Image source, Getty Images

Rapid Covid testing of students in England, so they can return home safely for the Christmas holidays, could begin on 30 November, according to a letter from the universities minister.

It proposes a week of mass testing that overlaps with the end of lockdown, with the testing finishing by 6 December.

The letter, seen by the BBC, promises the tests can deliver "results within an hour" - but it acknowledges that they do not catch all positive cases.

The aim is to prevent the 1.2 million students expected to travel back home for Christmas from spreading the virus around the country.

Wales' GCSE, AS and A-level exams in summer 2021 have all been cancelled, with grades to be based on classroom assessments instead.

Education Minister Kirsty Williams says it is impossible to guarantee a level playing field for exams, due to the ongoing impact of the pandemic.

Head teachers will work on a "national approach" to ensure consistency, she says.

Assessments will be done under teacher supervision, and will begin in the second half of the spring term.

It comes after exams were cancelled this summer due to coronavirus.

Read more here.

Michelle Roberts
Health editor, BBC News online

Image source, Getty Images

Health Secretary Matt Hancock insists the NHS will be ready to start deploying a coronavirus vaccine as soon as humanly possible.

If regulators are able to give the green light in the next few weeks, some people could get their jab before Christmas – a most welcome gift for those at highest risk of severe Covid-19 illness.

But Hancock doesn’t want people to get their hopes up too soon or assume life can now return to “normal” - it can’t.

It would be a colossal mistake to relax now and let the virus rip, say leading medical advisers.

Until and unless mass vaccination can happen, society needs to use the other weapons at its disposal to fight the virus and stop the spread.

That means sticking with social distancing and face masks, and testing people who may have the virus, and asking them to isolate.

The UK is still in the second wave and the actions taken by all of us now will influence how it plays out.

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt suggests at the select committee that as few as 3% of people who should be self-isolating are in fact staying at home, because of undetected cases and contacts who are not reached.

He says the proportion was no more than 20%. But NHS Test and Trace boss Dido Harding says: “If it’s a tool that contributes to 20%-plus of our fight against Covid, then it’s a hugely valuable and important tool."

She says financial difficulties could be one factor stopping people from staying put. “All the evidence shows that people are not complying with isolation not because they don’t want to, but because they find it very difficult."

Hunt questions whether the test and trace system had focused too much on increasing the volume of testing rather than looking at the proportion of people failing to self isolate.

But Harding says you need to do both.

She says the system has been able to maintain its contact tracing rate while testing increased "five-fold" since May – more than any other major European country.

Image source, Getty Images

Baroness Harding tells the select committees that an NHS Test and Trace survey found that 54% of people complied fully with the self-isolation rules.

But she says it was "quite hard to track where people are every day" because "we live in a liberal democracy".

"The majority of people are trying very hard to comply when they are asked to and when they are not it is because they might have just popped out to get some fresh air, or if they have gone anywhere they have gone to buy emergency prescriptions or food," she says.

Harding says that throughout the time that test and trace has been in operation it has found between 40% and 50% of the positive Covid cases per day, with the Office of National Statistics estimating around 50,000 people per day are getting Covid-19.

She says one of the biggest challenges is “finding people who have got the disease who don’t know they have it”.

Last week, the test and trace system got in touch with 77.8% of contacts for whom they had details.

“No system can reach people whose contact details we don’t have,” she says.

Also appearing before the select committees with Dido Harding is Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser for NHS Test and Trace. She says the team are increasingly recognising the role of asymptomatic transmission in spreading Covid-19 in the UK.

She says the ONS survey found that only one-third of Covid cases are being detected through symptomatic testing.

"So that means there’s a large number out there who are either not coming forward for testing or are asymptomatic and are potentially transmitting," Hopkins says.

She says it is important to keep social distancing but it will become “more important” to try and find the undetected cases in the population in order to try and slow the spread.

Image source, PA Media

NHS Test and Trace chief Dido Harding said England had gone into a second lockdown with its R number "significantly lower" than in March, partly due to the fact NHS test and trace exists.

However, she told the Commons Health and Social Care Committee and Science and Technology Committee that test and trace on its own was not the "silver bullet to holding back the tide of Covid".

She said: "Unfortunately the evidence in the UK and in every other country in Europe is that’s not the case. The way we have to tackle the disease is through of a variety of different interventions and we are one of the ways, not the only way."

Asked about the monthly budget for contract tracing, she told the committee she didn’t have a precise monthly figure. But she said for the total test and trace operation, 80% of the budget goes on testing and 20% on contact tracing, technology and overhead support.

"Stay at home" was at the core of public health advice in tackling Covid-19, the world over.

But home is not a place of safety for all.

Domestic violence and abuse is at a 15-year high in Northern Ireland, with more than 32,000 incidents reported to the PSNI from June 2019 to July 2020.

Restrictions to reduce the spread of Covid-19 have forced people to spend much more time at home and created the "perfect storm" for abusers.

BBC NI Spotlight went behind the scenes at Foyle Women's Aid to find out what it's like for some of those offering help to women and families in danger.

Read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

We've been reporting on the reaction to news of a vaccine which can prevent nine out of 10 people getting Covid-19.

In the UK, Health Secretary Matt Hancock says the NHS is ready to start to provide the vaccine as fast as safely possible.

He says it's "possible" it could be available by Christmas, but the mass roll-out will come in the first part of 2021.

The vaccine's developers, Pfizer and BioNTech, say it has been tested on 43,500 people, with no safety concerns raised.

Our correspondent James Gallagher answers the critical questions - who will have the Pfizer vaccine first and when can you get it?

Image source, PA Media

Mass testing of the population in Liverpool has seen 23,170 people tested since midday on Friday, with 0.7% positive.

The 154 people who tested positive had no symptoms.

All residents and workers - about 500,000 people - in Liverpool have been offered tests at one of 18 centres.

The hope is that mass testing can identify more people who have the virus but no symptoms, so they can self-isolate, preventing them from spreading the virus.

City Mayor Joe Anderson said there had been a "great response" from the public.

Children aged 11 and over are also to be tested in schools with their parents' consent as part of the scheme, the city's council has said.

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

The number of people dying continues to be above normal levels for this time of year.

Data from the UK national statistics agencies show the number of deaths was more than 11% higher than expected in the final week of October. That is similar to the level the week before.

Deaths linked to Covid account for all of the extra deaths and more.

A total of nearly 12,501 died with 1,597 mentioning Covid on the death certificate – up from 1,126 the week before.

Deaths normally do rise at this time of the year, but the data from the Office for National Statistics and its counterparts in Scotland and Northern Ireland shows the second wave of the virus has pushed the death rate above the average seen over the past five years.

In total more than 440,000 deaths have been recorded this year, with over 61,000 linked to Covid.

This is higher than the government’s daily figures suggest as they only include people who have tested positive for Covid and have died within 28 days of a test. These figures included cases where doctors suspect a patient has Covid.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock says he has written to every director of public health in England to offer the rapid mass testing that was trialled in Liverpool last week.

He tells Sky News 66 local authorities have already expressed an interest in the tests and he expects "a whole load more" to sign up.

The tests would also be available to authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Hancock says.

"Lateral flow" tests, which can give a result within an hour without a laboratory, have been used as part of England's first trial of whole-city testing in Liverpool, with all residents offered regular tests whether or not they have symptoms.

But BBC health and science correspondent James Gallagher says these type of tests need high levels of the virus in the body to work. It is not yet clear how good they are at catching people in the early stages of the infection, when the virus is still taking hold.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock says the NHS is "absolutely ready" to roll out a Covid vaccine once approved, but warns it will be a "huge logistical effort".

On Monday, it was announced that the world's first effective coronavirus vaccine had shown positive results in preliminary tests on 43,500 people.

Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNtech now plan to apply for emergency approval to use the vaccine by the end of November - and a limited number of people may get the vaccine this year.

Yolande Knell
BBC Middle East correspondent, Jerusalem

Image source, Reuters

Jordanians are heading to the polls for a parliamentary election, as their country struggles to deal with a serious rise in coronavirus cases.

Latest figures suggest the kingdom has the highest per capita infection and death rates in the Arab world.

Despite the alarming resurgence of Covid-19 cases over the past month, the Jordanian government decided not to postpone this election. Instead, it plans a four-day lockdown afterwards.

Voter turnout is expected to be low because of public apathy over the role of the 130-seat parliament - seen as rubber-stamping government policy. Activists are also calling for a boycott over holding the poll at this time.

There is growing public discontent in Jordan as it faces its worst economic crisis in years.

Early on in the pandemic, the country imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in the world to bring its outbreak under control.

Officials have since linked a sharp increase in infections to travellers from neighbouring Syria and problems in the healthcare system.

Image source, Reuters

Veteran Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat has died at the age of 65, a Fatah party official and a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has told the BBC.

Mr Erekat had suffered serious health problems for several years before contracting coronavirus last month.

He was being treated at an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem.

Erekat was secretary general of the PLO and an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

He was the Palestinians' chief negotiator in peace talks with Israel for the past two and a half decades.

Read more: Key Palestinian negotiator dies of Covid-19

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live’s Rachel Burden has been speaking to David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation’s special envoy for Covid-19.

She asked him if he was worried about “vaccine nationalism” and wealthier countries fighting over the doses.

“We’re all worried that it will be difficult for countries to agree how scarce vaccines should be available more widely,” he said.

“Let’s just at all times remember this vaccine really should be for the people who are most exposed and the people who are most at risk.

“This is how we should approach all vaccines – they’re precious and scarce. They must go to the people who need them the most.”

Listen to Radio 5 Live on BBC Sounds.

Prof Sir John Bell, an Oxford immunologist who is a member of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, has been talking to BBC Breakfast, explaining more about his reasons for optimism the day after he set hopes racing by saying "with some confidence" life could return to normal by spring.

He said he had been "stunned by the efficacy numbers". "This really is a game-changer. It was hard to control my enthusiasm on the radio yesterday," he admitted.

Bell said he expects vaccination to start by the end of the year or early January at the latest.

It was not yet clear if the vaccine would stop the virus spreading or just prevent people from getting ill, but even if it just stops the disease it is "a massive achievement", he said.

He said all the vaccines in late development "look about the same in terms of the immunity they produce", so it was likely we would have multiple effective vaccines.

But Bell said he did not agree with the suggestion that only the vulnerable should be vaccinated and called for younger people to be included, citing the risks of Long Covid - where people suffer symptoms such as exhaustion for many months.

"I would worry about not giving this to as wide a percentage of the population as we can," he said.

Image source, Getty Images

As the pandemic continues to disrupt normal life around the world, here's a roundup of some key developments from outside the UK.

• Clinical trials of the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine, Coronavac, have been suspended by Brazil's health authorities because of what they called a "severe adverse" incident

• US President-elect Joe Biden has "implored" Americans to wear a mask as the best way to "turn this pandemic around". He named a new task force and vowed to "follow the science" as he puts his transition team together
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban goes to parliament today to seek approval for a state of emergency that would include limits on public gatherings and closures of schools, restaurants and universities
• Portugal has imposed a night-time curfew as part of its state of emergency that is set to last at least two weeks. The curfew, which covers 70% of the population including Lisbon and Porto, runs from 23:00 to 05:00 local time, but at weekends it will run from 13:00 to 05:00
• France's unemployment rate jumped to its highest level in two years amid fallout from the pandemic, official figures revealed on Tuesday. The Insee statistics office said the number out of work rose to 9.0% from 7.1% in the second quarter
• Globally there are now nearly 51 million confirmed cases and more than 1.2 million deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live's Your Call programme this morning will be answering your questions on the vaccine.

One of the coronavirus vaccines is 90% effective according to the early research. The UK's already ordered 40 million doses.

Listen live on BBC Sounds or join in the debate. Call 08085 909 693 or text 85058.

Image source, PA Media

Continuing his round of interviews, the health secretary speaks to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, where he's asked about criticism of the Vaccine Taskforce chairwoman Kate Bingham.

He's asked about reports it used a team of eight PR consultants at a cost of £670,000.

The government has also denied claims that she shared sensitive information about the UK vaccination plans with private investors, external, saying she only discussed publicly available information.

Matt Hancock said: "Frankly, what matters is the substance of what the Vaccine Taskforce has achieved."

He said the UK is "one of the best-placed countries around the world" after securing supplies of 340 million doses of six separate vaccines, including leading candidates from Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca.

Hancock said he was not aware of the PR contract, which was signed off by an official in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

"I’m comfortable with he fact that we have secured this unbelievable array of vaccines and we are delivering it as fast as we can," he said.