down and absolutely minimise their contacts. the point of the lockdown is to try and bring that forward, but it only works if everybody really thinks about every individual interaction they have and try and minimise them. that's what we need to do to actually bring this to its peak, but at the moment, the rates are still going up, the numbers of people going in to hospital are still going up across the country. time for a look at the weather, with louise lear. well, it is milder,, siam and, i am pleased to say, that is a phrase we have not used so far this year. for most of us it will be rather simon and grey. —— rather cloudy and grey. the wind will be stronger than we have seen so far this year. and this weather front up into the north is still the dividing line, the boundary, between the colder air... and that has been producing some

snow to the far north of scotland. temperatures in the northern isles just above freezing as we speak. some of the rain, fairly persistent across scotland and northern ireland and into north—west england for the rest of the afternoon. we keep the cloudy skies, brief eclipses of sunshine perhaps across the far south—east corner, if we are lucky. the wind will be from the west, mild, but gusting in excess of 40mph on exposed coasts. but temperatures, 9-11 on exposed coasts. but temperatures, 9—11 quite widely, just that colder source of air in the far north. overnight tonight, some weather fronts come together to bring more persistent rain in northern ireland and into north—west england and wales. but clearing skies in the far north mean temperatures yet again will be falling below freezing. so, a real contrast first thing tomorrow morning. this line shows where the cloud and showers will be, it then

pushes into south—west england in the afternoon. there will be sunshine for many of us, not a bad day on tuesday. a nagging northerly breeze will keep it quite cool on exposed coasts. moving into wednesday, we have got this pyramid of weather fronts, and this is housing this milder air. u nfortu nately, housing this milder air. unfortunately, as the weather fronts continue to go eastwards, they bump into the colder air, so on the leading—edge, there is a bit of a question mark as to how much snow we are likely to see. it is likely to be on higher ground, but may be for a time at lower levels as well, but it is mild, and it is rain behind it. noticeably colder in the north—east, in comparison to the south—west on wednesday. wednesday night into thursday, we could still have the risk of some snow. thursday

looks like it will be quite wet, noticeably cooler again on friday, but quieter. a reminder of our top story... the uk is about to go through the most dangerous time of the pandemic, according to the chief medical officer. i think it is really important that everybody in every interaction they have every day for the next few weeks, thinks, do i really need to do this? that's all from the bbc news at one. it's goodbye from me, and on bbc one, we nowjoin the bbc‘s news teams where you are. hello, with your latest sports news. thirteen celtic players, manager neil lennon and his assistant are all self—isolating after a squad member tested positive for coronavirus. it comes as first minister nicola

sturgeon questioned the club's trip to dubai and on the day the sfa suspended professional football in scotland below the top two tiers. our scotland sports news correspondent chris mclaughlin has more. celtic have been heavily criticised for days for this controversial training trip to dubai. today we are seeing the consequences of that. the player who has coronavirus has been identified as the defender, christopherjulian, also 13 other players and the manager and his assistantjohn kennedy, now being forced to self—isolate. a huge heading for celtic going forward in terms of their league campaign, also a huge headache for the scottish government, nicola sturgeon once again being forced to talk about it today at her daily briefing, describing it as frustrating and disappointing. also in scottish football, the decision now to

suspend the the leagues under the premise ship in the championship. that is again in response to growing concerns about coronavirus, that suspension will last about three weeks and will be reviewed after that time. aston villa's match against tottenham, due to be played on wednesday has been postponed due to coronavirus. the premier league confirmed they had no option due to the number of cases at villa. they used youth players in friday's fa cup loss to liverpool after a number of positive tests at the club. villa manager dean smith and his first—team squad are isolating and their training ground has been closed since thursday. as a result of the rescheduling, tottenham will now play their postponed home match against fulham in its place. government ministers had already said they were becoming increasingly concerned about apparent breaches of social distancing protocols in football. they've examined incidents in fa cup games this weekend, in particular the victory celebrations at lower league clubs such as chorley. the fear is that it will become difficult to justify

the continuation of elite sport during the third national lockdown. chorley are in tonight's draw for the fourth and fifth rounds of the fa cup — you can watch that at 7 o'clock on bbc two. and at 8 o'clock, it's the last of the games in round three — stockport against west ham — with commentary on radio 5 live. former australia captain steve smith has been branded "childish", after an incident during the final day of the third test against india in sydney. he appeared to scuff away india batsman rishabh pant‘s guard mark — which tells him where to stand in front of the wicket. it didn't help though as india salvaged an unlikely draw. they needed to bat out the final day, going in 308 runs behind — and they managed it. australia missed a string of opportunities — captain tim paine dropping three catches. hanuma vihari and ravi ashwin stayed at the crease for nearly four hours. skipper ajinkya rahane said it felt like a win. this thrilling series now goes

to a decider in brisbane on friday. i'm bitterly disappointed, i pride myself on my wicket keeping, and i have not had too many worse days than not today. it's a horrible feeling, everybody spending their hearts out and gave everything for the team, and i certainly feel that i let them down. sol the team, and i certainly feel that i let them down. so i got to wear that, keep going, i'll get another crack at it next week. that's all the sport for now — i'll be back with more later. taking your points. good morning, i'm nicky campbell and welcome to the special edition of your call on bbc radio 5 live and your questions answered on the bbc news channel this morning. we are joined by the chief medical officerfor england, professor chris whitty,

to take your questions. and, well, with cases continuing to rise significantly all over the country, and nhs facing unprecedented pressures, and after a weekend which saw us pass shocking milestone of 80,000 deaths in the uk. what do you want to know? rita. well, with cases continuing to rise significantly around the country, the nhs is facing unprecedented pressures. and after this weekend, which puts us past the shocking milestone, as he said, of 80,000 covid deaths. for the next 30 minutes, professor whitty will be here to answer all of your questions about the virus and how england is responding to this latest wave. if you've got a question for him, you can text on 85058, or use the hashtag bbcyourwuestions on social media. professor whitty, good morning. good morning. i know you think it is so important to get out and about today

and deliver the messages that we are going to hear. should we go straight tojill dunning, who is a lung and heart surgeon in middlesborough? good morning, jill. over to you. good morning. hi, sir chris, i'm actually working here right now in the vaccine hub, and just from all of us on the front line, we want to say what an amazing job you're doing, you've been absolutely fantastic all the way from the start here, and you get such a balanced view on everything, so it's absolutely great and a pleasure to talk to you today. ijust had two questions, i'lljust ask the first initially. i'm here in the vaccine hub mainly doing health care workers, a lot of them received letters to say to go and isolate again, and that has taken them off the front line. we are giving their second vaccine. i know people that have a vaccine can't do everything they like, but is there any chance you think in the near future we could release up these people, fully vaccinated, maybe antibody positive, back to go and work on the front

lines sometime soon? professor whitty. and i think obviously the real heroes on this are absolutely people who are on the front line and doing an amazing job, the doctors and nurses in the system, and ijust want to, before i answer that question, can ijust point out that we are going into what are going to be the worst weeks of this epidemic for england and the wider uk. over 30,000 people in hospital now, well above the previous peak, it's gone up significantly. we set a week ago that we are heading into trouble, and here in london, one in about 30 people have got this infection. so this is going to be a very serious issue where we are going to need the help of everyone we can get, but it is very important that people realise that the individual risks for clinicians who have been vaccinated do need to be discussed. if there are people that are at high risk, they do need to discuss it with their own doctors and with their occupational health people.

it is going to vary. the thing about the vaccine is it was substantially reduce the risk, and overtime, was substantially reduce the risk, and over time, what it will do is reduce the number of people who are infected in the country as a whole, so infected in the country as a whole, so the risk for all of society will go down. and really i urge people to use go down. and really i urge people to use the vaccine to have it. maybe people at really high risk, it is still sensible for them to actually be shielding, and i think it is very much a discussion between them and their doctors. allow me to move it on, because we want to get as many questions as we can in, but thank you for that and take you for everything that you do. professor whitty, are we going to see vaccination programmes like this in perpetuity, 2022, 2023, 202k? vaccination programmes like this in perpetuity, 2022, 2023, 2024?” don't think we will have to have something on the scale that we are have to do over the next several months, but i think there is a reasonable chance that rather like with lou, we have to vaccinate every year. we may well have to read

vaccinate for covid, it could either be because of vaccine effectiveness wanes over time, or because a vaccine type skates around the flu, just like with the flu, a new variant because around that we need to reengineer the vaccine and vaccinate people against the new variant. we may have to do it again, but we don't know how frequently that will be. professor whitty, we have a question now from jason ashridge, who is 56, lives in rugby and isa ashridge, who is 56, lives in rugby and is a teacher in coventry. good morning everyone. it is a two—part question, as the best ones are, and i'm also speaking not only as a teacher, but as a parent, is it any coincidence that the rates of transmission and infection increased from september last year when schools and colleges went back? and

on that basis, the data that i'm looking at, our schools safe?” think there are three things, three separate parts to an answer to that question. first one is, are they safe her children, and the answer is absolutely yes. in large part due to the fantastic work that teachers have done, but the main reason is because children are much lower risk of the virus. and the second thing is, the risk to teachers, and teachers are at no greater risk than others who are going into work, but going into work does obviously carry risk for many professionals, but they are not high—risk professions like social care workers or nurses and doctors, but there is a risk to every profession and teachers are included in that, and the third question, the reason why the schools have been close on this occasion is that by mixing together, children bring households together and they can increase the risk of transmission, but not having

children in school is a very significant discourage for those children, not true in terms of health terms and mental health, so the balance has always been not that it is risky to children or particularly to teachers. apart from particularly to teachers. apart from particularly vulnerable teachers, but the real risk has been that there might be an upward pressure on there might be an upward pressure on the r for transmission rate, and because a new variant is so much more transmissible, we have had unfortunately to include the vocation and this in a way that we previously did not have to do do. professor whitty, i could see jason looking frustrated at parts of your answer, and i think this is partly because his question goes towards the fact that the rules at the moment appeared to many people to be more lax than they were in march, andi more lax than they were in march, and i think the question is for you, do you think they should be tighter 110w do you think they should be tighter now in order to reflect the serious situation? i think that the most important thing, and i cannot stress

this enough, is that what transmits this enough, is that what transmits this virus is a large numbers of individual decisions taken by individual decisions taken by individual people having a necessary contact. i think it is really important that everybody and every interaction they have for the next few weeks thanks, do i really need to do this? and sometimes people do because i have to work away from home for a particular reason, going to exercise, which is really important for physical and mental health. but every unnecessary interaction is a serious problem, it provides a link for the virus through to eventually a vulnerable person. so i really wanted stress to people the most important thing is that each of us take on this, may be modifications around the rules, ministers, issues around individual choices, that is a question probably best. thank you very much for that, and thank you for your question,

jason. there is a question related to that, it is a specific one as well coming from stephen devon, why isn't this lockdown topper? wire copy shops open for takeaway? barbershops are open per click and collect, and you have to close everything that isn't essential? you ta keaway everything that isn't essential? you takeaway people's reasons to go out, they will stay in. and lots of questions on that, your response?” think that what ministers and all of the various nations of the uk have been trying to do is find a balance between absolutely all of the things that can be done to minimise contact and keeping society going in a way, because we have to be able to maintain the server many weeks, this is not something up we can do for a weekend and it is done. and they make a numberof weekend and it is done. and they make a number of choices, and those are all about that balance. but what i would say to someone who is thinking about going to be different ina thinking about going to be different in a coffee shop is, please don't, i think it anything we can do to minimise the amount of contact between households, we should do.

people in their own household is a different situation, but try to minimise contact between households, it is absolutely critical to do this in this really difficult period. rita, another question. this one from paul, who asks you, he says that we see in many asian countries everybody wearing facemasks outdoors, in these countries, incidents of covid cases and deaths are relatively low, so his question is should we all be wearing facemasks while we're from our homes? and that is something that the mayor of london said that he has been advocating as well. what are your thoughts about that?” been advocating as well. what are your thoughts about that? i think the most, and i hope i'm saying something which most people will fully recognise, but the thing is the risk of transmission of any sort are indoors, particularly in private areas. so those are the places where wearing facemasks is essential, and i would encourage people on buses

and the tube and in the shops to wear a mask and do it properly over the nose and mouth, notjust as a fashion accessory, desire to contact other people. but in terms of outdoor situations, the risk of outdoors is only if you are in a crowded environment. outdoors is much lower risk than indoors and very short interactions are much lower risk that much longer and directions, so the big difference between being an open space or passing someone at a distance on the pavement and standing very close huddled together in a queue or around a particular area, where facemasks may well be an additional level of protection to other people. so yes and crowded environments, in the ordinary open street environment, i could say that it makes a extremely small amount of difference. thank you very much for that answer. we can go now to peter lloyd who is a director of care homes based in siren sister. peter,

your question. good morning. we know that the virus only survives through mutating, which is why there are thousands of flu viruses, however the flu vaccine only prevents three strands and thousands each year. what is a plan for the likes of care homes were facing lockdowns, cutting off relatives for extensive periods off relatives for extensive periods of times, and how are you waiting at the impact of quality—of—life and mental health of the elderly, how long will this vaccine protect our residents and how soon until we may be forced to lockdown as a vaccine is not protecting from the numerous mutations? that is lots of questions in one,| mutations? that is lots of questions in one, i will try and answer probably two of them if i may and i can come back if you or others would like to. the first of which is how frequently will we need to re—vaccinate or maintain the protection for care home residents, the older care home residents, the most high—risk and the most in need of vaccination. viruses vary hugely

in their ability to mutate fast enough to get around a vaccine. blue is the one that doesn't the most rapidly, some other vaccines, is the one that doesn't the most rapidly, some othervaccines, like measles for example, remain effective for years on end, smallpox vaccination remain effective for decades. so i think this virus will be somewhere between those two, there will be some degree of mutation around the vaccine, but much more slowly, probably done the flu. but one of the good things that is happening is a new vaccine technologies have been used for this which are much quicker to actually be able to turn around. so i'm confident that if a new variant came in that was a significantly different and was able to get around the current vaccine, then we would be able to reengineer it and revaccinated. and care home residents would be absolutely top of the list for that, as they are for

the list for that, as they are for the current roll—out. in terms of the current roll—out. in terms of the wider issues on care homes, there has been a very difficult balancing act between minimising the risk to individual residents by restricting absolutely people coming into care homes and acknowledging that these people are often, particularly in cases of people who may have some degree of dementia, maybe towards the end of their life, are being starved of any kind of contact with people with their loved ones and their families. and trying to get that balance right has been a very difficult issue all the way through this epidemic, but we are currently at the biggest risk of the pandemic, so the more shifting towards trying to protect people, but we have to acknowledge that there is a difficult balance. would you say we are at the peak, professor whitty? i don't think we are get at the peak, i am afraid, we will get the peak —— we will not get

to the peak if everyone doubles down and minimizes the context. the point is trying to bring it forward and only when everybody really thinks about every individual interaction they have and try minimise them, that's what we need to do to bring this towards the end. at the moment, the rates are still going up the numbers of people going to hospital are still going up across the country. thank you very much for that, peter, thank you for your country. 12 years old in rita manchester. thank you. how learning has been really hard for lots of people, notjust because we can't see our teachers, but because we can't see her friends as well. i know we are staying at home to protect each other, but when you think we go back to school again?” think we go back to school again?” think the person to stay is —— to say is thank you norma to you and fellow students because you have done a terrificjob in trying to protect people from the virus. what we hope is that as the vaccine

programme moves down we hope is that as the vaccine programme moves down the ages, so the most heavily protected people are protected, what we hope is that we will get to a point when opening up we will get to a point when opening up schools, which is an absolute priority for all ministers in every nation, can be done, and that may be an offensive quite a lot of other things so that you can see her friends at school again. but we would encourage you to keep on not seeing people socially at this point in time, and i really appreciate what you're doing. it's incredibly frustrating for you it is for everyone who is not seeing their friends at the moment, but it will end. and over the next few weeks as a vaccine programme works through, i hope that little by little we will be able to consider raising restrictions that would allow you to start to meet people in the way that you want to do, but it is not yet there. excellent question for all of us, when will see her again. when will, you said there will need to be restrictions and winter, when will

we be able to go into a stadium, watch a rugby match, football match, with 50,000 other people?” watch a rugby match, football match, with 50,000 other people? i didn't say there would be, i said it was possible that there might be, because i think it is people understand —— ithink because i think it is people understand —— i think it is important that people understand the possibilities. we have an effective vaccination programme and if that works for a long period of time and prevents transmission, and in particular if everyone takes it up, then my hope is we will need minimal or no risk restrictions in due course. and that applies to winter, where course we are going to have an ongoing coronavirus cases as we do with slough every year, and with the flu we still go to stadiums and we except there is a small residual risk. so there will be at some point is small enough risk that we say that we need to just get is small enough risk that we say that we need tojust get back is small enough risk that we say that we need to just get back to normal life, but we are quite a long way from that the moment. that will happen, and we willjust say this amount of risk, we will tolerate.

tip from the special edition on radio five live and your questions answered, hopefully on bbc news as well. thank you to all of you who called, texted and got in touch on social media, and thank you to professor whitty. it is a goodbye, and to those watching on the news channel. hello there. monday morning was a milder start for most of us, that's a phrase we have not used so far this year. a westerly wind brought that milder air and it's helping to thaw some of the lying snow that we have got across the far northeast. that westerly wind is quite noticeable today, but it is driving in the mild air off the atlantic. the exception, the far north of scotland, and this weather front here, well, with that colder air still producing some snow, it's rain, and some of it heavy and relentless across western scotland and northern ireland. more showery in nature into northwest england and north wales. those weather fronts continue

to push their way slowly southwards, quite a lot of cloud generally across the country today, and a noticeable wind gusting inland to 30 miles an hour, 40 miles an hour plus on exposed west—facing coasts. but look at the difference with the feel of the weather, we could see temperatures widely between 8 and 10 degrees, the only exception is the far northeast, but noticeably milder for most. through the night tonight, outbreaks of cloud and rain slowly sink their way steadily southwards, and some of that rain, quite relentless along the west of wales. behind it, quite a clearance, so that's going to allow this temperatures to fall once again below freezing. elsewhere, it's a relatively mild night to come. but it will be cloudy, with outbreaks of light, patchy rain across wales, central and southern england. that whether front sinking into the southwest, and then gradually we will see some sunshine coming through on tuesday. not a bad day for most of us, a nagging, northerly breezejust making it feel cooler on exposed east coasts, 4 or 5

degrees the high here. we keep double digits into the southwest, but unfortunately, it stays cloudy, drab and dreary. now, as we move into wednesday, things get a little tricky. sandwiched in between these pyramid of weather fronts is the milder air, and as it bumps into that colder air that is pushing its way across that east coast, we could, on the leading edge, see a spell of snow. cliefly to higher ground, but it could keep things complicated as we move through wednesday. so you will need to keep abreast of the forecast, it will be rain primarily behind it, again, some of it quite heavy, and look at the difference with the feel of the weather. 3 or 4 degrees in the north and east, double figures continuing to the southwest. wednesday into thursday, yes, a spell of rain, possibly some hill snow.

this is bbc news, i'm simon mccoy. the headlines at 2... the prime minister says 2.4 million people across the uk have now been vaccinated against coronavirus — but urges people to stick to the rules. we cannot be complacent of the worst thing now would be for oz to allow success in rolling out the vaccine programme to breed any kind of complacency about the state of the pandemic. it follows a grim warning from england's chief medical officer who says the uk is about to enter the ‘worst weeks' of the pandemic. i think it's really important that everybody in every interaction they have thinks, do i really need to do this? pressure mounts in washington to strip donald trump of power —