Patient record data reveals which ethnicities received England’s 10,523,774 first dose vaccines up to 7 February:

– White British: 8,071,583 (77 per cent)

– Asian: 490,800 Asian (5 per cent)

– Black: 170,226 (2 per cent)

– Mixed: 74,985 (1 per cent)

– Other: 139,333 (1 per cent)

– Not stated or unknown: 1,014,087 (10 per cent)

NHS England, which published the figures, said the data is provisional and could be revised in the future.

Scotland’s tourism secretary Fergus Ewing has announced Scotland will be given an additional £25m of support for schemes run by VisitScotland, in a bid to help businesses and the economy during the ongoing pandemic.

The money will be split between a business support fund for coach operators, as well as the marine and outdoor tourism restart fund, the visitor attractions support fund and the sector destination operational and market readiness fund.

Mr Ewing said: “We are committed to supporting Scotland’s vital tourism and hospitality sectors through the current restrictions so that we have a viable industry ready to trade when the time is right.

“This additional £25m will boost existing funds this financial year and will support the short-term response to the Scottish Tourism Recovery Taskforce recommendations.”

Nicola Sturgeon’s government previously announced more than £100m in support for tourism firms back in December.

Dr Anthony Fauci has predicted April will be “open season” for anyone – across all vaccine categories – who wants a jab in the US.

America’s top infectious diseases expert told NBC’s Today Show on Thursday: “We have those priority [groups] – 1a, 1b. If you look at the projection, I would imagine by the time we get to April, that will be what I would call for [lack of] better wording ‘open season’.

“Namely, virtually everybody and anybody in any category could start to get vaccinated.”

He did, however, warn that it “would likely take several more months, just logistically, to get vaccines into people’s arms”.

Danielle Zoellner has more:

There have been 13,494 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed in the UK and 678 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, Public Health England has confirmed.

Meanwhile a total of 13,509,108 people have received a first dose of the vaccine – equivalent to 20 per cent of the population

Some 98.0 per cent of people in Gloucestershire aged 80 and over have received their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, new data suggests – the highest for any sub-regional area of England, according to the PA news agency.

NHS England data shows the number of first doses broken down by Sustainability & Transformational Partnerships (STPs), each of which contains a number of local authorities, NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups.

There are 42 STPs covering the whole of England and figures show that up to 7 February, Gloucestershire STP had the highest estimated proportion of people aged 80 and over who had received their first vaccine dose – followed by Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent (96.5 per cent) and Shropshire & Telford and Wrekin (96.4 per cent).

The STPs with the lowest proportion was East London Health & Care Partnership (73.1 per cent).

It comes after the NHS revealed earlier that nearly one in four people aged 80 and over in London had yet to have their first dose of coronavirus vaccine at the start of this week.

The UK chair of KPMG has stepped aside after reportedly admitting to breaking Covid rules to get coffee with clients and telling staff to “stop moaning” about coronavirus.

Bill Michael allegedly warned workers at one of accounting’s “Big Four” against “playing the victim card” during a conference call with the company’s financial services consultancy team after they raised concerns over possible cuts to pensions, pay and bonuses, it was revealed on Tuesday.

According to the Financial Times, he left the company on Wednesday following reports he was meeting clients for coffee despite coronavirus social distancing restrictions.

One case of the South African Covid-19 variant has been identified in the Stafford area, Staffordshire County Council said.

“Please get tested if you live or work in the Stafford borough. Book a test at our community sites if you have no symptoms,” it added.

A further 494 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 77,745, NHS England said on Thursday.

Patients were aged between 27 and 103. All except 22, aged between 51 and 87, had known underlying health conditions.

The deaths were between 23 December and 10 February, with the majority being on or after 6 February.

There were 63 other deaths reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds has said ministers must act urgently to get the online quarantine hotel booking system back up and running after it crashed earlier today.

“It is extremely worrying that even the limited hotel quarantine booking system is showing signs of failing from the outset,” he said.

“Over a year into this pandemic and 50 days on from the discovery of the South African strain, there are no excuses for yet more Government incompetence in the introduction of hotel quarantine.

“Ministers must act to fix this urgently.”

Angela Merkel has given the go ahead for Germany’s coronavirus lockdown to loosen – starting with the reopening of schools and hairdressers, reports in The Telegraph suggest.

The leader had wanted to keep schools and nurseries closed but reportedly gave in to pressure from regional leaders at talks on Wednesday evening.

According to the newspaper, each German region is now able to make its own decision on whether to reopen places of education. One state, Saxony, has already announced it will be doing do next week.

Hairdressers will be allowed to reopen on a national level from March 1 – it is not yet understood why the decision was made for these businesses alone.

Companies in other industries are said to be angry and confused that all other lockdown restrictions will remain in place until at least 7 March, slowing down their road to reopening.