The UK’s four Chief Medical Officers have recommended all children aged 12-15 should be vaccinated against Covid
They have agreed that children of those ages should be given one dose of the Pfizer vaccine to help prevent education being disrupted
A final decision on rollout will be taken by ministers in the four nations of the UK
The UK recorded 30,825 new coronavirus cases on Monday, and 61 deaths within 28 days of a positive test
Boris Johnson confirms he'll announce his Covid winter strategy on Tuesday, saying he'll be "setting it all out tomorrow"
The PM says he's "very confident in the steps that we've taken" but won't rule out a winter lockdown
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says nobody wants another lockdown and the best way to avoid it is to be cautious and use practical measures
And Sir Keir says he will back vaccinations for 12 to 15-year-olds if the scientific advice is that it's safe
French vaccine maker Valneva says the UK government has scrapped a deal for its Covid vaccine
Dr Gregor Smith, Scotland's Chief Medical Officer, says these were very complex considerations.
It is important to get proper, informed consent, he says.
The indirect impact Covid has had on children and young people is really important, he adds.
Prof Wei Shen Lim from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) says the committee "recognises the large impact the pandemic has had on our children... not least social isolation".
"Missing school and being off school has had a profound impact on our children," he says.
Today the fact the CMOs have offered this advice is "good news", he says. He adds there is "no conflict" between their advice.
Dr June Raine, head of the independent regulator the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), says the vaccines in question have been "rigorously reviewed" by a series of experts and the MHRA.
More than 2,000 children were studied as part of the trials looking at efficacy within 12-15-year-olds.
She says the results were extrememly positive - with efficacy of the vaccine strong even after just one dose.
She says cases of a condition called myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle were "very rare".
The conclusion of the MHRA was that the cases were "mild" adding "individuals recover after short time with standard treatment".
Prof Chris Whitty says the overall assessment is that the benefit exceeds the risk to a sufficient degree.
He says an "offer" of vaccination will be made to all children aged 12-15, not just the vulnerable, and all four UK nations will work out how to do this.
Young people and their parents need to be supported in the decision they make and there should be no stigma attached to whatever choice people make.
Prof Whitty says they looked at education and “operational issues”, when making their decision. They did not go back over clinical ground, he says.
He says they heard some "extremely powerful evidence" from colleagues around the country.
They all made the same point about the disruption in education, he says, saying that it “has been extraordinarily difficult for children” and has had a big impact on them.
The assessment is that offering the children a dose of a vaccine "will reduce educational disruption".
He says the vaccine is "not a silver bullet, but a useful tool to help reduce the public health impact".
Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, says it was "a difficult decision" to decide whether to vaccinate 12-15-year-olds.
Proff Whitty says it was about "balancing risk and benefit". "There is almost no area of medicine which is risk-free," he stressed.
He says the decision had been through several stages prior to today.
The efficacy and side-effects of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines would continue to be examined, he adds.
The JCVI had concluded the benefits of the vaccine for a healthy 12- to 15-year-old exceeded the risks by a small margin - but could not recommend the jabs on health benefits alone, hence the involvement of the four CMOs.
Meanwhile, a further 30,825 coronavirus cases have been recorded in the UK, according to the latest statistics.
Another 61 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test have also been reported.
We're about to hear more from the UK's four chief medical officers on their advice to offer all healthy 12 to 15-year-old children a Covid jab.
The line-up at the press conference is:
Also at the press conference is the chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Dr June Raine, and Prof Wei Shen Lim from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
We'll bring you the latest updates here.
Kevin Peachey
Personal finance reporter
Sold signs can be seen dotted around Richmond, North Yorkshire
Richmondshire is a sprawling council district covering parts of the stunning Yorkshire Dales and also home to Britain's biggest army garrison, Catterick.
Property prices have risen by 29% in Richmondshire in the last year, according to the latest official figures from the Land Registry, external.
That is faster growth than anywhere else in Britain (except Shetland and Orkney, where the sale of a single property can easily skew the data).
Large increases have also been recorded in other idyllic, rural areas of the UK. The Derbyshire Dales, North Norfolk, and the Cotswolds have all seen property values increase by more than 20% in a year.
All this has occurred during a pandemic, when the country has endured months of lockdowns and the loss of lives.
Covid has also led homeowners to reassess where and how they want to live.
Image source, Getty ImagesWe are going to be hearing from the chief medical officers for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in about a quarter of an hour on their recommendation that all children aged 12 to 15 should have a Covid jab.
A final decision on whether to go ahead will be taken by health ministers in each of the four UK nations.
If the rollout is extended to this age group, parental consent will not be needed if the child is considered competent to give consent themselves.
The NHS says that children under 16 can consent "if they're believed to have enough intelligence, competence and understanding to fully appreciate what's involved in their treatment". This is known as being "Gillick competent", external.
Otherwise, a parent will have to give permission.
Those aged 16 and 17 do not need the permission of a parent to have the vaccine, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Read more: Which children are being vaccinated and why?
The UK Government must confirm that questions about consent for pupils offered a jab will be handled by medical teams, a heads' union says.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, says: "Now that a decision has been made, it is essential that the government immediately confirms that the process surrounding vaccinations will be run and overseen entirely by the appropriate medical teams.
"Where parents have questions, including about important matters such as consent, these must be handled by those same medical teams.
"There must be no delay in confirming this, otherwise school leaders will be put in an impossible position of facing questions to which they simply do not have the answers."
BBC World Service
Image source, AFPThe South African president has announced the easing of some restrictions that have been in place to curb the spread of coronavirus.
In a televised address on Sunday evening, Cyril Ramaphosa said that, due to a decline in infections, an overnight curfew would be shortened, alcohol restrictions would be eased and larger gatherings allowed.
He said the supply of vaccines was no longer a constraint and called on people to play their part in stopping the spread of the virus by coming forward to get jabbed.
He added the authorities were looking for ways to introduce “vaccine passports, which can be used as evidence of vaccination for various purposes” - raising fears that vaccines would be compulsory.
About one in five adults in South Africa have now been fully vaccinated - a far higher rate than elsewhere in Africa.
It is the worst-hit country on the continent with close to 85,000 deaths from Covid-19.
About 3% of Africa's population has been vaccinated.
Image source, Getty ImagesScotland's vaccine passport scheme may feature spot checks for large-scale events, such as football matches.
Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said spot checks could "potentially" be introduced when the scheme goes live on 1 October.
It came after the head of Scotland's professional football league said it would be"very difficult" to check that all fans had a vaccine passport prior to entry to a match.
Scotland's vaccine certification scheme means people over the age of 18 will need to show they have had both doses of a Covid vaccine before they are allowed entry to nightclubs and major events - including outdoor events of more than 10,000 capacity.
Mr Yousaf told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland different rules would apply for different settings in order to avoid "adverse impacts" such as "lots of people queuing and then potentially any crowd trouble".
Questioned specifically about spot checks, the health secretary told the programme: "That is absolutely an option that we are happy to consider."
Plans to introduce a Covid passport scheme in England have been scrapped, prompting Mr Yousaf to question whether the decison had been taken on public health or political grounds on Monday's show.
The vaccine passport plan was formally approved by Holyrood last week, after the SNP and Scottish Greens voted in favour - but some businesses have complained of a lack of detail about how the scheme will work in practice.
Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst
There has been a fresh outbreak of Covid-19 in a south-eastern Chinese province, which official media say is “severe and complicated”.
Since the weekend, 66 cases of the virus have been confirmed in three cities in Fujian province. Most cases are in the city of Putian, but cases have also been confirmed in Quanzhou and Xiamen.
On Sunday, residents in Putian were urged not to leave the city. Many schools and public venues were closed, and indoor dining was suspended. The national Global Times newspaper says residents were encouraged to work from home, external. Putian has a population of around 2.9 million people.
Today, the provincial health commission has announced that 1,500 medical workers will be sent to Putian to help test residents in the city.
Additional lockdowns have also been announced in parts of Xiamen.
China’s National Health Commission has warned that new cases may appear in the coming days. It says that the primary school where cases were first detected is “densely populated”, and that “there is a possibility that cases will continue to be found in communities, schools and factories”.
The outbreak is believed to have entered the country via a person recently returned from Singapore, external.
Since many of the patients are young, and exhibiting milder symptoms - and because lockdowns have been swift - state broadcaster CCTV says officials believe the outbreak could be brought under control by the National Day holiday - a week-long holiday and a major travel period, which falls on 1 October.
Image source, Getty ImagesBooster vaccines are not appropriate for the general population at this stage of the pandemic, a review by a group of international scientists has suggested.
The review, published in the Lancet, found vaccine efficacy against severe Covid, even the Delta variant, is so high that top-up doses are not currently needed.
Although vaccines are less effective against asymptomatic disease or transmission, even in populations with high vaccination rates, those who are unvaccinated are still the major drivers of transmission, the group says.
The review looked at the available evidence from trials and observational studies published in peer-reviewed journals and pre-print servers.
Dr Ana-Maria Henao-Restrepo, of the World Health Organization, who is its lead author, says: "Taken as a whole, the currently available studies do not provide credible evidence of substantially declining protection against severe disease, which is the primary goal of vaccination.
"The limited supply of these vaccines will save the most lives if made available to people who are at appreciable risk of serious disease and have not yet received any vaccine.
"Even if some gain can ultimately be obtained from boosting, it will not outweigh the benefits of providing initial protection to the unvaccinated."
The prime minister is expected to set out plans for who should get booster jabs in the UK tomorrow.
Many headteachers are receiving letters from pressure groups threatening legal action if schools take part in Covid vaccination programmes, a union says.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, says: "This is extremely unhelpful and we would ask those involved in this correspondence to stop attempting to exert pressure on schools and colleges.
"The question of whether or not to offer vaccinations to this age group has clearly been thoroughly considered and the decision on whether or not to accept this offer is a matter for families."
The UK's four chief medical officers (CMOs) say their decision to recommend Covid jabs for 12 to 15-year-olds takes into account the impact of the pandemic on children's education as well as the risks to their mental health from missing school.
In their advice to the government, the UK's CMOs say the Delta variant of coronavirus can be very effectively transmitted by mass spreading events.
"Having a significant proportion of pupils vaccinated is likely to reduce the probability of such events, which are likely to cause local outbreaks in, or associated with, schools.
"They will also reduce the chance an individual child gets Covid-19. This means vaccination is likely to reduce (but not eliminate) education disruption."
They said there can be lifelong effects on health if extended disruption to education leads to reduced life chances.
"Whilst full closures of schools due to lockdowns is much less likely to be necessary in the next stages of the Covid-19 epidemic, UK CMOs expect the epidemic to continue to be prolonged and unpredictable," they say.
"Local surges of infection, including in schools, should be anticipated for some time. Where they occur, they are likely to be disruptive."
The UK's four chief medical officers will hold a live briefing and press conference at Downing St today about the decision to offer 12-15-year-olds olds covid vaccines.
We will be hearing from the Chief Medical Office for England, Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, Dr Gregor Smith, Chief Medical Officer for Wales, Dr Frank Atherton, and Chief Medical Officer for Northern Ireland, Dr Michael McBride.
The Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England Professor Jonathan Van Tam; the chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency's (MHRA) Dr June Raine and Professor Wei Shen Lim from the JCVI will also be there.
We will have live updates from the briefing and until then here's what we know about the announcement so far.
The UK Government will shortly set out its decision on whether to routinely vaccinate 12 to 15-year-olds against coronavirus after it was recommended by the four UK Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson says.
The government is expected to follow the advice, which means about three million children could be eligible for the jab.
It is expected the vaccinations will be given through schools.
The CMOs have asked for the JCVI now to look at whether second doses should be given to children and young people aged 12 to 15 once more data comes through internationally.
The CMOs think a single dose will reduce significantly the chance of a young person getting Covid and passing the virus on.
The NHS in England had already been asked to prepare to roll out vaccines for all 12 to 15-year-olds in the event that the CMOs recommended the programme.
When the UK's four chief medical officers were asked earlier this month to decide whether children aged 12-15 should be routinely vaccinated against Covid, we asked parents how they felt about it. Now we've heard the CMOs have recommended those children should get a jab, here's a reminder of what some parents told us.
Image source, Sandra CarletonSandra Carleton said she did not want her 12-year-old son Charlie to have the vaccine.
"He has just recovered from Covid so giving him the vaccine most certainly poses more of a risk than a benefit," she said.
"If they don't contemplate 11-year-olds then why 12-year-olds?"
But Sue in Yorkshire said she wanted her children, aged 12 and 13, to have the jab "as soon as possible".
"We could have been vaccinated before returning to school as is the case in France and Germany.
"Parents are frightened. We don't want to send our kids back to school, we've protected them all summer," she said.
You can read how other parents feel about vaccinating children here.