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

All passengers arriving at English airports from 15 February whose final destination is Scotland will be expected to go into hotel quarantine in England – even if they are from one of the many countries regarded as “low-risk” by the UK government.

Michael Matheson, the Scottish transport secretary, has introduced much tougher rules for arriving travellers than those for England, in a bid to reduce the number of passengers coming into the country.

Travel correspondent Simon Calder explains:

 Details of the 16 hotels involved in the quarantine plan are being kept secret.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said: "We are not publishing that list for commercial reasons."

Matt Hancock has said he will "look into" a proposal to have mental health workers situated at vaccination sites.

Responding to a question from Conservative MP Dr Luke Evans, the health secretary said: "I will absolutely look into the suggestion ... which is all about making sure that we reach out to people at a moment when everybody is going through a process together, or almost everybody and I hope it is everybody.

"So it's a very interesting proposal that I'll take away and hopefully speak to [Mr Evans] about in the days to come."

Government figures show that a further 1,052 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Tuesday.

The official death toll now stands at 113,850. Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths were the virus was mentioned on the death certificate, and additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show a death toll of 132,000 in the UK.

As of 9am on Tuesday, there have been 12,364 new lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus - bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 3,972.148.

The Welsh first minister has said the UK government must implement a “stronger set of defences” at the border to prevent the import of new variants of coronavirus, calling the current travel “red list” a “bare minimum”.

Mark Drakeford told the Welsh Parliament that “everything is being done” to prevent further transmission of the South African variant in Wales, after 13 cases were identified there.

He said: "What we need to see, I believe, is a stronger set of defences at our borders.

"The UK Government's red list is the bare minimum of what needs to be done to make sure that all the gains that are being made in suppressing the virus and vaccinating our population are not put at risk by people coming into the United Kingdom from other parts of the world where further new variants may already be in the brew."

He told the Senedd that work was ongoing to establish the efficacy of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against the South African variant.

"But more could be done to mitigate the risk of those new variants coming into the United Kingdom in the first place," he added.

A study by the University of Oxford suggests that a common asthma treatment could cut the need for Covid-19 patients to be hospitalised if the medicine is given within seven days of symptoms appearing.

Budesonide, sold under the brand name Pulmicort by AstraZeneca, is also used for treating smoker’s lung.

Researchers said the medication reduced the time needed for patients to recover from coronavirus when given in the inhaled form. The findings suggested that the inhaled budesonide reduced the relative risk of requiring urgent care or hospitalisation by 90 per cent.

The study was conducted over 28 days, with 146 participants.

Professor Mona Bafadhel from the University’s Nuffield Department of Medicine, who led the trial, said: “There have been important breakthroughs in hospitalised COVID-19 patients, but equally important is treating early disease to prevent clinical deterioration and the need for urgent care and hospitalisation, especially to the billions of people worldwide who have limited access to hospital care.

“The vaccine programmes are really exciting, but we know that these will take some time to reach everyone across the world. I am heartened that a relatively safe, widely available and well-studied medicine such as an inhaled steroid could have an impact on the pressures we are experiencing during the pandemic."

My colleague Sam Lovett reports from a Public Health England briefing today:

A total of 170 cases linked to the South African coronavirus variant have been identified in England, according to health officials.

Public Health England said that 18 of these infections were unlinked to travel to South Africa, pointing to community-based transmission of the virus.

PHE said the concerning E484K mutation, which helps the virus to evade parts of the body’s immune response, is also continuing to crop up in sequences of the British variant.E484K features in the genetic make-up of both the South African and Brazilian variants, and is thought to diminish the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines in providing protection against mild and moderate disease.

Labour is calling on Matt Hancock to hand back donations totalling £32,000 which he received from the chair of a thinktank which today published a report saying there was “nothing special” in the NHS’s performance in the coronavirus pandemic.

The Institute of Economic Affairs found that insurance-based health services elsewhere in the world had performed as well or better, concluding that there was “no rational basis for the adulation the NHS is currently receiving, and no reason to be ‘grateful’ for the fact that we have it”.

Our Political Editor Andrew Woodcock reports:

Thousands of EU citizens who left the UK temporarily because of the coronavirus pandemic are set to lose their long-term right to stay in Britain under Home Office rules.

4.3 million EU citizens have been granted settled status since the UK voted to leave the bloc, but 1.5 million of them have been given just a provisional right to remain, which can lapse if someone leaves the UK without a good reason for more than six months.

Our Policy Correspondent Jon Stone reports:

A French nun, the second-oldest known living person in the world at age 116, has survived Covid-19.

Lucile Randon, also known as Sister Andre, tested positive for the virus in mid-January in the southern French city of Toulon, reports French media.

Three weeks later, she is fit and well, although in her regular wheelchair, and is healthy enough to look forward to her 117th birthday on Thursday.

She told the Var-Matin newspaper she did not “even realise” she had the virus.

David Tavella, the communications manager of the care home where Sister Andre lives, told the paper: "She didn't ask me about her health, but about her habits. For example, she wanted to know if meal or bedtime schedules would change.

"She showed no fear of the disease. On the other hand, she was very concerned about the other residents."

According to the newspaper, 81 of the 88 residents in the care home tested positive for coronavirus in January and about 10 died.