If you're just joining us, here's a selection of the day's top coronavirus headlines.

• Nearly two million people in the UK have received their first dose of a Covid vaccine in the past week, government figures show, and the number of vaccinations is going up by around 200 every minute
• However, it is "too early" to say whether England's Covid restrictions will be able to end in the spring, PM Boris Johnson has said
• Glastonbury Festival has been cancelled for a second year running due to the impact of the pandemic
• Schools in England will be given two weeks' notice before reopening, the education secretary has said, but he added he is "not able to exactly say" when pupils will return to class
• Scientists tracking the spread of coronavirus in England say infection levels in the community may have risen at the start of the latest lockdown
• In the US, newly-sworn-in President Joe Biden is set to sign 10 executive orders to boost the fight against Covid, which has ravaged the country
• And finally, Hungary has become the first country in the European Union to give preliminary approval to the Russian coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik V

Image source, Getty Images

One of the mysteries of Covid-19 is why oxygen levels in the blood can drop to dangerously low levels without the patient noticing.

It is known as "silent hypoxia".

As a result, patients have been arriving in hospital in far worse health than they realised and, in some cases, too late to treat effectively.

But a potentially life-saving solution, in the form of a pulse oximeter, allows patients to monitor their oxygen levels at home, and costs about £20.

They are being rolled out for high-risk Covid patients in the UK, and the doctor leading the scheme thinks everyone should consider buying one.

The BBC's James Gallagher takes a closer look at them here.

Image source, Getty Images

Earlier we heard how house hunters are taking advantage of lockdown rules to travel hundreds of miles to view homes, according to some estate agents.

Many buyers are keen to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday, which is due to end on 31 March.

Stamp duty is a tax paid by people buying properties. The amount paid to the government depends on where you are in the UK, and the price of the property.

In July, the government suspended stamp duty on the first £500,000 of all property sales in England and Northern Ireland to help to boost the market.

You can read more about the stamp duty holiday here.

Image source, PA Media

The 79-year-old mother of England's deputy chief medical officer has had her coronavirus vaccination.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, who is also a regular feature at Downing Street coronavirus press conferences, has repeatedly spoken about encouraging his mother Elizabeth Van-Tam to be ready to receive the vaccine when she got the call.

Prof Van-Tam, who said his mother calls him "Jonny", said he had told her it was "really important" to get the jab because she is "so at risk".

She had her vaccination on Thursday at a GP surgery in Whittlesey, near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

Robert Cuffe
BBC head of statistics

In the most recent week, 54% of in-person test results were received within 24 hours – up significantly from about 30% last week.

NHS Test and Trace reached just under 87% of people who tested positive – this has been stable for weeks.

Infected people told Test and Trace about 84,000 close contacts (who don’t live in the same house). Tracers reached just under 70% of them. That figure is, again, stable.

About 11% of people who came forward for testing were positive for coronavirus. This is down to just above pre-Christmas levels (9-10%), and sharply down from recent figures (15-17%).

Image source, PAcemaker

We haven't got a set end date for any of the lockdowns in the UK, with each of the nations responsible for their own rules.

But Northern Ireland is the first nation to indicate the lockdown could be extended into March.

The BBC understands that NI's health minister Robin Swann has proposed extending the nation's current lockdown until 5 March. The Stormont executive will meet later to consider the proposals.

It's not clear whether Mr Swann will suggest any other tougher measures. NI's six-week lockdown began on 26 December.

None of the other nations have committed to an end date for lockdown. Earlier, Boris Johnson said it was "too early to say" when England's rules could be lifted - although we already knew the rules won't be reviewed until mid-February.

In Scotland, the lockdown has been extended until at least mid-February as well, while Wales is to make a decision on whether to extend its rules by 29 January

Read more from NI here.

Ben Butcher
BBC Reality Check

Forty hospital trusts in England – three in 10 of those with adult critical care beds – had more than 95% of those critical care beds occupied in the latest week, according to NHS England statistics.

Fifteen of those hospitals had every bed filled across the week ending 17 January.

As this chart shows, despite the NHS laying on more and more critical care beds since the beginning of November, patient numbers are rising even faster.

Across England, average critical care occupancy stood at 86%, meaning almost nine in 10 critical care beds had patients in them.

In London, occupancy has reached as high as 93%.

The Intensive Care Society notes that increasing beds only goes some way to addressing rising demand – you need extra staff and equipment in place to manage them too

Reports have noted that the number of nurses and doctors per bed has dropped in recent weeks in some NHS trusts.

Read more on this topic: How busy are hospitals in England?

Glastonbury Festival has been cancelled due to the pandemic for the second consecutive year.

The organisers say they have attempted to move "heaven and earth" but they are "simply not able" to facilitate it going ahead.

"We are so sorry to let you all down," they say in a statement.

As with last year, people who have paid their deposits will be allowed to roll over their tickets for the 2022 festival.

Image source, Reuters

Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th US president yesterday, and has immediately turned his attention to the pandemic.

President Biden is set to sign 10 executive orders to boost the fight against Covid, which has ravaged the US.

Vaccination will be accelerated and testing increased. Emergency legislation will be used to increase production of essentials such as masks.

In a break with former President Donald Trump, the policy stresses a national strategy, rather than relying on states to decide what is best.

You can read more about his plans to tackle Covid here.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called for schools in England to reopen as "safely as soon as possible" adding it was "not rocket science" to do so.

His comments come after Education Secretary Gavin Williamson this morning told the BBC he "certainly" hoped schools would be able to reopen "before Easter" - and that he was keen to reintroduce daily testing of pupils, after plans were paused on the advice of Public Health England.

Mr Starmer said that, in the meantime, the government needed to "give children the ability to learn at home now" and "get on with the blindingly obvious" move of putting testing in place in school, the lack of which he described as "unbelievable".

Asked how he would grade Mr Williamson's performance during the pandemic, the Labour Leader said he has "failed", adding "I think the country has given him an 'F'."

You can read more about when schools will reopen here.

And in November, BBC health correspondent Laura Foster looked at the riskiest parts of schools and some of the ideas being used to help stop Covid-19 spreading - you can watch that video here.

Image source, PA Media

During a visit to an area of Manchester which has been hit by flooding, Boris Johnson was asked about when he thought England's national lockdown could end.

"I think it's too early to say when we'll be able to lift some of some of the restrictions," he said

"We're looking at that February 15 deadline, as you know, for the JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advisory body) groups one to four - the elderly, the vulnerable groups that we want to vaccinate first, that 15 million people across the UK that we want to have been offered a vaccination slot by 15 February," he said.

"We'll look then at how we're doing."

Mr Johnson added that data from the Office for National Statistics suggests "we're seeing the contagiousness of the new variant that we saw arrive just before Christmas".

"There's no doubt it does spread very fast indeed. It's not more deadly but it is much more contagious," he said.

There's more on the government's vaccination plan and target of mid-February here.

Home Secretary Priti Patel will hold a Downing Street briefing at 17:00 GMT.

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

We'll bring you live updates from that briefing right here.

The government will consider prioritising key workers for the Covid jab after the most vulnerable groups have been vaccinated, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.

“The priority of course has to be those who are clinically most vulnerable," he told the Commons.

But after this, Hancock said the government would look at data on transmission and who spreads the virus the most.

"And we’ll also of course consider key workers, who often are in the frontline themselves," he added.

“That is something that we’re currently actively considering.”

Image source, New Covenant Ministries

More must be done to encourage African and Caribbean communities to sign up for Covid vaccines, a pastor has warned.

The comments from Emmanuel Adeseko, 32, of the New Covenant Ministries in Birmingham, come after a report last week said uptake of the vaccine in some of the city's most vulnerable communities was as low as 50%.

Mr Adeseko, whose 65-year-old father Nathaniel died from coronavirus in April, said there is real fear in sections of the community and if the lower uptake is correct he will not be surprised as people are "afraid".

"There are religious beliefs at play in some cases and some people have had negative experiences with healthcare in the past," he said.

You can read the full story here.

BBC Radio 5 Live

This morning on BBC Radio 5 Live, Nicky Campbell asked listeners if they’d support coronavirus ‘passports’ - allowing those who’ve been vaccinated access to large gatherings and public events.

Justin in Hertfordshire is a fan of the idea.

"I travel to Africa regularly and have a Yellow Fever vaccination card that’s operated for years. I’m struggling to understand why anyone would have an issue with having a vaccine card for Covid. This virus has changed the way that we have to operate."

But another caller, William, disagreed, saying whilst the vaccine can protect those who’ve had it, it "may not stop transmission".

"I think needing a passport for cinemas, bars and cafes is totally ridiculous. I can’t see it ever happening and it shouldn’t ever happen."

Former police officer Richard questioned how a Covid passport would be enforced. "I have 30 years’ experience of knowing how difficult the police find it to have the right level of enforcement… If this is going to happen, it’s got to be laid down in legislation."

Listen back to Your Call on BBC Sounds.

In the Commons this morning, the health secretary is asked by Lib Dem MP Munira Wilson about reports that data from Israel suggests the efficacy from one dose of the Pfizer vaccine may be lower than first expected.

Matt Hancock says around 89% efficacy comes between days 14 and 21 after getting a first dose of the Pfizer jab.

He says the data supports the UK's decision to delay giving people a second dose of the vaccine until 12 weeks after their first dose.

He adds the the UK is also monitoring its own data on those who have already been vaccinated.

• Read more: How effective is a single vaccine dose against Covid-19?

Image source, Getty Images

We've heard before about how young people have been hit particularly hard by the economic impact of the coronavirus.

Now we have more data showing the same thing - the Office for National Statistic has found young people and those on the lowest wages have seen the biggest impact on their jobs and income.

Higher paid workers, meanwhile, were less likely to be furloughed and more likely to be on full pay if they were unable to work.

The analysis from the ONS - which looks at incomes over March to December 2020 - shows that nearly nine million people had to borrow more money than usual because of the added financial strain of the pandemic, with the poorest 20% most likely to have a decreased income.

Their research also showed parents living with children were almost twice as likely to report a reduction in income between March and December last year, compared to the the wider population. However that gap gradually narrowed throughout the year as schools reopened.

“What we are seeing now, though, is a widening financial gap between households, where some people are relying on savings or borrowing to make ends meet," said Gueorguie Vassilev from the ONS.

"Those hardest hit are people on low pay, young people and parents of dependent children.”

More on this topic:

• Seven ways the young have been hit by Covid
• 'My spending has gone up, not down, in lockdown'

The government is "vigilant" about the potential need to redesign vaccines if they are not effective against new variants, Health Secretary Matt Hancock says.

He tells the Commons: “The early indications are that the new variant is dealt with by the vaccine just as much as the old variant.”

However, he says the government is also "vigilant" about new variants overseas, including the those identified in South Africa and Brazil.

Some 63% of elderly residents in care homes have now received a Covid vaccination, Health Secretary Matt Hancock says.

He describes this as "a really significant increase over the last week" and says the government is "on track" to deliver its goal of vaccinating elderly care home residents by the end of this month "and I hope sooner than that".

Read more on this story, and the picture across all UK nations, here.

Image source, Getty Images

One in 10 major hospital trusts had no spare adult critical care beds last week, figures published by NHS England this morning show.

That was for the week ending 17 January.

The hospital trusts with no spare intensive care beds included University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust - one of the largest trusts in England.

Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust and Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust were also among the 15 acute trusts - out of 140 in England - on the list.