Covid news – live: Missing Brazil variant case found as Hancock says 40% of UK adult population vaccinated
Walk-in surge testing at The Mall in Cribbs Causeway, one of two sites in South Gloucestershire, after two cases of the Brazilian variant of coronavirus were identified in the area
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More than two-fifths of the UK adult population has been offered a Covid-19 vaccine, the health secretary has announced.
Matt Hancock told the Downing Street briefing 21.3 million people had been vaccinated so far, while adding that track and trace workers had managed to find a missing person who had tested positive for the Brazil variant of the virus.
Meanwhile Cyprus has said it will open its borders to vaccinated Britons from the beginning of May, but UK government restrictions on foreign travel will still be in force.
The Cypriot government said those who had had both jabs could travel without restrictions from 1 May - more than two weeks before the earliest date people in England will be able to leave the country for holidays.
And scientists are tracking the emergence of another new coronavirus variant after 16 cases were identified in the UK.
The VUI-202102/04 variant, which is understood to have originated in the UK, was identified through genomic horizon scanning on 15 February.
Public Health England said the variant, also known as B.1.1.318, contains the E484K mutation, found in two other “variant under investigation” in the UK, but it does not feature the N501Y mutation that is present in all “variants of concern”.
All those who tested positive and their contacts have been traced and advised to isolate, Public Health England said.
