Exempt roles decided on case-by-case basis

We'll shortly be pausing our live coronavirus coverage, but before we go, here's a round up of the main UK headlines:

• Downing Street insists it is "crucial" to self-isolate when sent an alert by the Covid app - and businesses should help employees to do so
• It comes after confusion was caused by business minister Paul Scully saying he would encourage people who are "pinged" to self-isolate but they can make an "informed decision"
• The government also says there will be no list of critical workers exempt from isolating rules - instead exemptions will be "considered on a case-by-case basis"
• Industry bodies have criticised the plan for businesses to apply for staff to be exempt from self-isolation saying it has been "built on the hoof"
• Almost a quarter of pupils (1.7 million) in England were out of school last week, the latest official attendance figures show, including over a million off for Covid-related reasons
• Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has urged the UK vaccines authority not to "rule out" offering all teenagers a vaccine
• And the UK has reported another 96 coronavirus deaths - the highest number since late March.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Here are the key developments across the globe in the past 24 hours:

• There have been four million excess deaths in India from the start of the coronavirus outbreak, a study suggests - 10 times higher than the official death toll from the pandemic
• Rescheduling the Tokyo Olympics "caused sleepless nights", IOC president Thomas Bach admits ahead of the games' opening ceremony
• US President Joe Biden's climate envoy, John Kerry, has warned that the world can't wait for the pandemic to end before facing up to global warming.
• And Asia follows global shares slide amid Covid recovery fears
• France announces a record eighteen thousand new coronavirus cases in the previous twenty-four hours, as a fourth wave takes hold. The health minister Olivier Veran told parliament the country had never seen such a rise.

Lynn and Sean Hearson postponed their wedding a year ago, and were please to find the new date they set fell on 19 July, the day nearly all coronavirus restrictions were lifted in England.

With limits on numbers gone and rules relaxed on dancing and masks, they enjoyed celebrating with friends and family.

The Delta variant can transmit between people in an "extraordinary" manner, US infectious disease chief Dr Anthony Fauci warns.

Speaking to the US Senate on Tuesday, Dr Fauci says the “formidable” variant’s capability to transmit is “well beyond” others that have been detected.

The Delta variant is now the dominant variant of Covid-19 in the United States, he adds.

First detected in India, it has now spread to 90 countries around the globe.

At Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Centres for Disease Control (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky said the average number of deaths in the US has risen to 239 per day, a 48% increase over the week before.

The vast majority of the deaths are among unvaccinated people, Dr Walensky said.

CDC statistics show that about 186.3 million people – or 56% of the US population – had received at least one vaccine dose by Monday morning.

John HamiltonCopyright: John Hamilton

From the end of September, clubbers will need to have had both jabs to be allowed into nightclubs.

The announcement last night from the prime minister says the rules will also include other venues with large crowds

John Hamilton owns Bar Pop and Churchill's in Manchester.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live's Nicky Campbell, John said the announcement, which came just hours after nightclubs were allowed to reopen, was "a slap in the face" but he acknowledged it was a "clever way" to encourage young people to take up the vaccine.

John said enforcing the new rules would take time and expense.

"But if it means we make it a safer environment for our customers and our staff, then that's great for us.

"We just need to make sure there's support there for our industry," he added.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

The world needs to see that Japan can stage a safe Olympics, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has said ahead of Friday's opening ceremony.

“The world is faced with great difficulties,” Suga told International Olympic Committee members in a closed-door meeting at a five-star hotel in Tokyo, the Associated Press reports.

"We can bring success to the delivery of the Games.

“Such fact has to be communicated from Japan to the rest of the world. We will protect the health and security of the Japanese public.

But the prime minister admitted that Japan’s path through the pandemic toward the Olympics had gone "sometimes backward".

The games - postponed for a year because of the coronavirus outbreak - are starting despite widespread opposition from the Japanese public.

You can watch the opening ceremony and all the sporting events day-by-day on the BBC Sport website.

Downing Street says the first isolation exemptions under the critical sectors scheme have now been granted.

The prime minister's official spokesman said: "The first exemptions I understand have already been given in some critical sectors - that work is going on given the urgency. That's in both wider sectors and the NHS as well."

Earlier the government announced businesses would need to apply for staff to be exempt from coronavirus self-isolation rules.

EPACopyright: EPA

US President Joe Biden's climate envoy, John Kerry, has warned that the world simply cannot afford to wait for the pandemic to end before it deals with global warming.

Speaking in London, Kerry said: "I’m very sorry to say the suffering of Covid will be magnified many times over in a world that does not grapple with and ultimately halt the climate crisis.

"We don’t have the luxury of waiting until Covid is vanquished to take up the climate challenge."

He called on China - the world's biggest user of fossil fuels - to increase the speed and depth of its efforts to cut carbon emissions.

Kerry said November's international summit on climate change - Cop26 - in Scotland would be “a pivotal moment”, and 2021 “a decisive year”.

He insisted the world must get to grips with global warming and rapidly cut emissions in this decade to have a chance of a safe future.

Russia has past six million Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest official figures.

The country recorded 23,770 new Covid cases, including 3,188 in Moscow, pushing the total to 6,006,536.

There were 784 deaths in the last 24 hours, up from 719. Russia has officially recorded 149,922 deaths since the start of the pandemic, but some estimates suggest the real figure is much higher.

Recent data shows Russia has some of the highest case numbers in Europe, behind the UK.

BBCCopyright: BBC

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

In the US, Twitter has temporarily suspended the Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene for posting "misleading" information about coronavirus.

She's blocked from posting more tweets for 12 hours, Twitter says, after she claimed vaccines should not be required and that Covid was not dangerous for people aged under 65 who are not obese.

The congresswoman has been an outspoken critic of vaccines and the use of masks.

Last month she apologised for comparing coronavirus mask rules to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany.

Read more here.

Another 35,670 people have had their first Covid vaccine in the UK, according to the latest government statistics. Some 46,349,709 people in the UK have had a first jab – that's 88% of the adult population.

Today's figure is up from the 18,186 recorded yesterday which was the lowest number of first doses since the government began releasing data in January.

A further 143,560 have had their second vaccine, meaning more than 36 million adults – or 68.8% of the UK adult population – are fully vaccinated.

The UK has reported another 96 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the highest number in almost four months.

The previous highest figure was the 98 deaths recorded on 24 March.

Latest government figures also show another 46,558 daily cases. Cases have risen 40.7% over the last week.

Christina HuCopyright: Christina Hu

The NHS website lists the main symptoms of Covid as a high temperature, a new continuous cough and a loss or change in your sense of smell and taste.

But scientists at the Zoe Covid Symptom Study say that, if you've been jabbed, your symptoms might be more like a bad cold.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Christina Hu explained: "The current top symptoms that are being reported by Covid-positive people in the Zoe Covid Study are...milder things like runny nose, headache and sore throat.

"Our data is really showing that post-vaccination, symptoms are certainly more mild and comparable to a bad cold."

Christina added that the symptoms could also have changed because more younger people were catching Covid.

She called on listeners to tell other people about the new symptoms.

"It does seem unlikely that the government is going to change the official list any time soon so we are calling on the listeners to spread the word about this," she said.

Listen to 5 Live on the free BBC Sounds app.

PA MediaCopyright: PA Media

Andrew Lloyd Webber has said the theatre industry is "on its knees" due to self-isolation Covid-19 rules.

He was speaking after the opening two nights of his new show Cinderella were cancelled because some cast and crew members were told to self-isolate.

He said the current system was "completely, completely untenable" and pleaded with the government to listen.

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has said he was "deeply disappointed" to hear about Cinderella's closure.

Read our full story here.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

In China, life is pretty much back to normal, although some Covid-19 restrictions remain near the Myanmar border.

China has grappled recently with an outbreak in the city of Ruili. There are currently more than 200 people in hospital after an outbreak in early July. The majority of those are "import" cases.

Ruili has experienced multiple waves of Covid-19, which Chinese state media have largely blamed on "illegal border crossings". This week, there have been reports that China has pledged to send six million vaccine doses over the border by August.

Meanwhile, in Taiwan, cases are starting to subside, after a major Covid-19 outbreak that began in May. For the last four days, Taiwan has recorded fewer than 20 daily cases, and there are expectations that the island will relax restrictions on 26 July.

Currently in Taiwan, there is a mask mandate in place, and most non-essential venues are closed. However, a few sports and entertainment venues were allowed to open on 8 July, due to falling cases.

Restaurants, however, largely remain closed. So it’s big news on Tuesday that Executive Yuan official Chen Chengwen has been fined for breaching local restrictions to attend a large indoor gathering.

AFPCopyright: AFP

The UN's children agency Unicef says it's "alarmed at the rapid spread" of coronavirus in Libya, where there has been "a 270% increase in cases in the west, 480% in the south and 50% in the east of the country".

It also warns that the true number may be much higher than recorded, because of an acute shortage and lack of capacity to carry out tests.

Official data shows that Libya has 220,000 Covid cases so far, with 6,061 cases recorded on Sunday – the highest daily rate since the beginning of the pandemic.

"The vaccination rate is very low, and the spread is fast," said Unicef's Special Representative in Libya AbdulKadir Musse.

The highly infectious Delta coronavirus variant is suspected to be among the strains that are circulating in the country.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Airports and airlines have lost their legal challenge against the government over the UK's traffic light system.

Firms including the Manchester Airports Group, which runs three airports, as well as airlines Ryanair, IAG, Tui, EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic went to court to try to have more transparency in how the traffic light system is decided.

They argued that decisions about which countries were on the list were not based on data.

But the High Court ruled the government does not have to publish more information on how the system is decided.

The judges said that, in many cases, providing the detailed information requested when amber list countries changed "would impose an unreasonable burden" and "risk slowing the decision-making process".

The full story is here, or for a reminder of the traffic light rules, that's here.

The Balearic Islands was added to the UK's amber list last week, meaning many people will have to isolate when they return. only 15 days after they were added to the green watchlist.

Despite the government's changes to travel restrictions, many people in north-east England are seeing their holiday plans through.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Rescheduling the Tokyo Olympics "caused sleepless nights" - but must go ahead "to give hope" for the future, says International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.

Bach says cancellation "was never an option" despite the difficulties involved in hosting the event amid the Covid pandemic.

The opening ceremony for the delayed 2020 Games is on Friday.

"The IOC never abandons the athletes," says Bach.

"Cancellation would have been the easy way for us. We could have drawn on the insurance that we had at the time and moved on to Paris 2024.

"But in fact, cancellation was never an option for us.

"In order to arrive at this day today, we had to give confidence. We had to show a way out of this crisis. We had to provide stability. We had to build trust. We had to give hope," the IOC president adds.

Read our full story