Covid-19: Tickets for England fans in Italy, and booster jab for over-50s

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

England football fans are being told not to travel to Italy to watch their side face Ukraine in the Euros quarter final on Saturday, since Italy's Covid travel rules for UK arrivals mean they'd have to quarantine and miss the match. Good news if you're an England fan living elsewhere though: Uefa will sell the 2,300 or so tickets that had been allocated to the FA to registered England fans who don't live in the UK. Italy's travel rules are more relaxed for people living in Europe. It comes as new figures for Scotland show nearly 2,000 Covid cases have been linked to people watching football. Two thirds of cases were fans who travelled to London for Scotland's game with England.

The NHS has been given the go ahead to start planning a Covid vaccine booster programme in the UK before this winter. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has issued advice that those who are most vulnerable to Covid should get a third dose - meaning all adults over 50 and anyone younger who qualifies for a flu jab. The current vaccines are thought to protect people against serious illness for at least six months - although there's no firm data on exactly how long immunity lasts. The idea is that boosters will help maintain protection against Covid and new variants. More on how the UK's vaccine rollout is going here.

Currently, rules in schools mean that pupils are kept in groups - or bubbles - and if someone in that group tests positive for Covid then everyone else in the bubble must self-isolate. Figures earlier this week showed there had been a sharp rise in pupils sent home to isolate, and now Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has told MPs he wants the system scrapped as soon as possible. He said they could be removed as part of the next step of lockdown easing in England, currently scheduled for 19 July.

Earlier Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer challenged the PM over why he didn't sack former Health Secretary Matt Hancock when he broke Covid rules. He brought up the case of Ollie Bibby, who was not allowed to see his family as he died of leukaemia in hospital in May, a day before Mr Hancock was filmed kissing a colleague in violation of Covid regulations. "It's one rule for them, another rule for everyone else," said Sir Keir. In response, Boris Johnson said everyone shared the Bibby family's grief but that the government was focusing on vaccines, rather than "on stuff going on within the Westminster bubble". Ollie's mum Penny said his reply made her family feel "not important".

Nearly half of Australia's population - more than 12 million people - are under new stay-at-home orders after a small rise in cases across the country. Seven Australian cities including Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Darwin, Townsville and the Gold Coast are now in lockdown as authorities scramble to prevent the spread of the highly-contagious Delta variant. State leaders said they were facing a "pressure cooker situation" as new cases emerged. The move comes after a slow vaccination rollout with just 5% of the population being fully vaccinated.

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As more and more over-18s are vaccinated, we've answered some of the main questions about getting the jab.

Find further information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.

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