THE Health Secretary Matt Hancock will lead a press briefing from Downing Street later today providing the latest updates on Covid-19.

Mr Hancock will be flanked by NHS England’s Professor Stephen Powis and Public Health England’s Dr Susan Hopkins at the briefing, which is due to begin at 5pm.

It comes following a concerned outbreak of the South African variant in the South of England, which is leading to tens of thousands of people needing to be tested for the concerning new variant.

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson also made a visit to West Yorkshire today, heading to a vaccine centre in Batley.

It also follows a positive weekend of vaccinations, with more than 500,000 people being given a dose of the vaccine in one day.

There is increasing pressure on the Government to prioritise teachers and police officers in the vaccination programme in an effort to protect them from contracting the virus and to try and halt the rapid spread of Covid-19 caused by hundreds of households coming into contact on a daily basis in schools.

We will be running a live blog of the press briefing which you will be able to follow on our website later.