Elderly people and healthcare workers are among the first people to receive a coronavirus vaccine jab today, as the EU rolls out its mass vaccination programme.

European Union nations have launched a coordinated mass vaccination drive today to inoculate the most vulnerable among the bloc’s nearly 450 million population.

Healthcare workers, elderly people and leading politicians were among the first to receive Covid-19 vaccinations, in an effort to reassure the public that the jabs are safe.

Italy kicked off the vaccination campaign in Rome, where Italian virus car Demonico Arcuri said it was significant that the country’s first doses were administered at the Spallanzani hospital to five doctors and nurses.

The Spallanzani is where a Chinese couple visiting from Wuhan tested positive in January, becoming Italy’s first confirmed cases of the virus that later went on to spread across the country. Italy now has the continent’s worst confirmed virus death toll at nearly 72,000.

Mr Arcuri told reporters outside the hospital: “Today is a beautiful, symbolic day: All the citizens of Europe together are starting to get their vaccinations, the first ray of light after a long night.

“We all have to continue to be prudent, cautious and responsible,” he warned. “We still have a long road ahead, but finally we see a bit of light.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a video on Saturday that the vaccine rollout is a “touching moment of unity”.

Scientists have begun trialling a new antibody treatment that could prevent someone who has been exposed to Covid-19 from falling ill.

The potentially life-saving treatment is developed by AstraZeneca and is being looked into by researchers from the University College London Hospitals (UCLH).

Vincent Wood has the report:

Scientists from the Independent Sage group have urged the government to place all regions of England in tier 4, and for the devolved nations to bring forward their own national lockdowns.

Around 43 per cent of England’s population, equivalent to roughly 24 million people, are now living under tier 4 restrictions as of Boxing Day, following the discovery of the new variant of coronavirus earlier this month.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland, new lockdowns have come into force, while restrictions that were relaxed only for Christmas Day in Wales have been swiftly re-imposed again.

Dr Zubaida Haque, a member of Independent Sage, said on Boxing Day: “Given that we surpassed 70,000 Covid-19 deaths in UK on Christmas Day, and there are not more patients with coronavirus in hospital than at any point in the pandemic, why hasn’t the government implemented tier 4 restrictions everywhere in the UK? Independent Sage are very worried.”

She shared a statement from the group, which described the relaxed rules around Christmas for parts of the UK as setting “the scene for thousands of super-spreading events”, and said in light of the new strain, “this is incredibly dangerous”.

Canada, Sweden and Spain have become the latest countries to report cases of the highly contagious new coronavirus variant, which is believed to have emerged in the UK.

The first two confirmed cases in Canada were found in Ontario, said associate chief medical officer Dr Barbara Yaffe on Saturday.

In Sweden, it was detected in a traveller who fell ill after arriving from the UK and later tested positive.

My colleague Colin Drury has the report:

The government is also planning to ramp up the mass vaccination programme and aims for two million people to receive their first dose of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca or the Pfizer/BioNTech within a fortnight.

Sports stadiums and conference venues have been set up as mass vaccination centres and are ready to launch in the second week of January, reported the newspaper, as long as the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approves the Oxford vaccine within days.

AstraZeneca chief Paul Soriot has said he believed researchers had found the “winning formula” using two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine candidate, raising hopes it is more effective than first thought.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Mr Soriot promised to publish the results, amid reports that the UK regulator could approve the jab within days.

It comes as Canada became the latest country to detect cases of the new highly contagious variant of Covid-19, which is thought to have first emerged in the UK. New cases of the variants are being detected in countries all over the world.

As of Christmas Eve, the Department of Health and Social Care said more than 600,000 people had received their first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s liveblog, following developments on the coronavirus pandemic in the UK and worldwide.