Holidaymakers could be able to visit Portugal from the “middle of May”, the nation’s ambassador to the UK has said.

Manuel Lobo Antunes told Sky News the Iberian country would open its borders to the UK “as soon as possible”, adding: “This is not just a unilateral matter, we have to coordinate this issue with our British friends and the UK Government.

“But we are hopeful, as we have been saying for these last months, that from the middle of May, regular mobility between the UK and Portugal and vice versa, can be established, that’s our hope.”

Asked if those who have not been vaccinated would be allowed to travel to Portugal, he added: “Yes, that’s the idea, that’s what we wanted, to as much as possible go back to the regime that existed before the pandemic.

“It’s in that direction we are working and that is possible.”

Britain’s “vaccine passport” for international travellers will be based on the standard NHS smartphone app, the government has revealed.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, confirmed the government was working on an app this morning and said he was working to get international recognition of the passport system.

He also said he would reveal “in the next couple of weeks” which countries will be quarantine-free if international travel returns as expected on 17 May.

Travel Correspondent Simon Calder has the full report:

Along with his thoughts for control measures going forward, Professor Peter Openshaw welcomed the findings of a study showing that a single dose of a Covid-19 vaccine can cut transmission by up to half.

He told Today the results were “very, very reassuring and “certainly better than many of us expected just a few months ago”.

“It shows that the immune system is doing something a lot more than we were expecting of it really,” he said

He said it was known from other studies that infection was “typically much milder” in people who had been vaccinated and added that two doses meant the outcome was “almost certainly going to be even better”.

A Sage member said it was likely a “mixture of measures” would be needed alongside mass vaccination to live with Covid-19 in the coming months.

Professor Peter Openshaw, from the Covid-19 clinical information network, told the BBC Radio Four Today programme: “We mustn’t rely just on vaccines, we need to also strengthen precautions of mask-wearing and testing and tracing, particularly for indoor crowded events which are such high risk, particularly things like exercise classes, we’re probably going to need keep some pre-testing.”

Asked whether such measures should continue through the summer, the Imperial College professor of experimental medicine said: “I think we mustn’t drop our guard during the summer, we must use the summer to strengthen our precautions and to roll out vaccines into the groups that are most transmitting, which are younger people who so far perhaps haven’t been vaccinated so much.

“So, we mustn’t lose our concentration during this summer interval.”

Plans to scrap all limits on social contact on 21 June should be delayed for a month until the summer school holidays, when transmission rates are expected to be lower, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) has warned.

A new report from the TBI also said lifting restrictions only when all adults had been offered at least one vaccine could prevent a resurgence of the virus this summer.

The TBI’s proposed package of measures also includes offering vaccines to teenagers, subject to regulatory approval, and achieving a 65:35 split in use between the AstraZeneca and Pfizer/Moderna jabs.

India passed 200,000 deaths from coronavirus today as the country’s devastating second wave saw new cases above 300,000 for the seventh day running.

The past 24 hours were India’s deadliest in the pandemic so far, with 3,293 deaths, and a new world daily case record was set at 360,960.

Experts believe the official records greatly underestimate the true figures, with epidemiologists at the University of Michigan projecting the actual number of deaths to be between two to five times higher than reported.

One dose of a Covid vaccine can cut transmission of the virus by up to half, a study from Public Health England has found.

According to the research, people who received a single dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines – and who became infected at least three weeks after being inoculated – were between 38 per cent and 49 per cent less likely to pass the virus on to people living in their homes, compared to unvaccinated people.

Protection was seen from around 14 days after receiving a jab, with similar levels regardless of age.

Full report from Kate Ng here: