Coronavirus: These are Friday's main developments

Here’s what you need to know on 27 March. This article was updated at 5.30pm

Deaths: Eight more deaths have been reported in Scotland, bringing the total there to 33. Six more people have died in Wales, with its total now 34. Three more people have died in Northern Ireland. The number of deaths in the UK has reached 759. Read more here.

Politics: Both Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, the health secretary, have tested positive for coronavirus. The prime minister and his cabinet colleague will be self-isolating after displaying mild symptoms. Johnson will continue to lead the government response. Read more here.

Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, is also self-isolating after showing symptoms of coronavirus. He said he will isolate for seven days. Read more here.

Policy: Testing of NHS workers to determine if they have or have had coronavirus will start next week, Simon Stevens, the chief executive, has said. Read more here.

Britons have been asked not to move house if possible while the government enforces guidelines on staying at home. Those who have exchanged are asked to avoid completion until the restrictions are lifted. Read more here.

The government has urged all councils to house rough sleepers by the weekend. In a letter sent to homelessness managers and rough sleeping coordinators across the country, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We are all redoubling our efforts to do what we possibly can at this stage to ensure that everybody is inside and safe by this weekend, and we stand with you in this.” Read more here.

Workers will be able to delay their annual leave by up to two years, after the UK government tore up holiday rules to ease pressure on frontline services and supermarkets. Business secretary Alok Sharma announced workers in all sectors who have not taken all their leave entitlement will now be able to carry it over into 2021 or even 2022. Read more here.

Two other field hospitals will be built, one in Manchester and one in Birmingham. The news was confirmed in the daily government briefing. They are in addition to one in London’s ExCel centre. A temporary mortuary is also being built at Birmingham Airport. Read more here.

Response: The editor of prestigious medical journal The Lancet has hit out at Boris Johnson’s government over the way it has handled coronavirus, branding it a “national scandal”. Richard Horton said the government had known since January that COVID-19 was coming to the UK but had “wasted February” by failing to ramp up testing or ensure there is enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for NHS staff. Read more here.

Science: The coronavirus may be more dangerous in patients with underlying heart disease, research suggests. Scientists from Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan – where the strain emerged – have warned damage to the heart is “significantly associated with fatal outcomes” among those with the previously-unknown infection. Limited evidence suggests catching the virus could even trigger cardiovascular disease, with one previously healthy woman requiring treatment for heart failure a week after she developed the tell-tale fever and cough. Read more here.

Rest of the world

Researchers in Italy are looking at whether the unusually high number of cases of severe pneumonia and flu in Lombardy in the last quarter of 2019 may be a signal that the new coronavirus might have spread beyond China earlier than previously thought. Read more here.

Italy reported 919 deaths, the highest number in a day since the epidemic emerged on 21 February. The 919 people who died over the last 24 hours compares with 712 deaths on Thursday, 683 on Wednesday, 743 on Tuesday and 602 on Monday. Read more here.

The Spanish government has withdrawn 9,000 Chinese-made coronavirus testing kits from use after it emerged that they had an accurate detection rate of just 30%. Spain’s health ministry will be returning the kits. Read more here.

The US has now overtaken China and has the most number of COVID-19 cases in the world. There are almost 86,000 confirmed cases in the US, representing 16% of the world’s total. Read more here.

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Positive news

Germany technology giant Bosch has developed a tool that can test for Covid-19 in “under 2.5 hours”. Bosch said on Thursday (26 March) that the fully-automated diagnostic device can simultaneously diagnose 10 respiratory pathogens and has an accuracy level of over 95%. Read more here.

The BBC has committed to donating £700,000 to the Film and TV Charity to assist those affected by the hiatus in filming and production caused by the global coronavirus pandemic. Read more here.