Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, has said all four nations of the UK have passed the peak of cases, hospitalisation and deaths. (See 5.54pm.) Boris Johnson has effectively ruled out bringing forward general school reopening in England. He has already said schools will reopen from 8 March, but the Scottish government’s decision yesterday to reopen schools, mostly for some primary pupils, from 22 February, has prompted some calls for a rethink in England. But, speaking at a press conference in No 10 alongside Whitty, Johnson defended his plans. (See 5.28pm.) He went on: What we don’t want to do, now that we are making progress with the vaccine rollout and we have got a timetable for the way ahead, we don’t want to be forced into reverse. We think this is the prudent and cautious approach. I think it is much better to stick to that. Scientists have also warned that bringing forward the reopening of schools in England would “a recipe for disaster” while prevalence of the virus remains high.
Johnson has said the government will give more detail about the next phase of the vaccination programme after 15 February, which is the deadline for everyone in the top four priority groups to have been offered a first dose. And he said on Monday 22 February he would be setting out a routemap for easing lockdown, with dates and a timetable. Whitty said he thought giving every adult in the UK two doses of vaccine by the end of August was “probably beyond what is possible”. It has been reportedly that privately ministers do think this is possible. (See 11.45am.) Johnson said Matt Hancock, the health secretary, will announce more details of the hotel quarantine plan in the Commons tomorrow. (See 5.23pm.) Britain needs an economic strategy for the next decade to match the ambition of the 1945 postwar recovery as the country emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, the new head of the CBI said. Boris Johnson has defended visiting a Scottish vaccine plant despite a coronavirus outbreak at the site, saying “no one is going to stop me” visiting all parts of the UK. A parliamentary human rights committee has called on ministers to legislate against blanket bans on care home visits in England that relatives claim are causing deaths through loneliness and isolation. Britain has given a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine to more than 10 million people as public health experts called on ministers to target future vaccinations in hotspots where the disease is threatening to run out of control. MPs have called on Dido Harding, the head of NHS test and trace, to prove that the system substantially reduces the spread of coronavirus as efforts continue to contain more transmissible variants she claimed no one had seen coming. The work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has said she is opposed to making one-off £500 or £1,000 universal credit payments in April in lieu of retaining the £20-a-week Covid top-up, warning that it could disincentivise claimants from taking a job. The UK government has asked the EU to agree to a two-year extension of the full implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol. The request was set out in a letter released as Boris Johnson told MPs that he wanted to see “no barriers down the Irish Sea and the principle of unfettered access across all parts of our United Kingdom ... upheld”. In response to a question at PMQs from the DUP’s Ian Paisley, Johnson also restated his threat to invoke article 16 of the protocol - an emergency break that would allow the UK to dis-apply parts of it. Johnson said he would do everything he could to ensure trade flows freely, “whether legislatively or indeed by invoking article 16 of the protocol”. That’s all from me for tonight. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.