this would allow a gradual easing of restrictions across the country. professor sarah gilbert led efforts to develop the oxford university vaccine currently being assessed for approval by the uk regulator. she warned people's behaviour in the coming weeks could delay progress in tackling the virus. what we've seen in the us is that after thanksgiving, when people were travelling and mixing, there has been a big surge in infections, and they are seeing 3,000 deaths a day now. the highest rate there's ever been in any country. if we have that kind of thing happening over the christmas holidays in this country, with very high transmission rates then possible injanuary, it'll take so much longer to get things back to normal because, partly, all the vaccination clinics will be disrupted. a 73—year—old man had to wait more than 19 hours in an ambulance outside grange university hospital in monmouthshire because of pressure on its services because of covid.

ted edwards was at home when he suffered a suspected stroke. unless we are able to reverse the current trend in coronavirus, we are heading into a period where everything that our health service can do will have to be focused on the hundreds and hundreds of people who are now so ill with the virus that they need to be in a hospital bed, and that compromises the ability of the health service to do everything else. hospital leaders have warned that relaxing covid restrictions could trigger a third wave of the virus. in a letter, they ask the prime minister to act with "extreme caution" in moving any area to a lower tier. england's three—tier system is due to be reviewed next wednesday. pallab ghosh, bbc news. meanwhile, germany will close shops, schools and hairdressers from wednesday as the country introduces harsher restrictions to counter rising covid case numbers.

after talks with regional leaders this morning, angela merkel said that the current measures — which include the closure of bars, restaurants, leisure and arts facilities — were not sufficient. 0ur berlin correspondent jenny hill sent this update. angela merkel has been fighting for this for some time. for months, she has been urging those regional leaders who have responsibility for imposing restrictions to get a tighter hold on this pandemic. germany, of course, came very successfully through the first wave but it is really struggling in the second wave. deaths are reaching record numbers and they are still rising. so, angela merkel has really been trying to ban heads together. finally, those regional leaders seem to be going into panic mode themselves and they have agreed to these new measures. in fact, some states will be imposing even harsher restrictions, including night—time curfews in some parts of the country. in effect, germany is all but cancelling christmas. celebrations will be restricted to very small family gatherings. there is now a ban on alcohol consumption outside.

that is the mulled wine stores gone to. new year's eve is being cancelled. parties will be banned. there is a ban on the sale of fireworks with which germans traditionally celebrate the turn of the year. and numbers, again, very much restricted. it is the lockdown that angela merkel wanted all along. i think that most scientists would say it's very late and coming. they will be looking very carefully at those numbers to see whether it actually has an effect. that was jenny hill that wasjenny hill reporting from berlin. now on bbc news — in the 1990s vienna placed female architects at the heart of a big revamp of their city. now barcelona is trying to replicate this, via their mayor, architects and organisations. cities are supposed to be built for all of us, but they aren't built by all of us — because most cities, if not all of them,

are designed and built by men. but what would a city look like if it was built by women? in 2019, we came to barcelona to meet a group of influential feminist leaders to hear their plans to redesign the city. but a year ago, we never could have imagined just how much the world would change.

so we've come back to barcelona to find out how a city that was trying to work better for women has weathered the biggest crisis of our lifetime. barcelona is a city that has a long history of reinventing itself with brave and adventurous urban design. over 6,000 years, generation after generation of men have put their mark on this city. but when we came here in 2019, it was in the midst of a feminist takeover. in 2015, the city had elected its first female mayor, ada colau.

and it wasn'tjust the mayor. barcelona's feminist revolution involves everyone from writers to urban planners, architects and economists, and all those who make up the fabric of this evolving city. playgrounds were being reimagined, streets were being named for women, public transport was changing so women didn't have to walk alone at night. and the city was saying no to sleaze. but then the pandemic hit. and just like so many other places, barcelona is reeling.

so how are these feminist ideals withstanding a pandemic? and did it teach us anything about how the legacy of this virus will impact women? someone who could explain this better than most... masqaretes. ..is judit vall castello. as a health economist and a mum, she's had a very busy few months. my husband is an essential worker, so i was alone at home. and working full—time? and working full—time, so, yeah, we had difficult situations where i posted some postits in the door in the dining room — "it's forbidden to enter now!" brilliant. did it work? no major incidents.

judit‘s been studying the economic impact of the pandemic, particularly on women, and she's found something interesting. so, basically, the previous crisis that we had in 2008, it affected very much certain sectors that we know have a higher incidence of men working there. the situation is completely different now because the biggest sectors that have been affected are the service sectors. and we know that in those sectors, there's a higher proportion of women working there. so this is a pretty short—term effect. so in the short—term, it's very clear and we can already see the stats for several countries. the situation might be different in the long term. why is that? well, there are mainly two reasons. the first one is that some of the firms have been forced to flexibilise the employment situation, to make employment more flexible, to allow working from home, and in the long—term, this is going to

beneficialfor women. then the second thing is that women working in the health care service, women working in the cleaning service, these women had to keep working during the lockdown situation, and so their partners, the fathers, had to stay at home, and so this has been proven to change the gender roles for the children at home. do you have an idea of how many families this is affecting, how many families are changing their gender roles as a result of this pandemic? in 10% of the families, the fathers were in charge of the children during the lockdown situation. 0k. and some fathers who weren't before, so this is a new pattern emerging? exactly. for lots of people, it's been a difficult year. for some, it's been life—changing. we met conchi braojos in 2019

because she had been working with the feminist collective to find a solution to the problem of getting to work. she's a cleaner in a hospital and she had to walk alone in the middle of the night because of the lack of bus connections. none of us could have imagined the year that was in store for her, as the hospital she worked in became one of those at the centre of the pandemic.

and after all of this, conchi still has to walk to work in the middle of the night. during the peak of the lockdown, she also found she was ferrying things like phone chargers to and from the hospital, because spain had one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. people were only allowed to leave their homes if they absolutely had to. children had to stay inside for months. that rule came from central government, and it's something that mayor ada colau said she

disagreed with from the start.

when we met the first time, colau spoke about her vision of feminist politics, that it was built around consensus. and that was important, because her left—wing party didn't win a clear majority in the last election and she's in power with a party on the right.

before she became a politician, ada colau was an activist, fighting against evictions, but she has been criticised for failing to stop a rise in evictions in the last few months. there's a project that mayor ada colau was keen for us to visit, aimed directly in women.

this pilot project aims to help 1,200 children, and that will help women, because, despite all the progress made in recent years, the pandemic showed us that women still do the overwhelming bulk of childcare. in families where the two partners were staying at home, were teleworking from home, and had children's responsibilities, women were interrupted 50% more of the time than men. and also they were dedicating... in these two—parent families, they were dedicating four more hours per day to the caring

of the children than their husbands. and there's a simple reason why women here could be affected more than most. barcelona is a city that relies on tourism, and tourism is a part of the economy that, more than a lot of others, employs a majority of women. a year ago, this was a very different city. this square would have been full of people. and now... from a city that used to be overwhelmed with tourists... ..the streets in some parts of town are now eerily quiet. this is a place that entertained up to 8.9 million tourists a year.

and it was an invisible army of women who kept the hospitality industry going — cleaners. vania rana came to barcelona from peru 28 years ago. now, she's at the centre of a collective of women who advocate on behalf of cleaners. and when we first met her, she was campaigning to have cleaners treated more fairly. but now their industry has been decimated. wow.

the collective of women just try to support each other where they can. it might be years before tourists can come back to enjoy barcelona like they did before the coronavirus

stopped us in our tracks. but the city still vibrates with the rhythms of ordinary life. and some people see the pandemic as an opportunity for change. how are you, fine? yeah, good. very strange, this situation. so strange! yes. what a year. that's ba rcelona's councillor of urbanism, janet sanz, when we first met janet, we watched one of barcelona's oldest traditions — the castellers — something that seems almost impossible now. this year, the atmosphere is a little less festive.

but the pandemic‘s not stopping janet sanz and her plans to transform this city. to reclaim the streets from cars. the project is called the superille, or superblock. in almost every city, cars take up more space than any other road user. the idea of the superblocks is to reclaim the streets for pedestrians, for cyclists or even just for hanging out. the plan takes nine blocks and forms one big superblock, which are closed off from through traffic. 0nly cars that need access are allowed in, and the speed limit

is reduced to 10 km/h. parked cars go underground. so instead of busyjunctions, you have parks, picnic benches and play areas. do you think there'll be a resistance?

scaling up means creating 21 more of these squares and turning the streets between them into green hubs, filled with plants and trees. like most of europe, the city's dealing with a second wave of the virus, and bars and restaurants are closed. the superille is busier than ever, but not everyone is thrilled about that.

building a consensus to change a city is hard work, so barcelona has brought people on board who are studying the city from a deeply feminist perspective. the last time we came here, we met blanca at her studio in the city. then, her collective, punt 6, were doing deep research into how men and women use the city differently. now, they're working with the town hall on a very specific project — making the bicycle network work betterfor women.

there's a huge increase in the number of people using bicycles since the pandemic, especially women, but there's also been a few issues. this is a city that was hit hard by the pandemic, and its long—term legacy is onlyjust beginning. like no other recession, it seems women are bearing

the brunt of this one. but a city that's trying to work better for women could teach us how we can all weather this crisis... ..to build up cities that work better for everyone.

hello. it is a soggy sunday. there is more rain where that came from as we go through the week. there will be some drier and brighter moments at times as well. there will be more spells of rain brought in by areas of low pressure. this is the one today that is bringing the rain. when the persistent rain clears away, there will be showers to come. some of them will be heavy through the night and into tomorrow. as we go on, the rain will clear away towards the east and the north. look at the showers that moving, some of these will be heavy and may be thundery accompanied by some gusty winds. milder air is pushing and across the uk, so temperatures in scotla nd across the uk, so temperatures in scotland will go higher a few degrees through the night. and all parts will get off to a mild start in the morning. there will be some sunny spells tomorrow. there will be some showers again. they will push across the east in all parts. there

might be some places in the east that only have a few showers and heavy downpours and the rest will be dry. it will be a windy day in the northern isles with gusts around 60 mph and these are the average. around the coast it will be a0 and 50 mph. it will be a mild start to the week. it is windy out there and there will be heavy showers. as we go on into the evening, some of the showers that are coming, but by tuesday there will be fewer of them. more sunny spells to come. the isobars are opening up a little bit so isobars are opening up a little bit so it will not be as windy. there is a chance of catching a heavy downpour, but perhaps not everybody will by the time we get to tuesday. there will be a few heavy showers particularly in the south and west it mightjust particularly in the south and west it might just be particularly in the south and west it mightjust be overnight. there will be some sunny spells around again on tuesday is not looking so

windy. temperatures will come down a couple of degrees on tuesday, but it is still mild. temperatures are a little bit above the average for this time of year. looking overnight and into wednesday, a stronger area of low pressure coming in from the west and it will become windier. showers will be here on thursday for another spell of wider and milder airon another spell of wider and milder air on friday.

this is bbc news, the headlines at five. another deadline extended — brexit talks will now continue as both sides agree to carry on after being unable to come to an agreement. lam afraid i am afraid we are still very far apart on some key things, but where there is life, there is hope. we are going to keep talking to see what we can do. the uk certainly won't be walking away from the talks. i think people will expect us to go the extra mile. we have accordingly mandated our negotiators to continue the talks and to see whether an agreement can be reached, even at this late stage. following the decision, the prime minister held a conference call to brief the cabinet on their options in the event of a no—deal outcome.