Covid: 'Too early' to tell if lockdown will end in spring - PM

It is "too early" to say whether England's Covid restrictions will be able to end in the spring, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.

Once the four priority groups have been vaccinated, by mid-February, "We'll look then at how we're doing," he said.

Nearly two million people in the UK have had their first dose of vaccine the past week, government figures show.

Scientist Marc Baguelin, who advises the government, has said restaurants and bars should not reopen before May.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has said he "certainly hopes" schools in England can fully reopen before Easter, while Downing Street refused to be drawn on whether this would happen by then.

The UK recorded another all-time high of daily coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, with 1,820 people reported to have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test.

Speaking after a study showed infections in the community increased at the start of the latest lockdown in England, Mr Johnson said it was "absolutely crucial" that people observed the lockdown restrictions.

Referring to figures from the Imperial College London survey, he said they showed the new variant of the virus was "not more deadly but it is much more contagious and the numbers are very great".

Dr Baguelin, from Imperial College, who sits on a sub-group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said the premature opening of the hospitality sector would lead to a "bump" in Covid-19 cases.

He told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme even a partial reopening would generate "an increase in the R number". An R number above one means the epidemic is growing.

"Something of this scale, if it was to happen earlier than May, would generate a bump in transmission, which is already really bad," he said.

"So you have a lot of pressure on hospitals, you will have another wave of some extent. At best you will keep on having very, very unsustainable level of pressure on the NHS."

NHS England figures show one in 10 major hospital trusts had no spare adult critical care beds last week.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was an "impossible question" to ask how long the lockdown would need to last.

He said the coronavirus vaccines were "really good news" but "should not mask the fact that we have still got a very serious problem".

The government is aiming to offer a vaccine to all over-70s, the extremely clinical vulnerable and health and care workers by mid-February.

By the end of Tuesday 4.61 million people had received their initial jab, up from 2.64 million the week before, with people being vaccinated at a rate of 200 a minute, according to Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

Sixty-five new vaccination centres are opening in England, including a mosque in Birmingham and a cinema in Aylesbury.

In Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has insisted her country's vaccine programme was not lagging behind.

More than 160,000 people have received a first vaccine dose in Northern Ireland and more than 175,000 have had the jab in Wales.

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