Coronavirus: tips for a safer Christmas

Well-ventilated homes, guest cutlery, picnics and deferral until midsummer among advice for tweaking the traditional festival

Overstretched health visitors caring for up to 2,400 families each

Exclusive: health chief fearful over impact of a lack of visits for newborns in England

Hundreds of thousands of students in Scotland banned from socialising

Student union says move disregards mental health and ‘applies different rules from the rest of the adult population’

UK set to bring in strict new junk food rules including pre-9pm ad ban

Measures expected to go beyond curbs on advertising to include in-store restriction

Operators of gyms and pools query England’s new lockdown rules

Nightclubs also off limits but pubs can open – prompting accusations of inconsistencies

Obesity is a major risk factor for dying of Covid-19. We need to take it more seriously

Health officials need to emphasize the relation between obesity and Covid-19, and we need to treat it like other chronic diseases

Candice Brathwaite: ‘I’m at the forefront of a discussion that will save women’s lives’

A horrifying experience after the birth of her daughter set the blogger on a mission to make motherhood more inclusive

A letter to my post-lockdown self: ‘Keep listening to the birds’

Author Bernardine Evaristo, broadcaster Hugh Pym, playwright James Graham and more pen letters to themselves, to be opened in May 2021

Thousands lose last hope of having a baby as lockdown closes IVF clinics

Women approaching middle age may be too old for fertility treatment when clinics reopen

The Guardian view on inequality and health: a matter of life and death

Editorial: It is unfair that in England people in different social circumstances experience avoidable differences in health, wellbeing and length of life. But this is a political choice