As it happened: PM announces new England lockdown in TV Covid address - BBC News
Schools will close for most pupils from Tuesday as people are told to stay at home in new lockdown.
The lockdown announcement contained the clearest indication yet of how quickly the government hopes to vaccinate the at risk groups.

A target of mid February for vaccinating all the over 70s and those deemed extremely clinically vulnerable and frontline health and care staff opens up a pathway to a significant easing of restrictions by the start of March.

But it will require a rapid acceleration in vaccination rates.

So far nearly one million people have been vaccinated.

By the end of the week that number is expected to double.

The hope is that later in January two million doses a week will be given.

That will be the minimum needed – there are around 12 million in those priority groups.

By vaccinating them, there is the potential to prevent close to nine in 10 deaths.

But achieving that requires a lot to go right.

There is enough vaccine in the country to vaccinate that many people, but not all of it has been through the final “fill and finish” process which involves packaging it in glass vials (and there is a shortage of those) and then the batches have to be checked and signed off by the regulator – a process that is taking weeks at the moment.

And all of that is before it is sent out to the NHS vaccination centres to inject it into people’s arms.