UK’s Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced on Sunday that lorry drivers returning to France from Britain will not now need to have a coronavirus test if they have spent less than 48 hours in the country, Reuters reported.

Britain is ready to start going out of lockdown but only after the vaccination of the vulnerable people, PM Boris Johnson said cited by news agencies. “We’ve got to be very prudent and what we want to see is progress that is cautious, but irreversible. If we possibly can, we’ll be setting out dates,” he pointed out.

The UK on Monday began a mandatory hotel quarantine regime for arrivals from dozens of countries deemed "high risk" in a bid to prevent the spread of new coronavirus cases, news wires reported.

More than 12 million people in Britain have been vaccinated against Covid-19 by Sunday, the government figures show. PM Boris Johnson’s government is aiming to offer a vaccine to all 15 million of the country's most vulnerable people by mid-February, news wires reported.

The world faces around 4,000 variants of the virus that causes Covid-19, prompting a race to improve vaccines, Britain said on Thursday, as researchers began to explore mixing doses of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca shots, Reuters reported.

Britain has given a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine to more than 10 million people so far and if the current rate continues, the country will be on track to give a dose to the 15 million people in the top four priority groups by mid-February, British media reported.

Britain’s health minister on Wednesday defended the country’s vaccine roll-out strategy after scepticism emerged in Europe, saying the science supported a decision to give the shot developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca to all age groups.

Britain will apply to join a massive 11-nation free-trade bloc of Asia-Pacific countries, it announced on Saturday, weeks after leaving the European single market, news wires reported. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss will formally request Monday for Britain to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a market representing half a billion people and roughly 13.5% of the global economy.

British PM Boris Johnson indicated on Wednesday that the coronavirus lockdown in England will remain in place until at least 8 March as he ruled out any imminent return to school for most students, AP reported.

Britain’s PM Boris Johnson will travel today to Scotland in a bid to quell calls for a second independence vote, news wires reported. While in 2014, Scotland voted against independence, ties with London have strained since the 2016 Brexit vote to. Then the majority of Scots voted to stay in the EU as most of the UK voted to leave.