THE Health Secretary Matt Hancock is expected to make a coronavirus statement in the House of Commons this afternoon.

It has been confirmed that Mr Hancock will update MPs on the latest developments of the Covid pandemic today.

He is set to appear in the Commons at 3.30pm - the first time since restrictions on outdoor hospitality and non-essential retail across England reopened. 

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It comes as the Government is coming under mounting pressure to add India to its 'red list' for travel following the indentification of a new strain.

Andrew Hayward, who is on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), and also a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group today responded to concerns.

Prof Hayward told the BBC that it was his preference to "err on the side of caution and act sooner rather than later" when placing India on the no travel list.

He said: “That said, it’s going to take a number of weeks at least before that evidence gets firmed up and we find out more.

“Certainly some countries and areas have taken the view that that’s enough for them to be quite concerned – so for example, Hong Kong has put on a two-week travel ban, which will allow them to find out a little bit more.”

Asked if he would be in favour of India being put on the travel red list, he said: “It’s a balance of harms and benefits and the challenge with that is that the level of harm is quite high because we’re highly connected with India – there’s a lot of economic interaction as well as family and social interaction.

“And on the other hand, what we have is an unknown level of risk – my own preference in all of this is to err on the side of caution and to act sooner rather than later. But ultimately, that’s going to be a political decision.”