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Coronavirus: The 15 major developments that happened on Monday

Here’s what you need to know on 1 June. This article was updated at 5pm.

Deaths: The number of people who have died across England, Scotland and Wales after contracting coronavirus has risen by 111 in 24 hours. The government has also added 445 deaths to the historic data, meaning the cumulative total of 39,045. Read more here.

Scotland has reported just one coronavirus death in the last 24 hours, as Nicola Sturgeon said the statistics show “real progress” in controlling the spread of the virus. She warned that the situation in Scotland remains “fragile”. Read more here.

Lockdown: A legal commentator has criticised the new coronavirus regulations as “barely comprehensible” as England’s lockdown eased up on Monday. David Allen Green, a commentator on law and policy, pointed to a change in regulations that he said had essentially overturned the “widest criminal prohibition ever in peacetime” and implemented instead a “mere sleepover ban”. Read more here.

Medical experts warned that the coronavirus lockdown was being lifted too quickly as new rules came into force allowing people to meet others outside their household, and schools began to partially reopen. Dr Jeanelle de Gruchy, president of the Association of Directors of Public Health, told BBC Radio 4: “We’re not feeling just yet that we’re confident enough to meet any potential challenge if the government goes too quickly on easing lockdown measures... The five tests haven’t yet been met.” Read more here.

Queues formed outside IKEAs as the furniture store reopened its doors for the first time since lockdown. Elsewhere, sport has begun to return, with horse racing and pigeon racing among the first to be reinstated. Read more here.

IKEA in Belfast opens its door for the first time since the lockdown began with hundreds of shoppers queuing to get in. Some had been queuing from before 8am to be first in line when the doors opened at 10am. (Photo by Liam McBurney/PA Images via Getty Images)
Queues formed at IKEA stores as the chain reopened. (Getty Images)

Policy: Having sex in your own home with someone from a different household is illegal from today, according to new legislation. At 11.30am on Monday, a new law will be introduced to Parliament that bans two people from different households in England gathering in a private place during the coronavirus lockdown. Read more here.

Symptoms: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization recognise diarrhoea as one of the symptoms of coronavirus. Dr Nathalie MacDermott from King’s College London said: “Any viral infection can cause an array of symptoms. We call them a respiratory virus, [but] that’s just where it primarily affects or where it enters [the body].” Read more here.

NHS: Research suggests there’s a cancer care backlog due to the NHS’s focus on tackling coronavirus. Analysis by Cancer Research UK revealed around 2.4 million Britons are awaiting screenings, tests or treatment during lockdown. Read more here.

Half of England’s hospital trusts have reported no coronavirus deaths in the past 48 hours, new figures show. Some 65 trusts – or 49.6% – did not record a COVID-19-related death over the weekend, according to NHS England data analysed by Oxford University researchers on Monday. Read more here.

Industry: The UK manufacturing sector remained “mired in its deepest downturn in recent memory” in May as the coronavirus crisis continued to dent output, new orders, and employment. A closely watched survey by IHS Markit found that the sector’s purchasing managers’ index reading came in at 40.7, its seventh-lowest level ever. Read more here.

Finance: There’s broad support in stock markets for cutting the trading day by 90 minutes in a coordinated way across European exchanges. The London Stock Exchange ran a public consultation on making trading hours more family-friendly to help diversify trading desks and improve mental wellbeing. Read more here.

Read more about COVID-19

How to get a coronavirus test if you have symptoms

What you can and can’t do under lockdown rules

In pictures: How UK school classrooms could look in new normal

How public transport could look after lockdown

How our public spaces will change in the future

Rest of the world

Prince Joachim of Belgium has apologised for attending a party in Spain where he caught coronavirus. The prince, 28, was at a gathering believed to have been larger than the country currently allows. Read more here.

A senior doctor in Italy claims coronavirus technically does not clinically exist in the country any more. Dr Alberto Zangrillo, the head of Milan's San Raffaele Hospital in the hard-hit Lombardy region, said the virus has become much less lethal, with newly infected patients having weaker symptoms than a couple of months ago. Read more here.

Positive news

South Africans are sure to be celebrating as shops are now allowed to sell alcohol again. The nation banned shops selling booze two months ago, but happy hour was reinstated on Monday. Read more here.

Wuhan, where the outbreak of coronavirus first started, reported no new asymptomatic cases for the first time on Sunday, according to Chinese health officials. Read more here.

Coronavirus: what happened today

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