Covid news - live: Whitty says UK ‘past peak’ of current wave as Boris Johnson hails effort to vaccinate 10m

This graph from Statista takes a look at how close each of the four nations are to achieving so-called “herd immunity” from Covid-19.

About 20,000 people per day - possibly more - are not isolating when they should be, it has emerged in evidence given to the Science and Technology Committee by Baroness Harding.

Taking last week's total number of cases and contacts, circa 700,000 a day, so circa 100,000 a day,  the test and trace chief concluded that circa 20,000 a day are not isolating.

Responding to a question from former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, she said: “Could I add a slight complexity to your calculation which actually might well make your number go up a bit, which is that's the proportion that we know about.”

She said her biggest concern was not the people failing to isolate, but the people who “feel ill but do not come forward for testing”.

Royal Mail bosses have been criticised after a postal worker claimed they had been issued with a “fancy dress” face covering to wear during their shifts.

The anonymous employee, who is based in Malvern Link, Worcestershire, raised concerns with the town council, claiming the masks were not designed to offer medical protection.

Olivia Petter has more on this below:

Asked what the implications of the UK variant of Covid-19 are on testing and tracing, Baroness Harding told the Science and Technology Committee: "The new variant, which is now endemic and accounts for, I think, more than 70 per cent of cases across the country, I think has broad implications, not just for NHS Test and Trace, but for the whole country, the whole world's fight against Covid.

"It means that we all have to keep our distance more rigorously, more hand washing, more face-mask wearing.

"It also means that speeding up our end-to-end Test and Trace journey becomes more imperative.

"Also, as I think I said earlier, finding more of the positive cases."

Ryanair has been ordered to remove its infamous “jab and go” advert after watchdog officials ruled it depicted misleading claims about coronavirus vaccinations.

The budget airline encouraged potential holiday-makers to book Easter and summer breaks with the airline by appearing to imply Brits would be immunised by then.

The Advertising Standards Authority described the plug as “irresponsible” after it received 2,370 complaints.

Colin Drury explains more in this article:

A catcaller who confronted Professor Chris Whitty in the street has been branded "pathetic" by health secretary Matt Hancock.

Video footage shared on TikTok showed a young man repeatedly accusing England's chief medical officer of "lying" about Covid-19, while the scientist was out walking near Westminster in central London.

The man, who is holding the camera, walks around Prof Whitty, telling him: "Liar. You're a liar. Mandem is a liar. You're a liar. You lie about the Covid-19 cases. Stop lying to the TV, man."

It is unclear when the video was taken, but Prof Whitty did not respond to the taunts, appearing to be waiting for food from a nearby market stall.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Hancock said: “I think the individual concerned is pathetic, I think it is ridiculous what he is doing.”

Health secretary Matt Hancock said he is "optimistic" about the prospect of people being able to enjoy a holiday in the summer.

"I'm optimistic that we will have a great British summer," he told ITV's Good Morning Britain.

"The challenge we all still have is we have to keep control of the virus, so we have got to monitor progress.

"But the vaccine rollout is going well, the vaccines clearly work and so this is really, really good progress."

Around one in seven people in private households in England are estimated to have had coronavirus by mid-January 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This is up from an estimated one in nine people in December 2020 and one in 11 people in November.

The figures are the proportion of the population who are likely to have tested positive for antibodies to Covid-19, based on blood test results from a sample of people aged 16 and over.

UK-based drug maker GlaxoSmithKline and Germany's CureVac say they plan to collaborate on a new generation of vaccines targeting emerging variants of Covid-19.

"The increase in emerging variants with the potential to reduce the efficacy of first-generation Covid-19 vaccines requires acceleration of efforts to develop vaccines against new variants to keep one step ahead of the pandemic," the companies said in a statement.

"These next generation Covid-19 vaccines may either be used to protect people who have not been vaccinated before, or to serve as boosters in the event that Covid-19 immunity gained from an initial vaccination reduces over time."

GSK said it will also help CureVac manufacture up to 100 million doses of its existing vaccine candidate this year.

Professor Adam Finn, from the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said the Oxford transmission results are "very, very good news".

He told Times Radio: "I think it points to the fact that all of these vaccines to some extent will be able to reduce transmission."

Asked if the new variants show signs of being vaccine-resistant, he said: "Yes, they do, and that's something that I guess we've expected all along.

"So it is going to be a game of catch-up going forward; the vaccines will continue to work, but, as virus mutates, they will work less well, and we'll have to adjust them to bring them back up to top-level protection.

“But that's what we do with flu all the time. It's not something that's that alarming or unexpected really, but it is a reality.”