The British government on Sunday denied criticism that it was too slow to impose travel restrictions on India as a coronavirus variant identified in the subcontinent spreads in the UK.
England, Scotland and Wales will unlock parts of their economy on Monday but future plans for reopening have been put in doubt by the more transmissible variant.
It was "completely wrong" to suggest the UK could have acted faster to designate India as a red list country, meaning arriving travellers would have to enter quarantine in hotels, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News.
Mr Hancock said India was placed under the strict travel restrictions in April before the variant, known as B16172, was under investigation.
The British government has come under criticism from opposition politicians over its decision to put Pakistan and Bangladesh on its red list before India.
Mr Hancock denied that the decision was influenced by a planned trip by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in April for post-Brexit trade talks.
"We take these decisions based on the evidence," he said of the visit, which was eventually scrapped because of surging Covid-19 cases in India.
Indoor hospitality and entertainment venues such as cinemas, museums and sports areas will open their doors in most parts of the UK for the first time in months on Monday.
People and families will be able to meet with some restrictions in private houses under the new measures.
Mr Hancock said the reopening could go ahead despite 1,300 cases of the Indian variant in the UK because of the country's successful vaccination campaign and close monitoring of cases.
But he sounded a note of caution over plans to completely lift restrictions on June 21.
"We're in a race between the vaccination programme and the virus," Mr Hancock said.
"And this new variant has given the virus some extra legs in that race, but we have a high degree of confidence that the vaccine will overcome."
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Ads on social media can 'normalise' drugs
A UK report on youth social media habits commissioned by advocacy group Volteface found a quarter of young people were exposed to illegal drug dealers on social media.
The poll of 2,006 people aged 16-24 assessed their exposure to drug dealers online in a nationally representative survey.
Of those admitting to seeing drugs for sale online, 56 per cent saw them advertised on Snapchat, 55 per cent on Instagram and 47 per cent on Facebook.
Cannabis was the drug most pushed by online dealers, with 63 per cent of survey respondents claiming to have seen adverts on social media for the drug, followed by cocaine (26 per cent) and MDMA/ecstasy, with 24 per cent of people.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
HAEMOGLOBIN DISORDERS EXPLAINED
Thalassaemia is part of a family of genetic conditions affecting the blood known as haemoglobin disorders.
Haemoglobin is a substance in the red blood cells that carries oxygen and a lack of it triggers anemia, leaving patients very weak, short of breath and pale.
The most severe type of the condition is typically inherited when both parents are carriers. Those patients often require regular blood transfusions - about 450 of the UAE's 2,000 thalassaemia patients - though frequent transfusions can lead to too much iron in the body and heart and liver problems.
The condition mainly affects people of Mediterranean, South Asian, South-East Asian and Middle Eastern origin. Saudi Arabia recorded 45,892 cases of carriers between 2004 and 2014.
A World Health Organisation study estimated that globally there are at least 950,000 'new carrier couples' every year and annually there are 1.33 million at-risk pregnancies.
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