Covid: UK keeps Christmas rules but Wales and Scotland advice changes

The four UK nations have agreed to keep relaxed Christmas Covid rules in place - but Scotland and Wales have strengthened their own guidance.

Rules will still be relaxed between 23 and 27 December, but people in Wales are now being asked to limit Christmas bubbles to a maximum of two households.

And people in Scotland are being asked to only meet on one of the five days.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said similar, tougher advice was expected to be announced for England.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who will hold a Downing Street press conference with the UK's chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, at 15:30 GMT, said people must show "personal responsibility" and try to avoid contact with those who were vulnerable.

Wales has announced it will head back into a stay-at-home lockdown as soon as the Christmas period is over.

Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said her "strong recommendation" was to "spend Christmas in your own home with your own household", and if people do mix with others they should only do so for one of the five days.

She added: "We will set out advice if you are living in any of the nations in one of the highest level of protection - which in England and London is tier three - then we don't think you should be travelling to other parts of the UK."

Northern Ireland's First Minister Arlene Foster said she would wait to hear from her health minister before announcing changes, but added people must take "all and every precaution" over the festive period.

Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said she recognised governments needed to provide "flexibility" over Christmas and that people needed to take personal responsibility for their actions.

The four UK nations previously agreed a set of rules for the festive period, which has been set down in legislation and is not expected to change - even though the guidance has been updated.

UK leaders had come under pressure to review the plan amid rising infections.

Mr Johnson said discussions between the four nations on Wednesday morning had resulted in "unanimous agreement" that the existing plan for Christmas should go ahead "because we don't want to criminalise people's long-made plans".

But he told the House of Commons everyone should "exercise extreme caution" in the way they celebrated Christmas, and show "a high degree of personal responsibility".

He urged people to be particularly careful when they came into contact with vulnerable people - and to avoid contact with elderly people "wherever possible".

An information campaign is expected to be launched in the days running up to Christmas, with people being urged to think carefully before bubbling with elderly or at-risk relatives.

Mr Johnson said "sensible and cautious" behaviour was the way the UK would control the virus, rather than "imposing endless lockdowns".

The PM accused Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer - who had called on him to review the rules - of wanting to "cancel Christmas".

Scientists at the University of Bristol studied the implications - and early results, yet to be formally published, indicate the fewer people the better, from the point of view of containing the disease.

If a single-person household joins another household of any size, the impact on infection rates would be marginal, they suggest.

But if all households in the UK paired up with one other, each bubble would contain an average of 4.7 people.

That would lead to a reproduction (R) number within households of between 1.9-2.4. And an R number is above one means the disease is escalating.

The renewed agreement to relax rules at Christmas comes after two leading journals said the "rash" decision to ease restrictions would "cost many lives".

In a joint editorial, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal said demand on the NHS was increasing, adding that a new strain of coronavirus had introduced "further potential jeopardy".

Graham Medley, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the "major driver" for how much the disease spread over the Christmas period was the infection prevalence - and that the current prevalence had started to rise "really quite rapidly in some places".

"When the rules were made about Christmas, we didn't know what that prevalence was going to be," Prof Medley told the Today programme.

As for the risk of the NHS becoming overwhelmed, he said: "We don't have much headroom."