Before the judge has been appointed, before the public inquiry has had its remit set, and long before the crisis is over, the blame has begun. Various unnamed officials “close to Downing Street” and the like have begun to get their excuses in early, and to identify handy scapegoats. Even by the usual leaky and cowardly standards of Whitehall it has been an unedifying exhibition of base politics, writes Sean O’Grady.

The latest victim of assassination by briefing is the secretary of state for health and social care, Matt Hancock. A former Treasury special adviser to George Osborne, and a former Tory leadership contender, the ambitious Mr Hancock had enjoyed a good start to the crisis, or at least appeared to.

He had an action plan. He had impressive expert advisers flanking him at press conferences – the two gentlemen of corona, chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance. He was chairing Cobra meetings. The government would be guided by “the science”. Things seemed under control.
 

Hackers working in support of the Vietnamese government have attempted to break into state organisations at the centre of China’s effort to contain the coronavirus outbreak, a cybersecurity company has claimed.

FireEye said a hacking group known as APT32 had attempted to compromise the personal and professional email accounts of staff at China’s Ministry of Emergency Management and the government of Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Investigators at FireEye and other cybersecurity firms have said they believe APT32 operates on behalf of the Vietnamese government. The group’s recent activity mirrors attempts by a host of state-backed hackers to compromise governments, businesses and health agencies in search of information about the new disease and attempts to combat it.

“These attacks speak to the virus being an intelligence priority – everyone is throwing everything they’ve got at it, and APT32 is what Vietnam has,” said Ben Read, senior manager for analysis at FireEye’s Mandiant threat intelligence unit.

The real death toll from coronavirus in the UK is already more than 40,000, a new analysis suggests – twice the total once described as “a good result”, writes Rob Merrick.

Ministers announced on Tuesday that there had been 17,337 fatalities, but this counts only those who have died in hospitals after testing positive for the virus.
 

More than 2,200 new cancer cases could be going undetected each week during the coronavirus pandemic, a charity has warned, hurting patients’ chances of survival.

Cancer Research UK found the number of urgent referrals by GP have dropped to about 25 per cent of usual levels.

This is down to fewer people going to see their GP and also due to practitioners’ reluctance to send patients to hospital due to the risk of Covid-19 infection, the charity said.

Germany’s vaccines regulator has approved live human testing of a potential vaccine against the Covid-19 virus developed by German biotech company BioNTech it said on Wednesday.

The trial, only the fourth worldwide of a preventive agent targeting the virus behind the global pandemic, will be conducted on 200 healthy people aged between 18 and 55 in the first stage, and on further people, including those at higher risk from the disease, in a second stage.

BioNTech said it was developing the vaccine candidate, named BNT162, alongside its partner, the pharma giant Pfizer. Tests of the vaccine were also planned in the United States, once regulatory approval for testing on humans had been secured there.

The US state of Missouri has issued a lawsuit against the Chinese authorities, accusing them of “appalling campaign of deceit, concealment, misfeasance, and inaction” which led to “the enormous loss of life, human suffering, and economic turmoil” caused by the coronavirus pandemic, writes Andrew Naughtie.

“During the critical weeks of the initial outbreak,” it reads, “Chinese authorities deceived the public, suppressed crucial information, arrested whistleblowers, denied human-to-human transmission in the face of mounting evidence, destroyed critical medical research, permitted millions of people to be exposed to the virus, and even hoarded personal protective equipment – thus causing a global pandemic that was unnecessary and preventable.”
 

Scotland is to begin releasing prison inmates to help reduce the spread of coronavirus.

Justice secretary Humza Yousaf said bringing forward the release date of hundreds of prisoners was “the most difficult decision” he has made in his time in the Scottish government. But he said the move is “the right thing to do for the safety of all those in our care”.

Mr Yousaf has asked the Scottish Prison Service to consider releasing convicts who are in the last three months of their sentence if they were sent to jail for less than 18 months – and said he anticipated between 300 and 450 inmates will be freed early.

He stressed only prisoners already due for release within the next three months will be put forward for release, with those guilty of sexual offences, domestic abuse, terrorism or coronavirus-related offences excluded from consideration.

Germany’s Federal Institute of Vaccines has approved the first clinical trials in humans.

Spain’s coronavirus death toll from the new coronavirus has climbed by 435 in the past 24 hours, roughly in line with the 2-per-cent increases reported in the past few days.

The cumulative death toll now stands at 21,717, while the number of confirmed infections has risen by 4,211 to 208,389, according to the health ministry.

A total of 297 cases of Covid-19 have been detected in Northern Ireland’s nursing and residential care homes, the Public Health Agency said. NHS staff have been drafted in to bolster numbers and are expected to grow, Stormont’s health department said. 

As the UK coronavirus death toll rose to more than 17,000 yesterday, the government has faced yet more questions about its preparations for the Covid-19 pandemic and its ongoing strategy. Here is your morning briefing of everything you may have missed overnight, writes Conrad Duncan.
 

The mayor of London has called for three new policies to be implemented to protect renters during the pandemic.

Sadiq Khan said welfare support should be increased alongside a suspension of the benefit cap and extension of the local housing allowance to homes at the median rent. Private tenants’ rent shortfalls should be covered if they arise from Covid-19, he said.

In a statement, the mayor’s office added that landlords should be blocked from evicting people who have fallen into arrears because of coronavirus. In addition, “no-fault” evictions should be scrapped, Mr Khan’s office said.

Malaysia reported 50 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, bringing the cumulative total to 5,532. The health ministry also reported one new death, taking the total number of fatalities to 93.

Ireland’s finance minister has said it is “very likely” he will taper and change the Covid-19 welfare subsidies when they expire after 12 weeks.

Paschal Donohoe said the decision will depend on the state of the economy and how Ireland is tackling Covid-19.

He said many of the financial aid packages introduced last month are not sustainable, with more than 40,000 companies now relying on the wage subsidy scheme.

Nine more people in the Philippines have died of coronavirus, authorities say. Some 111 new infections have been logged.

In a bulletin, the health ministry said total deaths had increased to 446 while infections have risen to 6,710. But 39 more patients have recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 693.

Some EU nationals who have been granted the right to remain in the UK after Brexit may feel forced to work during the coronavirus lockdown because they cannot access state benefits, lawyers have warned, writes May Bulman.

Campaigners warn that EU citizens with pre-settled status – which requires them to reapply for permanent status once they have been in Britain for five years – are being refused access to universal credit, the government’s main welfare benefit, which they say contravenes the UK’s obligations under the withdrawal agreement.
 

Dogs may being trained to detect coronavirus in passengers arriving at UK airports. Animals from the Medical Detection Dogs charity have previously been used to find cancer and malaria.

Founder Claire Guest told the BBC’s Today programme: “People are coming in and may be asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic those few days when you’ve got the virus and don’t know it.

“A dog is sniffing each person in turn – it takes 0.5 of a second, the dog quickly identifies which people need a test and need to go straight into isolation to prevent the further spread around the UK.”

The group of three working cocker spaniels, a Labrador, a Labradoodle and a Labrador golden retriever cross could be trained in six to eight weeks, but £500,000 funding will be needed to complete the training, Ms Guest added.

Holly Clarke hates the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It reminds the 22-year-old of missing the whole of secondary school, having her friends constantly tell her how “lucky” she was never to have to attend class and instead, spending all day in bed because of her ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis), which she contracted after having childhood meningitis. “All I ever wanted to do was go out, go to school, live normally,” she says, writes Sarah Gallagher.

Clarke, who lives in Manchester, would only get out for things like a supermarket trip with her family. The amount of time she spent inside could stretch on for months at a time especially when her symptoms (fatigue, muscle aches, poor sleep, nausea and headaches) were bad. “I had to find joy in the small stuff, a song, daffodils on my windowsill, a letter from a friend [because] when I was forced into isolation, the rest of the world wasn’t isolating with me.”