PRIME Minister Boris Johnson will lead a Downing Street press briefing this afternoon, it has been announced.

He will be joined by England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and NHS England boss Sir Simon Stevens.

The briefing is due to start at 5pm this afternoon.

He will likely be discussing the UK's rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine along with the UK's progress in bringing down coronavirus cases.

Mr Johnson could also discuss the return of children to schools. 

There is also speculation the Government is set to introduce a quarantine system for arrivals in to the UK. 

Under the new system passengers arriving in England from high-risk coronavirus hotspots could be made to quarantine in hotels to limit the spread of new variants.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was due to discuss the proposals – designed to ensure people follow self-isolation rules – with senior ministers at the “Covid Operations” committee on Tuesday.

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Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi warned that the country needs to be “very careful” as new strains emerge, and said an announcement on the quarantine plans would be made later.

He told Sky News: “There will be an announcement on this issue later on today, so I can only say to you that it is the right thing to do, because I am the Vaccines Minister, that as we vaccinate more of the adult population, if there are new variants like the South African or the Brazilian variants, we need to be very careful.

“We acted on those very quickly and of course dealt with travel from those countries, and from Portugal and elsewhere, rapidly so it is important we continue to review our border policy and an announcement will be made when a decision has been taken.

“And of course the industry itself will be engaged with heavily, including (Health Secretary) Matt Hancock engaging with the industry to explain the decision making at health, as well as of course the business department with the Business Secretary.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel declined to comment on “speculation” about quarantine hotels as she answered an urgent question in the Commons.

But she said the Government “will not hesitate to take further action” to protect the UK from new strains, and said “measures are always under review”.