Welcome to bbc news, im Lewis Vaughan jones. Our top stories allowed out to exercise for the first time in seven weeks, but spaniards get strict time slots for an hour outdoors. The first time that i ride with my bike this morning, it was incredible, really incredible. More us states start lifting their lockdowns but theres no let up in new cases of coronavirus. Human Rights Groups call for an investigation after more than a0 people die in a prison riot in venezuela. A trial begins to see if blood plasma from people whove recovered from covid 19 could treat sick patients
and all in isolation, the irish band performing live from lockdown, including here on bbc news. Hello, and welcome to audiences in the uk and around the world. We start in europe where coronavirus restrictions are gradually being eased, as the continents daily death toll continues to fall. With the easing comes an increased requirement for facemasks on Public Transport; this will now be compulsory in spain and portugal and on eurostar trains between london and mainland europe. One country where the number of deaths remains stubbornly high is britain. The total number of fatalities now stands at over 28,000 close to that of italy, europes worst affected country. In the United States, new yorks governor,
andrew cuomo, has dismissed calls to lift lockdown measures in the state. Nearly 300 deaths were reported there on saturday, a figure mr cuomo called obnoxiously and terrifyingly high. But some good news coming out of spain where people have been allowed outside to exercise for the first time in seven weeks, after one of the strictest lockdowns in europe. Heres damian grammaticas. 0nto empty streets, tentatively, spaniards began emerging today, released from 48 days of confinement. Then the numbers began to swell. Adults first, allowed out to take a walk, to exercise for the first time in weeks. Until now, the only acceptable reasons for leaving your home were to buy food or go to the chemist. Its amazing. The first time i ride with my bike this morning, it was incredible, really incredible its the fresh air
in yourface. Some clearly wanted to capture the moment. For others, just being out in the sunshine was a relief. Then, at ten in the morning, it all changed, adults back indoors so the elderly could have two hours to themselves. Spain is segregating people by age, specific times of the day reserved for specific age groups to protect the most vulnerable. These two insist theyre not afraid. Instead, they are frustrated. Translation we need tests for everyone to know if were clear, if we can meet with ourfamilies, have a life. I have five grandsons and i cant see them. And after midday, children, who are allowed out now in the afternoons only. It means more work for the police, here monitoring valencias beach today. Everyone in spain is limited
to one hour outdoors a day. Police are trying to ensure people stick to the rules. Translation it is forbidden for people to swim or sunbathe. You can only walk on the beach or in the afternoon, play with the children. But elsewhere, people were already taking to the water. This was spains north coast and this, barcelonas seafront, the numbers surging. It is spains worry, how to control what happens as the restrictions ease. With this relaxation, spains government is dipping a cautious toe in the waters to see what happens. If virus cases continue to trend downwards, therell be more easing in the coming days. If they surge again, the lockdown will come back. So these moments of liberty could mark a turning point or prove fleeting. Damian grammaticas, bbc news, valencia. Lets get more on this
from barcelona with local journalist guifre jordan. People were really looking forward to this moment after seven weeks of tight lockdown, and it was in certain cases, it was quite crowded, quite busy, especially the seafront, by the sea, in big towns, big cities like madrid, barcelona, in some areas. But people tended to respect this social distancing, this safety distance as far as i have witnessed, from my experience and also from footage. So people were, most of them, aware of what was going on, although of course you could feel the joy of people setting a foot on the street to just go for a stroll, go for a walk or do exercise for the first time in 50 days almost. Yeah, thats an incredibly
long time, isnt it, to go, so a huge relief by so many people im sure. And some changes, though. Of course, weve been hearing about the shift system that people will be allowed out in. But also from next week, Wearing Masks on Public Transport. Now, in some countries, in asia particularly, large numbers of people are very used to Wearing Masks. This isnt something thats so usual in spain. Not at all, no. No, were not used to it. And even some people, before this health crisis, even mocked some asian tourists for wearing facemasks, but we have to get used to it. Its still hard and people are still getting used to it, but, yes, certainly, from monday, everyone using Public Transport will have to wear thse facemasks. So its going to be a remarkable change. And have you had any indications of when the lockdown will be eased completely . Some countries like ireland, for example, have set out a hopeful timetable for when things get back to normal. Any indications there in spain . Well, yeah, so the Spanish Government has set a full phase of ease of lockdown, lets say, and each phase will last two weeks until the phase ends, until these full phase ends. We can go to the end ofjune, late june, at least if everything goes well, so authorities always emphasise that this is as long as everything goes well and the figures continue in this downwards trend. So that would mean latejune with a return to normality or this new normality thats the new concept authorities are now emphasising. So its not going to be the same as before march or before february. Its going to be a new normality, but at least in theory, by late june or earlyjuly, lockdown
will be completely eased. The republic of ireland will begin a phased lifting of its lockdown restrictions injust over two weeks, the countrys Prime Minister leo varadkar has announced. Small social gatherings outside will be allowed from may the 18th, and larger shops will open. Its hoped cafes and restaurants will re open by the end ofjune. Museums and places of worship will follow in mid july, and children will return to school in september. Lets take a look at that latest from the United States now. There are now more than 1. 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases there. New york city remains the worst hit area, and has reported almost 18,500 deaths. But despite the high numbers, President Trump insists the country should start to open up. Several states have started phasing out their lockdowns. The president himself has left the white house for a weekend at the president ial country retreat, camp david. Rich preston has this report. Large parts of the us are slowly starting to open after weeks in varying state of lockdown. In texas, beaches have opened. For many, it couldnt come soon enough. It is so awesome to be out of the house, and in galveston, the beach is beautiful. Weve just been desperate to get out of our houses and the beaches are one of our biggest things. Its really going to bring a somewhat sense of normalcy back. But Authorities Say theyre still taking care. Were trying to dress as best we can, but our main goal is, you know, if we have a couple of thousand couple of hundred thousand people down here, our main thing is we just want to get them home safe. Authorities in San Francisco have extended the stay in place order until the end of may. I think its a really smart decision, just to keep everybody safe, and i think we can do this together. We feel so fortunate that our mayor, london breed, has really was the first one in the whole country, and she locked us down, put a shelter in place so early, and weve really crushed the curve. To make sure the transit workers are safe, to make sure the rating public is safe, the best thing you can do is disinfect the whole inside of the car, as massive a challenge as that is. The president himself has left the white house for a weekend at the president ial country retreat, camp david. Hes keen for the country to open up, to be back in business again, conscious of an election on the horizon and an electorate in rising numbers of unemployment and with the economy suffering. Military jets flew over several us cities on saturday, honouring healthcare and essential workers. Over new orleans. Phoenix, arizona. And washington, dc. The might of the us military on show for a fight that is far from over. Rich preston, bbc news. Meat packing plants across the United States are experiencing a big spike in coronavirus cases leading to shortages. More than 20 plants across the United States were forced to close. President trump has ordered meat plants to stay open during the pandemic, declaring them Critical Infrastructure for their role in the nations food supply. Colorado has been particularly badly affected. Michael elizabeth sa kas is our reporter with colorado public radio. Shes in denver. Thanks very much for being with us, what is the particular issue here . The centres for Disease Control has released a report looking at these plants across the nation, about 19 different states have had outbreaks and they are seeing that people are having to work really closely together, they are also multigenerational families, a lot of these people are immigrants or refugees that work in these plants and they commute back and forth to work, so there is a lot of close proximity together and they are also finding that they are struggling to implement covid i9 sanitation restrictions in these plants. So those issues of social distancing making the workplace sound theyre a pretty unsafe place to be . Yes, and as plants start to reopen they are
looking at trying to increase that distance between employees and to temperature scans at doors, but there is concern that not enough is being done. And what bigger impact role do they play in the food supply . So what was happening was, with covid i9 closing processing pla nts covid i9 closing processing plants around the United States, there were concerns that the supply chain was going to be impacted by that, and so there has been direction by President Trump to actually call this Critical Infrastructure and keep these doors open to make sure that there isnt that impact on the supply chain, that they were afraid they were going to see, and here in colorado, the plant in Northern Colorado has had six deaths, so colorado is at the top of the cdcs list with seven deaths, and at this one plant there have been six deaths of people who work there. Given that, six deaths
at one plant, what is the mood there amongst workers . They are concerned, frightened, the union leader there spoke with me and told me that there were conversations about testing every employee before the plant reopened, and that actually didnt end up happening, but they say they are going to test those who actually show symptoms, instead of testing everybody, and so there is concern. There is a culture there too, it is called a work while sick culture and it is a lack of adequate paid time off and also a plant worker theyre told us that there is a pressure to continue to work because there is a fear of being fired. The plant also has 30 different languages spoken there so there is confusion about who should be working, is the proper information getting out that if you are sick you shouldnt be showing up to the plant, so there is a lot of different layers there. All
right, thank you very much for talking us through that. Youre watching bbc news. A reminder of our main stories in spain, adults are allowed their first outdoor exercise in almost seven weeks as europes lockdowns slowly ease. More us states start lifting their lockdowns but theres no let up in new cases of coronavirus. More than a0 people have been killed in a riot at a jail in venezuela. The venezuela prison observatory described the deaths at los llanos jail, in the western city of guanare, as a massacre and has called for an investigation. The watchdog said the prisoners were rioting over a lack of food and water after nationwide coronavirus quarantine rules kicked in. For more on what happened, i spoke to bbc americas editor, candace piette. There has been two versions up to now of what has happened. The ministerfor prisons in venezuela, iris varela, said that the prisoners had been ordered by a prison gang leader to break out
of prison and that this jail break out, they had to stop with venezuelan police, but local ngos, and particularly the venezuelan prison observatory said that the riots started because of a lack of food and water in the jail, because they were saying they were going to stop, or they had stopped visitors and families being able to come in and bring the food and water that they need, because of the coronavirus quarantine that has been in place in venezuela over the last few weeks. And that specific issue, moving more generally, candice, is very difficult, the issue of prisons and coronavirus right across the region. Absolutely, there has been riots all over latin america, recently in argentina and in peru, last week where there were nine prisoners killed, you are getting the same kind of story everywhere, prisoners are terrified of being infected, they are living in immensely overcrowded and unsanitary
jails, very little chance of washing hands and social distancing, and they are also very concerned for their family members outside the jail, so when the prison visits stop, as the authorities in many countries have been doing, that is when you get these outbreaks of violence. And interestingly, some countries have been releasing prisoners out ofjails, to try to help with social distancing and issues like that, to try to help prevent the spread of coronavirus, but other countries are taking a very different approach and not doing that at all . Thats right, in argentina the government has been very proactive in terms of coronavirus, it has very low death figures at the moment,
they have been quite impressive, actually, and they were quite quick to start releasing, having a prisoner release programme. Remember that many prisoners in latin american jails are in a pre trial situation, held for years and years waiting for theirjudgement, and so in argentina they started releasing them, in fact there were demonstrations across the country against that, people were very concerned about prisoners being let out into the community. In chile also that has been attempted as well. Its quite a complex process because of the issue of, who is it thats going to be living next door to you with an electronic tag on his or her ankle or on house arrest but this is one of the things that a few countries have been trying. In the uk, thousands of people have registered to take part in a trial that uses blood plasma from people whove recovered from coronavirus to treat sick patients. Its one of the latest trials
in progress aimed at helping the worst affected people fight the virus. Our Health Correspondent Catherine Burns reports. Could this golden liquid be an effective treatment against coronavirus . Its not an expensive new drug, but blood plasma, freely given by survivors. Jos not a regular donor but shes doing it, slightly squeamishly, because her whole family got coronavirus. Her husband was ill enough to need hospital treatment. Im somebody that would not have donated, purely because im quite terrified of needles and giving blood, but Everybody Needs to do their bit. Were all getting touched by this virus one way or another and if this is something thats going to help, i would urge people to seriously think about doing it. Its not that bad. The idea is simple. Donors need to have had coronavirus and have fully recovered. The liquid part of their blood, plasma, contains antibodies produced by their immune system to recognise and fight the virus. Researchers say when this is given to critically ill patients, it gives them some instantaneous immunity. More than 6,500 people have already gone online to volunteer. They need to either have had a positive coronavirus test or, like me, to have self isolated with symptoms. People cantjust turn up to their blood donor centres asking to give plasma. They need to make an appointment at least a month after being ill. The First Priority will be confirmed cases and researchers will be ringing these people, asking if they would like to be involved. So far, about 150 people in england have donated plasma,
each one hopefully giving enough to treat another person. Every donation is checked to make sure there is a high enough level of antibodies. Now, the intensive care consultant running the trial is looking for patients to give that plasma, too. So far hes still waiting, because hes not seeing as many seriously ill people with coronavirus now. Its a good thing that the pandemic, there is a semblance of control of the pandemic here, so im actually happy and feel that we are ready if the second wave happens, yes. This will help us immensely in the future because we can store this plasma, freeze this plasma, thaw it and use it in patients if there is a second wave in the future. The hope is that, if this trial works, we will have an effective treatment against coronavirus. Catherine burns, bbc news. While the current pandemic has forced many bands to cancel gigs and festivals, irish group when young decided to all self isolate together and use the current lockdown as a source of inspiration. You know that i dont usually pray but im sending love your way on friday they released this. Its their new single the prayer, in response to the outbreak of covid i9. Proceeds from the single will be donated to womens aid, who work to end Domestic Abuse against women and children. Earlier i spoke to the trio and i asked them how has the lockdown been for them, self isolating as a band together. We are used to driving around together in close proximity, in va ns together in close proximity, in vans around the country stuff. We are kind of used to this. What about the frustrations of gigs being counselled, not being able to be out on the road, and what have you been trying to do to try to combat that . Yeah, that is quite wearing. Especially not knowing when we will be able to do gigs again, whether it is this year or next year, that is wearing financially. It is in effect across the music industry. We
arejust across the music industry. We are just trying to go day by day and just keep writing and keep, like, working on our project and i guess not thinking about it too much because there is not that much we can do. But we are raising money for womens aid with this song, we think it is a really good cause and there is a lot of extra need for it right now, lots of other musicians are raising money for different important causes right now, whether it is venues across the country that might be facing a lot of problems financially, so, yeah, there is a lot of people trying to help, i suppose. Of course, and this song will hopefully help. And lets hear it. This is the prayer by when young. Take it away. Goto go to sleep go to sleep wake up in a new world wake up in a new world looks the same but we have changed overnight i only care when its hurting me just when me just when its hurting just when its hurting you know that i dont usually pray but im sending love your way but im sending love your way you know that i dont usually pray
but im sending love your way but im sending love your way waking up in a new world waking up in a new world all is clean and blue skies skies are skies are clear, skies are clear, they skies are clear, they are skies are clear, they are skies are clear, they ar cleaning skies are clear, they are cleaning up ifl cleaning up if i could help in any way if i could help in any way thinki if i could help in any way think i love you everyday think i love you everyday even though youre far away. That is just about it from me. Im Lewis Vaughan jones. This is bbc news. Goodbye. Hello. The weekend weather continues with perhaps a greater chance for catching a shower in the day ahead compared with saturday. There will still be some sunny spells around, but actually for a large part of england and wales, itll be a cloudier day compared with saturday. Thats because this frontal system is bringing at least some cloud up from the south, and to start the day across parts of southern england and south wales, there may just be a bit of patchy light rain around. It does mean more cloud across a large part of england and wales compared with saturday. Still sunny spells, though, for northern england, Northern Ireland and scotland, but this is where some showers are going to break out. Some of those may be heavy and possibly thundery. You may also see a few towards north wales, the midlands and east anglia on through the afternoon. As for temperatures, mostly in the mid teens. Looks like a cooler day
across northern and eastern scotland compared with saturday, especially where youre seeing some showers, and notice how some of these will continue as we go into the night across parts of eastern scotland and the eastern side of england. They may merge to give a longer spell of rain across yorkshire and lincolnshire. And as for these temperatures, most of them are holding up underneath the cloud cover. Chilly enough for maybe a touch of frost in the coldest parts of northern scotland. Monday starts with a few showers across particularly eastern parts of england. A lot of those are going to die away. The best of the sunshine in the west. The breeze starts to pick up across parts of england and wales, especially the further south you are. It does turn things a bit cooler across eastern parts because it is an easterly wind around this area of High Pressure. But weather fronts to the south get a new lease of energy going into tuesday and bring some rain back in towards, we think, parts of South West England and south wales. Still a bit of uncertainty about the position of this, but for some of us here, tuesdays looking like quite a wet and windy day as well. Whereas further north,
you could get some sunshine, especially Northern Ireland and scotland staying dry here. Those are the winds. Gusts will be be a bit higher, particularly across the south west of the uk. And as for those temperatures, still cooled in the east by the wind. Where you have some sunshine across parts of western scotland, it will certainly feel quite pleasant. Now, once that system has gone midweek onwards, a selection of locations for you here. Not necessarily clear blue sky, but it is looking dry with High Pressure in control. Temperatures edge up a little bit, and the wind eases as well. So, either rain or showers for some of us to start the week, but for midweek, most are looking dry. Coronavirus myths and speculation have been rife for the first time in seven weeks, spaniards are able to exercise and they limited to one hour a day and there are times for different groups. The Prime Minister says wearing face masks will be compulsory from monday. In the uk, ministers announce help for those in Society Worst affected by the lockdowns, charities, victims of Domestic Abuse and the homeless will get millions of pounds in extra funding. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson reveals his extent of the virus, saying his condition was so virus, saying his condition was so virus, a statement announcing his death was prepared. The trial begins in london to see if a blood plasma of people who have recovered from covid i9 can help treat patients. It is thought thousands of lives can be savedif
is thought thousands of lives can be saved if treatment is
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