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Residential care homes run by Manx Care are starting a staggered reopening after being closed amid rising coronavirus infections.

Eight care homes on the Isle of Man have been closed to visitors and new admissions after "increased levels of community transmission".

Reayrt-ny-Baie in Douglas - which was the first care home to close in July when Covid cases emerged there - will stay shut because of "the continued outbreak of Covid-19 in the home".

But other care homes on the island are reopening. However, strict rules will stay in place for at least two weeks, including mandatory lateral flow tests and PPE usage for visitors.

Visits are limited to one person for a maximum of 15 minutes.

There are currently 582 active Covid cases on the island, with 12 people being treated in hospital.

Meanwhile more than 60,500 people have received two doses of a vaccine.

BBC Radio 5 Live

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Groups of runners, walkers, buggies and dogs have become a common sight on a Saturday morning at 09:00, in parks and green spaces across the globe, as they assemble for the weekly 5km Parkrun.

Before the pandemic, the timed events took place in 2,200 locations.

In England, events resumed in late July - 16 months after they were suspended due to Covid measures.

Most have restarted worldwide, but participation is down, according to group CEO Nick Pearson. He told the BBC they've seen a drop in runners of 10-15%.

Pearson says organisers intially believed this was due to concern about Covid-19 spreading, but their research has suggested otherwise.

"The biggest reason people aren't coming back is, they've got out of the habit of Saturday mornings... of physical activity. Or they've switched their day around, got into different routines," he tells Radio 5 Live's Wake Up to Money podcast.

"There's an important message there, when we look back and reflect on how we handled the pandemic. Good habits were broken quite quickly, I think.

"Surprisingly, it's older people coming back... younger people have switched their behaviours more rapidly.

"We'll look back and think every week that we were closed, we will have lost a percentage of people who broke that habit, and it will take them a period of time to get back into good, positive health habits."

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Scotland's education secretary has been talking about the rules for face masks in classrooms, saying use of them will be dropped "as soon as possible".

Most pupils in Scotland are returning to school this week.

All secondary school pupils in Scotland must wear masks at all times, but in England and Wales the rule has already been scrapped for classrooms. Northern Ireland has decided in principle to remove the rule for face coverings in the classroom, but it has yet to be confirmed.

The Scottish government had said the requirement would be in place for "at least six weeks" - but Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville has told the BBC if it can be dropped earlier, it will be.

In an interview with Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme, she says the rules are "erring on the side of caution".

Read more here.

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The changes to isolation rules in England and Northern Ireland are going to have big implications for industries disrupted by staff having to isolate.

And that includes one of the world's largest brake pad manufacturers, whose UK operations manager has told how the firm came close to shutting down production because of staff shortages caused by the so-called pingdemic.

Tom Russell of TMD Friction tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme that at one point, 15% of its UK staff had to isolate after being pinged by the NHS Covid app.

Some 40% of those were in the firm's maintenance teams, which led to a backlog of machines needing to be repaired.

He adds the pingdemic "created a awful lot of stress and heartache for people that were coming to work, but equally for those at home unable to work for reasons that they couldn't particularly understand".

Mr Russell is one of many bosses relieved with the changes to self-isolation rules - with Ralph Findlay, the chief executive of pub chain Marstons, saying they were were "very sensible" and would make a "big difference".

You can read more here.

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As we've been reporting, changes to Covid self-isolation rules in England and Northern Ireland have come into effect today.

The new rules were already in force in Scotland and Wales.

So what exactly are the changes?

• As of 16 August, under-18s and double-vaccinated adults do not have to self-isolate for 10 days if they have had close contact with someone who tests positive for Covid-19
• Instead, people in England are advised to take a PCR test - but you do not have to self-isolate while waiting for the result
• People are advised to take extra precautions such as wearing face coverings in enclosed spaces and limiting contact with others, especially the clinically vulnerable
• If you test negative, no further action is needed
• If you test positive, or start showing symptoms, you must still self-isolate for 10 days.

Image source, Caroline Gould

A study by the Mental Health Foundation suggests adults in Scotland living with physical or mental health conditions are significantly more anxious about the easing of coronavirus restrictions.

The BBC has spoken to one woman with a rare tissue disorder, who is continuing to shield beyond level zero.

Dr Caroline Gould, who lives in Broadford on the Isle of Skye, has a severe form of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which means her body lacks collagen and her joints are prone to dislocating.

She been inside a shop on three occasions since March last year.

"I know a lot of locals and it seems to be visitors that aren't wearing masks, respecting social distancing," she says.

"People lean from one side of my wheelchair across my face to reach across the shelf rather than waiting for me to move.

"Once I stopped in an aisle and people squeezed by - I ended up getting hit on the head with a wire basket. It doesn't encourage me to go out again."

She has also had problems when travelling outdoors due to summer tourist traffic.

She says there have been times when she's waited two hours just to cross the road.

You can read more here.

Lucy Whyte
BBC Scotland education correspondent

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Most Scottish pupils return to the classroom this week for the start of a third academic year affected by Covid.

The previous two years have seen long periods of remote online learning, disruptive self-isolation periods and no standard exams.

Lucy Whyte, BBC Scotland's education correspondent, takes a look at what we can expect from this year:

• Face coverings will still need to be worn at all times in classrooms and corridors by teachers and secondary school pupils
• One-metre distancing will remain in place between staff and between staff and pupils
• Restrictions on parents going into school buildings will continue
• Avoidance of large gatherings such as assemblies
• Less disruption as the bulk of contact-tracing work is passed from schools to Test and Trace. School pupils who are contact-traced will be encouraged to isolate until they have a negative PCR test result.

You can read more here.

A Welsh jazz festival has been criticised for deciding to scale back its programme of events, despite social-distancing restrictions ending.

Brecon Jazz is taking place throughout August, with limited audiences and no fringe or street events.

Organisers insisted it would be the "most accessible festival so far", despite this approach.

But some businesses said the reduced capacity would have a negative financial impact on them.

Claire Lyndon, who owns Tad Cod Fish and Chips in the town, said she couldn't understand the decision.

"I'm absolutely gutted, the town is usually buzzing... but as you can see there's no-one here," she told BBC Wales' Newyddion.

"[I am] very disappointed, with social distancing now being lifted. It usually takes five or six hours to clear the queue during Brecon Jazz, it's just non-stop."

But festival organiser Lynne Gornall said the "essence" of Brecon Jazz was that it's a "public festival and it sort of takes over Brecon town".

She said people and businesses in the town had been consulted, and that organisers had been working with the local council.

"It's been carefully done. We can't attract loads of people or the throng to our streets and I don't think people would want that this year."

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Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called on world leaders to convene an emergency vaccines summit before the United Nations General Assembly in September.

He said "only intervention at the highest level" by US President Joe Biden, UK PM Boris Johnson and this year's chairman of the G20, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, could hope to end "this vaccine inequality that shames the world".

Mr Brown said there was a "global vaccine scandal", with a lack of doses for Africa meaning that most countries on the continent will miss a target of vaccinating 10% of their citizens by next month.

While half of adults in most of the wealthiest economies have been double-jabbed, in Africa only 1.9% of the population have been fully vaccinated, he said.

He added: "Countries must end the inequitable arrangements that are preventing sufficient vaccines from getting to low-income countries, and those with excess supply must end their stranglehold on the available vaccines and not only release them to Africa and other low-income countries but help with finance and logistics support."

Mr Brown said the "biggest threat" we all face is Covid "spreading and mutating uninhibited in poor unvaccinated nations", and reiterated the message that "no-one in safe anywhere until everyone is safe everywhere".

Image source, Family handout

The daughter of a man who died after complications from Covid-19 has urged people to take precautions even if they have been fully vaccinated.

Jade Allum's 58-year-old father, David, died in hospital last month after suffering a cardiac arrest. He had been double-jabbed.

Mr Allum, from Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, had the virus but started to feel better the day before.

Ms Allum is urging people to take precautions such as the continued wearing of face coverings and taking regular Covid tests.

She said her family has "100% faith" in coronavirus vaccines and felt that Mr Allum "is just one of those unfortunate people who still suffered badly with it".

"We're not begging the government to go back into another lockdown. We want our life back as much as everybody else does. But there are little things that we could be doing to keep each other safe," Ms Allum said.

You can read more here.

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Asda, lastminute.com, National Express, Free Now taxis and Better leisure centres have joined businesses offering incentives to encourage younger people to get vaccinated. So what can you get?

• Asda will offer £10 vouchers for their clothing brand George to vaccinated 18 to 30-year-olds who spend over £20

• Lastminute.com will offer over-18s £30 gift cards towards holidays abroad to all young people getting vaccinated through their website
• Better leisure centres will offer over-16s a £10 voucher to use on any membership and a free three-day pass
• Taxi app Free Now will provide up to £1m in free rides for over-18s attending their vaccine appointment each way from Sunday until the end of September
• National Express Buses (Midlands) will offer 1,000 people five-day unlimited travel saver tickets which can be used within 90 days
• Deliveroo will give thousands of £5 vouchers to those who get the vaccine, distributed in the coming weeks
• Bolt will be offering £10 vouchers for 10,000 rides from next week in Birmingham and Leicester
• Uber is expected to announce further details around their drive to help students get vaccinated ahead of term time.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Prof Neil Ferguson, an infectious disease modeller and epidemiologist from Imperial College London, tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme that relaxing isolation rules will "inevitably" slightly reduce the effectiveness of contact tracing - but that if people don't get tested, there will be a "take-up" in transmission.

He says it is a "political judgement" on whether to make getting a PCR test mandatory, but points out that so far the overall population has been "quite cautious" when Covid restrictions were being lifted.

Asked if we could still see 100,000 new infections a day, Prof Ferguson says case numbers have "plateaued" but still remain "quite high" at about 30,000 a day, which was a "slightly sobering situation" going into September.

He adds that whilst contact rates are "about half of normal levels" due to school holidays and people still working from home, we still "have the potential of quite a large wave of infection in September, October" when children return to school and workers go back to offices.

Prof Ferguson says it is hard to currently predict whether we could see 100,000 cases a day, but that vaccinations meant it was "unlikely" we would see numbers of Covid deaths comparable with levels seen in January.

But he cautions that this could have an impact on NHS demand and hospital admissions, with a "worst case scenario" of possibly up to 1000 admissions a day, which could "stress" a health system already trying to reduce treatment backlogs.

Image source, Pacemaker

The rules on self-isolation for the double-jabbed aren't the only ones changing today - Northern Ireland is relaxing more of its Covid restrictions.

• The rule of six is lifted in pubs, restaurants and at wedding receptions
• Any number of people can meet in private gardens
• Class bubbles in schools come to an end, but post-primary students should still wear face coverings for the first six weeks of term

• Conference halls and exhibitions can reopen
• Further education and higher education and night classes can return to full in-person learning
• Support bubbles will no longer exist

But some rules are staying - like the maximum of 10 people from three households being allowed to meet inside homes.

Here's a guide to which rules are going and staying across the UK.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Prof Stephen Reicher, psychologist at St Andrews University and a member of the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science, has been speaking to the BBC about the new isolation rules for England and Northern Ireland.

He tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it is a "problem" that people are only being advised, rather than required, to get a PCR test if they come into close contact with a positive Covid case.

"I wish it was stronger, I wish there was a requirement to get a PCR test, but at least there's strong advice."

But he says he is a "relative optimist" about the situation and has a "fair amount of faith in the good sense and caution of the public" in complying with the new rules.

He explains that after the 19 July reopening, many experts thought infections would increase "massively", but one of the major reasons they didn't was because "people remained cautious...[and] careful".

Prof Reicher adds the government must continue getting the "messaging" out to encourage people to get PCR tests and be cautious by limiting their social interactions.

People are also "not invulnerable if you're double-vaccinated, there's still a fairly good chance you could get infected and infect others," he says.

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The government has said that all 16 and 17-year-olds in England will be offered their first Covid jab or the chance to book one by 23 August.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said offering vaccines to this age group by this date would allow teenagers to build up some protection before starting school or college next month.

Young people in this age group were first offered a jab earlier this month.

But unlike older age groups, no second dose is being scheduled.

They will be invited, by text or letter, to get vaccinated either by making an appointment through GPs or by going to a walk-in centre, the Department of Health said.

Invites are also being sent out in Wales, while in Northern Ireland, walk-in centres are now open to older teenagers, and in Scotland they can register their interest online.

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Good morning and welcome to Monday's live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in the UK and around the world.

Relaxed Covid isolation rules have come into effect in England and Northern Ireland today.

It means people who have had two Covid vaccinations or are under 18 will not have to isolate for 10 days if they have been in contact with a positive case.

People are instead advised to take a PCR Covid test (but they will not have to self-isolate while waiting for the result), wear a face covering in enclosed spaces and limit contact with other people.

People who test positive or show symptoms will still be legally required to self isolate for 10 days.

The changes to self-isolation rules have already been implemented in Scotland and Wales.

The relaxed rules are set to significantly reduce the number of people being compelled to stay at home.

It comes after firms, including car manufacturers and food distributors, previously complained that the number of staff isolating because they had been "pinged" by the Covid app was disrupting their businesses.

You can read more here.