Nearly 400,000 new Covid-19 vaccinations have been registered in the UK over the past 24-hour period, with 127,170 first doses and 257,486 second doses:

Unregulated international travel “can be very dangerous” but there are steps which can minimise the risk of allowing more movement between countries, a member of the government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has said.

“We certainly got our hands very comprehensively burned in March 2020 when very large numbers of people returned from holidays in Europe with the virus and set the pandemic going in the UK at a very fast rate,” Professor Adam Finn told Sky News.

“So, we’ve learned our lesson that international travel in an unregulated way can be very dangerous indeed.”

When asked about the proposed traffic light system for restrictions, Professor Finn added: “The principle of trying to think carefully about how this is done and to minimise the overall risks is clearly a sensible one.

“I think the plans need to be thought through carefully and put in place and not done in too much of a rush, because we don’t want to now lose ground and have to catch back up again to where we are in the later part of the year.”

Brighton Pride has been cancelled for the second year in a row due to concerns about mass gatherings, despite the successful rollout of Covid-19 vaccines so far.

The event, which was scheduled for 7 and 8 August, would normally bring thousands of people to the East Sussex city, with about 300,000 people attending in 2019.

However, the organisers said there were “uncertainties that need to be resolved to safely deliver mass gatherings”.

“We are devastated at having to make this decision for a second year and recognise the huge impact on local businesses, charities and community groups who rely on the fundraising potential of the Pride weekend,” Paul Kemp, director of Brighton Pride, said.

“Pride attracts tens of thousands of people to our city for the LGBTQ+ community parade which is the heart of the Pride celebrations, where social distancing clearly can’t be facilitated safely.”

Smaller community and pop-up cultural events are still planned throughout the summer and autumn as part of a cultural programme that can run within Covid-safe guidelines, organisers said.

Ministers, health chiefs and government scientists are stepping up preparations for an autumn booster vaccination campaign to protect against a third wave of Covid-19.

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said scientists were looking at a number of options, including potentially mixing jabs or using new jabs to protect against variants.

“We want them to be able, if they need to, from September onwards to boost those that are most vulnerable,” Mr Zahawi said.

The government has already ordered 60 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine in preparation for a booster campaign, but other jabs, such as the AstraZeneca vaccine, could be used.

The minister said England’s deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam was conducting a clinical trial to look at “which vaccine delivers the best boost”.

However, when asked whether all over-50s would be offered a booster shot before winter, Mr Zahawi said that a decision had not been made yet on how many people would receive the extra jab.

The majority of the world is heading into “a very, very dark period” of the coronavirus pandemic as cases accelerate at an alarming rate, a World Health Organisation (WHO) envoy has warned.

Dr David Nabarro, a special envoy on Covid-19 for the WHO, told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “This pandemic is fearsome and it’s accelerating faster than ever and it’s a global phenomenon.

“There are a few countries that are able to demonstrate that they’ve got much lower levels of disease and they’re actually feeling that they’re recovering, but the majority of the world is heading into a very, very dark period.”

He added: “The reason why it’s particularly dark is that now we don’t have the full data because more and more the pandemic is spreading in places where testing is not available, so the numbers that we have we know are a major under-estimate.

“It’s bigger than ever, it’s fiercer than ever and it’s causing more distress than ever, this is a bad phase.”

Dr Nabarro also urged leaders of wealthy countries to look at vaccine distribution as a “world issue” to get jabs to the people who need them the most.

India accounted for nearly half of all global coronavirus cases and one in every four deaths due to the virus in the past week, according to the World Health Organisation.

The global health body warned that the Southeast Asia region was still reporting “marked increases” in both cases and deaths.

Our reporter, Mayank Aggarwal, has the full story below:

German health minister Jens Spahn has called for a “global reset” in the fight against pandemics, as Germany and the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the creation of a new global hub in Berlin for gathering data on outbreaks.

Mr Spahn, speaking at a virtual news conference attended also by German chancellor Angela Merkel and the head of the WHO, said the world was still insufficiently prepared for pandemics.

“There will be more viruses that will emerge with the potential of sparking pandemics,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus 

Ireland’s deputy premier has said that he is hoping for a return to normality in the country by late summer with the “vast majority” of coronavirus restrictions removed by August.

However, Leo Varadkar also warned that nothing could be promised when it came to the virus and said he believed restrictions on international travel and gatherings indoors would continue into the autumn.

“What I am looking at very closely is what is happening in countries that are a bit ahead of us in terms of vaccination, the United Kingdom and Israel, and life in Israel is pretty much back to normal, they’re welcoming tourists again and they’re having not very large gatherings, but they are having mass gatherings,” Mr Varadkar said.

He added: “Kids going back to school as normal in September, college happening on campus, all those things and a pretty normal Christmas in terms of seeing our friends and relations.

“But nobody can promise that. This is a new virus which is only around a year or so and the vaccines aren’t even around a year.

“It’s possible that the efficacy of the vaccines could wear off after a certain point in time, we don’t know what might happen in terms of variants that may be vaccine resistant and we don’t know what will happen when the winter comes.”

The Nepalese government has been accused of underplaying the number of positive coronavirus cases recorded at Mount Everest’s base camp, sparking fears that the climbing season may need to be cut short.

Nepal opened Everest to climbers despite the threat posed by Covid-19 in South Asia, where India has become the epicentre of the pandemic.

You can find the full story below:

Our social affairs correspondent, May Bulman, has more details below on new figures showing that the number of UK adults experiencing depression more than doubled during the pandemic: