Coronavirus news - live: Three households can mix at Christmas in five-day loosening of rules across UK

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said that he is hopeful the Government will be able to lift some of its more “damaging social distancing interventions”.

“After Easter, we think we will be getting back to normal,” Mr Hancock said on Tuesday morning. 

While the health secretary said some measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus, such as handwashing and basic social distancing, will likely be with us for some time, he said some of the more “damaging social distancing interventions” will hopefully be lifted.

Whether or not they are, he said, will likely depend largely on how soon vaccine distribution is able to get underway.

Read more here: 

Meeting people inside homes could be riskier than in pubs when it comes to spreading the coronavirus, a Government scientific adviser has warned.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lucy Yardley, a professor of health psychology at the University of Bristol and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said people are more likely to “let their guard down” inside homes.

Read more on why socialising in homes could be a “particularly risky” idea: 

Matt Hancock has said university testing capacity was not initially used because it was a “matter of scale”.

The health secretary told the Health and Social Care Committee today: “We now are increasingly using the university capacity but that's because we’ve got such capacity in the mass Lighthouse Labs that were able also to go and stitch in the smaller and scientific capacity into this.

“So it was all about scale.”

“It’s a bit like PPE when people complained to me that they could produce, you know, 10,000 gowns and we didn't give them a contract,” he said, before adding: "Well, 10,000 gowns ... it's just a matter of scale.”

Mr Hancock finished by saying the government had “absolutely succeeded in driving a massive expansion in scale”. 

New analysis by the think tank Health Foundation suggests that this year and next year the total health costs from Covid-19 could be as high as £40bn – the majority if which is in £27bn for protective equipment and the running of the national test and trace service.

While Rishi Sunak is set to unveil an extra £3bn of investment for the NHS as part of his spending review on Wednesday, is it enough to save the NHS in the face of yet another Covid tsunami this winter?

Our health correspondent, Shaun Lintern, analyses what these costs mean moving forwards - especially considering vaccine rollouts are potentially just weeks away:

Matt Hancock has outlined his vision for a revolution in healthcare that would see millions routinely tested for viruses like the flu, just as they have been for Covid-19.  

The health secretary told MPs that mass testing should become the norm to do more to prevent, rather than simply treat, disease. He also hit out at what he suggested was a culture in the UK where staff “soldier on” and go into work while ill, potentially passing infections on to others.  

The shift would be made possible by the “global-scale diagnostics capability” the UK has built to battle the coronavirus pandemic, he said.

The Independent’s Kate Devlin and Shaun Lintern have the story:

The Independent’s political editor, Andrew Woodcock, reports:

Councils in England are being given new powers to shut down businesses for up to seven days to introduce Covid-secure measures, with fines of as much as £4,000 for those which fail to comply.

New orders will be made available as the country reopens following the second lockdown on 2 December, said Downing Street.

Under a Coronavirus Restriction Notice issued by a local authority, businesses such as shops, pubs or restaurants can be closed for up to seven days to carry out improvements to their arrangements for social distancing and hygiene. An Immediate Restriction Notice will close any premises posing a public health risk for 48 hours.

Failure to comply with either order will carry a fine of up to £4,000.

Meanwhile, less serious breaches can be dealt with by a Coronavirus Improvement Notice, which allows businesses to keep trading for 48 hours while they implement changes to their Covid-secure measures, with a maximum £2,000 fine for non-compliance.

Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said: “Local authorities play a crucial role in encouraging compliance with regulations and taking enforcement action where premises don’t follow the rules.

“Until now, local authorities have bene able to issue fines on the basis of failure to comply with legal obligations to be Covid-secure. These new powers will allow them formally to request improvements or close premises.”

Scientists from the Medical University of Gdansk have found eight cases of Covid-19 in mink at a farm in northern Poland.

Poland began to test its farmed mink for coronavirus this month, following the discovery of a mutated virus in farmed mink in Denmark, which resulted in a national mink cull.

Last week authorities disclosed that 18 cases of coronavirus had been found in workers on mink farms since the pandemic began. It is not thought that these workers were infected by the animals.

Eleanor Sly has more details:

Downing Street has said it is still intent on finding a way to allow families to spend time together over the Christmas holidays. 

Speaking ahead of a Cobra meeting with leaders of the devolved administrations, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: “We have been clear of our desire to try and agree a four-nations approach which will allow families to meet up over the Christmas period."

So far, no agreement appears to have been reached and it is unclear whether the Cobra meeting will yield a final decision.

However, the Number 10 spokesperson said: “We continue to work with the devolved nations to agree a plan to allow families to meet up over Christmas,” according to PA Media.

“That work is ongoing and there will be a meeting later of Cobra to discuss it,” the spokesperson said.

Health Minister Matt Hancock has said that efforts to prevent the spread of coronavirus could shift to an emphasis on “personal responsibility”, rather than social distancing restrictions enforced by the Government after Easter.

Mr Hancock stressed that any post-Easter shift in coronavirus restrictions would be dependent on the rollout of vaccines, with the health secretary hoping to see rules relaxed once the vaccine has reached the most vulnerable people. 

He said the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) had recommended that once all those aged 50 years and over had been vaccinated, more severe social distancing restrictions could be lifted.

Matt Hancock has confirmed that he has asked the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to consider whether people with learning disabilities should be given higher priority for vaccines.

The request comes after a report showed a higher risk of Covid-19 deaths among people with learning disabilities.

The Public Health England report found that people with learning disabilities were at least six times more likely to die from coronavirus than the general population.