Image source, PA Media

Our live coronavirus coverage has come to an end for the day. Thanks for joining us. Here are some of the main news stories from the day:

• There "will be no interruption" to UK vaccine supplies, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said, after the EU urged AstraZeneca to supply it with doses from UK plants amid a row over supply shortages.
• Germany's vaccine committee, meanwhile, said AstraZeneca's Covid jab should only be given to people aged under 65. But the UK has been using the AstraZeneca vaccine in its mass immunisation programme for weeks now, and public health officials say it is safe and provides "high levels of protection" across all ages.
• PM Boris Johnson travelled to Scotland for a trip to emphasise the strength of the UK working together during the pandemic.
• One in three police officers in England and Wales has been threatened by someone they believed had Covid-19, a survey by the Police Federation suggested.
• Singer Rita Ora's team offered a restaurant £5,000 to break lockdown rules for her 30th birthday, according to police.
• The government has withdrawn a social media advert urging people to "Stay Home. Save Lives" after it was criticised for stereotyping women.

Today's live page was brought to you by James Clarke, Hamish Mackay, Jennifer Meierhans, Alex Therrien, Lauren Turner and Ella Wills.

BBC World Service

Image source, EPA

The Africa Centre for Disease Control says the African Union (AU) has secured an additional 400 million doses of coronavirus vaccines for its members.

This comes on top of another 270 million announced earlier.

It is estimated Africa will need 1.5 billion vaccine doses to vaccinate 60% of its inhabitants.

Most countries on the continent have not started vaccinating people, lacking the funds to purchase the drugs.

South Africa's leading coronavirus expert Salim Abdool Karim recently urged the world's wealthier nations not to hoard vaccine supplies, describing the behaviour as "unconscionable" and warning "no-one is safe until everyone is safe".

The AU said earlier this month 50 million vaccines would be available between April and June.

The others will come later this year and next year.

Read more:

• Africa's long wait for the Covid-19 vaccine

A further 1,239 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test were reported in the UK earlier. The daily totals can fluctuate due to delays in reporting. However, the seven-day average for deaths is at a similar level.

Cases, meanwhile, continue to fall. The current seven-day average stands at 28,584.

Despite the ongoing fall in cases, the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 remains high (36,931).

Radio 4 PM

Earlier, we heard that Germany's vaccine committee said AstraZeneca's Covid jab should only be given to people aged under 65 due to "insufficient evidence" about is efficacy in older people.

But vacine expert Prof Adam Finn - a member of the UK's joint committee on vaccination and immunisation - told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that the decision "just reflects different levels of caution".

Prof Finn, of the University of Bristol, told the programme: "What they are basically doing is saying 'we'd like to wait a big longer and know a bit more before we move.'

"We have no concerns about the safety of the vaccine in any age group."

You can read more about the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine here.

Image source, Getty Images

People may soon be offered a 'spit in a pot' coronavirus test, after promising trial results.

The LampORE test checks for the virus in saliva samples and work carried out with the help of more than 1,000 NHS volunteers shows it is good at finding cases, even if someone has no symptoms.

Pop-up labs that can process up to 2,000 tests a day have been set up in trucks that could travel the country.

Four have already been deployed, says the government.

These mobile units are located in Aberdeen, Telford, Brent and Newbury. They will continue testing people in the coming weeks and the results will be evaluated to see how helpful the service is.

You can read the full story here.

BBC Asian Network's breakfast show presenter Harpz Kaur has been back on the airwaves this week after more than three weeks off with Covid-19.

"I couldn't move for 10 days," she says. "It's been rough - probably one of the hardest experiences of my life."

She's a fit 31-year-old but says she was "shocked at how much it beat my body" and even her friends were scared.

"I didn't even get mild symptoms - I feel like it can happen to anyone, it's such a serious thing."

You can read the full story from Harpz here.

A man with coronavirus has described how a young nurse cried with him when the doctor told him he might die.

Small business owner Mike Hemming, 53, from Melksham in Wiltshire, had pneumonia and blood clots on his lungs.

Despite not having any underlying health conditions, Mr Hemming got steadily worse and was rushed to the Royal United Hospital in Bath on 11 January.

"For her to sit there and give me a hug was amazing. She didn't know me from Adam. It was very special and absolutely needed," Mr Hemming said.

Image source, PA Media

A pharmacist has given a coronavirus jab to his 85-year-old father in an Islamic community centre - saying he wanted to boost vaccination rates and debunk myths about the virus.

Aftab Rehman, from Pear Tree Pharmacy in Derby, began vaccinations at Ikhlas Islamic Education Centre on Thursday.

Administering the vaccine to his father, Rehmat Khan, a former stroke patient who has diabetes, he said he hoped doing so would "give confidence" to the community.

Mr Rehman said it was "extremely important" for pharmacists to go to community centres to carry out vaccinations and counter fake news.

"The problem is, via social media, we have misinformation and we have people who want to share conspiracy theories," he said.

"A lot of the vaccinators here will be nurses and pharmacists from the community so people will know them."

Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst

Image source, CCTV

China’s official broadcaster, CCTV, has shown a live “cloud wedding”, external between two essential workers in the country's north-eastern Hebei province.

The bride, Ma Yaqing, is a doctor from Shijiazhuang, and her now husband, Yu Yang, is a firefighter from nearby Xingtang County.

Since the start of the year, both have become front-line workers, after an outbreak of Covid-19 led to hundreds of people contracting the virus in the region.

Image source, CCTV

Parts of Shijiazhuang are currently under full lockdown, meaning people’s movements are restricted and all public events are banned.

However, the couple were given authorisation to exchange their vows remotely.

CCTV showed the groom at one venue, with his colleagues as witnesses, and the doctor and her colleagues at another.

There are currently more than 600 people being treated in hospital for Covid-19 in Hebei province, but cases are falling.

Image source, Tristan Copeland

A man whose cousin died after a positive Covid test says coronavirus deniers are "complicit" in the death.

Gary Matthews, 46, was found dead in his flat in Shrewsbury, Shropshire the day after he tested positive.

He had been part of a Facebook group that, according to Tristan Copeland, spread false conspiracy theories about Covid-19.

"I think they were complicit in Gary's death for sure," Mr Copeland says.

"They encouraged him not to wear a mask and I think if he had been wearing a mask, if he had been locking down, if he had not been going to work, I think he would have had a greater protection - I think he would be alive today."

Mr Copeland says his cousin had been sick for about a week.

"He tested positive and he was told to go home and isolate, which he did, and I think he died the next morning."

Read the full story here.

BBC Radio 5 Live

Image source, Getty Images

Almost one in three police officers - around 32% in England and Wales - have said they’ve had coronavirus used as a weapon against them, according to a Police Federation survey.

BBC Radio 5 Live has heard from other members of the emergency services about their experiences.

Mike Jones, a paramedic and violence reduction lead for the South Western ambulance service, said he has been directly targeted.

“Back in September, in Cornwall, a patient decided that it was appropriate to hit my colleague and spit in my face," he told 5 Live.

“I don’t think he did [have coronavirus] but unfortunately what we’re seeing is incidents throughout the trust where people are weaponising coronavirus.

"We’ve had increases in spitting and coughing incidents on all members of staff unfortunately due to the pandemic."

He said his trust has a "zero tolerance" approach to such incidents and that staff wore protection like glasses and face masks.

But he said for any ambulance or police staff spat at, the worry isn't just catching Covid - it's that if any spit gets in their eyes or mouth, they need six months of blood tests to check for pathogens. As he described it: "Six months living in fear that actually you might have something from a member of the public."

Image source, Getty Images

Pupils in Northern Ireland will not return to school until Monday 8 March at the earliest, the Stormont Executive has agreed.

First Minister Arlene Foster said the ongoing public health situation meant remote learning must continue.

If a return is possible on 8 March, it might be that only some year groups go back.

Mrs Foster said she recognised it would come as a "disappointment" for many parents and pupils.

"The kitchen table is no substitute for the school desk," she said.

Read more.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has tweeted to confirm that the UAE, Burundi and Rwanda will all be added to the UK's "red list" from 13:00 GMT tomorrow.

That means people arriving from those countries or transiting through will be denied entry - except for British, Irish and third country nationals with residence rights, who must self-isolate for 10 days at home.

Those passengers must still have proof of a negative test and complete a passenger location form before arrival.

Image source, AFP

Juventus footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is being investigated by Italian police over a trip he allegedly took to celebrate his girlfriend's birthday.

He is accused of breaking Covid-19 rules by travelling between the regions of Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta.

Now-deleted footage posted on social media showed the couple on a snowmobile in a mountain resort, the same day Georgina Rodriguez turned 27.

Italy is seeing hundreds of deaths and thousands of infections daily.

The country was hit badly in the early stages of the pandemic last year and is now in a political crisis after struggling to bring down cases in a second wave.

Valle d'Aosta police said they were investigating the couple over the alleged trip to the Courmayeur ski resort.

You can read the full story here.

Image source, SHEREE MURRAY

A baby boy has survived an E-coli infection, sepsis and Covid after being born weighing just 1lb 11oz.

Archie was born at 25 weeks on 1 December.

He caught an E-coli infection, which led to sepsis, and a week later he tested positive for Covid-19.

Archie had to go into isolation for 10 days, which "felt like an eternity", his mum, Sheree Murray, says.

The 21-year-old, from Colne in Lancashire, has since spent every day at Burnley General Hospital where the neonatal nurses have "helped so much".

Archie now weighs 3lb (1,360g) and is doing "better than ever before", his mum says.

"Words could never explain how much I am looking forward to bringing him home," she says.

You can read about little Archie's ordeal here

After 11 weeks in hospital with Covid-19, Colin Price has had to learn how to walk again.

The 56-year-old from Ballymena, County Antrim, spent 53 days in intensive care and was sedated for four weeks.

He said at one point he was so ill that nurses got his family to record a goodbye message for him.

Officials in France are investigating a group of officers filmed dancing the Macarena inside a Paris police station while the country is under Covid-19 curfew rules.

Videos of the party appear to show police dancing and singing without masks late into the night in the suburb of Aubervilliers.

The officers are facing sanctions, police authorities have said.

France is under a night-time nationwide curfew to curb coronavirus infections.

Anyone outside their home at night or early morning must give a reasonable excuse such as travelling to work.

The video, which was published by website Loopsider , external, appears to show officers performing the Macarena in close proximity to each other, taking selfies and enjoying refreshments.

Twenty-two care home residents have died after testing positive for Covid-19 following an outbreak at a Hampshire home.

Owner Avery Healthcare said the residents at Pemberley House in Basingstoke had died this month.

The firm said its "thoughts are with all the family" affected by the deaths.

In a statement, it added: "Staff have, and continue to, work tirelessly throughout the pandemic to protect residents and each other."

Pemberley House provides residential care for over-65s.

A total of 7,447,199 people have now received a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine in the UK, government data shows., external

In addition, 476,298 have also received a second dose.

The figures related to people vaccinated up to and including Wednesday.

Two men who organised a mass snowball fight have each been fined £10,000 for a "blatant breach" of lockdown rules.

The 20-year-old and 23-year-old, who have not been named, were tracked down after hundreds of people gathered for over two hours on Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, on 14 January, West Yorkshire Police say.

Ch Supt Damien Miller said: "The event attracted understandable media attention and widespread public condemnation of all those who irresponsibly took part."

"We take absolutely no pleasure in handing out such heavy fines to these two young men but their actions encouraged hundreds of people to be in close proximity to each other, creating a significant and completely unnecessary risk of increasing the spread of the virus."

The 23-year-old had already received a fine in November for breaching restrictions in relation to mixing households at an address in the nearby Hyde Park area, police say.