Covid: Plan B measures for England and adviser quits in party video row

Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday evening. We'll have another update for you tomorrow morning.

1. Plan B measures for England

Boris Johnson has announced Covid restrictions in England are to be strengthened further to help slow the spread of the Omicron variant. He told a Downing Street news conference the government's Plan B measures would now be coming into effect. It means people will be advised to work from home if they can from Monday, and face coverings will be mandatory in most indoor venues - including cinemas and theatres - from Friday. Vaccine passports will also become compulsory for entry to nightclubs and large venues from next week. Full details about the rules are here.

2. Adviser quits over Christmas party row

Allegra Stratton has resigned as a government adviser following an angry backlash over a video of No 10 staff joking about holding a lockdown Christmas party last December. Boris Johnson also apologised for the clip, which showed the PM's then-press secretary days after Downing Street staff held a party, laughing over how to describe it. He told MPs he had ordered an inquiry into whether rules had been broken. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused Mr Johnson of taking people for fools.

3. Finland PM sorry for clubbing after Covid contact

Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin has apologised for going clubbing after coming into close contact with a Covid-19 case. She went on a night out in Helsinki on Saturday, hours after her foreign minister had tested positive. She was initially told she did not need to isolate because she had been fully vaccinated, but later missed a text that advised her to do so.

4. Year has been wonderful, says first person to receive jab

The first person in the world to get a Covid-19 jab as part of a mass-vaccination programme 12 months ago has reflected on her "wonderful year". Margaret Keenan, now 91, from Coventry, was given a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at University Hospital on 8 December 2020. "People meet me in the street and they say... 'thank God for you because I wasn't going to have this jab' and it's lovely to hear that," she said.

5. Pantomime returns

Pantomime is back in front of live audiences. But Covid is still here. So how are this year's productions balancing restrictions with the joy of the return of a much-loved Christmas tradition? Many theatres are asking audience members for their vaccination status or negative Covid tests. Find out about the production of Cinderella at Aylesbury's Waterside Theatre in Buckinghamshire.

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And there's more...

Here's more on how vaccinations have progressed around the world, a year since the first approved jab was administered.

You can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.

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