but it is not just cases that are rising. so is the number of people needing hospital care. even as more healthcare workers get sent home sick. teachers, as well. with millions of kids going back to school today, mostly in person but in several large school districts they have gone back to remote learn for the time being. against that backdrop, today the fda signed off on booster doses of pfizer s vaccine for 12 to 15-year-olds and shortened the waiting period between second and third doses to five months from six. meantime, testing remains hard to get. questions about how dangerous low omicron is in general, and specifically to kids remain unanswered. early developments on that front as well. guidelines on isolation. the effectiveness of home testing kits, mask wearing remain confusing or controversial and sometimes even contradictory. feels like a lot to process because it is a lot to process so tonight we want to devote plenty of time to answering the questions most of us still have
two jabs are not enough but three jabs provide excellent protection and the nhs in the last few weeks, especially, has done an amazing job in rolling out those boosters. over 75% of eligible adults now boosted. but still much more to be done. millions of pupils across england and northern ireland have gone back to school today, amid concerns about staff shortages caused by the omicron variant of covid. in england, secondary school students will have to take tests on site before they return to the classroom, and masks are being re introduced until at least the end of the month. but teaching unions are warning it s likely some year groups will be sent home to learn remotely. our correspondent jayne mccubbin reports. bell rings this is bethany. this is kian. and this is what the start of a new term in england looks like. how was that for you, kian? disgusting and horrible. welcome back to school! no one goes back to class without a negative test seen by barry. how many test results
building up to the latest downing street press conference, today led by the prime minister borisjohnson alongside the chief medical officer for england, professor sir chris whitty and chief scientific officer, sir patrick vallance. the uk has recorded it s highest number of daily coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic topping 200,000 for the first time. it comes as the health secretary says there is nothing in the latest data to suggest the government would need to toughen up its response to coronavirus and that it was still too early to know how hospitals would cope. sajid javid called it an incredibly challenging time for the the nhs and said that around six hospital trusts have declared a critical incident due to a shortage of workers. we ll hear more from him in a moment but let s take a look at today s other developments starting with today s figures. a further 218,724 have tested positive for the virus a new record. also today millions of pupils across en
testing technology that didn t work. and efforts to reduce agricultural pollution in the river wye caused by excessive use of animal manure. and in sport on the bbc news channel, stuart broad s been recalled by england for the fourth ashes test, replacing olly robinson. broad s played just once in the series, which australia have already won. good afternoon and welcome to the bbc news at one. millions of pupils across england and northern ireland have gone back to school today, amid concerns about staff shortages caused by the omicron variant of covid. in england, secondary school students will have to take tests on site before they return to the classroom, and masks are being re introduced until at least the end of the month. but teaching unions are warning it s
news for parents sending their children back to school today, that is, if the school is open. a number of district are returning to virtual learning not just because of exposure risk but because there aren t enough staffers to open. too many cases keeping too many people in isolation. here in new york city, though, public schools are open. mayor eric adams defying a call from the teachers union to go virtual. i am keeping my schools open and we re going to make sure that they re going to be in a safe place. that includes doubling the amount of testing that we re looking at. the science is showing us that because a child is exposed in a classroom, that entire classroom is not exposed. we did an amazing job over the weekend that many people don t know about. i put in place my team on wednesday. we were able to get over a million and a half test kits and deployed it to every school in the city. we did it in just a few days. okay. now here come the case numbers.