Actress Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed that she was infected with Covid-19, saying that it left her with “long-tail fatigue and brain fog.”

The celebrity wrote on her wellness blog, on her website Goop, saying that she was in the process of starting a long-term healing plan.

Ms Paltrow revealed: “All jokes aside (no, 2021 wasn’t the easiest year to do dry January), cleaning up my diet, exercise, and even thought patterns last month left me feeling energised, healthier, and -believe it or not – wanting more. I’m extending this focus further, through the full first quarter.

“A little background: I had Covid-19 early on, and it left me with some long-tail fatigue and brain fog.”

The actress is the latest celebrity to share the experience of having Covid. Others to have done so include Sharon Osbourne, Tom Hanks, Idris Elba and Bryan Cranston.

Boris Johnson’s pledge to “level up” the country is  “just a slogan” unless children are placed at the heart of plans, the outgoing children’s commissioner has warned.

The prime minister must show he is serious about vulnerable children by putting them at the centre of ‘build back better’ plans following the pandemic, Anne Longfield said in her final speech in the role.

Data released by NHS England shows that a total of 13,891,042 Covid-19 vaccinations were administered in England between 8 December 2020 and 16 February 2021, this includes both first and second doses.

The breakdown by region is as follows:

London – 1,595,410 total Covid vaccinations

The Midlands – 2,649,662 total Covid vaccinations

East of England – 1,669,006 total Covid vaccinations

North East and Yorkshire – 2,185,038 total Covid vaccinations

North West – 1,835,439 total Covid vaccinations

South East – 2,271,662 total Covid vaccinations

South West -1,617,625 total Covid vaccinations

GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology Inc have announced they will expand their existing partnership developing antibody therapies for Covid to other diseases.

The companies announce a partnership in 2020 to help research coronavirus antibody treatments. These are given to people who have been diagnosed with the illness with the aim of making the infection less severe.

One of the companies’ trial therapies for coronavirus is currently in the final stage of two global trials with results expected in the first quarter of this year.

Reuters reported that the Covid pandemic has made large pharma companies more interested in researching new ways to treat infectious pathogens, including influenza.

GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology Inc said they go on to try and further develop Vir’s experimental treatment for influenza A, a virus that causes flu.

A Harvard study has claimed that slavery reparations could have reduced the Covid-19 death toll of Black Americans, who have been disproportionally affected by the virus.

The study, a collaboration between researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice, looked at how reparation payments would have affected coronavirus transmission in Louisiana.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that discussions are ongoing with Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford and other devolved nations over whether the whole of the UK will leave lockdown simultaneously.

Speaking from a mass coronavirus vaccination centre in Cwmbran Stadium in Cwmbran, south Wales, the prime minster, called the falling rates of Covid infection “encouraging.”

When asked whether he would like all nations of the UK to leave lockdown at the same time he responded: “We have continuous conversations with Mark Drakeford, with other representatives of the devolved administrations, about how to do it, just as we work on the vaccination programme together.”

He added: “We try and make sure we concert our approach and our general messages.”

A leading scientist, from Oxford University, is warning that the public won’t accept further coronavirus restrictions once they’ve been vaccinated.

Professor Sir John Bell, Oxford University’s regius professor of medicine, said that it is “not plausible” to expect that people will continue to follow major restrictions after they have received two doses of the vaccine.

He told the Commons Science and Technology Committee that steps need to be taken to allow people to back to a “relatively normal way of life,” adding: “It’s not plausible to imagine a world where we vaccinate the whole country and everybody believes they are still in a place that we were in six months ago, it’s just not reasonable.”

Unwinding the national lockdown “too fast” would risk a “disaster”, a government scientist has warned as she urged caution with many yet to receive Covid vaccines, political correspondent Ashley Cowburn reports.

Dame Angela McLean — a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) — said the country “got into real trouble” in 2020 for not being cautious enough.

Appearing at the Commons Science and Technology Committee, she told MPs that while cases were falling alongside hospitalisations and deaths, “we still stand with a high number of infections”.

Scotland has now recorded more than 9,000 deaths related to coronavirus.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) data shows 9,053 deaths have been registered where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, as of Sunday.

The NRS statistics also show that in the most recent week, 8 to 14 February, deaths of those aged 85 and over were lower than those aged 75 to 84 for the first time since November.