Covid-19: Millions more in England joining Tier 4 from Thursday

Millions more people across England will join the toughest tier of Covid restrictions from Thursday.

Matt Hancock told the Commons that the Midlands, North East, parts of the North West and parts of the South West are among those escalated to tier four.

Earlier, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was approved for use in the UK, with the first doses to be given on Monday.

But the PM warned that people should not "in any way think that this is over" as "the virus is really surging".

Under tier four rules non-essential shops, beauty salons and hairdressers must close, and people are limited to meeting in a public outdoor place with their household, or one other person.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock also said that rising cases across England mean it is "therefore necessary to apply tier three measures more broadly too, including in Liverpool and North Yorkshire".

All of the tier changes will come into effect at 00:01 GMT on Thursday 31 December.

Speaking to the BBC earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that 60% of UK coronavirus cases were now the new, more transmissible, strain of Covid-19.

Asked by political editor Laura Kuenssberg if the government had been too slow to act, he said: "What we, unfortunately, were not able to budget for was this this new variant."

He added: "It's spreading rapidly from the places where it's started, in the east of London and in Kent. And, alas, it's starting to seed across the country."

On Tuesday, 53,135 new Covid cases were recorded in the UK - the highest single day rise since mass testing began - as well as 414 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

The approval of the Oxford vaccine - of which the UK has ordered 100 million doses - means vaccination centres will now start inviting patients to receive the first of their two doses from next week.

Priority groups for immunisation have already been identified, starting with care home residents, the over-80s, and health and care workers.

More than 600,000 people in the UK have been given the Pfizer-BioNTech jab since Margaret Keenan became the first person in the world to be given a Covid vaccine outside a clinical trial.

It is hoped that about two million patients a week could soon be vaccinated with the two vaccines that have now been approved.