UK to ban travel from South Africa over new variant; Canada approves Moderna vaccine - as it happened

More areas of England moved up into tiers 4 and 3; UK has highest recorded daily rise in cases; new variant discovered in travellers from South Africa. This blog is now closed

12.32am GMT

Thank you all for following along for tonights latest developments! You can keep up with the Guardian's coverage of Covid-19 through our coronavirus keyword tag, but that's it from me, Edna Mohamed.

12.22am GMT

Victoria has recorded its 55^th straight day without a locally acquired Covid-19 case, reports AAP.

There are currently 10 active cases in the state with 19,229 tests processed in the past 24 hours. But Victoria's border will remain closed to NSW over Christmas following Sydney's northern beaches outbreak. On Wednesday, the infection cluster grew to 97 cases.