We're ending today's coverage of coronavirus developments and the latest on the Gray report into lockdown parties.

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We're coming to the end of our live coverage of Covid stories and the (non-appearance of the) Gray report. Here's a recap of today's developments:

What now for Gray inquiry? There's confusion about the fate of Sue Gray's report into lockdown parties, after the police asked for some details to be kept out of it. This has not gone down well with opposition figures, who want to see the report soon. Meanwhile, Labour's Sir Keir Starmer says the "whole government is paralysed" because of the police probe.

Restrictions ease: In Wales and Scotland, Covid rules are being rolled back. Nightclubs can open again in Wales, and Scotland sees social distancing reverting to one metre for indoor places.

Covid cases fall (but only slightly): Daily figures reveal a slight dip in infections, with 87,176 confirmed cases. The number of cases over the past seven days has fallen by 2.7%. The BBC's Nick Triggle asks what we should make of the fact we're no longer seeing a huge drop in cases.

Wales First Minister Mark Drakeford says out of the "awful experience" of the pandemic, there are some positive things people can take from it.

He says remote working can be a benefit in some cases. "I hope never to travel to London again for a one-hour meeting," he says.

But he says for now it is important to continue working from home because "coronavirus has not gone away", with 1,000 people with Covid in hospital in Wales and 10 deaths yesterday.

Philippa Roxby
Health reporter, BBC News

Scientists say a new variant of Omicron, called BA.2, is growing faster than BA.1 – the current form of Omicron.

It’s still early days, but a report from the UK’s Health Security Agency, external says about 1,000 cases of BA.2 have now been detected in England.

Between the end of December and mid-January, the new variant looked like it spread more quickly in households than original Omicron.

But there is no evidence vaccines are less effective against it, providing 63% protection against symptoms from BA.1 and 70% against BA.2 at two weeks after a third vaccine.

Health officials say most people admitted to intensive care over the past two months had Delta, and not Omicron – but admissions with Omicron have been increasing at a greater pace recently.

It’s clear Omicron is causing milder illness than Delta – thanks to protection from vaccines and previous infections.

Even in care homes, where there was a sharp rise in infections in December, there was no rise in people being sent to hospital.

UKHSA says this means the current Omicron wave is “unlikely to lead to a major surge in severe disease in care home populations”.

We've heard that care homes in England are easing Covid restrictions from Monday. The Welsh government has now announced a change to its guidance as the country continues to move into alert level zero.

Residents and visitors to care homes will no longer have to wear masks in private rooms and homes when they see each other. However, this rule can vary from home to home so residents, visitors or both parties may be asked to wear one.

Mario Kreft, of Care Forum Wales, welcomes the measures but warns not all care homes will follow the latest guidance due to insurance concerns.

The level of testing before and after visits is also being relaxed.

Read more here.

Image source, Freyja Dudley

We reported earlier today that patients with immune conditions were having trouble with a fast-track test system intended to give them access to new antiviral drugs and antibody treatments if they fell ill with Covid.

Since then, we've heard from other people having problems with the system, such as 26-year-old Freyja Dudley. She has an inflammatory illness treated with immune-suppressing drugs and received the priority tests.

But she says when she came to use them, she was told there was an issue with the courier, so she went to an ordinary test centre instead.

The next day, 3 January, she was confirmed positive, but despite multiple phone calls she says she had still not received treatment five days after her symptoms - the cut-off point when it is most effecitve.

"This wasn't a bit of a wobble with this process, this was a complete failure," she says. "It's wonderful that I've got through it and haven't needed the treatments. But what if I hadn't?"

Meanwhile, Jane Lewis tells the BBC she and her husband - who are both asthmatic - received priority tests only to learn they were not eligible when they fell ill with Covid.

She says she has since received another priority test pack. "It is bonkers," she says.

Image source, PA Media

Away from Downing Street, London's Pride parade will be back this summer - after a break caused by the pandemic.

It's a timely return because this year marks 50 years since London's first Pride parade. It is set to take place on 2 July.

The festival is the biggest in the UK's LGBT calendar and, like many other events, has been cancelled for the last two years due to the pandemic. The London parade usually attracts huge crowds, with organisers estimating the 2019 event was attended by more than 1.5 million people.

Amy Lamé, broadcaster and London's official Night Czar, external, tweeted, external her joy, saying it will be an opportunity to show the world that London is "a beacon of inclusiveness, acceptance and diversity".

Speaking to BBC News earlier Ian Blackford, SNP leader in the Commons, said the Sue Gray report needed to be published in full so that parliament can hold the prime minister to account.

Comedian Joe Lycett has said it feels "fantastic" that he apparently panicked some in Westminster, when he tweeted a fake Sue Gray report summary that was mistaken as a leak of the real thing.

But he says he was motivated by anger.

"I'm angry right now probably for the same reason many other people are angry."

Lycett goes on to describe how his best friend died of cancer in the early stages of lockdown, external in 2020.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, EPA

As we've been reporting all day, the Met's request that Sue Gray's report make only "minimal reference" to events under police investigation has thrown into doubt when it will be published.

But sources have told the BBC that internal wrangling in the Cabinet Office over her report is also a factor in the delay to its publication.

This is in addition to the concerns and discussions between the Cabinet Office and the Met.

The report, which had been expected this week, is also expected to contain criticism of the civil service.

The UK's daily figures reveal Covid infections and deaths continue to fall slightly, with 87,176 confirmed cases recorded and another 277 deaths reported within 28 days of infection.

It means the number of cases over the past seven days has fallen by 2.7% compared with the previous week, with the number of deaths also falling by the same proportion.

The data also shows there were 16,149 people in hospital with Covid on Thursday, a fall of 365 on the previous day.

With a further 52,956 doses administered, 64.6% of people aged 12 and over have now had a booster jab.

Raising a point of order in the House of Commons, Sir Christoper Chope, a Tory MP, says the Metropolitan Police is "usurping its position by seeking to interfere in the affairs of state".

He says: "I thought that it was this House which held the government to account for its policies, and not the Metropolitan Police."

He adds there is "no reason" for the police to be able to require Sue Gray not to issue her report in an unamended way.

Image source, Pfizer

Away from the issue of the Sue Gray report, an antiviral pill made by Pfizer, named Paxlovid, has been approved by the UK government. From next month the NHS will start using it to treat patients most at risk from Covid.

Clinical studies found the drug can cut the risk of hospital admission or death by 88% if given in the first five days of symptoms.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid called it an important milestone because the drug could potentially save thousands of lives

People considered to be at highest risk include those who are immunocompromised, cancer patients and those with Down's Syndrome. Anyone eligible to receive antiviral treatment should already have been notified by the NHS.

The European Commission has also just announced its approval of Paxlovid, meaning the pill will be available to EU member states.

A reminder that politics and policing don't go hand in handpublished at 15:45 Greenwich Mean Time 28 January 2022

15:45 GMT 28 January 2022

Daniel Sandford
Home Affairs Correspondent

The row over the Sue Gray report is a reminder that the police are bad at politics, and that people in politics and Whitehall do not understand the police.

Senior officers in the Metropolitan Police have been in touch with Sue Gray throughout her inquiry, so it should have come as no surprise that once they began their formal investigation there was going to be some limit on what could be published.

It is not clear what the problem is, but officers are likely to be keen that nothing in Sue Gray’s report - however much of a summary it is - should give a definitive account of what happened at any alleged parties before the detectives conclude their investigation, and decide who should be fined.

For months the Met has been accused of being reluctant to get involved in policing how people behaved in Downing Street during lockdown, now it is becoming clear why that might have been.

Image source, Getty Images

Earlier we heard from the SNP's Ian Blackford who suggested delays to the Sue Gray report and the Met Police investigation could look like there had been a "stitch up".

Now, Jacob Rees-Mogg describes the idea the police intervention today helped the prime minister as "parallel universe stuff".

The leader of the House of Commons tells BBC Radio 4's Political Thinking with Nick Robinson: "It would be a very eccentric conspiracy theorist who thought that the prime minister being investigated by the police was beneficial to the prime minister."

He adds he knows people get excited about "dead cat strategies" - where an issue is used to distract from another - but says this is a "sort of trophy hunted dead lion being found on the table - which I think is hard to find helpful".

Image source, PA Media

So far, Theresa May has not spoken publicly about the party allegations engulfing her successor in No 10.

But we have had a bit of insight into the former prime minister's thoughts today, with the publication of a letter she sent to some of her constituents last week - before the Met announced its investigation.

In the correspondence, published in The Maidenhead Advertiser, external, she said it was important "those who set the rules, follow the rules", adding "nobody is above the law".

"Like so many, I was angry to hear stories of those in No 10, who are responsible for setting the coronavirus rules, not properly following the rules," she was quoted as writing.

She added that if Sue Gray's inquiry discovered "evidence of deliberate or premeditated wrongdoing" then she expected "full accountability to follow".

Veteran Tory MP Sir Roger Gale, who is one of the Conservatives to call for Boris Johnson's resignation, says the situation with the Sue Gray report has "all the hallmarks of a Whitehall farce written in Scotland Yard".

"A while back the Met Police were saying they weren't going to investigate, then they said they would investigate and the sigh of relief from Downing Street could be heard in the Palace of Westminster as the can was kicked down the road," he tells BBC Radio 4's The World At One.

"Then they said it would be OK for Sue Gray to publish her report and now this morning they're saying it's not OK, or it is OK but she can't publish anything that anybody is likely to be interested in - which is ridiculous."

He adds that unless there is a "legal barrier" Gray should publish her report "now and in full".

He goes on to describe Johnson as a "lame duck" prime minister and says the cost of living crisis and Russian aggression towards Ukraine require the "full and undivided attention" of the UK prime minister.

Image source, Reuters

EU Commission boss Ursula von der Leyen is under pressure after a watchdog said the handling of a request for text messages - between her and Pfizer's chief executive - amounted to "maladministration".

This began when a journalist asked for access to the texts - which were reportedly exchanged in the run up to a major deal on vaccines.

The European Ombudsman now says the Commission did not explicitly ask von der Leyen's personal office to look for text messages, instead other documents were requested.

"No attempt" was made to identify if any text messages existed, European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly says.

The Commission says it will respond by a deadline of April.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford says Sue Gray needs to get on the phone to the Metropolitan Police and tell them it is in the public interest for her report to be published.

He says many people had called for the Met to investigate sooner and that the situation "does look as if it has been a stitch up" - asking what has changed since Tuesday.

"We were told on Tuesday the Metropolitan Police were comfortable with this report being released," he says. "Much of what has happened here, perhaps not the whole detail, but much of what has happened - the fact parties have been taking place, the fact that Boris Johnson was at some of them - is well known."

He adds that we cannot have a situation where the "salient facts are missing" and the Sue Gray report needs to be published in full.

"What we see today is the prime minister getting away with it again because the Met Police have let him off the hook - this is not acceptable," he says.

Image source, EPA

The former director of public prosecutions Lord Ken Macdonald has said today's police statement about what should be included in Sue Gray’s report is "surprising and quite unhelpful".

Lord Macdonald tells BBC Radio 4's World at One it's a "bit of a stretch" to suggest that publishing the Gray report might tip off people in advance before the police have questioned them.

"These people all know what they have done or haven't done, and I very much doubt that anything Sue Gray says is going to come as any great surprise to any of the protagonists," he says.

Macdonald says it seems like a "very cautious" - perhaps overly cautious - move by the Met Police in the face of "powerful" public interest in the publication of the report.

He adds that it's "highly undesirable" that this situation is left hanging in the air "a moment longer than necessary".