Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to give a statement on Covid in the House of Commons at 4pm today.
Mr Johnson will update MPs on the latest Covid developments and any rule changes planned, reports the Mirror.
The statement will come after Mr Johnson meets with his Cabinet, and after he faces MPs at Prime Minister's Questions.
It is expected that coronavirus testing rules will be eased and people who test positive on a lateral flow test will no longer need a confirmatory PCR to begin the self-isolation period if they do not have symptoms, potentially allowing them to return to work earlier.
Changes to travel rules are also expected with mandatory testing for everyone arriving in the UK set to be scrapped.
Experts today said any new restrictions would not be as effective as they could have been if introduced earlier.
Health minister Gillian Keegan today told the BBC there was no “official news or updates” on the change to testing but as lateral flow tests are accurate the Government was “looking at what makes sense, we don’t need to do things that are unnecessary”.
A Government source said the change was being discussed but details were “still being finalised”.
A string of NHS trusts declared critical incidents and hospitals in Greater Manchester said they will pause some “non-urgent” surgery over the “rising impact” of Covid-19 and staffing shortages.
A record 218,724 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases were announced in England and Scotland on Tuesday, though the figure will have been inflated by delayed reporting over the holiday period.
NHS England figures showed 15,044 patients with Covid-19 were in hospital on Tuesday morning, with 797 requiring mechanical ventilation.
Dr Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M), told BBC Breakfast that “the impact of any interventions being introduced now would be that much less effective” than if they had been put in place earlier.
