now is our time to step up

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

Confirmed cases of Covid-19 have spanned the globe, and now exceed 170,000. Travel bans and closed borders have been put in place in an attempt to curtail the spread

One of the last places to be hit by coronavirus, experts in Kenya are worried it doesn’t have the resources to cope

How do we choose between under-treating vulnerable cancer patients and potentially exposing them to Covid-19?

The global pandemic is exposing Britain’s dangerous reliance on imported medicines

What are the symptoms caused by the new coronavirus, how does it spread, and should you call a doctor?

There’s a connection between America’s lack of commitment to collective wellbeing and the social disaster we suffer in times of crisis

Oh my goodness this virus seems to be all anyone talks about

Ian Sample speaks to Prof Deirdre Hollingsworth about social distancing. What is it? How might it help to flatten the curve? And what are some of the big unknowns when it comes to predicting how effective it might be? Continue reading...

Italy death toll approaches 3,000; Portugal declares state of emergency; worldwide cases pass 200,000. This blog is now closed.

Biotech firm Synairgen will trial SNG001 inhaler on 100 people in race to find cure

What to do and what not to do – your coronavirus questions answeredCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageSocial distancing aims to reduce the amount of close contact people have with one another. The coronavirus can be spread through airborne droplets released when infected people cough or sneeze, so keeping your distance reduces your chances of becoming infected by this route. Avoid contact with anyone with symptoms of coronavirus: a high temperature and/or a new continuous cough. Continue reading...

Tiny creature, half the size of a mallard, found in rocks dating back to dinosaur ageExperts have discovered a fossil of the world’s oldest known modern bird – a diminutive creature about half the size of a mallard duck.Dubbed the Wonderchicken, the remains were found in rocks dating to about 66.8m to 66.7m years ago, revealing that the bird was active shortly before the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 66m years ago. Continue reading...

Government has the upper hand for the first time in a generation. It must seize the moment