Covid news: 8% of hospital cases may have come from wards, as NHS says it is set to hit vaccine target

Middle-aged men are driving coronavirus infection rates in Liverpool, the city's director of public health has said.

Matthew Ashton said infection rates had reduced in the city since January but in the last few days had plateaued.

He said: "We know from some analysis of the data that middle-aged men are driving the infection rate in some areas. That is why testing, and self-isolating if you test positive, are so important.

"If we give it a huge push over the next four weeks we will be in a much stronger position when the government decides to start to ease lockdown restrictions and that will give us more of the freedoms that we all crave."

The success of the coronavirus vaccination programme has put the UK on track to reopen schools next month, further relax social restrictions in April and be “back to normal” by this time next year, a leading epidemiologist has said.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock explains:

German health minister Jens Spahn said entry bans on travellers from the Czech Republic and Austria's Tyrol region from 14 February were necessary to prevent the spread of new variants of the coronavirus.

He told a weekly news conference: “They are unavoidable for a certain period of time to prevent the spread of dangerous virus variants.”

Safeguarding minister Victoria Atkins has refused to comment on the number of police officers that will be deployed to ensure arrivals to the UK follow quarantine rules.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, she said: "We have announced today a further £60 million for police forces.

"£58m is to support police forces who have done an incredible job over the last year of the pandemic making sure those few people who aren't sticking to the rules that they stop doing so and, if necessary, they are fined."

She said another £2m had been allocated to forces that will be patrolling ports and airports.

But she refused to comment on the number of police officers that would be deployed to enforce the new quarantine rules, saying only: "Police operational details - first of all I wouldn't dream of announcing them on national television."

When pressed, Ms Atkins insisted the number of police patrols was sensitive operational information, saying only it would be "decided in the local area by chief constables and senior police officers".

A Welsh government spokesperson said people in the first four priority groups who had missed or previously refused vaccination appointments would be contacted this weekend to arrange news slots.

The spokesperson told the PA news agency: "There will be appointments going out over the weekend because there will have been mopping up.

"We're contacting proactively the people who may have changed their minds or may have been ill or may have, for some reason, not been able to take up the appointment, just so we can get them in over the weekend and give them the jab."

The UK's economy shrunk at its fastest rate since the 1920s last year, as the pandemic forced thousands of businesses to remain closed for several months.

The Office for National Statistics revealed that gross domestic product (GDP) dropped by 9.9 per cent.

However, after registering a 1.2 per cent growth in December, despite strong restrictions across large parts of the country, the economy looks set to avoid what could have been its first double-dip recession since the 1970s.

Our business correspondent Ben Chapman has more details:

Public health officials in the US have raised concerns a national cheerleading contest in Georgia - expected to host at least 40,000 people - could become a coronavirus super-spreading event.

James Crump explains:

England's hotel quarantine rules allowing travellers to leave their rooms for fresh air are "very risky", an Australian epidemiologist has warned.

Professor Michael Toole, from the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Victoria, suggested England could learn from his country, where preventative measures initially focused on stopping the spread of coronavirus by large droplets but had to be strengthened.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the precautions - such as wearing surgical masks, keeping people in their room and using hand sanitiser - did not prevent airborne transmission.

Prof Toole said there have been Covid-19 cases in the city where an infected guest opened their room door and "with the positive pressure this kind of fog of virus went out into the corridor, travelled down and infected hotel staff".

One in 80 people had Covid-19 in the week ending 6 February in England, according to estimates by the Office for National Statistics – down from around one in 65 people for the week before.

Infection levels fell in all of the UK nations compared to the previous week (24 January to 30 January).

The statistics agency estimated that one in 75 people in private households in Northern had the virus between 31 January and 6 February.

In Wales, it was lower, with the agency’s COVID-19 Infection Survey finding that around one in 85 tested positive for the virus.

Meanwhile, about one in 150 people in Scotland were infected during the same period.

The figures do not include people in care homes, hospitals or other institutions.

The UK's economy shrunk at its fastest rate since the 1920s last year, as the pandemic forced thousands of businesses to remain closed for several months.

The Office for National Statistics revealed that gross domestic product (GDP) dropped by 9.9 per cent.

This infographic by Statista charts the UK’s annual GDP from 1949 to 2020 using Office for National Statistics (ONS) data.