Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has confirmed that intensified testing is being deployed in eight postcode areas in England in a bid to stamp out the South African variant of coronavirus. He said 105 cases have been identified in the country, of which 11 have no link to international travel. These are particularly worrying because they suggest that this variant - which, like the Kent variant, seems more transmissible than the original - is now spreading generally through the community. Hancock said that “we need to come down on it hard”. He said there was no evidence that it was more deadly than the original version of coronavirus. But in practice a variant that spreads more easily does pose a greater threat, and, although the current vaccines that are available are effective against it, they do not seem to counter it quite as forcefully as they do the original version and the Kent variant now dominant in the UK. (See 3.25pm.) This is from my colleague Nicola Davis on the South African variant.
Hancock has said that more than half of people in their 70s have now been vaccinated. Speaking at the No 10 press conference he said in his opening statement: I’m so proud of the team, who’ve now vaccinated 9.2 million people across the UK, that includes 931,204 vaccinations just this weekend. And to put that into context – that’s one in every 60 adults in the whole United Kingdom vaccinated in one single weekend. It’s a mammoth effort ... We’ve now vaccinated almost nine in 10 of all over 80s in the UK and now, as of today, we’ve vaccinated over half of all people in their 70s. And, I’m delighted that I can tell you we’ve visited every eligible care home with older residents in England, and offered vaccinations to all their residents and staff. But about half of staff at the UK’s largest care home provider have not yet received a Covid vaccine, it has emerged. Boris Johnson has suggested that England will not return to a localised tier system of restrictions as Covid-19 infections and hospital admissions slow, saying the infectiousness of the new variant had made the system less workable. Britain has taken “a lot of risks” in rolling out its speedy Covid vaccination programme, France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, said as officials in Brussels claimed the EU had “nothing to envy” from nations such as the UK, the US and Israel. Ryanair has warned it is heading for an annual loss of nearly €1bn (£880m) as the budget airline struggles through the “most challenging’” year in its 35-year history. Labour has said it is “extraordinary” that millions of people could potentially still be living in homes clad in dangerously flammable material, as the party launched a parliamentary push for the government to take steps to help those affected. Downing Street has defended Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, after she publicly called a journalist “creepy and bizarre” for asking questions about a Covid vaccines video. That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.