UK government under pressure to tighten Christmas Covid rules

The government has been accused of blundering into a major error that will cost lives, if it goes ahead with plans to ease Christmas restrictions. This was the stark warning from two major health journals today.

In a rare joint statement, the editors of the BMJ and the Health Service Journal said allowing households to mix indoors over five days could lead to Covid hospital admissions rising to the same levels as their peak in April.

In the last 24 hours, there have been a further 18,450 new cases across the UK, with infections rising in three quarters of all local areas in England and in every London borough.

And 506 more deaths have been reported, which takes the total to 64,908.