Coronavirus live news: more lockdowns ‘unlikely’ to be needed, says UK expert; Australia has record day of cases

Members of the government’s expert committee on vaccination remain largely opposed to extending Covid jabs to younger teenagers, despite politicians signalling they would like to see a shift in the guidance, the Guardian has been told.

Several members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said the mainstream sentiment on the body is still extremely cautious about expanding the programme to 12- to 15-year-olds, even though a deputy chief medical officer has suggested that outcome is highly probable and politicians have said they would like the issue to remain under review.

The JCVI recommended on Wednesday that all over-16s be offered jabs, just two weeks after saying children should not routinely be given Covid vaccinations. The U-turn provoked alarm at what was described as a “shambolic” vaccine rollout for older teenagers.

The JCVI has moved to “refresh” the membership of its Covid subcommittee in recent weeks, with one prominent critic of Covid jabs for children, Prof Robert Dingwall, leaving the body.

The state of Victoria in Australia has recorded 29 new locally acquired Covid-19 cases, all linked to current outbreaks but not in quarantine while infectious.

Australia detected a record daily number of new coronavirus cases for the year on Saturday, with the country’s most populous states of New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland recording a total of 361 cases of the highly infectious Delta variant.

Wales has moved to Covid alert level zero, which means most restrictions including social distancing will be scrapped.

It comes almost 17 months after Wales’ first lockdown and means nightclubs are allowed to reopen and meeting indoors permitted. However, face masks are still required in most public indoor spaces but not in pubs, restaurants, or schools.

The decision was confirmed on Thursday following weeks of declining case rates. The first minister, Mark Drakeford, has warned against a “free-for-all”.

In England, a top scientific adviser to the government has said lockdowns are “unlikely” to be needed again to control the Covid pandemic.

The claim comes as the number of people in hospitals with the virus has fallen, and the average rate of infection has decreased.

The number of Covid infections is expected to rise again in September when school and university terms begin and more workers are expected to return to the office.

But Prof Neil Ferguson, an immunologist among the government’s most prominent scientific advisers on Covid, has predicted it is unlikely a lockdown will be needed again to control the virus.

In an interview with the Times, he said: “I think it is unlikely we will need a new lockdown or even social distancing measures of the type we’ve had so far.”