Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has been criticised for playing down the significance of a letter to NHS leaders warning of a “significant reduction” in vaccine supply. Asked about the letter at the No 10 press conference, he claimed it was a “normal operation letter” and that the vaccine rollout timetable was still on track. He said: Supply is always lumpy and we are on course to deliver the offer that everybody who is aged 50 and above will be able to get vaccinated by the 15th of April. I recommit to that today. But Hancock was ignoring the fact that the letter implies that under-50s may have to wait longer than had been expected for a first dose. And, although he said the government was still committed to ensuring all adults get their first dose of vaccine by the end of July, this official timetable has always been seen as cautious; privately, ministers have been hoping that this target could be met sooner. (One estimate claimed mid-May was realistic.) Labour said Hancock should have been more honest with the public. (See 6.09pm.) More than 25 million adults in the UK have now had their first dose of vaccine, the government has announced. (See 4.06pm.) The EU is prepared to take exceptional steps to halt exports of Covid-19 vaccines to Britain and secure doses for its own citizens unless the UK starts shipping shots to the bloc, Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president has said. Public Health England has published new research (pdf) confirming the effectiveness of vaccines. Describing the figures at the No 10 press conference, Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at PHE, said: We are showing good protection in the over-70s, we have compared individuals who test positive to those who test negative. There is a 60% reduction in your chance of catching Covid if you are over 70 and have been vaccinated with both vaccines. Those effects are maintained for several weeks, they don’t go away. They are still there even after a single dose and you get additional protection from the second dose. On top of that, even if you do get Covid, having been vaccinated, our data shows that your risk of requiring hospital admission is reduced by a further 40% based on whether you’ve had the AstraZeneca vaccine or the Pfizer vaccine. When you put those two figures together, it means that in the over-80s we are preventing 80% of hospital admissions. She also said research from Scotland showed vaccinated healthcare workers had a “30% lower chance of passing infection onto their household contacts”. She added: This is really the first evidence we have of a reduction in transmission from vaccinating. It means the more people we vaccinate, the more we are going to be able to reduce the spread of infection. Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, has suggested he personally would find a public inquiry into Covid now “an unwelcome distraction”. Asked at the press conference if he backed calls for one to start soon, he said: I think the timing of inquiries is entirely a matter for ministers and politicians, it’s not a matter for physicians. Personally, would an inquiry be an unwelcome distraction for me personally, at the moment, when I’m very focussed on the vaccine programme and the vaccine programme we might need in the autumn? Who knows, I think it would be an extra burden that wasn’t necessary. Keir Starmer has said the killing of Sarah Everard “must be a turning point in how we tackle violence against women and girls”, comparing it to the “watershed moments” after the murders of Stephen Lawrence and James Bulger. Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings has called for an investigation into the government’s handling of coronavirus and described the Department of Health and Social Care as a “smoking ruin” when the crisis struck. Children have suffered “an epidemic” of demotivation while out of the classroom during coronavirus lockdowns, according to the chief inspector of schools in England, who warned against punishing children by shortening their holidays in an attempt to help them catch up. Civil servants have been scolded after the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, was revealed to have told staff the UK intended to trade with countries with poor human rights records. That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.