UK coronavirus live: Britain marks VE Day anniversary under lockdown

The first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, says it is too soon to ease the lockdown in Wales.

He says the estimate R reproductive rate of the virus in Wales is currently estimated to be 0.8. He warned that 800 people will die of the virus in Wales, but if the lockdown is lifted that figure would increase to more 7,000.

Drakeford said three “small and modest adjustments” can be made in Wales.

1. People will be allowed to exercise to more than once a day. But it should be local and should not involve any travel.
2. Garden centres should be open with physical distancing measure.
3. Local authorities can plan to open libraries and recycling centres.

There was mention of schools.

Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is being praised for his VE day message and his handling of the coronavirus crisis by Conservative commentators and outlets.

The live blog will be pausing at 11am to observe the two minutes’ silence marking the 75th VE Day anniversary.

Rail services are set to increase later this month as part of the gradual easing of the lockdown

Sources said there would be a gradual increase from 18 May. Rail unions have been involved in talks about the safety of workers and passengers when more trains run.

Union leaders stressed they wanted to make sure their members’ safety was protected, with one saying lifting the lockdown was “fraught with danger”.

Mick Cash, the general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union said: “There is a headlong dash to lift the lockdown on our transport services for May 18 and it is fraught with danger for both passengers and staff alike.

“To maintain the government’s own social distancing guidance would mean huge logistical and staffing input to manage passenger flows onto trains and it is imperative that all staff involved in this process are properly protected.

“RMT will not compromise on the health, safety and livelihoods of our members and we will not agree to anything that fails to put the safety of staff and passengers first.

“If that means advising our members not to work under conditions that are unsafe and in breach of the government’s own guidelines then that is exactly what we will do.”

Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers’ union Aslef said: “We want to help Britain return to what we knew as normal before the pandemic, and have agreed with the Department for Transport that we will increase the number of services when and where it is safe for passengers and for staff.”

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “We are examining a range of options on how transport can respond to support the recovery in a timely way when the time comes and it is safe to do so.

“We continue to prepare for any scenario we might be asked to support.”

Historians have praised Florence Nightingale before the 200th anniversary of her birth, and said her legacy has “never been more relevant” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Staff at the Florence Nightingale Museum in Westminster said her key nursing values – which focused on maintaining good hygiene, regularly washing hands and carrying out evidence-based practices – had been widely echoed over the past months.

Nightingale was born on 12 May 1820 and Tuesday also marks International Nurses Day.

She developed these habits during the Crimean war, where, along with a small troupe of nurses, she tended soldiers’ wounds and worked to improve hospital conditions.

Her data-based work also helped shape modern nursing: founding the nursing school at St Thomas’ hospital, developing palliative care and midwifery, and shaping the redesign of hospitals across the UK and the health system itself.

Kristin Buhnemann, assistant director at the Florence Nightingale Museum, said: “In terms of modern nursing, her legacy has never been so relevant, as she was a pioneer for sanitation, hygiene and had a monumental impact on infection control today.”

Health leaders continue to use the concept of evidence-based healthcare, a theory Nightingale pioneered and advocated for and which is currently being used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to track and trace Covid-19 patients.

Her passion for data saw her become the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society, while her invention of the coxcomb, an early version of a pie chart used to show Queen Victoria and her government the connection between cleanliness and the mortality rate of British soldiers, is being used today to combat the current pandemic.

Elsewhere, her compassion towards nurses has also had an impact on modern practices, and historians have drawn parallels to the current PPE (personal protective equipment) crisis.

Buhnemann, said: “So just like today’s nurses, Nightingale risked her life to help others, and I believe she would be incredibly proud of the current healthcare workers.”

Premier League clubs opposed to the idea of playing their remaining matches at neutral venues once the competition restarts must realise people’s lives are at stake and football concerns should take a back seat, police have said.

Mark Roberts, the national lead for football policing, told Sky he was concerned about some of the comments he had heard regarding the conditions for restarting the league, which was suspended in mid-March due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Discussions are continuing about resuming games after clubs were told only neutral venues approved from a health and safety point of view would be allowed.

Brighton and Hove Albion’s chief executive, Paul Barber, said his team were opposed to surrendering home advantage and Christian Purslow, his counterpart at Aston Villa, said relegation would be a £200m catastrophe.

“The things that are starting to concern me a little as we get closer to a potential restart are comments we’re hearing on the margins by people involved in football,” Roberts said.

“Comments such as ‘we might get relegated’, ‘we don’t want to play at neutral venues’, ‘when we played them away there were fans in the stadium’, ‘we play at home without fans that’s a disadvantage’, ‘we want to get the trophy’.

“I get this in a football context that these are all a big deal. But in the context where 30,000 people have died (in the UK) and the total is still going up, then it’s not such a big deal.

“We want to work with football … get the season back going for the commercial reasons, for the morale reasons … but we have to remind ourselves that cannot be at the risk of putting a single further life in jeopardy.”

Hello, I am updating the UK liveblog this morning. Please send any tips and stories to nazia.parveen@theguardian.com or follow me on Twitter @NParveenG to send me a message. Thank you.

The editor-in-chief of the Lancet has said that the lockdown should remain in place until the beginning of June, warning of a second wave of the pandemic.

Speaking to Nick Robinson on the Political Thinking podcast, Dr Richard Horton said: “Absolutely don’t do it too fast. In Wuhan they locked down for 10 weeks and a lot of the epidemiological modelling shows that you need to lock down for around about 10 weeks. That takes us to 1 June. We locked down on 23-24 March.

“So I really worry that if we come out of this too quickly, maybe two or weeks too quickly we could see the flare-up of a second wave and so I would say keep it in place until the end of May, to the beginning of June.

“The danger both economic and the toll in deaths danger is so great. Those extra couple of weeks are worth it. I know it’s painful but it’s worth it.”

Horton also condemned the “corruption and collusion” of scientific advice to the government during the pandemic.

He said: “I don’t think the system was self-critical enough.

“There should have been more criticism – such as ‘what if this isn’t influenza, what if this is like a Sars-like virus, why don’t we know what was taking place in China?’ These questions weren’t asked and you see it in some of the documents on Sage.

“There was such a concern about the potential economic damage of raising the alarm. Some of the papers Sage were considering and Imperial College produced – they were trying to balance the concern about an epidemic with the potential concern for an economic hit. And I think that did lead to a pulling of punches.”

The full podcast is available here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08clg1w

A nurse has received a Points of Light award from the prime minister for creating a book to help reduce anxiety in children caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Molly Watts, a staff nurse on the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at Southampton Children’s Hospital, was thanked for her book Dave the Dog is worried about coronavirus, which she created in her spare time.

The free online publication, which has now been published in paperback, has been downloaded more than 260,000 times in 164 countries, and was used in schools and nurseries to help ease the fears of children before the lockdown.

It is one of a collection of titles Watts has written under her Nurse Dotty Books brand, which are often written and illustrated by her when she returns home from shifts on the unit.

The Points of Light award is given by the prime minister to recognise those who are supporting their communities during the pandemic, with Captain Tom Moore being a high-profile recipient.

In a letter to Watts Johnson wrote: “You have used your Nurse Dotty Books to help reduce the fear and anxiety that many young people have about coronavirus.

“Allow me also to express my deepest gratitude and admiration for your service to our country as a paediatric nurse in intensive care.

“Twenty-four hours a day, for every second of every hour, you and your colleagues are watching over your patients with the most astonishing devotion, precision and love.

“It is why our whole nation is so immeasurably proud of our NHS and everyone who works within it and, on behalf of the whole country, I say thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Watts said: “I am so honoured to receive this award, especially now when so many incredible people are doing so much to help others.

“The fact that the story has reached so many children and that they have found it helpful is amazing to me.”

Visit www.nursedottybooks.com for more information and access to the books.

Andy Serkis’s continuous live reading of The Hobbit, starting online at 10am, has already raised £100,000 for charity.

The actor, who has played Gollum, will read JRR Tolkien’s 1937 novel from start to end.

Money raised from the 56-year-old’s expected 12-hour performance will be shared between NHS Charities Together and Best Beginnings.

The GoFundMe campaign has already received more than 7,000 donations from more than 70 countries and the campaign target has now been increased to £250,000.

As a token of his appreciation, Serkis will choose a handful of donors at random and call them to say thank you for joining him on the journey.

He said: “I have been absolutely blown away by the response, both from those who have tuned in to watch along, and from those who have been generous enough to donate. I want to express my gratitude to every single person who has come on this journey with me. The difference that this money will make to these two amazing charities is huge, so thank you very much.”

Tune in to the live stream here.