Two grandparents who served the NHS for 80 years between them held hands before they became one of the first couples in the world to receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccination.  

Victor and Penny Griffiths had their jabs at Basildon University Hospital in Essex where they worked from the 1960s, during the second day of the vaccine rollout in the UK.  

Mr Griffiths, 86, who worked as a radiographer, said he and his 80-year-old wife Penny, a former nurse, are looking forward to being able to see their 13 grandchildren – who range in age from four to 37 – for the first time since March.  

The pair, who married three months after they met at Connaught Hospital in 1963 following a “whirlwind romance”, said it has been “devastating” to watch the NHS fight the pandemic, but they are “over the moon” to be among the first to receive the vaccination. 

Firefighters are ready to help with the coronavirus vaccine rollout after an agreement with employers, their union has announced.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said firefighters will assist other public sector organisations with track, trace and isolate measures, and check that potential higher risk premises are Covid-secure.

They will also inspect workplaces where concerns have been raised about Covid-security.

The FBU said fire and rescue services are open to helping with the vaccine rollout if requested.

Nicola Sturgeon has said UK and international travel was largely to blame for Scotland’s second coronavirus wave.

Revealing details of a report to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), the first minister said these journeys “reignited” the virus after it had been supressed.

She said these risks are why the Scottish government recommends against non-essential travel outside of the country and the reason for legal restrictions being in place to prevent people travelling between level 3 and 4 areas.

Relaxing restrictions before vulnerable priority groups are vaccinated against Covid-19 would be “premature” and risks another surge of cases, government advisers have warned.

Ashley Cowburn has more on this below:

Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the allergic reaction documented in two healthcare workers who received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccination is something that happens frequently, and is therefore “not unexpected”.

He said: “The Pfizer data showed that about 0.6 per cent of people had some form of allergic reaction in the trial on the vaccine, but about 0.5 per cent on placebo.  So there was a genuine excess of allergic reaction but this was small and the true rate is not known, and there is a lot of uncertainty around that estimate.

“The only thing that is contraindicated with this vaccine (meaning you mustn’t have it) is hypersensitivity to the vaccine or any of the excipients (other things in the vaccine), but some people won’t know if they have hypersensitivity to some constituents of the vaccine.

“What would be wise, as the MHRA have already advised, would be for anyone who has known severe allergic reaction such that they need to carry an EpiPen, to delay having a vaccination until the reason for the allergic reaction has been clarified.

“For the general population this does not mean that they would need to be anxious about receiving the vaccination.

“One has to remember that even things like Marmite can cause unexpected severe allergic reactions,” he added.

Further measures could be introduced in Wales before Christmas, the country’s chief medical officer has said.

Dr Frank Atherton told a press conference the question of whether new restrictions imposed last week in Wales were enough “is a really important one”.

“We are at risk of getting into the Christmas period with rates much higher than we had anticipated or had hoped,” he said.

“We need to think about the Christmas period of managing our risk to make it as low as possible during those five days of Christmas, and then beyond Christmas I just don’t know where we will be.

“We will have to see where the virus transmission is, what the rates are, what the hospital situation looks like, but it may well be that we need to think about further restrictions beyond Christmas.”

Scotland’s First Minister has thanked everyone involved in the roll out of the UK’s vaccination programme as the first Covid-19 vaccines were administered on Tuesday.

She said: “The vaccination programme is a major, enormous undertaking.

“We know there are challenges that still lie ahead in it but it was hugely encouraging, I would go as far as to say it was actually inspiring to see it get under way yesterday.”

Ms Sturgeon added that she would announce provisional figures for the number of people who have been vaccinated when she updates MSPs on Thursday.

Sky News presenter Kay Burley has been taken off the air for the rest of 2020 after she admitted to breaching coronavirus restrictions, The Independent understands.

Ms Burley will not front her daily breakfast show in the coming weeks and is due to depart on a pre-planned holiday to Africa on Friday.

My colleague Tom Batchelor has the story:

Norway is allowing travellers from abroad to undergo a mandatory ten-day quarantine in a place of their choosing – instead of in a designated quarantine hotel, which is the current rule.

Visitors will be allowed to do so if they can document that they can respect quarantine conditions, said the country’s justice minister on Wednesday.

At the moment, all travellers to Norway must stay in a quarantine hotel chosen by local authorities if they cannot document that they own property there.

Campaigners have warned that rich countries have hoarded enough doses of coronavirus vaccines to vaccinate their entire populations nearly three times over.

In stark contrast, nine in 10 people in poorer countries are set to miss the jabs next year as a result, my colleague Samuel Osborne reports.