Faisal Islam
BBC Economics Editor

There has been much focus on a glut of savings ready to be unleashed into the economy when pandemic restrictions are lifted.

But today's ONS report shows nearly nine million people in Britain had to borrow more money last year because of the impact of coronavirus.

This report shines a light on the reality of this for many ordinary Britons, having to borrow more, amid a hit to incomes during the recession.

Disproportionately this has hit the low paid and the young, and this would have been far worse without the government's support package.

More homeowners and the over-30s by December expected to be able to save for the year ahead. Fewer renters and under-30s expected to be able to save.

Though the analysis does not include the latest national lockdown, the economic impact of schools closure is also clear.

Employed parents were twice as likely to experience income loss, though that gap closed when schools reopened. The fear is that this trend will have returned over the past month.

Chris Mason
Political Correspondent

At the Downing Street briefing it will be interesting to see what Martin Hewitt, the Chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council, has to say about lockdown enforcement -- where the police face such a tricky balancing act between ensuring people stick to the law and the guidelines, but also taking people with them - the UK model of policing by consent.

How are the capital's hospitals coping? How is the vaccine roll-out going? Questions for Dr Vin Diwakar, NHS England's Regional Medical Director for London, alongside.

Expect questions too for the Home Secretary about this week's revelation that she wanted the country's borders to close in March of last year.

Image source, PA Media

It's not long now until the government's coronavirus press conference from Downing Street.

Home Secretary Priti Patel will lead today's briefing at 17:00 GMT.

She'll be joined by the chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council, Martin Hewitt, and NHS England's regional medical director for London, Dr Vin Diwakar.

It comes after Boris Johnson said it was "too early" to say whether England's Covid restrictions will be able to end in the spring - there's more on that here.

Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, the health minister has suggested lockdown restrictions may last until Easter, the BBC understands.

Image source, PA Media

Northern Ireland's top team have been meeting to discuss whether to extend the coronavirus lockdown - and the BBC understands they have agreed an extension until 5 March.

NI's health minister Robin Swann recommended the proposal and Stormont ministers agreed at a meeting on Thursday. Another review of the measures will take place on 18 February.

Ministers were also told that restrictions may have to remain in place until after the Easter holidays in order to continue pushing down the rate of transmission.

NI's lockdown began on Boxing Day.

Read more here.

A total of 4,973,248 people have now received a first Covid-19 vaccine dose in the UK, according to the latest government figures.

There have also been 464,036 second doses administered in the UK.

A further 1,290 deaths have been reported in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test.

It means there have now been 94,580 deaths by that measure.

There have also been a further 37,892 cases, according to the Department for Health and Social Care., external

Image source, Getty Images

London Marathon organisers are "very optimistic" a record 50,000 runners will be able to take part in this year's race when it is due to be held on 3 October.

The 2020 race involved only elite athletes running a specially designed closed-loop course because of the pandemic.

Event director Hugh Brasher tells BBC Sport he hopes the vaccination programme will allow amateur runners to participate.

The government is aiming to offer every adult in the UK a Covid-19 vaccine by autumn.

The event has been moved from its traditional April date for the second year in a row.

Read more.

Image source, AFP

Several of Brazil's largest labour organisations are to help Venezuela supply oxygen to the desperate city of Manaus in Brazil's Amazonas state.

Venezuela responded to a call for urgent help from the Amazonas governor earlier this week. The life-saving supplies are being sent by road across the Venezuela-Brazil border, which is about 1000km from Manaus. The Brazilian organisations have said they would provide trucks, drivers and logistical support for a weekly shipment of oxygen to the city.

The Brazilian government hasn't yet responded to the call for help and has been accused of being too slow to aid the city in the rainforest.

Manaus doctors say patients have to share oxygen tanks and some have suffocated when supplies ran out.

Some families say they are too scared to send ill relatives to the over-run hospitals and are instead trying to save their loved ones at home.

Image source, AFP

Image source, Getty Images

Half of people aged 80 and over in London have had their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine - the lowest proportion of any region in England.

For eastern England, the figure is 53%, while for the South East it is 58%, according to provisional NHS England data for the period up to January 17.

By contrast, around two-thirds of people aged 80 and over in northern England have received their first dose - with north-east England and Yorkshire vaccinating the highest proportion at 67%.

Image source, PA Media

Labour's shadow chancellor has launched a fresh attack on government support for the economy during the pandemic.

In a speech, Anneliese Dodds accused her Tory counterpart Rishi Sunak of wanting to lift restrictions and withdraw help "as soon as possible".

Initially offering the "bare minimum" has led to plans being repeatedly revised, she argued.

The Treasury said "decisive action" had been taken to protect jobs and firms.

Mr Sunak is due to set out the "next phase of the plan to tackle the virus and protect jobs" at the Budget in early March.

But Ms Dodds accused him of "disappearing altogether" in recent weeks, and offering "precious little clarity" on what support firms can expect.

You can read more here.

Image source, EPA

Five people have been killed in a fire at the site of the world's largest vaccine producer in western India.

The blaze started at a building that was still under construction at the Serum Institute of India's facilities in Pune on Thursday afternoon.

The company says there will be no impact on the production of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, known locally as Covishield.

India is aiming to vaccinate 300 million people by early August and many other low and middle-income countries are also depending on the Serum Institute for production of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab.

The cause of the fire, which has now been brought under control, has not been identified.

Read more.

Image source, Getty Images

If you are being forced back into the Zoom quizzes in the third lockdown then Mark Labbett - AKA The Beast on TV quiz show The Chase - has some tips to get you into first place (they're bound to be more bearable if you win, right?)

Speaking to BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat, Mark says: "Listen carefully to the question and make sure you're answering the question you've actually been asked."

And if you're avoiding a Zoom quiz because of the family know-it-all?

"There's a psychological condition called the Dunning-Kruger effect, which basically means a lot of people think they're smarter than they really are.

"We call those people inhabitants of 'mount stupid' and they're always good to see because you know that they're about to get crushed."

You can read more from Mark here.

Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst

A district in China’s capital city Beijing has been declared a “high risk” zone, meaning that people have been told to go into a strict lockdown.

Daxing district, in the south of the city, issued a notice yesterday banning people from leaving the city in the wake of rising cases. All public places have closed, and transport links have been restricted.

People in this district have been told to stay at home. In other parts of Beijing, businesses have been urged to cap their visitor flows at 50% capacity.

Nurseries across wider Beijing have announced they are closing amid growing fears of a wider outbreak. Local health officials say that the UK variant has been detected amidst the cases, and that this has made anti-epidemic work “more difficult”.

The district has more than half a million residents, who have been undergoing testing since Monday. Eleven cases have been detected in Daxing district alone since Sunday.

There have been fears of an outbreak in China’s capital since the beginning of the year, when neighbouring Hebei province reported numerous cases. Many people commute from Hebei into Beijing.

However, the national Global Times newspaper says that cases in Hebei have been “significantly curbed” over the last five days.

Image source, Reuters

Kate Nicholls, CEO for UK Hospitality, tells BBC Radio 4's the World at One that proposals to leave bars and restaurants closed until May will mean “there would be very little left of the sector” afterwards.

Her comments come after the PM says it is "too early to say" when England's lockdown measures will end, and Imperial and Warwick University modellers claim premature opening of the hospitality sector will lead to “a bump” in Covid transmission rates.

“If we are pushed back to reopening in May that will be seven months that the sector has been closed without revenue and we would really struggle to survive through this," she says.

“Just one in five hospitality businesses are confident that they’d have enough cash to get through beyond March.

“If we are to be closed for that much longer, we will need a significant additional injection of cash support from the government to get us through this because the support at the moment is just not sufficient to sustain and maintain businesses and jobs.”

Image source, Getty Images

In April last year, coronavirus hit Ecuador so badly that bodies were left in the streets of its largest city Guayaquil as authorities couldn't keep up with deaths.

Today the south American country is to begin its vaccination programme, starting with medical workers.

On Wednesday the first of 18 million doses arrived by plane, secured partly through the global Covax programme that aims to supply vaccines to poorer countries. Ecuador's government also negotiated with pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Covaxx to buy the jabs.

It comes as infections are rising, once again pushing hospitals close to capacity. The country has seen nearly 10,000 deaths.

Vaccines will be offered to the wider public from March, the government says, and it's hoped the country's 17.4 million people will be inoculated by October.

Elsewhere in Latin America:

• Mexico is reporting record highs in Covid-19 deaths, with 1,539 fatalities recorded on Wednesday
• In Venezuela, two babies aged under six months have died from coronavirus in the past week - authorities are predicting a rise in cases in January and February

Image source, Getty Images

Bars and restaurants should not open before May, a scientist who sits on a sub-group of Sage (the government's scientific advisory committee) suggests.

Dr Marc Baguelin, from Imperial College London, says reopening hospitality businesses too early could lead to a "bump" in Covid cases.

"We looked at the partial reopening and the increase in the R number, it will generate an increase in the R number, the extent of which we don't know really," he tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.

The R number is the average number of people that one infected person passes the virus on to.

"Something of this scale, if it was to happen earlier than May, would generate a bump in transmission, which is already really bad," he says.

"So you have a lot of pressure on hospitals, you will have another wave of some extent.

"At best you will keep on having a very, very unsustainable level of pressure on the NHS."

Image source, Reuters

The Russian coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik V, has been approved for the first time in an EU country.

Hungary has given preliminary approval to the jab, as well as the Oxford-AstraZeneca one.

The country's foreign minister is travelling to Moscow for further talks, where he is expected to discuss a shipment and distribution deal.

Early results from trials of the Sputnik vaccine have shown promising results.

Russia was the first country to register a Covid vaccine for emergency use - in August - despite it only having been tested on a few dozen people. It is now being offered to Russians as part of a mass vaccination campaign.

There's more from Hungary here, or read more on the different vaccines here.

Image source, Reuters

Just under a quarter of over-80s in Wales have been given their first dose of coronavirus vaccine, according to new figures from Public Health Wales.

There have been 43,879 doses - which represents 23.9% of this priority group for the Covid-19 jab.

More than half of care home residents and two thirds of care home workers have also had their first doses.

Meanwhile, the total number of first dose vaccinations has reached 190,435 in Wales - 6% of the population.

Image source, PA Media

The first mosque in the UK to become a Covid vaccination centre has opened this morning in Birmingham.

The Al-Abbas Islamic Centre in Balsall Heath is expected to vaccinate more than 200 people today.

The imam, Sheikh Nuru Mohammed, told the BBC he hoped the move would help dispel false information that the vaccine was haram – or forbidden – in Islamic law.

“It means a lot to us to open as a vaccine centre. It is a blessing that we have this opportunity to serve not only the Muslim community but also the wider community,” he said.

“It will send a strong message to our Muslim brothers and sisters. We are doing this to say a big ‘no’ to fake news and a big ‘yes’ to the vaccine.

“Muslim scholars advise us to get the vaccine because the sanctity of life is important in Islam.”

Image source, Getty Images

The cancellation of Glastonbury Festival for the second year in a row is "devastating", the chair of the Commons culture committee says.

Conservative MP Julian Knight said in a tweet, external: "We have repeatedly called for ministers to act to protect our world-renowned festivals like this one with a government-backed insurance scheme.

"Our plea fell on deaf ears and now the chickens have come home to roost."

Rob da Bank, DJ and co-founder of the Bestival music festival, which was last held in 2018, said he was "gutted" about the news.

However, he said he still felt "optimistic" the UK festival season would happen this summer.

"Sadly Glasto is such a mammoth beast to plan it ran outta time," he tweeted, external.