Covid news - live: Single jab cuts elderly hospital admissions by 80% as Hancock defends UK quarantine policy

School staff in England are not more likely to test positive for coronavirus antibodies than working-age adults, new figures suggest.

Of the 121 schools in the survey, 14.99% of school staff tested positive for antibodies between December 2 and 10, lower than the estimate of 18.22% for working-age adults, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The small sample of schools also found 14.61% of primary school staff tested positive for antibodies compared with 15.72% of secondary staff.

Wagamama owner The Restaurant Group (TRG) said it is burning through £5.5 million each month its venues remain shut and that it has secured a new loan to shore up its finances.

Shares in the company soared higher on Monday morning after it revealed £500 million in new debt facilities.

TRG, which also owns Frankie & Benny's, has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic along with other businesses in the hospitality industry.

All of its 400 or so restaurant sites are currently shut to sit-down customers and will not be able to welcome customers to eat inside its venues until May 17 at the earliest.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the discovery of the Brazilian coronavirus variant in the UK shows the Government has not "secured our borders in the way we should have done".

Speaking at a virtual meeting with Welsh businesses to mark St David's Day, Mr Starmer said: "It demonstrates the slowness of the government to close off even the major routes, but also the unwillingness to confront the fact that the virus doesn't travel by direct flights.

"We know from last summer that a lot of virus came in from countries where it didn't originate in, but people were coming indirect, and that's the way people travel.

"I still think we haven't secured our borders in the way we should have done, and the sooner that's done the better."

Care home residents in Scotland will be allowed to have two visitors a week from Monday thanks to the progress of the country’s vaccination programme.

Emma O’Neill has more details:

Wales first minister Mark Drakeford said he had “worries” about Boris Johnson’s comments that international travel could return in May and that he would instead “build the walls higher for now” to prevent bringing in coronavirus variants to the UK.

Mr Drakeford told a virtual meeting with Welsh businesses and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer: “It worries me hugely to hear the prime minister say he intends to reopen international travel in May of this year.

“Our September in Wales was made far more difficult by the fact that we had a big importation of the virus from France, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey. Every day I will be reading of new outbreaks of people who have gone away, caught the virus and brought it back with them.

“If ever there was a year to be staying at home and to be enjoying all the fantastic things Wales has to offer, this must be it.

“I would build the walls higher for now against the risk that we would bring into this country the variants that could be brewing in any part of the world, and could then put at risk all the careful work we have done to try and keep Wales safe.”

The chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee has joined the chorus of politicians urging prospective holidaymakers not to book trips.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper’s warning came after news emerged of travellers returning to the UK from Brazil bringing a new variant of the disease.

Travel correspondent Simon Calder has more details:

Boris Johnson has defended the government's measures to prevent new variants being imported into the country, despite the detection of cases of the Brazilian strain of coronavirus.

The prime minister told reporters: “We have got one of the toughest border regimes anywhere in the world for stopping people coming in to this country who may have variants of concern.”

Prime minister Boris Johnson said a "massive effort" was under way to prevent new coronavirus variants spreading.

He told reporters: "If you look at what we have done in the case of the South African variant, a massive effort went in there.

"The same is going on now to contain any spread of the Brazilian variant."

There was "no reason not to think that our vaccines are effective against these variants of concern at the present time" and Public Health England "don't think that there is a threat to the wider public".

Prime minister Boris Johnson said he still expected the road map for easing England's restrictions would be irreversible.

He told reporters at a school in Stoke-on-Trent: "What we are doing is embarking now on a journey, a one-way road map to freedom and it is designedly cautious in order to be irreversible.

"That is what we are hoping to achieve. Some people say we should go faster, some people say we should be more hesitant.

"I think we are going at the right pace, education is the priority, getting all schools open on 8 March is something that we have set our hearts on for a long time and I am confident we will be ready."

Mr Johnson defended the testing regime for schools, insisting "people do understand how to use them and we are very confident that they will be of use in helping to keep the disease under control, keep it going down as we get schools back open".

People in the Ivory Coast will be the first in the world to receive coronavirus vaccines under the Covax initiative.

The roll-out began in the West African nation today under the international initiative to vaccine some of the most vulnerable people.

Samuel Osborne explains: