UK speeds up vaccinations: All adults get 1st jab by July 31

"We are proud and honored to be a part of this fight and look forward to bringing our innovations to all fifty states", said Jonathan Brennan-Badal, CEO of Opentrons.

Everyone in the over 65 age group should receive their first jab by early March, and the remainder of those in the priority groups drawn up the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) will be vaccinated by early May. But UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said today that "we now think that we have the supplies" to speed up the vaccination campaign.

The health secretary added there was evidence the vaccines could reduce transmission by two-thirds, which could be a factor in deciding whether to vaccinate children against Covid-19.

On Monday afternoon, the prime minister will set out his roadmap for lifting lockdown restrictions, including the reopening of schools for all pupils.

Matt Hancock insisted that, despite the success of the vaccine rollout so far, and the "understandable" urge to return to normal life, the Government's goal is to take a "cautious but irreversible approach".

He added that ministers also wanted "to give that indicative sense and a direction so that people can start to begin to plan their lives in a way that they have all put on hold for, well, for the a year ago and certainly the last month or so when we have been in this second national lockdown".

That's the first time this variant has been detected in a New Yorker. The statewide positivity rate for the virus was 2.99% on Sunday, he said.

"If we eased off very rapidly now, we would get another surge in hospitalizations" and deaths, he told the BBC.

COVID data will determine UK lockdown

"We hit it hard and send in enhanced contact-tracing and go door-to-door".

"We now think that we have the supplies to be able to do that".

I know you will appreciate how important it is that taxpayers know how their money is being spent through these contracts, that the government wants to tackle claims of cronyism and that, given this ruling of unlawfulness, that the government and yourself will do everything possible to maximise transparency, accountability and scrutiny.

"If one of these new variants doesn't respond to the vaccine as well as the others - as well as the standard variant in the United Kingdom, which is the Kent variant - then, if that's the case, then that's obviously a very serious risk for the vaccination programme", he said.

- Surge testing is to be rolled out in Brentwood, Essex, after a case of the South Africa coronavirus variant was found. People living in the area are "strongly encouraged" to take a test when offered, whether or not they have any symptoms of the virus.

When legal action was taken by the Good Law Project, the High Court found that Hancock had "acted unlawfully" by breaching his legal obligation to publish Contract Award Notices within 30 days of awarding contracts.

"We have seen throughout this pandemic that there have been moments when things haven't got as we expected - for instance, when the new variant was first discovered in Kent".

"The latest data shows that there's around a dozen new ones, so a much, much smaller number, and each time we find a new one we absolutely clamp down on it", he said.