Covid news - live: UK orders 5 million doses of Moderna vaccine as Hancock refuses to promise pay rise for NHS

The European Medicines Agency said on Monday it had started a real-time review of Modern Inc’s candidate for a coronavirus vaccine, following similar such review launches for vaccines from AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

The health regulator said its human medicines committee started a “rolling review” for Modern’s mRNA-1273 vaccine candidate and has already started evaluating the first batch of data.

Early data from US firm Moderna has suggested its vaccine is highly effective in preventing people getting ill and also works across all age groups.

The latest vaccine news has been hailed by British scientists as “tremendously exciting”. However, the UK has not placed an order for the vaccine and it is yet unclear if the British Government can get any stock.

My colleague Samuel Lovett has the story:

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said the military would be involved in the logistics of rolling out a Covid-19 vaccine throughout the country once it has been approved.

Speaking during a visit at the Exhibition Centre Liverpool, which is being used as a testing site, he said he expected injections to be delivered by NHS workers but thought the Army may be involved in transporting vaccines.

“I should think the Army will be involved in the logistics, I should think the Army will be involved in some of the planning and the command and control which goes on behind the scenes for all these events because I think that is the key,” he said.

“If necessary the armed forces and RAF will be involved in bringing vaccines in the country.”

The Army will continue assisting with a mass coronavirus testing pilot in Liverpool for “as long as it is needed”, he added.

Mr Wallace said the roll-out of the testing pilot has been “good” and the soldiers have been “welcomed” by people in Liverpool.

“We’d like for more people to come but some of that is a challenge for ourselves about, do we move or shift and go to other parts of other communities where we’re not seeing a high uptake, or do we do more to publicise it, and I think that’s a role for both public health and local authority to do alongside, but it’s going in the right direction,” he said.

Mitchells & Butlers, which owns All Bar One and Toby Carvery, has said it will close down up to 20 of its pubs and restaurants as a result of coronavirus restrictions.

The company confirmed the decision, which will put scores of jobs at risk after sales slumped as lockdown forced sites to close temporarily.

A spokesperson said: “As announced in September, M&B re-opened the vast majority of its estate, approximately 95 per cent after the first lockdown ended.

“The remaining sites have been under review on a case-by-case basis since, taking into account factors such as expected footfall and business layout.

“We have taken the difficult decision not to reopen some of these sites and are working with leaseholders on next steps.”

The pub and bar group did not disclose how many jobs would be impacted as a result of the closures.

Five Tory MPs now self-isolating after meeting at No10

At least five Tory MPs, including the prime minister, are now self-isolating following a meeting in Downing Street last week.

Boris Johnson announced on Sunday he was told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace after holding a face-to-face meeting with backbench MPs, including Ashfield MP Lee Anderson, who later tested positive for Covid-19.

Three more MPs, Lia Nici of Great Grimsby, Brendan Clarke-Smith of Bassetlaw, and Andy Carter of Warrington South, have said they too have gone into self-isolation as they were in attendance of the meeting.

Our Political Editor Andrew Woodcock reports:

The Health Secretary has defended the “extraordinary broad range of companies” employed by the Government during the pandemic.

Matt Hancock was asked about a Sunday Times report which said the Government had awarded £1.5bn to companies linked to the Tory party.

He said the government “had” to work with the private sector, and likened the Covid-19 testing programme to “building something that’s basically about the same size of Tesco in six months”.

Mr Hancock also suggested the story was not a “fair or accurate reflection” of the awarding of contracts, telling Times Radio that many of the companies had not been working with the government before “because we haven’t had a pandemic of this scale before”.

“So think about the testing capacity. It’s nothing to do with any political links, it’s all about building a massive testing capacity in this country that we haven’t had in the past,” he said.

“And the need to do that at pace and build this half a million testing capacity that we have today. We built that almost from scratch.”

He insisted that politics were “completely put aside” during the pandemic.

Gareth Southgate has found himself at the centre of a surprise row with broadcaster Piers Morgan, and has been challenged to confirm when he tested positive for Covid-19.

The England manager confirmed on Sunday night that he tested positive for coronavirus towards the end of October. He self-isolated for 10 days in between international games.

The positive result was kept confidential by Southgate and the Football Association as the isolation did not impact his commitments, but he confirmed it following the Nations League defeat by Belgium.

Our Sports Correspondent Jack de Menezes has the full story:

Amnesty International has said that elderly people in nursing homes in Belgium were failed by the government during the coronavirus pandemic, describing the situation as “human rights violations”.

In a report following an investigation, Amnesty International said “a staggering” 61.3 per cent of all Covid-19 deaths in Belgium took place in nursing homes.

Belgium reported more than 531,000 positive cases of Covid-19 and more than 14,400 deaths linked to the virus. In the first wave of the pandemic in spring, majority of Belgium’s Covid-19-related deaths were recorded in nursing homes.

The organisation said authorities were not quick enough to implement measures to protect residents and staff of nursing homes, failing to protect their human rights.

Matt Hancock has said it was “too early” to determine if current national lockdown measures in England would end as planned on 2 December.

Asked if lockdown would simply be “rebadged” after the deadline, he told the Today programme: “You tempt me, but it is too early to say, I’m afraid.

“We’ve seen in the last week that there is still a very high number of cases but we do absolutely want to come out of this national lockdown.

“That is our goal, everybody has a part to play in making that happen of course, following the social distancing rules and isolating when you need to, which is the critical thing.”

A young boy in Texas has lost both his parents within 100 days from coronavirus.

Now, his family are trying to plan an unforgettable birthday for him in spite of the grief.

Raiden Gonzalez, four, lost his father in June and his mother in October. His grandmother, Rosie Salinas, told NBC News that Raiden missed his mother and said: “Just this morning he told me that he wishes he had his mom back and he just wanted her back.”

Chelsea Ritschel reports on how the family are planning to celebrate Raiden’s birthday: