UK PM likely to take full control soon

Britain to test 20,000 households; Italy mulls labor permits for illegal migrants

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is recovering well from COVID-19 complications and will be back at work soon, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said on Thursday.

Lewis told Sky that the prime minister was doing well, adding that he was following the advice of medical experts, and that the country would soon see him "in full grip of the reins as prime minister of the country".

Meanwhile, the government plans to test a sample of 20,000 English households for COVID-19 in the coming weeks to try to establish how far the disease has spread across the country.

Health Minister Matt Hancock－who has faced criticism over limited testing facilities for health and social care workers－said on Thursday that the research would help the government understand the trajectory of the disease better.

Around 20,000 households from across England will take part in the pilot, which will be expanded to 300,000 households throughout the UK over the next 12 months.

A total of 18,100 people hospitalized with novel coronavirus had died in the UK as of Wednesday, according to the health authorities.

Across Europe, the pandemic had infected 1,101,681 people and claimed 107, 453 lives as of Wednesday, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

In Italy, the virus had claimed 25,085 lives, taking the total infections to 187,327, according to the latest data released by the country's Civil Protection Department on Wednesday. A positive trend was also confirmed in the number of patients hospitalized.

Also on Wednesday, Italy's Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese confirmed a plan was being discussed within the Italian Cabinet on the possibility of providing irregular workers, including undocumented migrants, a regular permit.

"Together with the ministries of agriculture and labor, we are assessing the position of undocumented workers, both Italians and foreigners," Lamorgese told senators in a hearing for the upper house.

"This issue arises from the need to find a specific solution to the problems concerning agriculture and fishing industries, in order to remedy the labor shortages in those sectors without affecting national production," she explained.

Germany's confirmed cases increased by 2,352 to 148,046, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Thursday, marking a third consecutive day of new infections accelerating. The reported death toll rose by 215 to 5,094.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that Germany was still at the beginning of the pandemic and would have to live with it for a long time.

"We are not living in the final phase of the pandemic, but are still at the beginning," she told the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

Rescue package

Merkel's government has launched an unprecedented rescue package for the economy. On Thursday, her conservatives and their Social Democrat coalition partners approved an additional stimulus of some 10 billion euros ($10.81 billion) that includes more money for short-time workers.

Short-time work is a form of state aid that allows employers to switch employees to shorter working hours during an economic downturn to keep them on the payroll.

In France, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday that the government wanted all retail outlets other than restaurants and bars to be able to reopen once a nationwide lockdown is lifted on May 11.

But the government said that not all businesses would be able to go back to work immediately once the lockdown, in place since mid-March to rein in the coronavirus outbreak, ended.

France has suffered the world's fourth-highest reported coronavirus death toll at more than 21,000 as of Wednesday, with more than 158,000 infections, according to the country's health authorities.

Jonathan Powell in London, Xinhua and agencies contributed to this story.