Image source, SHUTTERSTOCK

DJ Jo Whiley says it has been "the worst week of our lives" as her sister, who has a learning disability and diabetes, is in hospital with Covid.

The BBC Radio 2 presenter said Frances Whiley, 53, had been called in for a vaccine appointment on Saturday evening, but it was "too late" and she was now "fighting for her life".

"It couldn't be crueller," Whiley told the BBC's Andrew Marr.

The DJ has previously questioned why she was offered the vaccine before her sister, who has the rare genetic syndrome Cri du Chat.

"I have no idea why I was offered the vaccine and my sister wasn't - it felt like the cruellest twist in the world because I've been asking for her, wanting for her to have her vaccine for a year... to be protected," she said.

• When will it be my turn to be vaccinated?
• Five things we still don't know about the vaccine rollout
• Jo Whiley: 'I'd give up my Covid vaccine in a heartbeat'

Earlier this week the DJ told BBC Radio 4 it was possible she was offered the vaccine because she is listed as her sister's carer.

She said people with complex needs should be vaccinated "as quickly as possible".

The DJ said her family has "hope" because Frances's oxygen levels improved yesterday: "Twenty-four hours ago we didn't have any hope at all, so she is an amazing fighter, she always has been a great fighter and I'm just hoping that her spirit gets her through."

Read the full story here.

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Scotland's Education Secretary John Swinney has insisted it is safe for the youngest pupils to return to the classroom.

Children in early years education and the first three years of primary will go back to school on Monday.

It is the first step in a phased reopening of schools, which have been closed to all but a minority of pupils since the beginning of January.

Concerns were raised by the EIS teaching union and one epidemiologist about the measures put in place to reduce risk of transmission in schools.

But Mr Swinney said "detailed clinical analysis" assured him it was safe.

When will schools go back in other parts of the UK?

Boris Johnson will make an an announcement tomorrow about the re-opening of schools in England. The government has previously said its aim is to get all pupils in England back to the classroom on 8 March, but it's not certain that every pupil will be able to return before the Easter holidays at the start of April.

In Wales, pupils aged three to seven will return to classrooms from tomorrow - along with some older pupils on vocational courses. First Minister Mark Drakeford says he hopes older primary pupils - and secondary pupils preparing for exams - will be back on Monday 15 March.

And in Northern Ireland, schools will open to primary school pupils in years one to three on 8 March. Children in pre-school settings are also likely to return then. Pupils in years 12 to 14 will not return until 22 March. However, pupils in years four to seven in primaries and years eight to 11 will not return before the Easter break at the start of April.

Click here for more information on schools.

As the US Covid death toll continues to climb, artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg is working to commemorate each life lost through an elaborate art installation featuring thousands of white flags.

When she ran out of space on the ground at Washington DC's RFK Stadium, the installation was dismantled and transferred online.

There have been other installations in the American capital using flags seeking to capture the scale of the pandemic, external, such as the Covid Memorial Project which saw the installation of 20,000 US flags on the National Mall in September, or one by the advocacy group Covid Survivors for Change, which placed 20,000 empty black chairs on the White House Ellipse in October, PBS reports.

A part of Essex will see "surge testing" rolled out after a case of the South African variant was found in the area.

People in the CM13 postcode in Brentwood are "strongly encouraged" to take a test when offered, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said - whether or not they have symptoms.

"Working in partnership with the local authority, additional testing and genomic sequencing is being deployed to the CM13 postcode in Brentwood, Essex, where a single case of the Covid-19 variant first identified in South Africa has been found," the spokesman said.

Surge testing for the South African variant in England began on 1 February.

It is additional community testing to help reduce the spread of infection by finding asymptomatic cases and prompting people to self-isolate.

Positive cases will be sequenced for genomic data to help scientists and public health officials understand the variant and its spread.

Reality Check

Image source, EPA

Africa has now recorded more than 100,000 deaths from coronavirus, and there's been concern over the delay in rolling out Covid-19 vaccinations there.

Some nations have just begun vaccination programmes, but many have yet to start.

There has been global competition to get hold of vaccines, and African countries have generally not been as successful as richer countries in securing supplies.

Currently, in North Africa, these are the countries vaccinating (and the vaccines being used):

• Morocco (AstraZeneca and Sinopharm)
• Algeria (Sputnik V)
• Egypt (Sinopharm)

In sub-Saharan Africa, the countries vaccinating are:

• South Africa (Johnson & Johnson)
• Seychelles (Sinopharm and AstraZeneca)
• Rwanda (reportedly using Pfizer and Moderna)
• Mauritius (AstraZeneca)
• Zimbabwe (Sinopharm)

Read more here.

A statistician who advises the government on coronavirus says the prime minister will still need "highly local" measures in the plan to ease lockdown that he is due to announce tomorrow.

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter told Times Radio: "I understand they're going to try to have national measures, rather than regional tiered systems, since that caused such a lot of problems.

"It seems to me that there's still going to be a need for highly local measures that might have to take place."

The member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) says "three weeks" might be needed between each step to ease lockdown "to have a feeling for what's happening so that any impact can feed through the charts".

"Things can change pretty rapidly, and that's quite worrying," he says.

"I do like this idea of an adaptive strategy," he says, adding: "Something I wish they'd done right at the beginning, of admitting the uncertainty, that there's so much we still don't know and things can be taken by surprise."

Image source, Getty Images

Welsh education minister Kirsty Williams says she is confident more primary school children will be able to return to face-to-face learning from 15 March if Covid cases continue to fall.

Children aged between three and seven start a phased return on Monday, along with some students on college courses.

Williams also says high school pupils may eventually return on a phased basis.

She told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement: "If the public health situation continues to develop as it has been doing since the lockdown in December, then I am as confident as I can be that we will be able to return more children to face-to-face learning on 15 March."

But she said schools are "highly-regulated settings" and this should not be seen as a "sign that things can go back to normal".

There could not be a "return to sleepovers or birthday parties", Williams said.

"It is behaviour around school - on the journey to school, at the school gate, on your way home and at the weekend - that will help us keep the public health situation improving which will allow more children to go back," she says.

Read the full story here.

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

Lockdown has reduced cases more than some believed was possible - and now there are the early indications the vaccination programme is having an impact too.

Despite this, it looks likely the government will announce a very gradual lifting of restrictions in England on Monday.

Why the caution? Even if rates rebound only a little, there are still large numbers of vulnerable people. Nearly half of hospitalisations have been in the under-70s for example.

What is more, high levels of infection, at a time when vaccines are being rolled out and immunity being built, provides the perfect breeding ground for new variants.

Mutation may be unavoidable in the long-term, but encouraging them at this point would, many experts believe, be foolish.

The problem is that there are so many unknowns: Will the arrival of spring help to keep the virus at bay? Will the UK variant mean the reopening of schools has a significant impact on infection levels?

But, on the flip side, being too cautious will prolong the costs of lockdown. It is, to say the least, a tricky balancing act.

Matt Hancock has spent much of this morning defending his delay in publishing government contracts during the pandemic.

A judge ruled the health secretary had "breached his legal obligation" by not publishing details within 30 days of contracts being signed.

But Hancock has told the BBC his team had been focused on sourcing PPE.

He says they "spent all of their time buying life-saving equipment, even if the paperwork was a little bit late".

Image source, Reuters

And here are the latest developments around the world:

• Israel is easing lockdown restrictions as studies there reveal the Pfizer vaccine is 95.8% effective in preventing hospital admissions and death
• Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison has received the vaccine as the country prepares to start inoculations
• The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged Tanzania to start reporting coronavirus cases and share its data. It is one of the few countries in the world not to publish data on Covid-19 cases
• The mayor of Nice, France, says the southern city and the surrounding area need either a weekend lockdown or a local tightening of the nationwide curfew to combat coronavirus figures that are the worst in the country

Image source, Getty Images

The World Health Organization has urged Tanzania to start reporting coronavirus cases and share its data.

The WHO's plea comes after a spate of deaths of government officials.

Tanzania is one of the few countries in the world to not publish data on Covid-19 cases.

This makes it difficult to know the extent of the spread of coronavirus in Tanzania.

But WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that Tanzanians travelling outside the country have tested positive for coronavirus.

"This underscores the need for Tanzania to take robust action both to safeguard their own people and protect populations in these countries and beyond," he said.

Read more on this story..

Image source, Reuters

Former Conservative leader William Hague has urged the prime minister not to keep coronavirus lockdown restrictions in place beyond April when all those over 50 have had the opportunity to be vaccinated.

Speaking on Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday, he says there "wouldn't be much justification for keeping most of the restrictions on people" by then, provided the number of cases is down to a "very low level".

But he warns there would need to be a "deal" between the public and the government to do mass testing at that point, and said people would need to be ready for "rapid, ruthless" local lockdowns.

Lord Hague says he is hoping to hear in the "road map" to exiting lockdown, which Boris Johnson will announce on Monday, that the "great majority of restrictions on people can be lifted".

He says: "Now, he is presumably going to say that will depend on the progress that's being made and that's fair enough."

If you're just catching up, here's the latest coronavirus news in the UK this morning:

• Boris Johnson has pledged that all adults in the UK will be offered their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of July
• There is "early data" showing a reduction in transmission in people who have had a coronavirus vaccine, the health secretary has said
• Matt Hancock also said delaying publishing details of contracts awarded during the pandemic was "the right thing to do", despite a court ruling that he acted unlawfully
• The PM is today holding a final meeting with senior ministers about how to ease England's lockdown
• Some 292 British employers made plans to cut jobs in January, the lowest figure since the pandemic began
• DJ Jo Whiley has called it the "cruellest twist in the world" that she was offered a vaccine before her disabled sister, who is in hospital with Covid "fighting for her life"
• Wales education minister says she is confident more primary school children will be able to return to face-to-face learning from 15 March, if Covid cases continue to fall

Helen Catt
Political correspondent

The speedier rollout of the vaccine is likely to raise expectations - and pressure - for a swifter unlocking in England, but the government is still talking the language of caution.

Senior ministers will finalise the "roadmap" plan today before it's presented to the wider cabinet for approval tomorrow.

It's unlikely that any restrictions will change before 8 March, when the government hopes to get all children back into schools.

The prime minister has long said that is his top priority.

But it is likely that a small tweak will be made from that date to allow people to meet one other person outdoors for social purposes rather than just for exercise.

A Downing Street source said this would be the beginning of allowing people to meet each other for socialising once again as the government recognised the impact of not seeing loved ones.

It's understood various options - which could include reintroducing the rule of six - are being considered for the weeks beyond.

Coronavirus restrictions will be eased with "weeks between the steps", Matt Hancock has said.

The health secretary told Times Radio it takes a few weeks for the impact of lifting measures to be seen.

He says: "Hence there will be weeks between the steps so that we can watch carefully."

Hancock also says social distancing measures and the wearing of face coverings are likely to remain for a while.

"I want to see it more about personal responsibility over time as we have vaccinated more and more of the population," he says.

Image source, EPA

Data on whether the Covid vaccine affects transmission is "looking really good" says Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the government respiratory virus threats advisory group Nervtag.

"It is really looking promising that vaccination not only stops you being at risk personally but also interrupts transmission to some degree," he told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House.

"We still need to estimate just how much that is, but it’s looking really good."

Asked whether he thought this would be the last lockdown, he said: "I don’t think we can say that, I mean we are all desperately sure that it should be and I think what we don’t want is a sort of stop-start lockdown.

"I think we’ve learned from the past that taking strong action and continuing that strong action and taking action early and maintaining it until we’ve really got low levels of infection is what we ought to be doing," he added.

"Combined with that, we really need to be able to track and trace the residual cases."

Image source, Reuters

Israel is easing lockdown restrictions as studies there reveal the Pfizer vaccine is 95.8% effective in preventing hospitalisations and death.

From Sunday, shops, libraries and museums can open but social distancing and masks are still required.

The health ministry says it is the first stage of returning to normal life.

Israel has the highest vaccination rate in the world. More than 49% of people have received at least one dose, external.

The country entered its third lockdown on 27 December after a resurgence of the virus.

Under the easing measures, people are now able to enter shopping malls and tourist attractions such as zoos.

DJ Jo Whiley says that her sister Frances, who has learning disabilities and diabetes, has "rallied round" since being admitted to hospital with Covid - but it has been "the worst week of our lives".

She tells Andrew Marr that being offered a coronavrius vaccine before her sister Frances, who has the rare Cri du Chat genetic syndrome, "felt like cruellest twist in the world".

"She actually was called in for her vaccine last night," she says. "But it's too late, she's fighting for her life in hospital. It couldn't be crueller."

Whiley says medical staff do not know how people with learning disabilities will react when they are taken to hospital with Covid - Frances was "petrified", she says - and so they should be vaccinated as quickly as possible.

"I'm talking to you today because I just want to give them a voice. We should be doing more for these people who have no way of helping themselves," she says.

"Get them and their carers who are going into the home... vaccinated. Stop them dying, now."

The BBC's Andrew Marr also asks the health secretary how many cases of the problematic South Africa variant there are in England at the moment.

Matt Hancock says: "In total we've seen around 300 but most of those are historic cases from over a month ago and the latest data shows there are a dozen new ones so a much, much smaller number.

"And each time we find a new one we absolutely clamp down on it with enhanced contract tracing."

Marr asks if the spread of the South Africa variant is "shrinking".

Hancock replies: "I think that's a good summary yes".

He says there were fewer cases coming into the country thanks to tougher border restrictions.

The BBC's Andrew Marr also asks Matt Hancock about summer holidays.

Marr says Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said people should not book domestic holidays and Prime Minister Boris Johnson says it is much too early to book holidays.

"But you say 'I've booked a holiday in Cornwall', who should people listen to?" Marr asks

"I booked mine ages ago," says Hancock.

"I booked the same place as last year as soon as we finished that holiday because we enjoyed it so much," he says.

Marr asks if he's paid for the holiday and Hancock says he has "paid a deposit" but "what does it matter?"

He says: "The prime minister will be setting out more details on all these things in the roadmap published tomorrow."