As the day unfolded: Scott Morrison says COVID-19 restrictions could be lifted in four weeks, global cases surpass 2 million, Australian death toll stands at 63

Thanks for following along today. Here are some of the day's main developments:

• The Australian death toll remained at 63, with only 30 new cases of the virus recorded across the nation on Thursday
• The number of cases around the world is now more than two million, with more than 134,000 deaths
• Prime Minister Scott Morrison re-affirmed his desire for schools to stay open
• Lockdown restrictions could ease after the next four weeks if all goes well, as social distancing is holding new COVID-19 infection levels low enough to eliminate the virus from mainland Australia.

We'll continue our live coverage overnight and into Friday in a new blog, which you can read here. Thanks for joining us.

Volkswagen Group on Thursday withdrew its outlook for 2020 amid uncertainty related to the coronavirus outbreak which caused operating profit to drop 81 per cent in the first quarter.

A worker is seen through the bodies of the ID.3 electric car at Volkswagen's Zwickau plant.Credit: Getty Images

Operating profit fell to 0.9 billion euros ($1.55 billion AUD), which would be an 81 per cent drop from 4.84 billion last year, and the group's return on sales margin is expected to be around 1.6 per cent, down from 8.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2019.

The full-year outlook "can no longer be achieved", Volkswagen said.

VW said negative fair value impacts from commodity derivatives and currency effects hit the first quarter 2020 result by 1.3 billion euros.

Volkswagen now expects first-quarter revenue of 55 billion euros ($95 billion AUD), down 8 per cent from 60.01 billion euros in the year-earlier period.

The company's automotive net cash flow amounted to a negative 2.5 billion euros, due to negative effects in working capital from higher inventories and lower liabilities, VW said.

Volkswagen is due to publish full first-quarter results on April 29, 2020.

The federal government will cover the cost of Qantas and Virgin Australia operating domestic flights on a limited network to maintain air connections between capital and regional cities, following sharp cuts to their networks amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Planes have been grounded at airports around Australia due to travel bans and border closures.Credit: Jason South

Transport Minister Michael McCormack said on Thursday night that an initial $165 million package would underwrite flights to all capital cities and regional centres including Albury, Alice Springs, Coffs Harbour, Dubbo, Kalgoorlie, Mildura, Port Lincoln, Rockhampton, Tamworth, Townsville and Wagga Wagga.

"We are ensuring secure and affordable access for passengers who need to travel... as well as supporting the movement of essential freight such as critical medicine and personal protective equipment," Mr McCormack said.

He said the network also ensured repatriated Australians can get to their home city after spending the mandatory 14 days in quarantine in the city they fly into.

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Low-income earners living outside a capital city are the most likely to have jobs that cannot be worked from home, raising concerns coronavirus shutdowns will disproportionately affect vulnerable households.

Normally busy streets are quiet in Sydney and Melbourne as commuters work from home and visitors stay in.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Millions of employees are now working remotely in a bid to slow the spread of the virus. But just 16 per cent of low-income earners are in roles that can be done from home compared to 40 per cent of workers nationally, an analysis of census data shows.

Many of the roles that cannot be worked from home are frontline jobs, including in agriculture and hospitality.

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The spread of the virus from the ill-fated cruise ship has claimed a 76-year-old California resident named Steve Lazarus.

"He was the rock of our family someone I relied on for advice and who never steered me wrong," his son wrote on Twitter.

The number of fatalities linked to the cruise ship, which was allowed to disembark without provisions in Sydney last month, is now 20.

Supermarkets are odd places right now; they are both spaces of normalcy and symbols of the turmoil of the times.

They are environments where you can still buy your weekly guilty pleasures, but you do so while giving side glances to make sure no one gets too close.

And yet, in this strange new world, I’m noticing something other than just fear and unease, and that’s a certain breed of kindness towards each other.

I am one of the lucky few who managed to score a job at Woolworths after losing a large amount of work to the COVID-19 crisis. Having previously worked for the company, I was plucked from a stack of online resumes and placed at the checkout.

On one of my first shifts, I scanned a young woman’s smoked trout mousse dip and commented that I didn’t know you could get such a product. She told me that it was for her housemate and she searched endlessly to find it. She just really needed to walk through the doors of her home with something special to make him smile.

While I scan items and help at the service desk, I’m seeing bouts of thoughtfulness throughout the day from members of the public towards those they are close to, to their communities, and most heart-warming of all, to strangers.

While scanning another woman’s shopping, I noticed an assortment of ‘Happy Easter’ cards. “Those are cute,” I said to her. She then told me they were for her neighbours in her apartment building. “I’m spending more money than I probably should be but thought it’d be a nice thing to do – to just put them under everyone’s doors”.

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When the coronavirus outbreak shut down Haileybury's Chinese campus in February, the Melbourne school got an early lesson in teaching through a pandemic.

Principal Derek Scott said he and his staff got a headstart on managing the crisis and preparing for remote learning because of their partnership with Haileybury International School Tianjin in Wuqing, just outside Beijing.

Haileybury International School Tianjin in Wuqing, China.

"Once it was clear that what was happening in China was likely to happen here, we were in regular contact with Chinese staff," Mr Scott said.

"They've been in lockdown now for eight weeks which is a really long time. The adaptive expertise of staff and students was hugely impressive."

But despite the early action, Mr Scott said the situation was having a significant effect on the school.

A number of staff will be stood down for the duration of the crisis in order to cut costs.

"This is a distressing and sad situation for both the school and its impacted employees. We look forward to welcoming our employees back to the school."

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The Prime Minister also again defended Australia's strict lockdown conditions, saying that they were vital to keep people safe and ensure the economy could recover.

“We've got to fight this war on two fronts,” he said.

A commuter wearing a protective mask walks past a train on a subway platform in New York.Credit: Bloomberg

“You can win the health war and lose the economic war, but you've got to deal with both of them at the same time.”

He said if you want know how severe things could get if we relaxed restrictions prematurely, to look at places like London, New York, or Spain.

“That could be Australia. We should not kid ourselves - the success we've had at the moment protects us from ending up where they are right now.

“If you don't keep it under control, it will get away from you quickly and then you'll have to lock down even harder and the economic cost will be even worse.”

Speaking on ABC’s 7.30, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that a suppression strategy that doesn’t put too much burden on the health system remained preferable to trying to completely eradicate COVID-19 in the short-term.

“What we've seen in Australia is we're pursuing the suppression strategy but per head of population, we've actually got a lower number of cases than New Zealand, that is pursuing the other strategy,” he said.

“The other strategy requires very extreme economic measures but we're actually getting a better result with more flexible measures.

“It’s quite possible that by pursuing the suppression strategy you actually get eradication as a by-product. One doesn’t necessarily exclude the other.”

Mr Morrison said that broader “surveillance-type” testing would increase.

“You need to know where it might break out. That’s another level beyond where we are now.

“Testing, tracing and response, they are the three critical weapons we need to combat the virus and at the same time be able to lift your level of economic activity.”

He said that the TraceTogether app wasn’t ready yet, but could be available within the next fortnight.

The app would include encryption technology which would note if two people were near each other for 15 minutes or more, and send the data to health experts which can be unlocked to help identify people who may have contracted the virus.

He implored Australians to download the app when it was available, comparing it to buying war bonds as a means to “get behind the national effort.”

Overwhelmed parents began calling Victorian school principals after only one day of home schooling to beg that their children be allowed to return to regular classes.

Their pleas came as Victorian Education Minister James Merlino on Thursday revealed public schools had recorded an on-campus attendance rate of 3 per cent, saying parents understood his government’s directive that “if you can learn at home, you must learn at home”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says his preference is for children to be in school, but it was up to the states.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Anne-Maree Kliman, president of the Victorian Primary Principals’ Association, said parents of students in early primary school in particular expressed concern to principals on Thursday that they would not be able to adequately support their children’s learning.

“Principals have told me that while student numbers are still very low in schools, some parents are finding it difficult to follow the work set by teachers,” she said.

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