Minister cautions against summer holiday bookings

Appearing on Sky News on Tuesday morning (26 January), Nadhim Zahawi said with the UK’s vaccination programme having only just reached what he described as "base camp" and with tougher border measures imminent to guard against the import of new strains of coronavirus, the focus must be on protecting that vaccination process.

Zahawi confirmed an announcement on "quarantine hotels" would follow later on Tuesday after several days of speculation and trails, although he refused to be drawn on specifics.

Asked by presenter Niall Paterson whether his advice to people thinking about booking a summer holiday right now would be "don’t", Zahawi replied: "Absolutely."

"At the moment, we’ve reached base camp with the vaccine deployment programme, over six and a half million people now with the first dose. There’s a long way to go.

"There’s still 37,000 people in hospital with Covid at the moment. It’s far too early for us to even speculate about the summer."