AstraZeneca is recruiting people for trials combining its own vaccine with Oxford University with Russia's Sputnik V
The self-isolation period for travellers and contacts of those with Covid has been cut from 14 days to 10 in the UK
The US drugs agency the FDA says it will approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for use 'within days'
An Australian candidate for a vaccine is abandoned after some trial participants return false HIV positive results
Businesses reopen in Northern Ireland, and also in Glasgow and other parts of western Scotland as rules are eased
EU leaders strike a deal over the bloc's budget and Covid recovery fund
The Royal Shakespeare Company and arts organisations hit by the pandemic share £165m in UK government loans
The response to the pandemic has driven the biggest annual fall in CO2 emissions since WW2, say researchers
That's us done for the day.
Today's live page updates were written by Hazel Shearing, Alex Kleiderman and Sophie Williams.
The editors were Hamish Mackay and Mal Siret.
Our live coverage of the pandemic will be back on Monday morning.
We're getting ready to wrap up for the day, and for the weekend. Here's what you need to know about the pandemic in the UK before we do:
Image source, Reuters
Image source, ReutersSki resorts in Spain have announced that they will be opening ahead of the Christmas break despite concerns among European countries about the possible spread of infections.
Many resorts have delayed their opening due to the pandemic, but resorts in Catalonia are set to open on Monday 14 November, according to AFP news agency.
Special measures are in place in Spain's resorts, such as reduced capacity on lifts and in restaurants and bars., external
Other countries such as France, Germany and Italy will keep its resorts closed over the Christmas period.
Italy, supported by Germany, wanted a European agreement to close all ski resorts over the holiday. However, ski resorts in countries including Spain, Switzerland and Austria all released plans to open.
Image source, Warner Bros/ YouTubeWarner Bros will release its live action Tom and Jerry both online and in cinemas
The company that owns the UK's Odeon Cinemas has secured $100m (£76m) in emergency funds amid concerns about Covid-19 - but warned the money will only help it through another month.
AMC Entertainment Holdings, the world's largest movie theatre operator, said attendance has dropped 92% in the US and 86% internationally.
The pandemic has meant that some cinemas have shut and audiences have stayed away.
The company is burning through $125m a month.
"Our current cash burn rates are not sustainable," it said.
Even once cinemas reopened this year, it said the growth of streaming posed a challenge.
Warner Bros this month said it planned to release all of its 2021 films online on the same day they are released to cinemas. They will air on the HBO Max streaming service, with which it shares a parent company.
Disney has also said it plans to push more of its films to its Disney+ streaming service.
Image source, PA MediaFrom Saturday, most people returning from the Canary Islands will have to self-isolate upon entering the UK.
Quarantine restrictions now apply to the majority of those arriving in the UK - requiring people to isolate for 14 days (this changes to 10 days from Monday 14 December).
From 15 December, however, travellers to England will be able to pay for a test that could cut the number of days further.
Our team has put together a guide on what the current quarantine rules are, who is exempt and where you can go without having to quarantine.
Image source, Getty ImagesSouth Africa's top judge says he is unconcerned about criticism after a video showing him falsely suggesting that Covid-19 vaccines could alter people's DNA and insert satanic elements within them was widely shared online.
Speaking to the media on Friday, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said he expected a backlash for the comments he made on Thursday at a prayer event.
He told reporters that he was concerned about a report he saw that suggested that the Covid-19 vaccine would be mandatory.
"It must be voluntary... You can't impose a vaccine on people. Why should you?" news site EWN quotes the judge as saying., external
His opinion on Covid-19 vaccines has divided South Africans.
There have been concerns that rich countries may be buying up most of the newly developed vaccines, not leaving enough for countries in Africa, although both Nigeria and Uganda have said they have ordered millions of doses.
Image source, Science Photo LibraryA study of coronavirus patients in intensive care has found that some people become more susceptible to severe Covid-19 symptoms than others.
Scientists looked into the DNA of more than 2,200 patients in UK hospitals. They looked at each person’s genes, which contain the instructions for every biological process – including how to fight a virus.
Their genomes were then compared with those of healthy people to pinpoint any genetic differences.
The findings shed light on where the immune system goes wrong, which could help identify new treatments.
Wales lockdown 'inevitable' if Covid-19 cases do not fall
A post-Christmas lockdown will be "inevitable" in Wales if Covid cases do not begin to fall, the first minister warned earlier.
Speaking at the Welsh Government's press conference, Mark Drakeford said while stricter rules were not a "foregone conclusion", the NHS will "not be able to cope" if admissions continue to rise.
Next week the Welsh Government will publish a "Covid control plan", laying out four alert levels of restrictions that could be imposed.
Image source, PA MediaAbout 2,000 troops were deployed to Liverpool in November
Army regiments that helped set up and run a mass coronavirus testing pilot in Liverpool are to be given the Freedom of the City - the city's the highest civic honour.
Around 2,000 troops were deployed to Liverpool in November, where they helped carry out 200,000 tests at almost 50 centres.
The city's coronavirus infection rates have since dropped from 680 cases per 100,000 people to fewer than 100.
It enabled the city region to move down from tier three to tier two when the national lockdown ended.
Brigadier Joe Fossey, commander of the 8th Engineer Brigade, which led the operation, said he was "extremely proud of what we have all achieved in such a short time and how warmly we have been received by all those in the city".
"To receive Liverpool's highest civic honour crowns an extraordinary six weeks for all of us and marks an important moment in the continuing fight against Covid-19," he added.
When Jacqueline Mason accidentally got on the wrong bus on her way to visit her mother in a care home in Belfast, she broke down in tears because she thought she would miss her visiting slot.
But the bus driver took a detour to get her there on time, saying it was "just the right thing to do".
Alec Bailey told his other passengers he would take a detour to get her as close to the home as possible.
"When the woman said to me she hadn't seen her mum in a long time, it just hit my heart," he said.
"A lot of people have suffered this year and you've seen on the news, people not able to see their mother or their father in the homes and it just struck a chord with me.
"I just said to myself, I have to get this woman as close as I can to that home."
"It was just a nice, magical moment"
Image source, ReutersCoronavirus is still spreading rapidly across Canada, the country's Public Health Agency has warned.
In projections released on Friday, the agency predicts at least 90,000 more cases by Christmas Day - but says this figure could reach 135,000. It also estimated that there could be between 1,300 and 1,800 deaths in the weeks leading up to by 25 December, external.
More than 445,000 cases have been confirmed in Canada and 13,130 people have died since the pandemic began.
Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam said "a stronger response is needed now in all large provinces to slow the spread of Covid-19".
Canada's health regulator approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine the day after the UK became the first country in the world to roll it out.
Health Canada said the vaccine met its "stringent safety, efficacy and quality requirements".
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada will receive up to 249,000 doses of the vaccine this month. The Canadian government has purchased 20 million doses of the vaccine - enough to inoculate 10 million people - with the option to buy 56 million more.
Image source, ZSL Whipsnade Zoo/PA WireA new-born giraffe has been named Margaret in honour of the world's first Covid vaccine patient.
Staff at Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire picked the name because the female calf was born on Tuesday - the same day Margaret Keenan, 90, received the Pfizer/BioNTech jab in Coventry.
She was the first person to receive the jab outside of a clinical trial.
Image source, ZSL Whipsnade Zoo/PA WireTeam leader Mark Holden said: "The arrival of our precious giraffe calf on the same day, and actually at the same time, as the much-anticipated Covid-19 vaccination was first administered feels like a real moment of hope, and one we are so keen to celebrate and remember."
The zoo says it hopes Mrs Keenan will be able to visit her namesake one day soon.
Image source, Jon LandauIt might be found at the bottom of the globe, but New Zealand has been at the top of the movie industry in 2020.
Thanks to its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the country is enjoying an unprecedented boom in film production, with directors seeking safe conditions, and that most elusive thing this year - a normal life.
International blockbusters including James Cameron's Avatar sequels, Amazon's Lord of the Rings series and Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog - starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst - all managed complex film shoots in New Zealand this year.
The country's home-grown movies have also received a boost at the box office by Kiwis supporting their industry, leading one local filmmaker to joke that they're now living in "the Hollywood of the Pacific".
New Zealand, like so many other countries, did experience a lockdown in March, But because it managed to eliminate community transmission of the virus, apart from an incident in Auckland in August, film production could resume by summer, with Avatar one of the first projects to start up again.
Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News
The latest estimate of the R number for the UK is 0.9 and 1 – up very slightly on the previous week – according to the latest Office for National Statistics infection survey
This means that the epidemic is still shrinking after lockdown measures, but very slowly.
The survey indicates that cases continued to fall in most of England and Northern Ireland last week.
But the view of the government’s scientific advisors is that the situation is fragile.
Cases are increasing in London and the East of England – especially among secondary school age children – and previous experience indicates that a surge among older age groups will inevitably follow.
The advisors believe that it will be important to keep infection levels as low as possible in the run up to the holidays.
That’s because the relaxation of restrictions that permit families to meet over Christmas will accelerate any increase in cases – and lead to another sharp spike in infections early in the New Year.
Image source, ReutersStudents aged 14 to 16 will switch to remote learning in Sweden's capital, Stockholm, local authorities have announced.
Lessons should be switched to online as soon as possible, they added.
"We need to dramatically reduce the amount of contact between one another, " said Maria Rotzen Ostlund, the region's infectious diseases doctor, external.
She said that distance learning would not be enough and stressed the importance of limiting social contacts to as few people as possible.
Ostlund also recommended that employers allow their staff to work from home where possible.
Stockholm is one of the worst affected regions in the country, accounting for a third of Sweden's confirmed Covid-related death toll, according to Reuters news agency.
The Swedish government is aiming to offer the vaccine to all of those over the age of 18 during the first half of 2021. , external
Sweden has recorded 312,728 cases and 7,354 deaths since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Image source, PA MediaA recommended £3,300 pay rise for UK MPs has been scrapped over concerns it would "not reflect the reality" the public is facing during the pandemic.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority ordered a pay freeze for the next financial year.
The basic salary for MPs is currently £79,468-a-year, and many were already promising to refuse or give away the extra money at a time when many of their constituents were struggling.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson had also joined Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer in urging the IPSA not to go ahead with its plans.
The rise was set in October - based on the official statistic for public sector earnings growth. But IPSA came under more pressure to scrap it after the chancellor imposed a pay cap on millions of public sector workers because of the financial impact of Covid on government finances.
IPSA chairman Richard Lloyd wrote to MPs saying a pay rise "would result in a salary increase for MPs that would be inconsistent with the wider economic data and would not reflect the reality that many constituents are facing this year".
The World Health Organization's regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, has backed a warning from German Chancellor Angela Merkel that it will take some time for the new coronavirus vaccines to turn the pandemic around.
Mrs Merkel told the German parliament the country would not be able to vaccinate enough of its citizens to change the course of the pandemic in the first quarter of 2021.
Mr Kluge said the delayed effects of vaccination programmes highlighted the need to prioritise key workers and vulnerable groups first.
He also warned of the effects of relaxing rules too much around Christmas: "I am very concerned. Now every 17 seconds someone is dying of Covid-19, which may double if people are relaxing," he told BBC World News.
Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst
Image source, Getty ImagesPeople are screened at a clinic in Huanggang, in China's central Hubei province (file photo)
A number of people in central China have been fined and told to self-isolate after they bought imported pork online that could potentially have been contaminated with Covid-19.
According to the national Global Times newspaper, 24 residents in Huanggang, central Hubei province, have been fined 200 yuan (£23; $30.50) for buying imported pork from Brazil via the Meituan shopping platform.
The pork should have been destroyed rather than sold because, as the newspaper notes, batches had already tested positive for Covid-19, external. An investigation is now being carried out into the shopping platform.
One of the big concerns in China is how imported food might carry the virus, and so the country is stepping up regulation to prevent ordinary consumers from directly getting their hands on such goods.
This week, China's top court announced that e-commerce platforms could be "held legally responsible for food safety issues, external related to products purchased on their platforms".
China says that many of its localised Covid-19 outbreaks over the last year have been linked to imported cold-chain goods, and there are regular news stories about coastal regions discovering the virus on overseas goods. Many of the first patients in cities that have experienced outbreaks have been workers who handle such products.
Image source, Getty ImagesUK airport operator Heathrow has said it will keep Terminal 4 closed until the end of next year as the pandemic continues to affect travel.
The company said passenger numbers at the airport - usually one of the busiest in the world - fell 88% in November "as travel restrictions and a second lockdown took their toll".
Based on forecasts and current traffic, it said it would extend the closure of Terminal 4 until the end of 2021.
Heathrow shut the terminal in May during the first national lockdown.
It led to airlines such as Air France, Etihad and KLM moving to Terminal 2.