- Covid-19 doesn't discriminate and does not care about people's skin colour, England's deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van-Tam says
- South African is not "our major threat now" - the Kent variant is "going to kill people in the next one to two months in the UK", says Van-Tam
- No vaccine is 100% effective, Van-Tam says, adding the government has done a great deal to make sure the vaccines are safe
- It is likely vaccines will be given annually to match variants, he adds
- Ten-year jail sentences for travellers who try to conceal journeys to high-risk countries have been branded "extraordinarily high"
- Former Supreme Court justice Lord Sumption and former attorney general Dominic Grieve both criticised the measure, announced on Tuesday by Health Secretary Matt Hancock
- Care home staff were without personal protective equipment early in the pandemic because the government prioritised the NHS, MPs have said
- Beer and pub sector leaders are pressing the government to give them a reopening date and a "roadmap to recovery"
- A French nun who is Europe's oldest person has survived Covid-19, just days before her 117th birthday
Good morning and welcome to our coronavirus live page.
Here is a round-up of the main stories this morning:
- Ten-year jail sentences for travellers who try to conceal journeys to high-risk countries have been branded “entirely disproportionate”. Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced the measure on Tuesday as part of a raft of stricter travel rules. But former attorney general Dominic Grieve said the extent of the punishment was a “mistake” and courts would not impose it
- Care home staff were left without personal protective equipment early in the pandemic because the government prioritised the NHS, MPs have said. The Commons Public Accounts Committee said the adult social care sector received 10% of the PPE needed
- Beer and pub sector leaders are pressing the government to give them a reopening date. The industry is desperate to get back to business after repeated warnings many pubs will not survive
- The number of people scammed out of money by someone pretending to want a relationship has been on the rise during lockdown. There was a 20% increase in bank transfer fraud linked to romance scams in 2020 compared with 2019, according to UK Finance
- A French nun who is Europe's oldest person has survived Covid-19, just days before her 117th birthday. Lucile Randon, who took the name of Sister Andre in 1944, tested positive for coronavirus on 16 January but didn't develop any symptoms.
Latest across Europe
- The Greek capital Athens is to go into hard lockdown tomorrow, with most shops shut and all schooling going online. Kindergartens and primary and secondary schools only reopened a couple of weeks ago, but Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis says higher hospital admissions are putting a strain on the Greek health service.
- Spain has recorded another 766 deaths in 24 hours – the highest number since April – and the number of infections since the pandemic began has passed three million. The spike has been blamed on restrictions being eased over Christmas, but the weekly incidence rate has started to fall and more than two million Spaniards have been vaccinated. Key workers will start getting the Oxford-AstraZeneca drug, which Spain won’t be giving to over-55s, even though it’s been approved by the EU’s medical agency.
- German state leaders get together on video with Chancellor Angela Merkel with full expectation that they’ll prolong the country’s lockdown beyond 14 February. Infections are down to just over 8,000 a day but Baden-Württemberg state premier Winfried Kretschmann says no-one should expect “an orgy of opening”. Intensive care expert Gernot Marx says schools and daycare centres should remain shut because he says they’re a big channel for spreading infection.
- As soon as Italy gets a new government it’ll have to decide whether to extend a ban on travel between different regions, in place since December. Ministers will also have to decide whether to allow ski resorts to open. The regional travel ban expires on Monday and the man expected to lead the government, Mario Draghi, may not have been given parliamentary backing in time.
People need to adhere to quarantine hotel policy, Shapps says
Yesterday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced a raft of stricter travel rules for UK and Irish residents arriving in England.Travellers who lie on their passenger locator forms about visiting a red list country face a fine of £10,000 or up to 10 years in jail.
And those who are required to stay in quarantine hotels will be charged £1,750 for their stay, it was confirmed.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is asked on BBC Breakfast if a woman who has travelled to Portugal following the death of her father will still be faced with a bill.
Mr Shapps says: "If she doesn't come back before Monday, that is right.
"You do get these cases, which we have seen throughout the whole of the coronavirus, where sadly families throughout the UK have been impacted by this and sometimes haven't been able to say goodbye to loved ones.
"If there are harsher cases, people should of course contact the embassies and posts in various different countries.
"The answer is 100% people will need to adhere to going into these managed quarantine hotels after Monday.
"And we do plead with people, bear in mind, the law is that you cannot travel, people shouldn't be travelling for leisure purposes, holidays and that sort of thing, domestically or internationally."