UK Covid live: all over-50s to get a vaccine dose by May as extra trial data shows Oxford jab effective in elderly

Latest updates: Cabinet Office says all nine priority cohorts to be reached by May; MHRA says more data shows Oxford vaccine works for over-65sMinister defends quarantine hotel delayUp to 100 UK children a week hospitalised with rare post-Covid diseaseJeremy Hunt says restrictions should stay until cases below 1,000 a day‘Being an island is a gift’: could UK have been like New Zealand?Global coronavirus updates - live11.57amGMTA third of the government ’s £1bn rebuilding programme for schools inEngland could go up in smoke, literally, because of the failure to mandate that sprinklers be added, according to an insurance company.Yesterday the government named the 50 schools in the first wave of rebuilding - out of the more than 232,000 state schools in England.It is disappointing that sprinklers won ’t be mandated in any of these revamped schools.Based on large fires alone, Zurich estimates that the repair bill for school fires could hit £320m over 10 years – a significant portion of the government’s slated investment. Unless ministers change the law on sprinklers, much of this investment will be wasted on repairing the fire damage that sprinklers could have easily prevented.11.55amGMTWhen vaccines ministerNadhim Zahawi said on Wednesday that there were “4000 variants” of Covid-19 across the world, he was confusing mutations with variants.While the word variant could be applied to any mutant form of the same strain, experts say the term has come to mean someth...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Coronavirus UK news Infectious diseases Medical research Politics World news Science Source Type: news