A fresh booster jab drive has been launched by the NHS in an effort to protect more people from the rapid spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
Another 650,000 text messages and 50,000 letters will be sent in the coming days to those people who are yet to get their third vaccine dose, asking them to have a "jabby new year".
Millions were contacted earlier in the week with a similar message, encouraging people to book their boosters as soon as possible.
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Govt defends 'New Year' decision
It comes amid more record infection numbers across the UK, with rates consistently above 90,000 over the Christmas period.
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Another 244,078 vaccinations were given out on Monday, including 209,626 boosters - the second-highest total for a bank holiday.
Some 51 million people in the UK have had at least the first dose of a vaccine, while more than 32 million have been given a third jab.
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Three in five intensive care patients with COVID in London were unvaccinated, new figures show
The urgency to get people vaccinated has been underlined by new research from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre that shows most people in intensive care in London who had COVID last month had not been vaccinated.
"While that does not necessarily tell us exactly what is going on in hospitals now, it tallies with what we are hearing from staff on the frontline," NHS national medical director Professor Stephen Powis said.
"Getting vaccinated... means that you are much less likely to end up in a hospital bed that could otherwise be used to treat someone else."
As cases rise - English government ministers stand firm while the nations take action
Despite cases rising rapidly, the government announced there would be no fresh restrictions in England this side of the new year.
He did not rule out the possibility of any further restrictions being introduced in January.
Meanwhile in Scotland, gathering limits came into force on Boxing Day and in Wales, nightclubs closed after Christmas and the rule of six was imposed in hospitality settings.
Northern Ireland took similar measures.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is expected to update parliament later today on COVID-19, though it is unclear if more restrictions will be brought in.
Ms Sturgeon has repeated her call for people to "get boosted by the bells", saying: "The significantly increased transmissibility of Omicron is reflected in the steep increase in cases now materialising, and we would expect to see case numbers rise further in the days to come."
A woman killed on Boxing Day in a house in East London has been pictured for the first time.
The family of a woman have spoken out on Facebook after the death of a woman, 29, at a house on Earlham Grove, Newham at 11.55am on Sunday (December 26).
The victim has been named as Kirsty Louise Ashley earlier today (December 28), and a post-mortem examination revealed the cause of death was blunt force trauma.
First picture of Boxing Day murder victim Kirsty Louise Ashley (Image: Facebook)
A family member wrote a heartbreaking tribute on social media, adding "we are all broken and would like some time to grieve".
A photo of Kirsty has now been identified on social media.
Locals from the community reached out to the family to share condolences for their tragic loss.
Neighbours told MyLondon of their shock at the incident (Image: Finn Byrne)
A neighbour told MyLondon: “I was in my doorway and saw loads of police around yesterday on Boxing Day.
"I've tried to ask what happened but the police haven’t said anything. It’s a rough area round here. They're my neighbours but I just keep myself to myself.”
Another local said: "I’ve just got back from seeing family. Didn’t think anything like this would have happened.
"I feel for her family. I have no clue who she was as it seems a lot of people come and go from all the properties round here. My heart goes out to her."
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Police have charged Yahya Aboukar, from Earlham Grove, with her murder, and the two are believed to have known each other.
Aboukar will appear at Thames Magistrates’ Court today (Tuesday, December 28).
A police cordon remained in place on the road throughout Boxing Day and Monday (December 27) as officers investigated.
Did you know Kirsty and would like to pay tribute? Email ella.doyle@reachplc.com.
Weddings and funerals are to be exempted from any new coronavirus restrictions if the government decides that tougher measures are needed to tackle the Omicron strain, The Times has learnt.
Ministers believe that the disruption caused to significant life events during previous restrictions should be avoided even if limits are soon imposed on the number of people who can gather indoors.
Boris Johnson will receive his first comprehensive data briefing today on the progress of coronavirus since before Christmas, with an urgent decision needed on whether to introduce new rules before New Year’s Eve.
Ministers are said to be “increasingly optimistic but very cautiously optimistic” about the effects of the new variant and sources suggested that the prospect of legal restrictions in England before
A man armed with a crossbow who was arrested after breaking into the grounds of Windsor Castle on Christmas Day has been detained under the Mental Health Act, police have said.
The 19-year-old from Southampton was arrested on suspicion of breach or trespass of a protected site and possession of an offensive weapon at about 8.30 yesterday morning after a security alert at the castle, where the Queen is in residence.
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An armed man has been arrested after breaking into the grounds of Windsor Castle on Christmas Day.
In a statement the Met Police said: "The man was taken into custody and has undergone a mental health assessment - he has since been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and remains in the care of medical professionals.
"Following a search of the man, a crossbow was recovered.
"Inquiries into the full circumstances of this incident are being progressed by Metropolitan Police specialist operations."
Superintendent Rebecca Mears said yesterday: "An investigation is ongoing following this incident and we are working with colleagues from the Metropolitan Police.
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Image:The Queen recorded her annual Christmas address in the White Drawing Room in Windsor Castle
"The man has been arrested on suspicion of breach or trespass of a protected site and possession of an offensive weapon. He remains in custody at this time.
"We can confirm security processes were triggered within moments of the man entering the grounds and he did not enter any buildings.
"Members of the Royal Family have been informed about the incident.
"We do not believe there is a wider danger to the public."
She said there was "one familiar laugh missing" following the death of her husband Prince Philip amid the continuing impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
It may sound off but: Today, Sunday December 26, isn't actually Boxing Day.
"You're off your rocker!" I hear you cry into your Christmas Day leftovers.
Well, it's true. And it's all because of a little technicality which means on this rare occasion the day-after-Christmas-Day isn't what we normally call it.
Boxing Day is actually December 27 if the December 26 is Christmas Sunday. And today is exactly that.
The practice of bumping Boxing Day to make way for Christmas Sunday has mostly fallen out of the public consciousness and it's primarily down to the rise of Boxing Day sales since the mid 1990s.
In Christianity, Christmas Sunday usually coincides with the 'Sunday After the Nativity' feast day that commemorates King David, Saint Joseph and James.
Boxing Day was officially recognised as a bank holiday in England, Northern Ireland and Wales in 1871 and in Scotland it was recognised as an official bank holiday in 1974.
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Desmond Tutu, who has died aged 90, brought a searing moral authority to South Africa’s traumatic transition from apartheid to democracy. Throughout that tumultuous process and beyond, the devout Anglican was revered as a beacon of honesty, conviction, inclusiveness and sheer human decency.
Tutu was thrust on to the political stage in the turbulent last decade or so of white rule because of the enforced absence of other black leaders. Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress colleagues were in jail or in exile in the 1980s, when it was dawning on the white minority government that change would have to come, by whatever means.
His activism was as spirited as it was principled. And his oratory — a mix of humour, humanity and indignation — was as moving and effective at a political funeral in a football stadium as in the cathedral pulpit.
In 1984, Tutu’s moral leadership and his outspoken condemnation of violence by any party earned him South Africa’s second Nobel Peace Prize, after the ANC leader Albert Luthuli in 1960. Two years later he was made archbishop of Cape Town, a perch he used to intensify his opposition to the government of the hardline PW Botha.
In 1994 it was Tutu who coined the phrase “Rainbow Nation”, which Mandela embraced to help bring the divided country together. But the “Arch”, as he was known, also lost no time in establishing his independent credentials in the new democratic order, chiding the ANC in its early years in power over its sometimes profligate ways.
By 1999, when Mandela stepped down after a five-year term, Tutu had gained even broader moral authority, having presided over the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the late 1990s. The TRC held lengthy and fraught hearings across the country looking at several decades of human rights abuses. It then offered amnesty to perpetrators if their crimes were deemed to have had a political purpose. The commission would provide a model for transitional nations worldwide.
Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born on October 7 1931, in Klerksdorp in what was then the Transvaal, and was educated at Johannesburg Bantu High School in the Western Native Township. His father was a teacher, his mother a domestic servant. The young Tutu was astonished when a white man doffed his hat to her one day as she swept someone’s veranda. The man was Trevor Huddleston, a British priest who later guided Tutu towards his calling. A spell in the US strengthened Tutu’s embrace of liberation theology.
Desmond Tutu speaks to a crowd in New York in 1986 to drum up support for sanctions to help put an end to apartheid
Trained as a teacher, he was ordained in 1961 and worked and studied in England for six years. He was made dean of Johannesburg in 1975, bishop of Lesotho the following year and general secretary of the South African Council of Churches from 1978 to 1985.
Loathed by the ruling National party under Botha, he was periodically denied a passport to travel and routinely demonised by the state broadcaster as a wily and sinister politician. Attempts were made on his life. But few could resist his charm in a face-to-face meeting. Within minutes, his combination of self-deprecating jokes and obvious sincerity could transform an audience of suspicious whites into a crowd of admirers. “I love to be loved,” he said, acknowledging that as a weakness.
“He sparkled in company,” said John Allen, his biographer — but it was all without artifice. “Who he was publicly was exactly who he was in private.”
Tutu ensured this craving for affection did not mute his willingness to express unpopular opinions. On the contrary, he coupled it with an audacious line in “provocations” — a word that appeared in the subtitle of the collection of his sermons God Is Not a Christian.
His support for international economic sanctions infuriated not just the Botha government but many of the white Christians he represented. Yet it simply reflected his stance that boycotts and foreign embargoes were the last remaining non-violent options to the oppression he abhorred.
Though he recognised the primacy of the ANC in the fight against apartheid, he remained outside that organisation — and angered the fiery young priests in his fold by insisting that their role too precluded membership of a political party. And when his mentor Huddleston wanted to attend an ANC plenary, he was told firmly to stay away.
Tutu was as ready to condemn brutal methods used by the ANC’s supporters as he was for those of the white security police. When he intervened to save a suspected police informer from “necklacing” (death by burning with a tyre around the neck) near Johannesburg in 1985, he told the mob it was wrong for the justifiably aggrieved to sink to the level of their oppressors. Columnist Barney Mthombothi called Tutu “the closest thing South Africa has to a sage”.
For the next decade, as head of the entire Anglican church in southern Africa, Tutu played an important part in securing his country’s path to democracy. At his Cape Town residence in 1990 it was Tutu who hosted Mandela on his first night out of jail — and who later dubbed his compatriots “the rainbow people of God”.
Whenever that rainbow became clouded by scandal, Tutu spoke out. After Thabo Mbeki, Mandela’s deputy at the time, tried to block the release of the TRC’s five-volume report because it contained references to human rights abuses by the ANC in exile, Tutu said tartly: “I have struggled against a tyranny. I didn’t do that in order to substitute another.” The account was duly published.
While chairing the TRC, Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Relinquishing his archdiocese, he spent two years in Atlanta, combining further medical treatment with a visiting professorship at Emory University before returning to South Africa in 2000. “I have come home to sleep,” he said then.
Yet what followed was anything but somnolent, as he embraced a variety of causes.
Tutu opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lobbying the White House and, nine years later, refusing to share a conference podium with Tony Blair, who had taken the UK into the war alongside George W Bush. He was at least as scathing about Robert Mugabe, saying the president of Zimbabwe had to be toppled, by force if necessary.
Within the church, the man who from the early 1990s had pressed for the ordination of women extended that campaign to include gay equality — telling George Carey, his spiritual leader as Archbishop of Canterbury, that discrimination on the grounds of sexuality made him “ashamed to be an Anglican”. He also became a prominent religious voice in favour of assisted dying for the terminally ill.
Tutu married Leah Nomalizo Shinxani in 1955; she survives him along with a son and three daughters.
“Here was a man,” wrote Mandela in his autobiography, “who had inspired an entire nation with his words and his courage, who had revived the people’s hope during the darkest of times.”
