The culture secretary Oliver Dowden claimed that India is not “withholding vaccines” from the UK following issues with supply, but his comments were met with widespread scepticism because the supplier has explicitly blamed the Indian authorities for temporarily stopping exports (see 9.32am). More than 650,000 people in the UK received a dose of the coronavirus vaccine yesterday, the largest daily figure yet, leaving the UK on the precipice of giving first doses to half the adult population, at 49.9% (see 4.37pm). The UK will not be able to keep the South African variant at bay for ever, a senior scientific adviser warned. Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, said a small but growing percentage of cases in some countries were of the South African variant, which may be resistant to some vaccines according to early studies. A flagship government scheme launched to help students catch up from the impact of coronavirus on their learning has used tutors in Sri Lanka who are as young as 17 and earning as little as £1.57 an hour to teach maths to disadvantaged primary school children in England. A survey of coronavirus infections across the UK revealed that cases are no longer falling in some regions and may even be rising in parts of the country. While new infections continued to fall in England and Wales in the week ending 13 March, cases appeared to level off in Northern Ireland and rose slightly in Scotland, according to official figures. Dowden also said that coronavirus “certificates”, were being considered as a way of getting people back to larger events, such as this summer’s football matches, “in significant numbers” (see 10.24am). The UK ended 2020 with one of the highest levels of excess mortality for people aged under 65 among countries in Europe, according to new analysis from the Office for National Statistics (see 11.20am). An earlier lockdown would have saved the lives of London bus drivers, an independent review concluded. A University College London report found that London bus drivers were three times more likely to die from Covid-19 than the UK average. It also noted that safety measures such as hand sanitisers, enhanced cleaning and covering holes in protective screens were introduced too late for many of those who died (see 12.03pm). The former prime minister David Cameron reportedly lobbied senior government officials to give Greensill Capital special access to the largest available tranche of emergency Covid loans just months before the lender collapsed. Labour called for an investigation. A Public Health England study showed that Greece was the largest source of imported Covid infections between June and September last year, accounting for 21% of new cases, compared with 16% for Croatia and 14% for Spain (see 9.38am)