Covid UK news – live: Hancock confirms £10,000 fines and 10 years in prison if you break new travel rules

Good morning and welcome to The Independent's live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Stay tuned for rolling updates on the latest news and statistics.

All travellers arriving in the UK will have to take two coronavirus tests from next week in a fresh attempt to prevent mutant variants entering the country.

It is expected people isolating at home will be told they must get a test two and eight days into their 10-day quarantine period.

It comes after it was confirmed last week that UK nationals returning from 33 "red list" countries would be required to quarantine in closely monitored government-designated hotels, where they would have to take two tests.

Kate Ng has more details:

A question mark remains over summer holidays this year with Britons told it is still too soon to say whether or not they should start making plans.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, said any easing of lockdown restrictions in England would have to take place "gradually" and that contemplating what will happen in summer is stepping into the realm of a guessing game.

He told a No 10 news briefing that it is "just too early to say" and "the more elaborate" the plans, "the more you are stepping into making guesses about the unknown".

Kate Devlin has more on those comments below:

Discussions have not yet concluded with hotels near ports and airports which will be used to quarantine travellers arriving from 'red list' countries, the environment secretary has said.

George Eustice told BBC Breakfast: "My understanding as of this morning is that officials in the Department for Health are in negotiation with a range of different operators around procuring that.

"Those discussions have not yet concluded but they are ongoing and they are confident that they will have the capacity we need in place for Monday."

Mr Eustice also said he cannot "rule anything out" when asked whether schools could extend the school day or term.

Borders "cannot stop infectious diseases", according to leading epidemiologist Professor David Heymann.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: "We know that borders cannot stop infectious diseases no matter how rigid your controls are, there will always be some that comes through."

He said most nations believe the best strategy is to deal with infections in-country, and to ensure there is a flow of travel and trade.

Asked if he believed closing borders would have an immediate impact, Prof Heymann said: "We've seen that countries that have closed their borders, such as New Zealand, have kept the virus out, but now their problem is what do they [do] when they begin to open their borders?

"So I think the best way forward is to live understanding that viruses and bacteria, any infection, can cross borders and we have to have the defences in our own countries to deal with them."

Environment secretary George Eustice said officials are "confident" they will get the necessary capacity to introduce hotel quarantine next week.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "My understanding is that officials in the Department for Health are in discussion with a range of operators about procuring those hotels, and they are confident that they will get the capacity needed for the policy to start next week."

Asked if the plans are coming in too late, Mr Eustice said: "I don't really accept that. I think, ever since December when we started to see these other strains arriving, we have been incrementally strengthening our approach to the border."

Thousands of people in Manchester will be tested for coronavirus after a mutation of the more transmissible Kent variant was detected there.

Some 10,000 extra tests will be rolled out in the region from today after four people from two unconnected households were found to be infected with the E484K mutation, which is linked to the Kent strain, Manchester City Council said.

This follows similar surges in testing in Worcestershire, Sefton, Merseyside, and areas in Bristol and south Gloucestershire after variants were found.

Extra testing sites will be set up to enable anyone aged over 16 who lives, works or studies in the affected areas - which includes postcodes in Hulme, Moss Side, Whalley Range and Fallowfield.

In the next few days volunteers will be knocking on people's doors to offer tests for anyone who cannot get to a site, and it will also be available for people who work in the area but do not live there.

Over in South Korea, pet cats and dogs in the capital city of Seoul will now be able to get free Covid tests if they come into contact with an infected human and show symptoms.

The move announced by the central government comes after the country reported its first case of coronavirus in an animal – a kitten.

Stuti Mishra has more details:

A team of World Health Organisation (WHO) researchers are holding a coronavirus briefing in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

The experts arrived in the city, where Covid-19 was first detected, last month and have been carrying out an investigation into how the pandemic began.

Watch the briefing live here:

Research results suggesting the Oxford/Astra Zeneca coronavirus vaccine offers minimal protection against mild disease of the South Africa variant were "expected", one of the scientists behind the jab said.

Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think, in many ways, it's exactly what we would have expected, because the virus is introducing mutations, as we've discussed before, to allow it to still transmit in populations where there's some immunity.

"And we already knew in South Africa that the virus was able to cause mild infections in people who were infected earlier last year.

"So that is not surprising then that with vaccines, also with mild infection, it's going to be possible to see that.

"So, in a way the study in South Africa absolutely confirms what we understand about the biology - that the virus has to transmit between people to survive. It has to mutate to do that. And it's done that in South Africa already. And that will affect mild disease in people who've been vaccinated."