Covid news - live: Sturgeon imposes total travel quarantine and Oxford vaccine still protects after 12 weeks

Good morning, welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of the coronavirus crisis. We’ll be bringing you rolling updates with the latest news and statistics.

Some 80,000 people across England are being encouraged to come forward for “surge” testing, regardless of whether they have symptoms, as part of efforts to contain the growing spread of the South African coronavirus variant.

Eleven cases of the variant, thought to be community based, were detected in eight different English postcodes: in Hanwell, Tottenham and Mitcham in London; Walsall in the West Midlands; Broxbourne, Hertfordshire; Maidstone, Kent; Woking, Surrey; and Southport, Merseyside.

As a result, a door-to-door testing blitz of 80,000 people – about 10,000 in each post code – begins today in a bid to stop the spread of the more infectious strain.

Samuel Lovett explains more in this article:

Nicola Sturgeon is expected to announce the outcome of a review of current lockdown restrictions in Scotland later today.

The Scottish government has already said the current restrictions will last until at least the middle of February but the statement to MSPs will provide some detail on "other steps we are planning to take", the first minister said.

Parents will find out if their children will be able to return to school by the middle of February, while Ms Sturgeon is expected to go further than current proposals by the UK for quarantine hotels and other measures aimed at making current travel rules "more effective".

The first minister said the statement will cover some of the measures the Scottish government will take to "help us control the virus as we continue to suppress it, and in time gradually start to ease the lockdown restrictions."

Russia has extended its ban on flights from UK by two weeks to 16 February, travel correspondent Simon Calder reports.

A tweet from the Kremlin read: “The emergency response centre for preventing the import and spread of the new coronavirus infection in Russia has decided to extend its suspension of flights with the UK.

“To protect public health, it has extended the ban until 11.59 pm on February 16, 2021.

“Earlier, Russia suspended air traffic with Britain from December 22, 2020 to February 1, 2021 inclusive, due to the discovery of a new coronavirus strain in the UK.”

Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, said it may be possible for people to become infected with the South African variant even if they have had Covid-19 in the past.

She told BBC Breakfast: "That is something that is causing concern around the world.

"In Brazil where there is a different variant - which was badly hit in the first wave - there was a lot of reinfection there and that's what also seems to potentially be the case with this variant in South Africa.

"South Africa is a country that has really struggled during this pandemic and we have had rates of reinfection there.

“If someone in the UK has been infected with Sars-CoV-2 and become unwell with Covid-19 in the past, it might be potentially, if they come into contact with this variant, they may become unwell again.”

West Midlands Mayor Andy Street said he hoped hotel quarantine would be brought in "as soon as possible".

He told BBC Breakfast: "We haven't got a go-live date yet. I would like it to be as soon as possible but the airport's been very thorough in its preparations."

Asked if there are hotels ready and waiting, he said: "There are plenty of hotels on the Birmingham Airport campus that could be put to this use very swiftly."

A government minister has warned the coronavirus pandemic has reached a "very perilous stage".

Universities minister Michelle Donelan said it was essential people followed the rules following the disclosure that 11 cases of a new South African variant had been identified which were not linked to travel.

"It is still a very perilous stage of this virus. We have got this new variant that is spreading so we do have to be extra vigilant and really abide by those rules to the letter, and also contemplate every action and every activity that we do," she told Sky News.

Ms Donelan rejected suggestions that the government should have moved to close the borders to stop new variants reaching the UK.

A scientist involved in advising the government has said it is important to try to "snuff out" the South African variant of the coronavirus.

Professor Calum Semple, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said: "It is very important to take every opportunity now to catch the so-called South African variant, suppress it, keep it down and allow the vaccine schedule to get ahead of it," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"The huge effort to test and trace and observe for reinfections and readmissions is incredibly important to help us understand what is going on here, but the honest answer is that we really just don't know about the clinical importance of this.

"But certainly we don't want a virus like this spreading throughout our community and taking advantage of the lack of immunity that we currently have."

Sage member Professor Andrew Hayward said the South African variant has been identified in at least 30 countries around the world including Europe, America, and other parts of Africa.

On the effectiveness of vaccines, the professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London said “whilst you may have reduced effectiveness against preventing disease, quite often what happens with these vaccines is that they'll still prevent against severe disease”.

He added: "And so we would expect the vaccines to still be very worthwhile and very good at preventing severe disease.

"Of course we've got a lot staked on the effects of these vaccines, and that's why I think it's really appropriate to take every measure that we can to try and stop the emergence of the strain."

About 150 volunteers are due to start the door-to-door delivery of coronavirus testing kits in Woking to help identify any cases of the South African variant in the Surrey town.

A first briefing was held this morning outside the fire station, with local officials hoping the operation will take four or five days.

Plans involve delivering PCR tests, which are not compulsory, for some 9,500 residents living in an area within the GU21 postcode.

Volunteers will drop off testing kits and return later in the day to collect them before the tests are sent off to a lab to be examined for the South African strain. Homes will be revisited on another occasion if people are not in.

A spokeswoman for Surrey County Council said the tests are to be completed by members of households over the age of 18.