Coronavirus news live: Lockdown easing to see hugs return on 17 May

China reportedly plans to draw a “separation line” at the top of Mount Everest to prevent coronavirus from being spread by climbers ascending Nepal’s side of the mountain.

A team of Tibetan mountaineering guides will set up the separation line at the peak before climbers attempt to reach the summit from the Chinese side, state-owned Xinhua News Agency said.

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Dr Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick, said people should “act responsibly” when restrictions are lifted.

The member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) group said more mixing, including hugging, is a good thing for people’s mental wellbeing but warned the pandemic is not yet over.

He told BBC Breakfast: “I think it’s actually very important for our mental health and wellbeing that we can hug our loved ones, but to me the key message is, if and when this comes in, we need to remember that the pandemic hasn’t gone away.

“We are still a few steps away from normality, so it’s really great that we can hug our loved ones, but what we need to remember is we need to be a little bit careful.

“So, again, do it responsibly – if people have symptoms, if you have particularly vulnerable relatives, maybe do this with caution.”

One health expert said people “can’t go on mothballing ourselves forever”.

Dr David Nabarro, special envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organisation, told Sky News: “I’m pleased with the reality that people are being quite cautious, perhaps even a little bit afraid, of what this virus might bring.

“But I think, at the same time, we’ve got to get on with life, and we can’t go on mothballing ourselves forever.

“So, finding a way to restart, despite this fear, is what I think we will have to do.”

The nurse who gave the first ever Covid-19 vaccination has proposed a National Thank You Day should take place on 4 July.

May Parsons, a matron at University Hospital Coventry, said: “Basically, I think we just do not say thank you enough.”

On 8 December 2020, she became the first person in the world to administer a coronavirus vaccination to a patient outside clinical trials.

She told BBC Breakfast: “I think it is important that we show appreciation to our colleagues who have turned up and stopped whatever they are doing just to help us.

“I think it is quite important and this is something I am passionate about as well.”

As India continues to struggle to control the second wave of Covid-19, our reporter Stuti Mishra in Delhi answers all your questions about the situation on the ground in this piece:

Health minister Nadine Dorries has said it is important everyone is aware that as the country moves into each step of lockdown easing there “may be an increase in the variants or there may be an increase in the virus”.

She told BBC Breakfast: “Our objective is to nail that virus, to make sure that we are never, as a country, in the position we were in last year again, and that we move out of this cautiously and safely.”

Ms Dorries said the UK is “still in the tail end of the pandemic” while “globally the world is still in the grips of this pandemic”.

Professor Sir John Bell told Good Morning Britain it was “tactically” important to get vaccines to the rest of the world at a quicker pace.

Asked about whether new variants of the virus which causes Covid-19 could derail the progress made in the UK, the Oxford University Regius professor of medicine said: “Tactically the most important thing for us to do is to make sure that other bits of the world get vaccines faster – the state of global vaccination is pretty lamentable at the moment and I think we need to really push to help that happen much more effectively.

“Because, in the end, we’re vulnerable, not because we haven’t vaccinated our population, but if more variants come onshore from overseas – which they will naturally as people start to travel – we’re potentially going to be in trouble and that’s why we have a real interest in making sure everyone else is vaccinated.

“That plus the humanitarian importance of making sure that people don’t die unnecessarily.”

Dr David Nabarro, special envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organisation, said he would urge people to maintain social distancing and keep using face masks.

He told Sky News: “On the one hand we’ve got a dangerous virus, on the other hand we must get on with life because it just can’t go on with the restrictions that people have had up till now.

“Finding that middle path, how to live with this virus’s constant threat, is key.

“If I were able to talk to everybody personally over the coming weeks, I would say: You must restart life and everybody wants you to do that, but please be really careful, maintain that physical distance of between one metre and two metres, especially indoors, and don’t forget to wear your face masks because that really can give extra protection.”

Health minister Nadine Dorries said hugs and physical contact are “massively important”, telling Sky News: “I think it’s what most people have missed, that intimate contact with family and friends, and entertaining, having people in your own house, meeting outdoors.”

She did not comment on whether people under 40 would have to follow different rules.

She told the broadcaster: “It does look as though the road map is on course, but we do so with caution, ensuring that the data is in place and looking forward to – and with excitement to – the fact that we will able to hug our family and friends soon.

“So, caution balanced with optimism, I think, is the way forward.”

Professor Sir John Bell, Oxford University’s regius professor of medicine, has said data from vaccination programmes from the UK, Israel and the US shows a “rather rapid fall-off” in cases of disease, hospital admissions and deaths after rising numbers of people were given their first dose of vaccine.

He told Good Morning Britain: “There’s some very interesting data that shows even from a single dose of vaccine, when you move from where the US was a couple of weeks ago, which was about 43 per cent of people having a single dose through where we were with 51 per cent – we’re now higher than that to Israel, which was 58 per cent.

“You see a rather rapid fall-off in cases of disease, but also hospitalisations and deaths, and it’s a really very striking fall in all those things.

“I do think that we’re in a very strong position to go forward now with fewer restrictions and try and get back to normal.”