NEED TO CATCH up? TheJournal.ie brings you a round up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Leo Varadkar, Paul Reid and Simon Harris in the Conference Centre at Citywest Hotel Dublin as preparations get under way for a Covid-19 Isolation and Step-Down Facility. PA PA

• A further 14 deaths from Covid-19 and 212 new cases were confirmed in Ireland.
• Contact tracing will now be carried out for those suspected of having Covid-19 under new measures to tackle the virus, the Health Minister has said
• Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan is in hospital for tests unrelated to Covid-19
• Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that he expects Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to agree a basis to form a government this week or next week
• Former Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan and former Independent senator Rónán Mullen have won seats in the Seanad
• Workers at Dublin Bus have been told that they must take annual leave during the Covid-19 crisis, which one TD described as “effectively stealing their annual holidays”.

WORLD 

A man peers out of his window in Bristol as the UK enters the second week of lockdown. PA PA

#COVID-19 CRISIS: The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic continued to worsen despite unprecedented lockdowns, as the head of the United Nations sounded the alarm on what he said was humanity’s worst crisis since World War II.

#SPAIN: The coronavirus death toll in Spain has surged to over 9,000 after a record 864 deaths in 24 hours, with the number of confirmed cases passing the 100,000 mark, the government has said.

#MEASURES: China’s decision to lock down the city of Wuhan, ground zero for the global Covid-19 pandemic, may have prevented more than 700,000 new cases by delaying the spread of the virus, researchers have said.

PARTING SHOT

Beloved children’s presenter and artist Don Conroy is back on our screens right when we need him most – with his very own YouTube channel. 

Right at the time when children are stuck at home and parents are trying to find ways to entertain them, the Don might be a wonderful, creative outlet, as well as a lovely nostalgic trip for adults who watched him as a child.

His own favourite character to draw is still the Barn Owl, a creature that he says “has always held this great mystery to mankind”. 

Mankind is kind of pretty hopeless in the dark, right? And here’s this creature that can see in the dark.

See – this is why we needed him back.