Image source, Reuters

We’re ending today’s live coverage here, but we'll be back tomorrow with more updates.

Here are this evening’s headlines:

• The EU's drugs regulator has approved the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine for all adults, saying it was about 60% effective in the trials on which it based its decision.
• And a single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine has proved 66% effective against Covid-19 and protects against hospitalisation and death, although there are signs the jab is less effective against the new variant spreading in South Africa.
• The EU is introducing export controls on vaccines made in the bloc, amid a row about delivery shortfalls.
• Under the new rule, vaccine firms will have to seek permission before supplying doses beyond the EU. The EU member states will be able to vet those export applications.
• The number of Covid infections in the UK remained virtually unchanged in the week to 23 January, Office for National Statistics figures suggest.
• Primary school children in Wales could begin a phased return to school just after half-term if Covid rates continue to fall, the nation’s first minister has said.
• And ITV show Britain's Got Talent has been postponed until next year due to concerns about Covid safety.

Image source, PA Media

The anniversary of the UK's first Covid cases is an "appropriate" time for people to thank all NHS workers, the head of the health service has said.

NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens praised treatment innovations on a visit to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary on Friday.

The hospital treated the UK's first two Covid-19 patients a year ago.

The pair, a Chinese student and his mother, were in York when they fell ill with the virus.

Sir Simon said: "These are the staff here at this hospital in Newcastle who treated the first coronavirus patients in England a year ago.

"Since then, hospitals across the country have looked after more than 300,000 severely ill coronavirus patients so I do think, on this one year anniversary, it is appropriate for the whole country to say a huge thank you to every member of staff across the health service."

You can read more from Sir Simon here.

The UK is "carefully considering" its next steps after the EU introduced export controls on vaccines made in the bloc, amid a row about delivery shortfalls.

Under Northern Ireland's Brexit deal, all products should be exported from the EU to NI without checks or controls.

But the EU believed this could be used to circumvent export controls, with NI becoming a backdoor to the wider UK.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove has spoken with European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič to express the UK’s concern over a lack of notification from the EU about its actions in relation to the NI protocol.

"Gove told him the UK would now be carefully considering next steps," Downing Street said in a statement.

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An employee at a quarantine hotel in New Zealand has been sacked after what officials described as an inappropriate encounter with a person who should have been isolating.

Officials say the pair shared notes, including one written on a face mask, before spending 20 minutes in a room together.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said it was "unacceptable": "I didn't enquire specifically into the nature of the encounter, but the fact it was a 20-minute encounter, it was long enough for me to be unacceptable," he said.

He added that the staff member had brought a bottle of wine to the room.

People returning to New Zealand have to spend at least 14 days in isolation.

The country has been hailed as one of the world's leaders in containing the virus. It has recorded 25 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

Earlier this week, it reported its first case of Covid-19 outside of quarantine facilities in more than two months.

Read more here.

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Record labels should help bail out small music venues struggling to survive the pandemic, Greater Manchester's mayor Andy Burnham says.

Burnham, a former culture secretary, is calling on the "big players" in music to pay a levy, just as football clubs do for grassroots facilities.

The musicians who go on to sustain the industry often start in "critical" small venues, he says.

The Music Venue Trust says 30 venues are at imminent risk of permanent closure because of the pandemic, with hundreds more in trouble.

You can read more about Burnham's comments here.

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In late January, a cargo aircraft carrying nearly 200 Americans - the first to be evacuated from Wuhan, China - landed at a military base in California.

They were greeted by health officials who did not wear the proper protective gear and had also been advised to avoid the "bad optics" of wearing any.

As civilians disembarked and began to quarantine at the base, there were no officials leading an effort to manage "infection control and prevention measures" and little PPE on hand for the officials present.

Days later, these officials boarded commercial airlines and flew to other parts of the country.

These details - initially the subject of a whistleblower complaint against the US health department - are the findings of a federal watchdog's investigation into how the US handled its first up-close encounter with the virus.

The “most troubling finding” is that the handling of the Wuhan evacuees “increased the risk of infection transmission not only to deployed [government] personnel, but also to the American public as a whole,” wrote lead investigator Henry Kerner in a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday.

The US is now well past 25 million total cases of the virus.

Over 433,000 Americans have died.

When Dr Alex George entered the Love Island villa in 2018 he never could have imagined what the next few years would bring.

He's now back in his day job, in the midst of a pandemic, working in A&E at University Hospital Lewisham in London.

He also lost his brother, Llŷr, to suicide last year.

He's been speaking to Radio 1 Newsbeat.

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Several sailors aboard a US Navy warship have tested positive for Covid.

The Navy Times reports that 41 crew members aboard the USS Chafee have either been infected with the virus or been in close contact with sick shipmates.

Sailors on board told The Times there has been a lack of ship-wide testing to identify more cases and a shortage of N95 masks.

Some have used a single dirty mask for several days on end, according to one petty officer, who told the paper: "We have asked for more, but they don’t have enough."

"When we kick back, we are either told to wear the dirty mask or face (non-judicial punishment)."

An official spokesman for the ship's fleet has however disputed the reporting and said: "The ship remains able to meet its mission."

The warship - currently stationed in California - typically docks in Hawaii, which has seen over 25,000 cases of the virus and over 400 deaths.

Shane Harrison
BBC NI Dublin correspondent

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A senior member of the Republic of Ireland's National Public Health Emergency Team has rejected the "zero Covid" strategy advocated by opposition politicians.

Those supporting the measure point to Australia and New Zealand's approach of suppressing the virus with much stricter lockdowns and rules on inbound travel.

But Prof Philip Nolan said it was a "false promise" to say Ireland could go from the highest level of restrictions to the lowest levels "in the space of weeks or months" - adding that it "won't happen".

Prof Nolan, who chairs the government's epidemiological modelling advisory group, said it "would be an incredibly risky thing to do because we will inevitably be a leaky country and get re-introduction of the disease and that could easily be new variants".

The Irish government has always cited the open border with Northern Ireland and the lack of restriction on travel between Northern Ireland and Great Britain as reasons why a zero Covid policy would be unlikely to work.

Image source, Getty Images

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is cracking down on non-essential airline travel in and out of the country.

He says the country’s main airlines have agreed to cancel service to “all Caribbeans destinations and Mexico” until the end of April.

In addition, the government will mandate new testing and quarantine requirements for people returning to Canada.

“New variants of Covid-19 pose a real challenge to Canada,” says Mr Trudeau.

“That’s why we need to take extra measures.”

It comes as media reports suggest Canadians are escaping to more sunny destinations amid the chilly and virus-afflicted winter.

“With the challenges we currently face with Covid-19, both here at home and abroad, we all agree that now is just not the time to be flying," says Mr Trudeau.

That's all from the AstraZeneca press conference.

Image source, Reuters

Researchers are asked about comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron, where he questioned how effective the vaccine was in over-65s.

In response, Prof Pollard says there's "good evidence" to support the use of vaccine, including a strong immune response in older adults.

He says there is much more limited data on efficacy in older adults but that doesn't mean there is necessarily a lack of protection.

He adds "everything points to the likelihood" the vaccine will offer the same level of protection across all age groups.

Prof Pollard says it is "perhaps a misunderstanding" of the data by the French president.

Menelaos Pangolas, executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals R&D, is asked about the half dose of the vaccine that appeared to show better efficacy.

Trials showed 62% effectiveness for two doses.

But a subset of data showed that when people were given a half dose then a full dose, effectiveness hit 90%.

Pangolas says he is "very confident" with the dosing regimen they have, adding they are no longer needing to explore the half dose.

He says hopefully when the data is published that will become apparent.

Image source, Reuters

Away from the AstraZeneca press conference, the EU has temporarily overridden a section of the Northern Ireland Brexit deal as part of its export controls on coronavirus vaccines.

The EU is introducing export controls on vaccines made in the bloc, amid a row about delivery shortfalls.

Under the Brexit deal all products should be exported from the EU to NI without checks or controls.

But the EU believed this could be used to circumvent export controls, with NI becoming a backdoor to the wider UK.

It has therefore invoked Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol which allows parts of the deal to be unilaterally overridden.

You can read the full story here.

Image source, EPA

The Associated Press asks Soriot whether the company will look at today with "some regret" given the disputes with the EU.

He says "a lot has been done" to provide the vaccine to the bloc.

Soriot says nine months ago the firm had nothing and the company is focused on supplying the EU, but everyone has to recognise it's "a complicated process".

He says what has been done "people take for granted".

It is not simple and is indeed very complicated, he says.

"We are really trying to catch up - there's not much more we can do."

Researchers are asked about the South African variant and its impact on vaccine efficacy.

Prof Pollard says he doesn't have the data on what sort of effect the variant will have on the AstraZeneca vaccine.

But he says he when you look at the changes in the spike protein caused by the variant, researchers would expect an "impact on efficacy" in vaccines.

He says some of this has been shown in the data released in the last 24 hours for the Janssen and Novavax vaccines.

But he says the "really good news" is if new vaccines do need to be made they can be done within a "matter of months".

It's not like the situation a year ago, where it took a year of development, he says.

He also says that although there are some concerns about new variants, it's still possible the current vaccines will be able to prevent severe disease and hospitalisation.

AstraZeneca's Pascal Soriot is asked about a problem with production of the vaccine at a factory in Belgium.

He says the firm never mentions any of its partners, but adds that it has had "teething issues" in terms of the yield of vaccine at some of its production sites.

"We're talking about biology manufacturing here," he says, adding that making vaccines "is extremely complicated".

"It's not like doing an orange juice," he says.

"Everybody's on a learning curve, which usually you develop over year. We've had months.

"Some sites are more advanced."

He says the reasons for yield issues vary from site to site, but adds: "We believe we have now fixed most of the issues and the productivity of the sites should improve rapidly over the next few months."

AstraZeneca is "ready to launch" its vaccine in the US as soon as it is approved by the regulator, the firm's chief executive says.

Pascal Soriot says the firm has been working "hand in hand" with the US to manufacture the jab.

Executive vice president Mene Pangolas says the US study is fully recruited and they are now waiting for enough Covid cases to be able to report their data.

He says he imagines this will be in February.

Asked whether he is concerned that some EU states are considering not giving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to over 65s, Prof Andrew Pollard says "there's no reason to be concerned about using it".

He stresses it "can be used in all ages", but adds that "we have to respect how member states choose to use the vaccine".

Prof Pollard says the team is "very confident in the data that we have", adding that they have "data showing that there's good immune response in older adults".

He also notes that trials are still running in the UK and Brazil, so "there's a lot more data to come".

Asked by Alistair Smout of Reuters about Astra Zeneca's requirement to fulfil its "best efforts" to supply the vaccine to the EU, the company's chief executive officer Pascal Soriot says he is going to disappoint him with his reply.

Soriot declines to answer and says he only wants to talk about the positive news of the deal to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in the EU.