There were 5,274 new cases of coronavirus recorded in the UK on Thursday, and 18 deaths, according to the latest government data.

It comes as the so-called Indian variant was declared the most dominant across all four nations.

Nearly four in five people in England aged 50 and over are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, figures from the NHS suggest, with an estimated 79.4 per cent of people in this age bracket thought to have received two doses of a vaccine by 30 May.

The government has set a target to offer both jabs to everyone aged 50 and over by 21 June, when the final stage of England’s roadmap out of lockdown is scheduled.

Within this age group, 91.6 per cent of people aged 80 and over are now estimated to have received both doses, along 97.1 per cent of people aged 70 to 79 and 86.3 per cent of people aged 60 to 69. Some 58.4 per cent of 50 to 59-year-olds are estimated to be fully vaccinated.

People in their 50s began to receive invitations for a first dose of vaccine in early March, so it is likely many have only recently been offered a second dose.

Boris Johnson has received his second dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine at the Francis Crick Institute in London.

The PM got the jab earlier this evening.

Here is a rather characteristic image of Mr Johnson from March, when he received his first dose.

Reacting to the latest travel advice, Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye government ministers spent last month “hailing the restart of international travel, only to close it down three weeks later”.

He criticised the move, saying this “all but guaranteed another lost summer for the travel sector”.

“Everyone wants to protect public health, but the entire point of the Global Travel Taskforce was to establish a system to unlock low-risk travel safely,” Mr Holland-Kaye said.

“Britain is the worst performing economy in the G7, and in the week that the prime minister hosts G7 leaders to launch his government’s vision of Global Britain, he’s sending a message that the UK will remain isolated from the rest of the world and closed to most of its G7 partners.”

He added if the government was serious about “protecting UK jobs and supporting businesses across the country”, rapid action is “needed to reopen flights to key trading partners, remove testing for vaccinated passengers from ‘green’ countries, and slash the cost and complexity of testing, as other G7 countries are doing”.

Public Health England said early evidence suggests there may be an increased risk of hospital admission from the variant that originated in India.

Figures showed there were 278 people with the variant who attended hospital emergency departments this week, up from 201 last week, while there were 94 overnight hospital admissions for patients with the Indian variant, up from 43 admissions the previous week. The majority of those admitted to hospital had not received a coronavirus vaccination.

Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said: “With this variant now dominant across the UK, it remains vital that we continue to exercise caution particularly while we learn more about transmission and health impacts. The way to tackle variants is to use the same measures to reduce the risk of transmission of Covid-19 we have used before. Work from home where you can, and practise hands, face, space, fresh air at all times.”

She also implored anyone eligible who has not done so yet to get their vaccine as soon as possible.

In its report, PHE also said the area worst affected by the Indian variant remains Bolton, where cases have risen by 795 from last week to a total of 2,149. Blackburn with Darwen is the second worst affected area, where cases of the variant have jumped by 368 week-on-week to a total of 724.

On the plus side, though, there are “encouraging signs” the transmission rate in Bolton is beginning to fall following actions taken by the local authority and residents, including teams of health workers going door-to-door to encourage people to get vaccinated at drop-in centres.

Football fans returning from the Champions League final in Portugal have been told to self-isolate after multiple flights reported passengers testing positive for coronavirus.

Posting on one fan forum, passengers reported as many as five flights organised by Manchester City for the match against Chelsea have been affected.

It follows Portugal being removed from England’s green travel list today.

Dom Farrell, a sports journalist for Stats Perform, travelled to Porto for work and received a notification from NHS Test and Trace four days after flying home, telling him he needed to self-isolate for seven days. He said a colleague on the same flight had received the same notification, leading him to believe that others onboard had too.

Mr Farrell said it was unnecessary for the match to take place abroad when two English clubs were competing.

He said: “If I’m being entirely honest, it shouldn’t have happened. And I’m not saying that because I have to self-isolate. It just seems silly it wasn’t happening in the UK.”

Wembley was considered as an alternative venue for the fixture, but the UK government could not accommodate the request to allow quarantine exemptions for thousands of sponsors, VIPs, and broadcasters, reports suggest.

The Department for Transport announced seven countries were being added to the red list on Thursday following the first three-weekly review of the government’s traffic light system.

It means people arriving in the UK from those nations will be required to stay in a quarantine hotel for 11 nights.

The countries added were Afghanistan, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Trinidad & Tobago.

Defending the growing list of restricted countries, transport secretary Grant Shapps said: “Today’s news has actually come as part of the regular three-week review process, so it’s not as it was last year, every single week these things changing.”

He added: “We would expect in the ordinary course of events for there to be now a three-week period, obviously subject to if something dramatic comes up we would of course need to make changes elsewhere and we will have to reserve the right to do that to protect the population at home.”

The so-called Indian variant of coronavirus is now believed to be dominant in the UK, with a total of 12,431 cases now confirmed, Public Health England said on Thursday.

This is a rise of 79 per cent from last week alone, PHE warned.

It has now officially overtaken the Kent, or Alpha, variant which was previously the most prevalent across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has said there is concern about a “Nepal mutation of the so-called Indian variant” after the government announced Portugal would be taken off England’s travel green list.

“I want to be straight with people, it’s actually a difficult decision to make, but in the end we’ve seen two things really which caused concern,” he said in an interview.

“One is the positivity rate has nearly doubled since the last review in Portugal and the other is there’s a sort of Nepal mutation of the so-called Indian variant which has been detected and we just don’t know the potential for that to be vaccine-defeating mutation and simply don’t want to take the risk as we come up to 21 June and the review of the fourth stage of the unlock.”

The Department for Transport said the changes will come into effect from 4am on 8 June, and that the decision to move Portugal to the amber list followed an “almost doubling” in the country’s coronavirus test positivity rate and the discovery of 68 cases of the Indian variant including some with a mutation previously seen in Nepal.

Public Health England is investigating both the Indian variant and the mutation “to better understand whether it could be more transmissible and less effectively tackled by vaccines”.

Travellers arriving in the UK from amber list countries must self-isolate at home for 10 days.

Coronavirus case rates in the northwest of England have risen to their highest level in three months. The area saw the largest increase across the country, though all regions have seen some kind of rise, according to the latest figures.

The northwest had 87.4 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 30 May, up week-on-week from 53.7, which is the highest for the region since the week ending 28 February and is also the highest of any region in England.

According to the latest weekly surveillance report from Public Health England (PHE), the southwest has the lowest rate: 9.4, up very slightly week-on-week from 9.1.

Case rates in England among all age groups have risen, with the highest rate among 10 to 19-year-olds. In this group there were 72.3 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 30 May, up week-on-week from 55.1. The second highest rate is among 20 to 29-year-olds, up from 31.6 to 52.0.

PHE said the number of reported acute respiratory incidents in the past week had risen compared with the previous week “with the most notable increase in educational settings incidents”.