As the scale of the public health emergency becomes even more daunting.

Such is the depth of the covert crisis that the lock down measures are widely expected to remain in force, probably until March.

Now, today's figures tell their own story.

The number of new cases reported in the UK in the last 24 hour period is more than 60,000.

That is for the first time since the pandemic started in England.

More than one million people are currently infected, and that figure is based on one in 50 people living in private households.

But there is some progress, as more than 1.3 million people in the UK have been given the first dose of a covert vaccine, including a quarter off all people over the age of 80 in England.

Now, record numbers of people are in hospital with Cove.

It put a huge strain on the NHS, and its resources on the government's advisors say that some restrictions may still be needed next winter to try to keep the virus under control.

Well, we'll start tonight with this report by our deputy political editor, Vicky Young, that sinking feeling.

Here we go again across the UK, a return to deserted streets, empty classrooms and closed shops Alehouse hopes now pinned on a speedy vaccine.

Roll out.

Until then, what will life be like?

Like millions of parents, Michelle will be juggling work and helping her son with home learning.

Coming to my studio means that my son has a little bit of a break from the flat having him play football in the house, being away from his friends, managing technology.

Um, just it's a challenge in altering a market.

Algo traders are packing up again, all stores in our empty.

It's like going back to where it was in March of last year on.

For health workers like Nassim is going to be mawr Long shifts in hospital.

A national lock down was unfortunately necessary.

My advice to all of you out there.

Please take it seriously.

You could die from it.

No wonder the Prime minister warned us that the next few weeks will be the hardest yet.

But there was some positive news.

We've now vaccinated over 1.1 million people in England on over 1.3 million across the UK and that includes more than 650,000 people over 80 which is 23% of all the over eighties in England.

Many think that you waited too long to bring in extra restrictions.

How can I have confidence in your decision making?

It's been clear that the Tier four measures were something that we wanted to evaluate.

And over the course of the the days leading upto Sunday, clearly like everybody else in the country, we were We were hoping that we would start to see some impact.

The chief medical officer said.

The country now faced a really serious emergency.

If people don't take the stay at home seriously, The risk at this point in time in the middle of winter with this new variant is extraordinarily high.

What is gonna happen over time is the risk level is gradually going to decrease on will then get to a point where people say this level of risk is one that society is prepared to tolerate.

Andi lift, you know, right down to almost no restrictions at all.

We might have to bring a few in in the next winter.

For example, Mr Johnson's promised to give regular updates on the progress of the vaccination program.

The aim is inoculating around 13 million people by mid February, the labor leader said, the nation must pull together.

We now need the government to deliver for the British people, and that means using this lock down to establish a massive immediate on around the clock vaccination program to deliver millions of doses a week.

By the end of this month.

Across the UK, schools are closed for most pupils and many exams canceled.

There's still uncertainty over when that will change.

The first minister of Scotland said the new strain of coronavirus had driven everything off course is transmitting so much more quickly.

You know, this whole thing has always been a bit of a race with the virus.

We've no get the vaccines that we hope can can beat it.

So we have to up her game again to try to get ahead of it.

The vaccines will help us do that, but well, that's happening.

We need to work harder to slow it down.

The question we all want an answer to is when will these restrictions end?

Boris Johnson has been guilty of over promising in the past.

Today he made it clear it all depends on how smoothly the vaccination program is rolled out.

The pressure is on.

Ministers are desperate to see improvement soon, but this is going to be a gradual process.

Vicky Young, BBC News Westminster Well, as we heard that, the prime minister said that 1.3 million people across the UK have already been vaccinated, and the aim is to administer the vaccine to around 13 million people over the next six weeks on unrealistic Target.

According to some experts, By the end of the week, there will be almost 1000 vaccination sites up and running on.

The chief medical officer, Chris Witty, says that the target is realistic in his view, but by no means easy.

Our health editor, Hugh Pym, has Bean considering the scale off this vaccination challenge.

Vaccination is now well underway across the UK, including at this center in Lincolnshire today.

But is the process moving fast enough to meet ambitious targets here?

They seem optimistic.

I feel extremely on it, very grateful for everyone who worked really hard, Thio have this vaccine available to all of us.

We feel like it's the light at the end of the tunnel and in that vials just a little bit of sunshine shining three.

So yeah, a real game changer.

The prime minister said 13 million people from priority groups would be offered the first dose by mid February.

Top of the list of care home residents and workers, then all aged 80 or over, and frontline health and social care staff.

The 75 to 79 year old group comes next, followed by 70 to 74 year olds on all who are clinically extremely vulnerable.

My view is that the vaccine timetable is realistic, but not easy on the NHS is going to.

You have to use multiple channels to get this out, but they are very determined to do this.

The vaccine made by Pfizer has been available in the UK since early December, but it needs to be stored at very low temperatures around minus 70 degrees.

The Oxford AstraZeneca job was rolled out this week.

It could be kept in normal fridges.

So is easier to distribute.

There are vaccine challenges.

There's a process known as fill and finish where it's put into glass files and packaged.

There is a global shortage of these files and so delays.

So far, four million AstraZeneca doses have been through the process.

Pfizer says it's delivered several million to the UK Each batch then has to be safety checked by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

So far, 500,000 of the A Zed doses have been cleared for use.

Distribution isn't easy.

The NHS will soon have 1000 vaccination centers from GP surgeries to football stadiums.

GPS say they need a bigger workforce, but they've been problems recruiting people to do the jobs.

We've got tens of thousands of recently retired GPS and practice nurses and community nurses who really want to come back and help they go online to try to register, and they find that they've got to fill out 20 plus forms.

They've got to find there exam certificates, often from decades before.

From the moment, I think there's a lot of people being put off by the bureaucracy.

Sorry, I've really cold hands.

More than 1.3 million people have so far been vaccinated in the UK nearly a quarter of the over eighties in England have had their jobs, but no one's in any doubt about the importance of getting millions.

Mawr immunized quickly as a way out of lock down restrictions.

Thank you so much.

Keep him BBC News.

More than 3000 people have been admitted to hospitals in England every day in the first few days off this year.

A number of people in hospital with Cove in 19 years, 40% higher than in the first peak last April, and it is still rising rapidly.

Pressure is intense, not least because of the number of staff off work or self isolating on.

Some doctors have compared working in the NHS right now to being in a war zone.

Our health correspondent, Dominic Hughes, has the latest okay.

Becky James is living with a rare form of bowel cancer.

She was expecting to have surgery in the coming weeks that could cure her.

But co vered pressures in London mean the hospital has had to cancel her operation.

Becky understands the reasons, but it's still hard.

I feel quite helpless.

I can't plan anything that's usual with cancer.

I think it leaves me in limbo, Aziz with hundreds of other people.

I think a lot of people listening to this would be quite surprised how magnanimous you're sounding.

I think part of it is to is to keep calm because the NHS air keeping calm s Oh my.

My role is to keep calm across the UK The health service is struggling at the Grange University Hospital Income Bron in South Wales, star from the intensive care unit are witnessing the very worst of the virus.

Does feel like we're fighting a losing battle with the number of patients and, you know, constantly phoning families to tell them that they need to come in because there their loved ones were really reaching the end of the line.

You know, we haven't formally crunched all the data yet, but certainly anecdotally, and from what I'm observing, I would say that our death rate at the moment is probably twice what it was in the first way.

These deaths are directly related to how many people are catching the virus.

In the last surge, cases started a pick up towards the end of September before peaking in November, when the second lock down had an impact.

Since the start of December, infections have been on the rise again.

Daily hospital admissions closely track the number of positive cases.

While we have figures for England, the latest data for the whole of the UK only goes to just before Christmas.

But we know that since then, cases have rocketed and admissions to hospital will follow suit.

With nearly 61,000 new cases of the virus today, hospital staff embraced for some extremely difficult weeks ahead.

Staff sickness isn't helping doctors and nurses, hospital porters and cleaners like all of us vulnerable to the virus.

At Lincoln County, hospital managers declared a critical incident for some hours after a sharp rise in covert patients, requiring admission.

Another sign, if it was needed, that right across the UK the virus is now fast running out of control.

Dominic Hughes, BBC News.

So I mentioned some of the official government figures a little short while ago, but let's go through them all now, as we do every night on day showed that there were 60,916 new coronavirus infections recorded in the latest 24 hour period.

That's the first time since the pandemic started that the daily total has risen above 60 0, but testing is more widely available now compared to that first peak in spring off last year.

Now the average number off new cases reported per day in the past week is now 55,945.

830 deaths were reported of people who died within 28 days off a positive covert 19 test on that means on average, in the past week, 677 deaths were announced every day, and it takes the total number of deaths so far across the UK to 76,305.

And once again with me is Hugh Pym, our health editor, on What are you drawing from these figures today here.

What would you guide viewers to towards well here as well as those official figures?

Some pretty bleak numbers were set out at the Downing Street briefing.

First of all, the UK case rate 100,000 people, up 70% in two weeks on the Office for National Statistics, which does.

The community infection survey suggests that one in 50 in England currently have the virus that Z more than a million people on, definitely on the increase Now.

Chris Witty, the chief medical officer for England, did say that inevitably, because the more people in hospitals we've heard, there'll be more deaths to report in the weeks ahead.

There was one tiny sort of *** of light here that he talked about the new variant in the South East and London off the virus cases associated with that, he said.

Maybe a tailed off a little bit.

The graph had flattened slightly, but not to read too much into it.

But certainly the data is going to be key in the weeks ahead, as officials and all of us assess what effect these locked down restrictions have had many Thanks again, there are health editor.