Covid news: Johnson hints at tighter border rules and says new variant could be more deadly

The prime minister has hinted that tougher travel restrictions could be brought in to protect the UK against new variants of the coronavirus.

He told the Downing Street press conference: "We stopped non-UK nationals coming in from South Africa on 24 December and our general policy to the world is that anybody coming in now has to test within 72 hours of flying, you have to produce a passenger locator form.

"You then have to quarantine for 10 days once you arrive or 5 days if you get a second test and we are actively taking some pretty rigorous measures to make sure people do in fact quarantine.

“And I really don’t rule out that we may need to take further measures still. We may need to go further to protect our borders because we do not want after all the effort we’re going to in this country…to put that at risk by having a new variant come back in.”

Prime minister Boris Johnson said we will have to live with coronavirus “in one way or another for a long while to come”.

He added: "I think it is an open question as to when and in what way we can start to relax any of the measures and it depends entirely on lots of different things. 

“We will look at things continuously. Obviously we want to do everything we can to open up but only safely, only cautiously.”

Sir Patrick Vallance added: “I don’t think this virus is going anywhere, it’s going to stay around. It’s going to be around probably forever as a virus but it will be controlled and there is remarkable progress occurring now.”

In Ireland, the government has confirmed lockdown restrictions will not be eased at the end of the month.

Speaking at Government Buildings, taoiseach Micheal Martin said: "Certainly there is no talk at the moment in terms of any relaxation or reversing of restrictions at the end of this month.

"We are looking at a continuation of restrictions into February.

"You can take it that we'll take stock every four weeks of the situation."

Detectives are searching for the organisers of a wedding attended by about 150 people in a north London school.

The windows of the state-funded Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School in Egerton Road, Stamford Hill, had been covered and the gates closed to stop people seeing in when officers arrived last night.

A statement from the school, whose principal Rabbi Avrahom Pinter died in April after contracting coronavirus, said the hall had been leased to an outside organisation and "we had no knowledge that the wedding was taking place".

A spokesman said: "We are absolutely horrified about last night's event and condemn it in the strongest possible terms."

The Metropolitan Police originally said about 400 people had gathered inside the building for a wedding, but later said the number was closer to 150.

Matt Hancock has said the emergence of a new coronavirus variant capable of evading vaccines would leave the UK "back to square one" as he warned there is evidence the South African variant could reduce effectiveness by half.

The health secretary cautioned that "we are not sure of this data" yet and said the variant is being tested at the government's Porton Down research facility as well as in a clinical trial in South Africa to check the efficacy of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

But chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance has said, while there is "a cause for concern", it is too early to know whether that particular variant is more resistant to vaccines.

Mr Hancock's comments came from what is reportedly a recording of an online webinar with travel agents this week, obtained by MailOnline.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth, commenting on the news that the new UK Covid variant is potentially more deadly, said: "This is deeply alarming news, not least because Boris Johnson assured the nation back in December there was no evidence the variant was more dangerous.

"We urge ministers to go further and faster on vaccination roll-out now to save lives, and introduce proper financial support for those needing to isolate to help breaks chains of transmission."

The majority of people in the UK are willing to use privacy-encroaching tracking technology and support the introduction of immunity passports during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to scientists.

More than two thirds of those involved in the study, which is published in the journal Plos One, said they would accept some form of a smartphone tracking app to help manage social distancing and the relaxation of a full lockdown.

But researchers say this finding is not reflected in the number of people who have downloaded the NHS Test and Trace app.

Spain’s tourism minister has insisted the country will gradually open up for holidaymakers from spring – despite the prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, warning the frontiers could remain closed until autumn.

Travel correspondent Simon Calder has more on this below:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it has reached an agreement with Pfizer/BioNTech for 40 million doses of its Covid vaccine and should be able to start delivering jabs to poor and lower-middle income countries next month under its COVAX programme.

The COVAX scheme, led by the WHO and the GAVI vaccine alliance, signed deals for hundreds of millions of doses to vaccinate people in poor and lower-middle income countries, but vaccinations have yet to start. Pfizer's vaccine is so far the only one that has WHO emergency approval.

Pfizer's chief executive Albert Bourla said the 40 million doses, a fraction of the company's total 2021 production estimate of 2 billion, would be sold on a non-profit basis. He described it as an initial agreement, and said more doses could be provided through the COVAX programme in future.

Prime minister Boris Johnson has just tweeted the following message, which is a summary of his announcement during a Downing Street press briefing earlier today.

He wrote: "We have now learned that, in addition to spreading more quickly, the new variant of the virus may also be associated with a higher degree of mortality.

“It is therefore more important than ever that we all follow the rules and stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.”