Coronavirus - 9th February 2021

Summary for Tuesday, 9th February

• Everyone arriving in the UK will be required to test for coronavirus on days two and eight of their quarantine
  
• The UK government has confirmed the new rules ahead of an announcement by the health secretary
  
• Matt Hancock is due to address the House of Commons at lunchtime
  
• The NHS Covid-19 app has told 1.7 million people to isolate since its launch in England and Wales
  
• Local surge testing will begin in parts of Greater Manchester after the discovery of a new mutation of the Kent virus variant
  
• A report by MPs has found the government's Covid support has been "repeatedly skewed towards men"
  
• Over-70s in England have been told to contact the NHS to book their coronavirus vaccine
  
• It comes after a further 333 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test were announced in the UK on Monday
  

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of today's developments - these are the main headlines.

• Everyone arriving in the UK will be required to test for coronavirus on days two and eight of their quarantine, the government has confirmed
  
• Arrivals are expected to be required to get a test on days two and eight of their 10-day quarantine period
  
• Government policies have "repeatedly skewed towards men", a committee of MPs has said in a report on the impact of coronavirus on men and women
  
• The NHS Covid-19 app has told 1.7 million people in England and Wales to self-isolate to date
  

Here are the key global developments from the last few hours:
The Guardian

• WHO investigators to brief media from Wuhan at 4pm local time. The international team of experts in China investigating how the outbreak started will speak to the media in Wuhan on Tuesday, the WHO has announced.The briefing, at 4:00pm local time (0800 GMT) at a hotel in the city, will be live-streamed in English on the UN health agency’s digital and social media platforms.
  
• WHO says don’t dismiss AstraZeneca shot after South Africa delays jabs. The World Health Organization insisted Monday that the AstraZeneca vaccine was still a vital tool in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, after South Africa delayed the start of its inoculation programme over concerns about its efficacy against a virus variant.
  
• Covid mortality in England still higher for some ethnic minorities, study finds. A new sweeping analysis in England shows that between the first and second waves of the pandemic in 2020, death rates in black communities improved, but continued to remain high in people from Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds.
  
• Russia official death toll half of figure listed by state statistics agency. Russia has recorded a dramatic increase in mortality in 2020 fuelled by the coronavirus pandemic, according to new data published by the Rosstat agency. The figures showed that between April, when the pandemic hit Russia, and December, the country saw 162,429 coronavirus-related fatalities. However, as of Monday, the official total released by Russia’s health officials stood at only 77,068 virus deaths – on the Johns Hopkins University tracker, the figure is listed as 75,828.
  
• The number of newborns in China plummeted 15% in 2020 from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Public Security, with the onset of the novel coronavirus disrupting the economy and weighing on decisions to have a family. China saw 10.035 million births last year, the ministry said on Monday, compared with 11.79 million in 2019. Of those born last year, 52.7% were boys and 47.3% girls.
  
• Five people including three officials have been jailed in China for dereliction of duty over an outbreak in a Shandong prison which saw more than 200 inmates infected in February 2020.
  
• Pete Buttigieg to quarantine for 14 days after security detail member tests positive. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will quarantine for 14 days after a member of his security detail tested positive for Covid on Monday, the department said.
  
• UK faces renewed calls for border curbs. Scientists and senior MPs have renewed calls for sweeping border curbs to protect the UK’s vaccination programme against new variants as Boris Johnson prepared to introduce tougher measures and Britain saw internal infections fall.
  
• Facebook has banned misinformation about all vaccines following years of harmful, unfounded health claims proliferating on its platform. As part of its policy on Covid-19-related misinformation, Facebook will now remove posts with false claims about all vaccines, the company announced in a blogpost on Monday.
  
• Authorities on Easter Island began vaccinating residents on Monday, distributing 1,200 doses on the first day, AFP reports.Situated 3,500 kilometres (2,200 miles) off Chile’s coast, the island - renowned for its ancient, giant humanoid monoliths - has not reported a single coronavirus case in more than 300 days.
  
• Israel and Greece agreed a tourism deal Monday that will allow coronavirus-vaccinated citizens of the two countries to travel between them without limitations once flights resume.
  
• EU chief urges states to donate vaccines to Ukraine. The European Commission chief said on Monday she had called on EU member states to donate some of their coronavirus jabs to Ukraine, as it prepares to launch its vaccination campaign.
  

Latest across Europe

• German health officials say the Covid incidence rate in the past week has fallen below 75 for the first time in three months to 72.8. State and federal leaders will discuss the lockdown tomorrow - but the target for relaxing measures is a seven-day average of 50. A group of film and cinema companies has written to Chancellor Angela Merkel, appealing for the reopening of cinemas at Easter.
  
• French museums are still shut, along with restaurants and cinemas, but now a far-right mayor in the south of France has tried to open four museums in the city of Perpignan. That's prompted a last-minute court move by the local prefect to prevent it happening. Italy has partially reopened its culture sector, and French museum leaders are now talking to the culture minister Roselyne Bachelot about strict rules on opening and safe distancing.
  
• Russia’s statistics agency has revealed a 17.9% rise in mortality from 2019 to 2020, raising further questions over the official Covid death toll. Some 162,000 of the deaths are being linked to Covid. Moscow's health department says 16,546 people died in December, an increase of 5,988 fatalities on the previous year.
  
• Greece could be facing a third Covid wave and Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias says an increasing number of intensive care beds are being filled. It could mean a new lockdown for Athens area, which is worst affected.
  
• The Dutch overnight curfew has been extended to early March because it's too early to say if it’s working. Infections are slightly down but the winter cold snap has hit some of the country’s vaccination centres.
  

Ministers decided against closing UK borders entirely - Eustice

Ministers considered closing the UK's borders entirely to guard against new variants of the coronavirus, but decided against the policy, George Eustice says.
The environment secretary confirms to BBC Breakfast that discussions about sealing off the borders to new arrivals revealed "downsides to that approach".
He said there would still be British nationals "trying to get back" to the UK who could potentially have the virus.
"There would be some difficulties and problems with a total border closure," he adds. "There are reasons where people may genuinely need to travel, for instance to visit relatives who may be ill."
Instead, the government chose to implement strict measures for those who do arrive, Eustice says.

We're mindful of the risks posed by foreign virus variants

More from the environment secretary now, who's been talking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
George Eustice says ministers have to be "ever mindful" about the risks posed by new virus variants coming into the UK from abroad.
He confirms that details on which tests will be used for arrivals during their quarantine are still being discussed.
"These are important details that will be dealt with when any announcement is made," he adds, saying he does not wish to preempt an announcement later by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Asked about travellers returning to the UK from South Africa, via other countries, walking out of airports and straight on to public transport, Eustice says they will all have needed to prove a negative test before travel.
He says he understands that the system of hotel quarantine for travellers from "red list" countries will begin next week as planned, despite reports of problems with negotiations with hoteliers.

'Borders cannot stop infectious diseases'

Borders "cannot stop infectious diseases", leading epidemiologist Professor David Heymann has said.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that "no matter how rigid your controls are, there will always be some that comes through".
He says most nations believe the best strategy is to deal with infections in-country, and to ensure there is a flow of travel and trade.
Asked if he believed closing borders would have an immediate impact, Prof Heymann says: "We've seen that countries that have closed their borders, such as New Zealand, have kept the virus out, but now their problem is what do they when they begin to open their borders?
"So I think the best way forward is to live understanding that viruses and bacteria, any infection, can cross borders and we have to have the defences in our own countries to deal with them."

The Papers: Call to tighten borders and PM's 'faith in Oxford jab'

Many of Tuesday's papers focus on changes to the UK's border policy. The prime minister is facing renewed calls from scientists and senior MPs to introduce sweeping border curbs, according to the Guardian's main story.
The Daily Express gives a sense of the pressure the government is under to act - as it reports travellers from South Africa - where one of the variants originated - are arriving unchecked at British airports after boarding flights in third countries.
Elsewhere, a call for over-70s in England to come forward to get their first Covid jab if they haven't already had one makes the lead for the i and the Daily Mirror.
Read more in our newspaper review here.

Covid-19 outbreak at British military camp in Kenya

People living near a British military training camp in Kenya say they are concerned after 11 cases of coronavirus were confirmed among troops.
In total, 320 troops - who recently arrived from the UK - have been placed in isolation at the base in Nanyuki, north of Nairobi.
Despite the outbreak, another 150 flew from the UK on Monday morning to join them. The Army insists they’ll also be placed in isolation elsewhere on the base.
A Kenyan employee at the base told the BBC he was asked to stay at home over the weekend following the confirmation of several cases.
He also said some local staff had been temporarily hired to work at the base in the meantime.

Five people jailed in China over prison outbreak

Helen Davidson - The Guardian
Five people including three officials have been jailed in China for dereliction of duty over an outbreak in a Shandong prison which saw more than 200 inmates infected in February 2020.
The three officials - including the former head of the province’s Rencheng prison, a deputy prison head, and former deputy director of the province’s prison administration – were sentenced to between 12 and 27 months in jail, with the court ruling that their dereliction of duty led to the spread of the virus inside Rencheng, and caused great loss to public property, the country, and the interests of the people.
A former guard and driver were separately also given suspended jail sentences of 12 and 16 months. Caixin reported that prosecutors alleged the driver was infected in January 2020 via someone in Wuhan, about 450 miles away, but deliberately failed to report his contact history.
The prison guard didn’t report his symptoms.Rencheng was the worst hit of five prisons in Hubei and Zhejiang provinces where more than 550 inmates and guards were infected.

Pete Buttigieg to quarantine for 14 days after security detail member tests positive

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will quarantine for 14 days after a member of his security detail tested positive for Covid on Monday, the department said.
Reuters reports:

The department said Buttigieg underwent routine PCR testing earlier on Monday and Covid was not detected, nor has he showed any symptoms.

Buttigieg received the first dose of the vaccination in recent weeks, and will receive the second dose when his quarantine is completed. Buttigieg appeared in public on Friday at an event at Union Station and wore a mask except when he delivered remarks.

Israel & Greece sign travel deal for vaccinated citizens

Israel and Greece agreed a tourism deal Monday that will allow coronavirus-vaccinated citizens of the two countries to travel between them without limitations, once flights resume, AFP reports.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the agreement “will allow us... to be able to offer Israeli tourists the opportunity to spend their holidays in Greece without any restrictions” at a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu.
This would go into effect once “a significant percentage of the population is vaccinated” and travel restrictions are lifted, Mitsotakis said.
“I hope to be able to welcome Israeli tourists as soon as possible to Greece.”
Israel has vaccinated more than 3.5 million of its nine million-strong population - of which more than two million have received two doses - since mid-December, in what is widely described as the world’s fastest vaccination campaign per capita.
Greece had carried out fewer than 360,000 vaccinations in the country of 11 million as of the end of last week and restrictions relaxed over Christmas were reimposed on Friday as part of an ongoing lockdown, amid an upsurge in infections in recent weeks.
Netanyahu said the two premiers discussed a “green passport” vaccine certificate arrangement that will allow Israeli tourists “to go to Greece without any limitations. No self-isolation. Nothing”, when flight restrictions are lifted.
Israeli Tourism Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen, who signed the agreement with her Greek counterpart, called on tourists from Greece to visit Israel.
“I want to take this opportunity to encourage Greek people, and everyone else: make Israel your post-Covid destination,” she said.

ONS reports rise in care home Covid deaths

Alison Holt - Social affairs correspondent
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 2,505 care home residents died with coronavirus mentioned on their death certificate in the week ending 29 January.
This is a 6% rise in deaths from the previous week and the fourth highest number of Covid-related deaths among care home residents during the pandemic.
The latest statistics suggest the rate of increase in deaths of care home residents involving coronavirus has slowed.
The two weeks before this saw much steeper increases in deaths (25% and 38%).
Overall, 35,720 care home residents have died during the pandemic either in care homes or in hospital.
This week's figure of 2,505 is the fourth highest compared with Covid-related deaths at the end of April.
At the first wave peak, 3,679 people were recorded as having died with Covid-19 mentioned on the certificate.

Why Australia's 'world-class' hotel quarantine system has seen breaches

While the UK prepares to introduce a hotel quarantine system for those arriving from certain countries, the policy has been in place for all arrivals in Australia for close to a year.
But it's not all been smooth running Down Under. While Australia's scheme has been an extremely effective first line of defence against Covid-19, a series of isolated local cases in recent months - all from hotel quarantine leaks - have caused alarm.
Since November, three cities have entered snap lockdowns on the back of such infections, aiming to halt outbreaks at their source. Read more from the BBC's Frances Mao in Sydney here.
We've also heard from people who've been through hotel quarantine about what it's like to be cooped up for two weeks in a 300 sq ft room.

Virus may have circulated more widely in December 2019, WHO team finds

A World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origin of the coronavirus pandemic is holding a news conference in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of its visit.
Peter Ben Embarek, of the WHO team, said they had found evidence of the wider circulation of the virus in December 2019, outside the market where it was reported to have begun.
He said the team had uncovered new information but that it did not change the overall picture of the outbreak.
Earlier, a senior Chinese health official, Liang Wannian, said the authorities had extended full support to the WHO team. He said the scientists had not been able to clearly establish a link to the virus from bats and pangolins, though they remained a potential source.
The WHO team visited the market where the first cluster of infections was detected, as well as laboratories in Wuhan which had been involved in virus research.

Wuhan lab leak theory 'extremely unlikely', says WHO-led team

Online theories have suggested there was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

A theory that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan has been discredited as "extremely unlikely" by an international team of investigators.
Peter Ben Embarek, head of a World Health Organization-led mission to the city, said the idea that an incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was behind an outbreak would not be pursued further.
"The laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population," he said during a news conference.
"Therefore is not in the hypotheses that we will suggest for future studies."
The team has also announced that they had found evidence of the wider circulation of the coronavirus in December 2019 beyond a seafood market where it was reported to have begun.

Ireland to crack down on 'Dublin dodge' used to evade UK travel ban

Rory Carroll - The Guardian
The Irish government has promised to crack down on travellers from the Middle East who use the “Dublin dodge” to enter the UK and evade coronavirus restrictions.
The number of people flying to Dublin from Dubai has increased since the UK added the United Arab Emirates to a travel ban list last month, prompting concern that passengers are using Ireland’s capital as a back door to Britain.
“If that’s been abused by UK citizens coming back from other parts of the world to try to take advantage of that issue then we will close that door by ensuring that there is communications with airlines and with UK authorities to make sure that they know exactly where people are coming from through our airports,” Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, told RTÉ.
The UK has banned flights from the UAE and requires people travelling from there to quarantine for 10 days to curb the spread of Covid-19 variants.

Iran begins vaccination programme

Iran has begun a nationwide vaccination programme to combat the deadliest Covid-19 outbreak in the Middle East.
Health Minister Saeed Namaki’s son Parsa was the first person to receive a shot of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine. He said he wanted to “cultivate trust” among members of the public.
Iran, which has a population of 80 million, has received 10,000 of the 2m doses of the Sputnik V vaccines it has ordered from Russia. It also expects to receive 4.2m doses of the vaccine developed by the Anglo-Swedish firm AstraZeneca via the global distribution scheme Covax, despite Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banning the importation of US and British-made shots.
Front-line health workers, the elderly, and those with pre-existing conditions will be vaccinated first.
Iran also hopes to eventually use two locally-developed vaccines. Clinical trials for the first, Coviran, began in December. Those for Razi Cov Pars, which was unveiled on Monday, are due to start in the coming days.
The Iranian health ministry has reported 1.47 million cases of Covid-19 and 58,536 related deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Irish-EU meeting after vaccine row

Remember the huge row that broke out when the European Commission tried to use an emergency Brexit clause to stop Covid-19 vaccines made in the EU arriving in Northern Ireland?
Well the commission is due to meet Irish officials later to work out ways of avoiding more controversies involving Northern Ireland.
Brussels made a U-turn on invoking Article 16 after a lot of heat from London, Dublin and Belfast.
We are expecting Ireland to ask for an early-warning system to avoid possible future complications arising from Northern Ireland being in both the UK's internal market and the EU's single market for goods.
Irish national broadcaster RTÉ reports that the Republic of Ireland's EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness will have a role to play in cases in which issues are raised.
We'll bring you more after the meeting but in the meantime here's the background and what we know so far.

Prison outbreak behind 'behind smallest county's Covid surge'

An outbreak of Covid-19 at a prison has caused England's smallest county to have the highest infection rates in the country, officials say.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) confirmed cases at HMP Stocken in Rutland.
On Monday, figures showed the county had 199 new cases in the week up to 4 February, giving it a case rate per 100,000 people of 498.4.
Rutland and Melton MP Alicia Kearns says she understands "around half" of cases in the county are in the prison.
The rate in the week up to 28 January was 162.8, with 65 new infections.
Rutland's small population of just under 40,000 residents meant its infection rate was more susceptible to spikes, says Mike Sandys, director of public health for Leicestershire County Council.

Jail time and fines of up to £10,000 threatened

The health secretary sets out "tough fines" for people who do not comply with quarantine rules:

• £1,000 fine for any international arrival who fails to take a mandatory coronavirus test
  
• £2,000 fine for failing to take a second test and quarantine is automatically extended to 14 days
  
• Fines of between £5,000 and £10,000 for failing to quarantine in a designated hotel
  
• Anyone who lies on their passenger locator form about having been in a country on the red list will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years
  

Travel clampdown analysis

Chris Mason -Political Correspondent
For some time now, the government's political opponents have been demanding more is done at the UK's borders.
Critics say it should have happened ages ago.
At first glance, in the round, the new measures place significant further restrictions on travel - and, of course, that is the point - attempting to drive down still further the number of people coming into the UK, potentially harbouring dangerous new variants of Covid-19.
And, making sure any that do can't spread it to anyone else, or as few people as possible.
Right now, going on holiday is illegal anyway. Another one of those extraordinary sentences a few years ago you'd have never imagined reading.
But the big question not for now, but for the future, is how are these measures eventually relaxed? In what order? And when? They are massive questions that will have massive implications for our liberties.

Which countries are on the 'red list'?

Matt Hancock has been speaking about "red list" countries in his Commons statement.
He announced people arriving from those nations will need to isolate in hotels from Monday.
But which countries are on the list? Among them are South Africa, Portugal, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.
Check the current list on the government website here

How tough has enforcement of travel quarantine been?

Reality Check
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced tougher enforcement of travel quarantine rules including fines and even prison sentences for passengers arriving in the UK who fail to comply.
So, how tough has enforcement been?
The latest figures show that police in England and Wales investigated around 11,000 potential breaches of the self-isolation rule (the requirement for people to quarantine at home or another location for 10 days) in the period to 17 January.
The majority - just over 8,600 - needed no further investigation.
But in almost 1,800 cases the police were unable to take any action because no-one answered the door or they had the wrong address.
Just 332 fines were actually given out. Border Force officials are also able to hand out fines but we can’t find any figures for this.
A survey from the Office for National Statistics in October suggested that roughly two-thirds of people said they were following the quarantine rules.
This means the other third breached the rules in some way or another.

What's going on around the world?

Away from the Commons now, here's a round-up of the latest coronavirus developments around the world:

• A theory that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, has been discredited as "extremely unlikely" by the World Health Organization
  
• India says nearly half of the country's states have recorded no deaths from the coronavirus in the last 24 hours
  
• Iran has started its vaccination campaign
  
• Authorities in Mozambique say the recently appointed head of the military has died after contracting Covid-19
  
• Russia says foreign demand for the country's Sputnik V vaccine is vastly outstripping supply
  
• A far-right mayor in France has authorised the re-opening of four museums, in defiance of the government's nationwide Covid restrictions
  

Beijing lifts local lockdowns after 10 days without cases

Kerry Allen - BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst
China’s capital city Beijing has today lifted lockdown measures in the south of the city, days before people celebrate the Lunar New Year on 12 February.
On 21 January, Daxing district, which has more than half a million residents, entered a strict lockdown after reporting 11 cases of Covid-19.
People were banned from leaving the city in this region, all public places were closed, and residents were required to undergo mass testing.
Beijing has not reported a single case of Covid-19 in 10 days, which is why the rules have been relaxed today.
This is welcome news for people who live in the south of the city, as many have been unable to even leave their homes over the last couple of weeks.
China is currently celebrating its recovery from Covid-19, after fresh outbreaks at the beginning of the year led to Beijing, Shanghai, and three northeastern Chinese provinces implementing strict local lockdowns.
The country has reported no new domestically transmitted cases of the virus for the second consecutive day. Transmission is thought to be limited at the moment because people are currently off work and school for the holiday festivities.
However, tens of millions of people are still travelling across the country per day ahead of the Year of the Ox.

Were there any surprises in China about the WHO findings?

Kerry Allen - BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst
People in China were able to watch livestreams of the World Health Organization press conference, and indeed, more than 1.5 million did via the official Xinhua news agency.
This showed that China was confident nothing was going to come out of this WHO’s press conference that it didn’t expect or want people to hear.
But China’s media have long stressed that there wasn’t going to be a “gotcha” moment out of the delegation’s visit. Papers have repeatedly said that China has long been cooperating with the WHO, that the visit is a scientific and not a political one, and that the team will need to investigate the virus’ origins in multiple countries.
It certainly came as no surprise to Chinese audiences that the WHO all but dismissed suggestions Covid-19 may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory.
China has repeatedly refuted suggestions, calling them nothing but a “massive smear campaign led by some US politicians”. In particular, they criticised the US government under former president, Donald Trump, for suggesting such.
On Friday, Chinese outlets were already highly publicising video footage of Peter Daszak from the delegation saying that the team had found “no evidence at all” to suggest the virus might have originated there, and that what he saw was “an incredibly well-built, well-designed, well-managed lab”.

 

Scotland to introduce hotel quarantine for all international arrivals

All international arrivals into Scotland will have to enter "managed" quarantine facilities such as hotels, the Scottish transport secretary has announced.
Going further than plans in England, Michael Matheson said it was "vital" to stop new variants of the virus from entering Scotland.
Matheson said: "We need a comprehensive approach to restricting international travel."
But he said the UK government - which sets policy for England - continued to rely on a "targeted, reactive approach" - insisting this was "no longer sufficient" in the face of the threat from coronavirus.
He said from Monday, Scotland would require all international arrivals to enter managed quarantine.

Bat virus hunters find new evidence

Helen Briggs - BBC science and health journalist
Scientists say coronaviruses related to Sars-CoV-2 may be circulating in bats across many parts of Asia.
A virus that is a close match to the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, has been discovered in bats at a wildlife sanctuary in eastern Thailand.
The researchers predict that related coronaviruses may be present in bats across many Asian nations and regions.
Their discovery extends the area in which related viruses have been found to a distance of 4,800km (2,983 miles).
The study is reported in Nature Communications.
Writing in the journal, the researchers said the sampling site (Thailand only) and sampling size was limited, but they were confident that coronaviruses "with a high degree of genetic relatedness to Sars-CoV-2 are widely present in bats across many nations and regions in Asia".



 

Another 1,052 Covid deaths reported in UK

A further 1,052 people in the UK have died within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test, according to the latest figures, and another 12,364 people have tested positive.
As of Monday, 12,646,486 people in the UK had been given their first jab of a coronavirus vaccine.
And 516,392 had received a second dose.

More details on 'stronger' Scottish travel curbs

Scots arriving via England from "red list" countries will be required to complete their mandatory hotel quarantine there before returning home north of the border.
Scottish Transport Secretary Michael Matheson said he would continue to press the UK government to adopt a "more comprehensive approach and require all arrivals to go into quarantine hotels".
Under new measures announced today, arrivals into England from red list countries will be taken to hotels to quarantine - while all other arrivals will see out their isolation at home.
All arrivals will be required to take two PCR tests during their quarantine and provide negative results before release.
But in Scotland, all international arrivals - not just those from red list countries - will be required to go into hotel quarantine.
The Scottish government is also limiting overseas training for elite athletes to only sportsmen and women and coaches preparing for the Olympics and Paralympics.
Matheson insisted the "stronger approach" Scotland was taking to international quarantine was "necessary and proportionate".

Explained: New rules for testing and hotel quarantine

Everyone arriving in the UK will now have to take two coronavirus tests while quarantining.
It's one of a growing number of rules aimed at stopping the spread of new, potentially more resistant Covid strains from other countries.

Germany sees lowest cases for 3 months

Germany's lead agency on tracking coronavirus says the number of cases has fallen to its lowest for three months.
The Robert Koch Institute said that the average for the previous seven days was below 75 new cases per 100,000 people. That's down from a peak of nearly 200 just before Christmas.
The government target is to reduce that number to 50.
On Monday a court in Mannheim ordered the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg to end its night curfew on Thursday to take account of the improved circumstances.
Germany's overall Covid death toll stands at 62,214.

What did the WHO find in Wuhan?

Michelle Roberts - Health editor, BBC News online
As we've been reporting, a team of investigators led by the World Health Organization (WHO) has spent four weeks looking into the origins of Covid-19 in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
It was unlikely that the group, in its politically-charged mission, would be able to pinpoint the source of the pandemic a year after it began.
But, after visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology, they have closed the lid on a controversial theory that coronavirus came from a lab leak or was made by scientists.
Their search for clues also included a visit to the now-famous wet market in Huanan - selling fish, meat and live wild animals - that was linked to some of the first human cases.
The team say the virus may have jumped from animals to humans, but they don't have the proof yet.
Possible carriers include bats and pangolins, but tests so far have yet to find convincing evidence for this.
Another line of investigation is whether the virus could have spread through imported frozen food. The hunt for the origin will continue.

170 cases of South African variant - PHE

Earlier, the health secretary announced tougher border measures in England to tackle the spread of new variants of the coronavirus - such as the one originally found in South Africa.
Dr Susan Hopkins, from Public Health England, says 170 cases of the South African variant have been identified so far, including 18 that are not linked to travel.
Our health editor, Michelle Roberts, says there's no evidence that the South Africa variant causes more serious illness for most people - but there are concerns it can spread more readily than the original strain and vaccines may not work quite as well against it.

Peru starts vaccination campaign amid second wave

Peru has started its Covid vaccination campaign after the first consignment of 300,000 Sinopharm vaccines arrived on Sunday.
The South American country is in the midst of a second wave of the pandemic. With the hospitals close to full capacity, the authorities have decided that medical staff should be among the first to be vaccinated.
On Tuesday morning local time, Josef Vallejos, the chief of the intensive care unit at a hospital in Lima, received the first jab.
Members of the military, security guards and election workers will also be given priority ahead of the general election scheduled for 11 April.
Peru has had almost 1.2 million confirmed cases and more than 42,000 people have died.

Further surge Covid testing being deployed in Lambeth, south London

Further Covid testing is being deployed in Lambeth, south London, where the South African variant has been found.
The surge testing and genomic sequencing will be carried out in the SE27 0, SE27 9 and SW16 2 postcodes.
It is hoped this will help authorities to better understand Covid variants and their spread within these areas.
People living within these areas are being urged to take a Covid-19 test this week, whether they are showing symptoms or not.
People with symptoms should book a test in the usual way while others should visit their council website.
Meanwhile the surge testing carried out in Woking is now complete and further data will be provided in due course, the Department of Health and Social Care said.
Mass testing - or surge testing - is taking place across various parts of England to help stop the spread of new, more infectious strains of Covid-19.
The South Africa variant and a new mutation of the Kent variant are those currently being targeted.
More than 10,000 tests are being deployed in Manchester, after cases of the Kent variant were found in two unconnected households.

Scotland's new hotel quarantine plan

Everyone arriving in Scotland on an international flight from next Monday will have to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days.
The Scottish government said it would be "block booking" 1,300 rooms at six hotels near the country's airports.
The some £1,750 cost of the stay will have to be borne by passengers themselves.

• Quarantine hotel plan to cover all overseas flights
  

A similar scheme will operate in other parts of the UK, but unlike Scotland, only flights from countries on a "red list" will be covered.
No hotels have yet confirmed whether rooms have been booked.
Transport Secretary Michael Matheson said there were approximately 1,600 Scottish arrivals in the last week of January, and numbers fell to 730 in the first week of February.
He said: "The number of travellers coming to Scotland directly is reducing and I expect these restrictions to reduce arrivals yet further.
"These measures will be backed with criminal offences as usual. The stronger approach we are taking are necessary and appropriate."

Nigeria lab closed over fake Covid certificates

Mayeni Jones - BBC News, Lagos
Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says it has closed an unnamed test centre in the capital Abuja that was issuing fake Covid-19 certificates to travellers.
Director general of the NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said they had found evidence that the lab was collecting samples and money from unsuspecting travellers, but failing to test them.
They issued certificates claiming they had tested negative for the virus, enabling them to travel. Mr Ihekweazu added that a full list of accredited labs was available on the NCDC’s website and encouraged members of the public to only get tested at centres on the list.
He said they were working on a platform where every lab in Nigeria could publish their test results which could then be easily verified by airlines or other countries wishing to check whether a result was genuine. He did not specify when this platform would be ready.
Authorities in Nigeria recently suspended flights from the Emirates airline because the carrier wanted passengers from Nigeria to take a rapid Covid-19 test four hours before flying, in addition to the standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.

'Serious implications' for travel industry amid new quarantine measures

As we've reported today, a series of measures are to come into force on Monday to prevent new variants of the coronavirus from being imported into the UK.
Some travellers will be required to quarantine in hotels, at the cost of up to £1,750 for accommodation, food and tests.
The changes will be applied differently across the UK - in Scotland everyone arriving from abroad will be affected, while in England and Wales hotel quarantine will be mandatory only for passengers who have recently travelled to a country hit by a new variant.
The health secretary also confirmed that all international arrivals would need to take two PCR tests on days two and eight of their quarantine.
Those who violate the rules will face fines and potentially up to 10 years in prison.
The travel and tourism industries have said they understand why the measures are necessary, but have called on the government to do more to support firms and protect jobs.
A spokeswoman for travel trade organisation Abta said that requiring passengers to pay for multiple tests once leisure travel is restarted would have "serious cost implications" and "hurt demand".
She also urged ministers to "develop a roadmap to reopen travel".

What's the Bristol variant?

Michelle Roberts - Health editor, BBC News online
The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) - a group of scientists which advise government - have classed a variant first identified in Bristol - the Kent variant with a mutation - as a "variant of concern".
It’s not surprising that officials are adding this new version of coronavirus to their "variants of concern" list.
Targeted testing is already under way to spot any new cases linked to the 21 that have already been found, mostly in the south west of England.
This new incarnation of the virus is the Kent variant "plus". It has the same N501Y mutation as the one that triggered lockdown - a genetic change that scientists say lets the virus spread more easily. But it also has an extra mutation called E484K.
E484K is what experts are worried about for vaccine efficacy. It is also seen in the South Africa and Brazil variants of concern.
A cluster of another variant in Liverpool is different again. It has got the E484K mutation but is an iteration of an earlier version of the pandemic virus rather than the Kent one.
Inevitably, more variants will continue to emerge. The challenge is to make sure vaccines are a good match to keep us ahead in this race against the virus.
Experts are confident that the vaccines being used today will still save lives and stop severe illness from Covid.

What's been happening today?

Here’s what you need to know this evening:

• Travellers having to quarantine in hotels in England will be charged up to £1,750 for their stay, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced
  
• And if they fail to isolate there for 10 days they face fines of up to £10,000
  
• The measures, which come into force on Monday, apply to UK and Irish residents returning from 33 red list countries
  
• Read more about the new travel rules here
  
• All travellers arriving into Scotland from abroad by air will have to go into quarantine hotels, the Scottish government has said
  
• Covid-19 restrictions will not be fully lifted in Northern Ireland until 70 to 80% of people have been vaccinated, the chief medical officer has said
  
• And the UK has reported another 12,364 cases of coronavirus and a further 1,052 deaths within 28 days of a positive test - bringing that total to 113,850
  
• Meanwhile, international experts investigating the origins of Covid-19 have all but dismissed a theory that the virus came from a laboratory in China
  

Goodbye - and thanks for joining us

That's it for our live coverage for today.

It was written by Ella Wills, George Bowden, Hazel Shearing, Jennifer Meierhans and George Wright, and edited by Sarah Collerton and Holly Wallis.

We'll be back with more live coronavirus updates tomorrow morning.