Jabs will be offered to those aged 35 and over in England next week
More than 20 million people in the UK have had two doses of a vaccine
Health Secretary Matt Hancock says Monday's lockdown easing "remains on track" because of "very high uptake rates of the vaccine"
He says the Indian variant is more transmissible and likely to become "dominant" in the UK but he is "confident" the jab works against it
Five people who have had a single jab have been hospitalised with the Indian variant in Bolton, and one who had received both
If the variant is 40-50% more transmissible than the Kent variant, the UK will have a "real problem", he adds
People are being urged to be very cautious about mixing as restrictions are lifted in England, Scotland and Wales on Monday
Indoor hospitality and entertainment venues will reopen and more people can meet outdoors, with limited indoor mixing also allowed
No 10 has defended its decision not to ban travel from India sooner, saying the UK has "some of the toughest border measures" in the world
But Labour's Yvette Cooper says the government should have put India on the travel "red list" much earlier
If you missed it earlier, here's Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirming six vaccinated people have been hospitalised with the Indian variant in Bolton.
Covid: Six Indian variant hospitalisations in Bolton despite vaccine - Hancock
If you need a recap on the day's coronavirus developments so far, here's where we are at:
Image source, Getty ImagesYou may have heard friends and family taking about feeling side effects after their Covid vaccine.
For most it's just a sore arm - for others it can wipe them out - but why does it happen?
"Sometimes our immune response is exaggerated, especially when you are having a vaccine," says immunologist Dr Veenu Manoharan.
The "exaggerated" responses are those fevers and chills or fatigue, as your body is tricked into believing it is under attack and needs to respond.
Women are more likely to trigger a stronger immune response, because the hormone oestrogen is known to enhance the immune system. But higher levels of testosterone in men suppress the inflammatory response of the reaction.
Age also plays its part. As you get older, your immune system becomes less active so older people are expected to experience less of a reaction. And the younger you are, the more likely your immune system will react more energetically to the vaccine.
By Dr Manoharan says: "If you don't have an exaggerated reaction, it does not mean your immune system isn't working."
Lucy Hooker
Business reporter
Image source, Oskar AliOskar and his wife invested thousands of pounds to set up the restaurant
Monday sees another milestone in the reopening of the economy - people in most of the UK will be able to go to a bar or restaurant and eat indoors.
But some favourite haunts will no longer be there: over the last year, thousands of establishments have closed, latest surveys indicate.
Across Britain, there are 9.7% fewer restaurants to choose from, compared with before the pandemic. And mid-market "casual dining" venues have fallen by 19.4%.
The data in the latest Market Recovery Monitor from CGA and AlixPartners suggests that while many pubs and bars have also struggled to survive the pandemic, it is restaurants that have fared worst.
That includes places such as Falafilo Island opened in 2018 by Oskar Ali and his wife in Newport in Wales.
"We had so many lovely customers, but corona just hit us so hard, we had to close," Oskar told BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme.
They hoped a busy Christmas might save them, but Oskar's wife caught Covid and they had to isolate for two weeks.
"Then it was January and we thought: we should just close," he says. "We couldn't survive, even with the grants they gave." You can read more on the restaurants lost in the pandemic here.
Image source, ReutersLet's catch up with the latest coronavirus developments worldwide this Sunday:
Image source, Getty ImagesPrime Minister Boris Johnson has insisted it is safe to move to the next step of easing lockdown restrictions in England tomorrow. But he has warned the Indian variant means it could be "more difficult" to lift England's remaining restrictions in June.
Here are some of the things that are changing tomorrow:
You can find out how the easing of lockdown measures vary across the UK here.
From Monday, pubs, cafes and restaurants in many parts of the UK will welcome customers back indoors, overnight stays will be allowed and we'll finally be allowed to hug our loved ones.
But how will the professors and health professionals, who have been tracking the pandemic every step of the way, be behaving? We asked five experts what they feel safe doing, what will they be avoiding, and whether they'll be hitting that Monday morning spin class.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe health secretary announced this morning that from next week those aged 35 and over in England will be able to book their coronavirus vaccine.
And a member of the JCVI says they will be looking into whether to reverse the recommendation that under 40s should have an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine to speed up the rollout.
The committee has also advised that because of concerns over the Indian variant, the over-50s and people who are clinically vulnerable should receive their second doses eight weeks after the first, instead of 12 weeks.
Currently more than two-thirds of UK adults - 36 million people - have had a first dose of a Covid vaccine, while a third of adults are now fully vaccinated with two doses.
You can take a look at our explainer to work out when you're likely to get your jabs.
A former Oxofrd professor says nobody should go on a foreign holiday this summer.
Oxford’s Emeritus Professor of Medicine Sir John Bell told Times Radio: “I don't think anybody's going on a holiday, except in the UK.
"There are very broad swathes of Europe that are largely unvaccinated...so they’re pretty vulnerable to new variants, be it Indian or otherwise sweeping across the continent.
"Having people flying around and coming back with whatever local variant they run into, that is not a good idea. Cornwall or Bournemouth is not so bad".
He says: “I don't want to be a party pooper but the most important thing is not to prolong this any longer than we absolutely have to, so going about this cautiously could be quite helpful to everybody.”
Sir John Bell also reveals that a landmark Oxford study has found that current coronavirus vaccines work well against the Indian variant: "It looks like the Indian variant will be susceptible to the vaccine in the way that others are. The data looks rather promising".
"If you do the lab experiment, it looks okay. It's not perfect but it’s not catastrophically bad. There's a slight reduction in the ability to neutralise the virus, but it's not very great and certainly not as great as you see with the South African variant".
Image source, Getty ImagesExtra Covid tests are taking place in areas where new variants of coronavirus have been found.
This is known as surge testing - it's carried out to stop the spread of new forms of Covid at the very earliest stage.
So how does surge testing work? Read more about it here.
David Shukman
Science editor, BBC News
Three things explain why the government and experts are sounding so cautious.
First, we’ve known for a while that the vast majority of Covid infections take place when people mix indoors, and that’s exactly what will be allowed with the next phase of lockdown easing in England tomorrow.
Second, the vaccination programme, for all its success, is still a long way from reaching all adults with two doses. And, even when it does, it can’t guarantee 100% protection for everyone.
Third, the more transmissible Indian variant is casting an unsettling shadow over the roadmap out of lockdown. The guidance is to be concerned rather than to panic. The variant may well be less hazardous than feared but key questions about it remain unanswered.
In any event, the hope is to vaccinate many more people as quickly as possible and in the meantime to highlight the risks. The advice can be summed up like this: think twice about lingering for hours in a crowded room that has little fresh air.
Image source, ReutersThe boss of the world's busiest airport for international passengers has said Covid passports are the only way to restart mass foreign travel.
Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths told the BBC: "I don't think there is an alternative."
Critics of the digital systems argue they discriminate against those who cannot get vaccinated.
But Mr Griffiths says he is a complete supporter of the documents, which he says are "inevitable".
"I think the problem is not the vaccine passport and its discrimination. It's the need to roll things out and have a proper globally equitable vaccine programme," he says.
The World Health Organisation and World Travel & Tourism Council are among those opposed to vaccine passports amid fears they will create a "two-tier society".
We've got more on the vaccine passport debate here.
Image source, PA MediaAs we've heard this morning, the government has come under criticism for not banning travel from India, amid concern that the coronavirus variant first discovered there is now spreading quickly in parts of the UK.
No 10 has defended its decision not to ban travel from India sooner, saying the UK has "some of the toughest border measures".
India was reporting more than 100,000 cases a day by 5 April, but was not added to the red list until 23 April.
Asked why the borders were not closed sooner, a government spokesman told the BBC: "We took precautionary action to ban travel from India on 23 April, six days before this variant was put under investigation and two weeks before it was labelled as of concern.
"Prior to India being placed on the red list in April anyone coming to the UK had to test negative and quarantine for 10 days."
By the time the travel ban came into force, daily Covid cases in India had risen above 330,000.
Our Reality Check team examine Why was India not put on the red list sooner?
Image source, ReutersThe JCVI will look again at the recommendation that people under 40 should be offered non-AstraZeneca jabs if it means that it could speed up the rollout, member Professor Adam Finn says.
Currently, most under 40s are being offered an alternative to the AZ vaccine due to a link with rare blood clots.
Prof Finn told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday it was "on the agenda and if necessary that's something that could be done".
"When we expressed a preference for non-AstraZeneca vaccines for this age group it was done in a very provisional way on the basis of everything going absolutely right.
"And if the evidence shows that the risk benefit balance for people in their 30s is to be offered that vaccine then absolutely that recommendation will be changed.
"At the moment we don't think that's necessary, but it could well become a recommendation in the future."
Health Secretary Matt Hancock did not rule out that tomorrow's easing of restrictions may have to be reversed if the Indian variant proves to be very highly transmissible.
He told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday: "I very much hope not and our goal remains, our strategy remains, to take a cautious and irreversible approach to ensure that we're always looking at the data all the way through, and crucially to use the vaccine to get us out of this pandemic."
He says there will be a "very, very large number of cases" if the Indian variant "gets out of hand".
"We do need to make sure we don't get that explosion in cases, so we need to be cautious, we need to be careful, we need to be vigilant."
"We will make a final decision for step 4, which is the biggest step in the road map, we will make that decision on June 14."
Matt Hancock signalled the government would be prepared to implement a local lockdown in Bolton if one was needed to protect people.
Sky's Sophy Ridge asked the health secretary about the prospect of specific areas having different restrictions compared to the rest of the country to deal with the risk posed by Covid-19 variants.
Hancock replied: "We do not rule that out".
He says: "The approach we're taking in Bolton and Blackburn is to absolutely pile in testing and vaccinations to try to get on top of this.
"At the moment we're taking the approach that worked in south London - which is this massive surge testing - but of course we don't rule out further action.
"Given though Bolton has been in some form of kind of a lockdown for a year, it's not a step we want to take but of course we might have to take it and we will if it's necessary to protect people."
We've got more from Professor Sir Mark Walport, who is a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for emergencies (Sage).
He told Sky's Sophy Ridge it will be "extremely important" to keep an eye on the numbers over the next few weeks, and described the pandemic as a "perilous moment".
He says: "It's critical that people do get tested and do report that they have symptoms and isolate themselves and their families. These are all really important things, and we are going to learn over the next two or three weeks what the impact of the changes is.
"And the problem is that the data takes some while to emerge, which is why there's you know every grounds to be very cautious about the ability to open up in June.
"I think it's fair to say it is a perilous moment. We have a variant that shows good evidence of being more transmissible and possibly significantly more transmissible.
"We're going to have to watch the numbers extremely closely. And the other thing that we do know is that this new variant from India is actually quite widely distributed across the country."
Image source, PA MediaAs the BBC One's Andrew Marr Show finishes, let's take a look back at what we've heard during Sunday's political programmes:
Marr asks Hancock asks if the government will be pushing surge vaccinations in areas where there are high numbers of cases of the Indian variant.
Hancock says: "Yes we are putting in extras vaccinators, we are putting in a new vaccination site in Bolton tomorrow, we want everybody in Bolton who is eligible to come forward.
"And also this coming week we are going to be opening up vaccination to the 35s and over across the country because this isn't just about accelelating the vaccination programme in Bolton it's about going as fast as we can nationwide."
Marr asks Hancock if there is anything we can do to stop the Indian variant becoming the dominant strain in the UK.
Hancock says: "It's quite likely that this will become the dominant variant...but the good news is that because we have increasing confidence that the vaccine works against the variant the strategy is on track - it's just the virus has just gained a bit of pace and we've all got to be that much more careful and cautious."