Government scientists said for men in their sixties, out of every 1000, around 10 infected with the old virus would be expected to die.

But with the new variant, that number has now risen to 13 or 14.

The government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said, There's a lot of uncertainty around the numbers, but it is of concern.

There was good news on the vaccination program, with a record number more than 400001st doses administered in the past 24 hours.

But Boris Johnson warned that the infection rate is still forbiddingly high.

And he said he can't consider lifting restrictions in England until the vaccination programs are working with Mawr, his our Health editor, Hugh Pym.

It's been another frantic week for hospitals like this one.

At Clacton in Essex Mawr Co.

Vid beds have been set up to try to meet the surgeon patient numbers.

While most pull through some don't now there's news that a new variant of the virus, which first spread in the southeast of England could be more deadly than the first strain.

We've been informed today that in addition to spreading Mawr quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant, the variant that was first identified in London and the Southeast may be associated with a higher degree off mortality.

In the light of the new information, do you expect the daily reported death toll to carry on rising for longer than you first thought and then fall more slowly?

The death rates awful.

Andi, it's going to stay.

I'm afraid high for a little while before it starts coming down.

That was always what was predicted from the shape of this is, Chris has said, and I think the information about the new variant doesn't change that.

Hey said there was still uncertainty about the death rate with the new variant, and more research was needed.

She's all I had, my dad's have already passed away, and me and my mom, we were the closest.

Elena's mother, Sandra, died with co vid in hospital last week.

She was 61 Haddon existing health condition.

Eleanor says her mom took every precaution.

Mom was doing everything she needed to do.

You know, she wasn't going out unnecessarily.

She was always sanitizing wearing a mosque because I'm one of them people that thought it wouldn't touch my family.

But here I am absolutely devastated without my mom.

So what's the outlook for new cases?

A study by the Office for National Statistics does.

Random testing on includes people who don't know they have the virus as well as those with symptoms.

The latest survey of community infections by the onus suggests that in England last week, one in 55 had the virus.

With case rates having decreased in Wales, it was one in 70 with rates leveling off in Scotland one in 100 again, with case rates having leveled off in Northern Ireland, one in 60 had the virus, with rates increasing the our number range.

Anything above one suggests the virus is accelerating was between North 10.8 and one lower than the previous estimate.

This week, the government tightened border controls and quarantine rules to try to limit the risk of new variants getting into the UK crowded scenes like this that Heathrow today will no doubt fuel the debate on whether further measures are needed.

A new government ad campaign launched this evening aims to ram home the message to the public of the extreme pressures on the NHS on the impact of the virus on who is with me now.

So the UK is new coronavirus variant.

We've got new research on that.

How worried should people be well, so if your health officials have been stressing this evening that this is very preliminary research Mawr data needs to be collected, Sir Patrick Vallance made that point.

It needs to be monitored.

But he did say it was potentially a concern, though not at the moment for anyone to get especially worried about it.

It was something that I think they felt they had to get out there.

So people knew what this new variant was looking like in terms of the mortality risk.

Better analysis, though, in terms of a more positive story, comes on the vaccines with a suggestion by Sir Patrick Violence that actually they're quite effective against this new variant as much as they are about the old strain off the virus, which is reassuring.

But he did go on to say that in terms of other variants, the Brazilian on the South African variant.

There was a potential issue about the vaccines not being as effective as they might be.

There again, more research is needed on that.

There's good news on the vaccination program.

With millions of people not being vaccinated.

There's pressure on the government tonight over the second jab for the Pfizer vaccine.

Yes, originally went five.

It was approved in early December.

That was supposed to be a three week gap between the first dose and the second that was all agreed there in Oxford.

AstraZeneca was approved at the end of December.

The policy changed, so there would be up to 12 weeks between doses, the argument being made and Chris, which he made it again.

Today.

There is much better to vaccinate as many people as possible, double the number on Actually the greater amount of protection was with that first dose.

But the British Medical Association representing doctors says it's increasingly concerned about this.

The association says it's out of line with other international practice, including the recommendations of the World Health Organization on In a letter written to Chris Witty, which I've seen, they are calling for an urgent review of this decision and moving that 12 weeks back to six between doses.

Thank you.

When our deputy political editor, Vicky Young, is in Westminster and Vicky, we saw the pictures from Heathrow and Hughes report thousands of people still arriving amid concern about new variants coming from abroad.

Yeah, and interestingly today, the prime minister talking about the measures that are already in place, saying broadly that he thought that that was enough, apart from dropping a very heavy hint about doing more to protect the borders.

Now there will be understand a meeting on Monday off senior ministers to discuss this on.

I think the most likely option to come out of that is going to be the idea off people quarantining in hotels, something that we have seen in other countries.

Now that's the stricter measures.

As for unlocking while the prime minister today saying what he's going to be looking at before he can consider doing that now, one thing is to see that that vaccination program is working very well.

There has bean great progress there, but he says that is not going to be enough on its this infection rate which he described as forbiddingly high.

That is the risk that you start on locking too soon on the whole thing rebounds again.

So there will still be this review in just over three weeks time.

He's made it very clear.

Schools would be the first toe open, but he's going to do it extremely cautiously.

Vicky Young.

Thank you.

The latest government figures showed there were 40,261 new coronavirus infections recorded in the latest 24 hour period, so 38,270 new cases were reported every day on average.

Last week, there were more than 38 a half 1000 people in hospital with coronavirus.

In the seven days to this Wednesday, another 1, 401 deaths were reported.

That's people who died within 28 days of a positive cove in 19 test on average.

In the past week, 1, 241 deaths were announced every day.

The total number of deaths so far across the UK is 95,981.

The UK is program of mass vaccinations continues to ramp up with a new daily record for the roll out.

More than 400,000 people have had their first dose on one of one of the three approved covert 19 vaccines in the latest 24 hour period.

It takes the overall number of people who have had their first job to more than 5.3 million.

Well, the government is counting on the vaccination program to get us out of lock down.

But there is one vital question that scientists can't yet answer.

Will people who've had the jab still be able to pass the virus on our stance?

Editor David Shipman looks at the current evidence surrounding transmission.

Rolling out the vaccines at a gathering pace marks the first big turning point in the pandemic, each one creating more protection against the disease.

But there's something crucial we don't yet understand.

If you've bean vaccinated, can you still get infected?

You'd be safe if that happened, but could you spread the virus to others?

We don't know for sure at this moment in time, whether if a Nen Div Egil is infected after receiving the vaccine, they can transmit that to others.

So the best thing to do is to presume that it's possible.

So if someone is pinned because they've been in contact with somebody who has infection, then they should self isolate in the same way that they would have to if they had not had the vaccine.

We do know from the trials that the injections work remarkably well.

They boost the production of antibodies that flow through the bloodstream to provide a key form of defense.

So if the coronavirus does get in, the antibodies should block it from entering any of ourselves.

In addition to that, what are called T cells should provide another layer of protection.

But there's no guarantee that any of this will stop on infection in the upper airway, with the virus taking hold and you releasing it.

There's nothing confirmed about these risks after vaccination, but it is plausible you could still get an infection without symptoms.

That's when you don't feel ill but could still be a carrier.

In that case, you'll probably have lower levels of the virus inside you, and if you hadn't had the vaccine onda shorter infectious period when you were a risk to others.

Even so, it is still conceivable you could spread the virus in your household, for example, to people you're close to and spend most time with the vaccines coming off, the production lines were tested for how they keep people from getting ill, not whether they'll still be infectious.

So the advice is to remain careful, even though there's a good chance of a positive effect.

The most likely scenario is going to be that the vaccines will reduce how much virus is in a person, even if they get infected on.

Make it less likely the person would pass the virus on to anybody else.

And this may be relevant to the lock down on when we get out of it.

Scientists who are trying to predict the spread of the virus say it's vital to know if vaccination slows that down.

If it has a significant impact on transmission, then we'll be able to relax measures faster than if it doesn't.

I am hopeful that we'll be able to see some relaxation at least getting out of lock down in the March time frame, but it will be very much a gradual process from then through to the end of the year.

So how the vaccine program goes is crucial in so many ways first for saving lives, but also for helping to shape the future course of the pandemic.