Two Conservative MPs have received coronavirus vaccinations despite not being in the top priority groups of the over-70s, elderly care home residents, health and care workers or people with serious underlying health conditions.

Brendan Clarke-Smith, 40, of Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire, and Lee Anderson, 54, of Ashfield in the same county, both said they had been asked to receive a jab in order to work as volunteers helping with the immunisation drive in local clinics.  

But the Labour leader of Bassetlaw Council, Simon Greaves, said the borough’s MP Mr Clarke-Smith should have turned the jab down: “There are lots of elderly local people, some of them shielding at home. I think the decision of the local MP to accept the jab was wrong. He should have waited his turn, as other people are required to do.”

Asked whether vaccination centres should be giving doses to volunteers in this way, prime minister Boris Johnson’s official spokesperson said he was not aware of the two MPs’ cases.

But he added: “I priority is to vaccinate cohorts one to four, as recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations, and we expect those in the programme to follow that guidance.”

Welsh Health minister Vaughan Gething has said Wales is “on track” to offer coronavirus vaccine to the top four priority groups by the middle of February despite recent snowfall hampering efforts.

“I think we are on track, and the three to four days of significant gains being made of more than 20,000 people being vaccinated on each day are what we can do on a regular basis if we have the supply,” Mr Gething told reporters earlier.

“Obviously, the weather yesterday was another intervening factor that prevented us from achieving more, otherwise we would be reporting much more significant figures today.

“But we also have the ability to catch up in our system, largely because of the scale and the spread of what we’re able to do with our colleagues in primary care, currently led by general practice, but pharmacy and others will come onboard in larger number too.”

The Moderna vaccine is effective against new variants of coronavirus first detected in the UK and South Africa, the developers announced.

The US pharmaceuticals company said they expect the two-dose administration of the jab will be sufficient to protect against the known new variants, adding they will nonetheless continue with testing.

“As we seek to defeat the Covid-19 virus, which has created a worldwide pandemic, we believe it is imperative to be proactive as the virus evolves,“ Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, said in a statement.

”We are encouraged by these new data, which reinforce our confidence that the Moderna Covid-19 Vaccine should be protective against these newly detected variants.“

We know that the quicker the virus is brought under control the sooner we can rebuild a brighter, better future, writes shadow international development secretary Preet Kaur Gill for Independent Voices. 

Yet vaccine nationalism, where richer countries muscle their way to the front of the queue for vaccine doses, has meant most of the low-income countries in the global south won’t have wide access to a vaccine before April 2022 at the earliest.

Australia became one of the first countries in the world to complete a comprehensive process to approve the rollout of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine after AstraZeneca announced a delay in its initial global supply, Shweta Sharma reports.

The inoculation drive is expected to start in late February with a target of 80,000 doses per week initially, health minister Greg Hunt told reporters

Matt Hancock will lead a Downing Street press conference at 5pm on Monday, No 10 has said.

The health secretary will be joined by England’s deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries and Public Health England’s London director Susan Hopkins.

Downing Street has sought to clarify Boris Johnson’s remarks that the government will be “looking at the potential of relaxing some measures” before mid-February.

“The prime minister was just making clear that we continue to look at the latest evidence in terms of the transmission of the virus, the number of people hospitalised, and the number of people who sadly go on to die,” Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson said.

“And he was making the point that ahead of 15 February, which as you know is the review point, we will look at that evidence closely, and that will inform what we may or may not be able to ease from the 15th onwards.”

He added: “It has always been our intention to ease restrictions where we can from that point on the 15th, and schools are obviously our top priority.”

Although Scotland’s lockdown looks set to continue beyond the early February date initially proposed, case numbers appear to be declining, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

“We are seeing some early evidence that these restrictions are working, which is positive,” the first minister said at her daily briefing.

“We think they are starting to reduce case numbers and while it will take a bit of time yet to feed properly into admissions to hospital and ICU, we also hope that we might be starting to see some early positive signs too.”

In total, 47 per cent of those aged over 80 have received their first dose of the vaccine, along with 64 per cent of care home residents and 73 per cent of care home staff, Public Health Wales has said.

Health minister Vaughan Gething previously said he expected 70 per cent of the over-80s, care home residents and care home staff to have received their first jab by today.

Speaking at her daily coronavirus briefing, Nicola Sturgeon said 415,402 people have received a jab, and the Scottish Government is on track to meet its mid-February target of inoculating everyone over the age of 70.

Scotland’s first minister said 95 per cent of care home residents and health workers have now been vaccinated, with 46 per cent of all people over the age of 80 given a jab, up by 9 per cent since Friday.

From Monday, Scots aged between 70 and 79 will receive letters inviting them for their inoculation.