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Families and loved ones will be reunited when the first travellers from New Zealand since the Covid-19 crisis arrive in Queensland without the need to quarantine.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk opened the border to NZ residents from 1am on Saturday, with the first flight expected to land in Brisbane about 10.45am.
“I know that is going to mean so much to families that have been missing loved ones for such a long time,” she said.
The decision to lift travel restrictions for travellers from NZ came after the country clocked up 28 days without a locally acquired virus case.
While people from NZ can now enter Queensland freely, they will still have to go into managed isolation or quarantine when they return home.
Palaszczuk said she was optimistic the NZ government would soon remove mandatory quarantine requirements for arrivals from Australia.
Queensland is also set to open to travellers from Adelaide from 1am on Saturday, meaning all Australians will be able to freely enter Queensland for the first time since March.
There were more than 200,000 Kiwis living in Queensland in the 2016 census, making them the largest group of foreign-born residents in the state.
With the easing of coronavirus health restrictions, Queensland will also allow socially distanced dancing at indoor venues from 1am on Monday.
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NSW records no new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases
New South Wales has again reported no new locally transmitted cases of Covid-19. There were six cases in the state’s hotel quarantine.
WATCH: Dr Chatu Yapa provides a #COVID19 update for Saturday 12 December 2020. pic.twitter.com/JgSYUEiPJU
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) December 12, 2020
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Cowie acknowledges Victorians may be feeling “anxious” to see new Covid-19 cases after “a very difficult year”.
He assures Victorians that “all steps are being taken, all resources are being mobilised” to ensure the positive cases remain only in hotel quarantine.
Victoria is understandably a little jumpy about the hotel quarantine system, and Cowie is stressing that positive results were “anticipated”.
He’s running through the way the scheme works, and explaining that when new arrivals appear at Melbourne airport they are either sent to hotel quarantine or to a health hotel if they have symptoms.
At least some of these five cases were initially in hotel quarantine before testing positive.
The five positive cases returned from “a range of countries” but Cowie won’t go into details.
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Victoria’s deputy chief health officer, Prof Ben Cowie, is addressing the media after five new cases of Covid-19 were found in hotel quarantine.
They are the first cases of the virus recorded since hotel quarantine resumed in the state on 7 December, and the first cases in Victoria in 42 days.
He says that as of 11pm last night, Victoria had accepted 735 people into hotel quarantine since it resumed.
Of those, 680 are in quarantine while another 55 are in the specially set up “health hotels”.
The five positive cases are two men in their 30s and 50s, and three women in their 20s, 30s and 50s. He says all of them are being cared for in the health hotels.
“They will remain there until they are cleared both from a clinical perspective for their own welfare and from a public perspective when they no longer present any risk of transmission of Covid-19 in the community,” Cowie says.
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A website set up to allow Victorians to access regional travel vouchers crashed within minutes on Friday, AAP reports.
Business Victoria says 40,000 vouchers offered as part of the first round of the state government’s Regional Travel Voucher Scheme have run out.
Holidaymakers hoping to snap up one of the Victorian government’s $200 regional tourism offers prompted the application website to crash within minutes on Friday morning, having opened at 10am.
Those intending to spend two or more nights in regional Victoria between Saturday and 22 January 2021 were able to apply.
Business Victoria said the website received 800,000 visits by Friday at 5pm.
Eligible destinations under the $28m scheme, announced as part of a $300m state budget tourism package last month, include the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Bellarine Peninsula.
“If those $200 vouchers mean people stay an extra night, maybe go to a local pub or restaurant. That’s all about wages and spending and investment,” Premier Daniel Andrews said on Thursday.
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The US government has exercised its option to purchase an additional 100m doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate, bringing its confirmed order commitment to 200m doses.
In a statement to investors, Moderna said about 20m doses of the vaccine would be delivered “by the end of December 2020”.
The remaining 80m will be delivered in the first quarter of 2021, while the additional 100m announced today would come in the second quarter of 2021.
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New Zealand and the Cook Islands have agreed to a travel arrangement between the two nations.
NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown have instructed officials to put in place measures to safely recommence two-way quarantine-free travel in the first quarter of 2021.
“The arrangement recognises the special ties between New Zealand and the Cook Islands. It will allow people to travel more easily between our two countries, while acknowledging that the priority remains to protect our populations from Covid-19,” Ardern said.
Brown noted the free movement between NZ and the Cook Islands is central to their close relationship and integral to the Islands’ recovery from the coronavirus.
“This arrangement is the next step towards resuming many aspects of life in the Cook Islands that have been disrupted by Covid-19, including access to health and education, and reuniting family and friends,” he said.
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Brazil reported 53,030 additional confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours and 646 deaths from Covid-19, the Health Ministry said on Friday.
The South American country has now registered 6,834,829 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 180,411, according to ministry data.
Brazil has the world’s second highest death toll behind the US and the third highest case count behind the US and India.
Victoria records five Covid-19 cases – all in hotel quarantine
Victoria’s resumed and revamped hotel quarantine system will face its first test after recording five new cases of Covid-19.
They are the first cases recorded in hotel quarantine since the state once again began taking overseas returnees on 7 December. The state has now gone 42 days without a case of community transmission of the virus.
Yesterday there were 0 new locally acquired cases and 5 new cases acquired overseas and in quarantine. There were 0 lost lives lost and 8,737 test results received. #EveryTestHelps #StaySafeStayOpen
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) December 11, 2020
More info: https://t.co/lIUrl0ZEco#COVID19Vic pic.twitter.com/O7sqg0v3Ne
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Good morning (or afternoon, or evening, depending on where you are reading) this is Michael McGowan in Sydney taking over the global Covid-19 blog.
Australia is pinning much of its hope on the British-developed AstraZeneca/Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine, purchasing an additional 20m doses of the product after trials of a domestically produced vaccine were cancelled.
On Friday the Australian government announced further trials of the Australian-led Covid-19 vaccine in development by the University of Queensland and pharmaceutical company CSL would be abandoned, after some participants in early trials returned false-positive HIV tests.
While there was no risk of HIV to the trial participants, researchers said the false-positive results would have required significant changes to well-established HIV testing procedures to accommodate rollout of the vaccine.
The news is a major blow for Australia’s hopes of securing a vaccine, but the government quickly announced it had secured enough doses of AstraZeneca’s promising vaccine to serve the entire population.
The country’s health minister, Greg Hunt, said Australia was still in a “strong position” to roll out Covid-19 vaccines early next year, despite the termination. “Just to let you know, all up, the Australian vaccine portfolio – 53.8 million AstraZeneca units – that’s enough to cover the whole of population,” he said.
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Scientists have linked the most severe form of Covid-19 with five genes that affect lung inflammation and the body’s ability to fight off viruses.
Their findings, from a study of 2,700 Covid-19 patients in intensive care units across Britain, point to several existing drugs that could be repurposed to treat people who risk becoming critically ill.
The genes – called IFNAR2, TYK2, OAS1, DPP9 and CCR2 – partially explain why some people become desperately sick with Covid-19, while others are not affected, said Kenneth Baillie of Edinburgh University, co-author of the study published on Friday in Nature.
The new information should help scientists design clinical trials of medicines that target specific antiviral and anti-inflammatory pathways.
Among those with the most potential, Baillie said, should be a class of anti-inflammatory drugs called JAK inhibitors, including Eli Lilly’s arthritis drug baricitinib, which has been found to help hospitalised pneumonia patients in combination with Gilead’s remdesivir.
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A summary of today's developments
- The World Health Organization warned that Christmas celebrations could turn to “sadness” if people fail to keep up their guard against Covid-19 during the festive season. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of deaths in the coronavirus pandemic was surging and urged people to think very carefully about their holiday season plans.
- Brazil’s health ministry is studying 58 suspected cases of Covid-19 reinfection after confirming the first case of a person getting reinfected with coronavirus, a ministry spokeswoman said. The first case was a health worker in the northern city of Natal, a 37-year-old woman who tested positive in June and again 116 days later in October, the ministry said on Thursday.
- Indoor dining restrictions will be reinstated indefinitely in New York City, governor Andrew Cuomo announced as coronavirus cases and hospitalisations continue climbing in the city and throughout the state.
- The UK reported 424 new Covid-related deaths on Friday, as the number of coronavirus patients admitted to hospital increased week on week.
- Portugal reported 95 deaths linked to Covid-19 on Friday, its worst daily toll since the pandemic started. The country of just over 10 million people has now reported 5,373 deaths and a total of 340,287 infections, up by 5,080 cases from Thursday.
- The level 3 coronavirus restrictions placed on the city of Edinburgh in Scotland have not been suspended by a judge, who decided the Scottish government had a right to consider factors other than data.
- Rapid coronavirus tests rolled out in Liverpool in England missed more than half of those who had Covid-19, preliminary data suggests.
- There were no cases of severe allergic reactions to Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate during clinical trials, a Pfizer executive said at a regulatory conference.
- Switzerland has ordered restaurants, bars and shops to close down from 7pm across much of the nation, the government said on Friday, as the country continues to face a persistently high level of Covid-19 infections and deaths.
- Scientists have identified mutations in five genes associated with the development of life-threatening illness in patients with Covid-19.
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There were no cases of severe allergic reactions to Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate during clinical trials, a Pfizer executive said at a regulatory conference.
A late-stage trial testing the potential vaccine excluded participants who had a prior history of severe allergic reactions to any vaccine or to the constituents of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, said Dr William Gruber, Pfizer’s senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development.
We’ve not had any anaphylactic episodes related to the vaccine,” Gruber said during a panel meeting of independent advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The trial included about 6,000 participants respectively in both the vaccine and placebo groups with a history of a range of allergic conditions like pollen allergy, food allergy, all the way up to anaphylaxis, Pfizer executive Susan Mather said.
Anaphylaxis is an overreaction by the body’s immune system that could sometimes be life-threatening.
The comments follow British medicine regulators’ advice that people with a history of significant allergic reactions do not get the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, after two people reported adverse effects.
The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to issue an emergency use authorisation for the two-dose vaccine as soon as Friday, according to the New York Times.
Once authorised, the first Americans could be immunized as soon as Monday or Tuesday, with healthcare workers expected to be among the first in line.
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The level 3 coronavirus restrictions placed on the city of Edinburgh in Scotland have not been suspended by a judge, who decided the Scottish government had a right to consider factors other than data.
Lord Ericht passed a judicial review on the motion from KLR & RCR International Ltd & Others after hospitality businesses in the city warned of the further impact the measures could have.
At a remote hearing on Friday, Dean of Faculty Roddy Dunlop QC, on behalf of the petitioners, told the judge the level 3 decision made for Edinburgh by Scottish government ministers was “flawed” and did not reflect Public Health Scotland advice or case figures.
James Mure QC, representing ministers, said while the data was there to inform the decision-makers, there was “no simple algorithm” to determine levels and the indicators used “may change over time”.
In his judgment, Lord Ericht said: “The current coronavirus crisis has brought difficult challenges.
“It has brought particularly difficult challenges to the hospitality industry.
I have been provided with information and affidavits about the devastating effect on the businesses of the petitioners and the consequences for their survival if they have to operate on level 3 rather than level 2 restrictions over the festive period.”
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The president of the Senegalese Football Federation (FSF), Augustin Senghor, said he feared for sport in his country due to coronavirus restrictions.
On Thursday, the west African state announced that the ban on public gatherings, including sports training, will remain in place.
“It’s clear that if it’s put in place or renewed, it’s a death warrant for Senegalese sport,” Senghor said on the FSF’s Facebook page.
“One year or more without playing sport in a country becomes worrying. We need to play because it’s good for public health and our young people,” he added.
Senghor also questioned why some countries which have been hit harder by the pandemic have allowed sport to continue.
Senegal has declared 16,173 cases of Covid-19 with 334 deaths from the virus.
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Rapid coronavirus tests rolled out in Liverpool in England missed more than half of those who had Covid-19, preliminary data suggests.
A document released by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) on Friday shows the tests missed about 51% of all cases.
The paper considered by Sage on 26 November said that two days earlier the Liverpool Health Protection Board had decided to pause plans to use the Innova lateral flow test to allow care home visits because they were not accurate enough.
One week later the government started sending out the tests to England’s biggest care homes.
On 5 December the chief medical adviser to NHS Test and Trace defended the uses of the tests, despite concerns around the accuracy.
Dr Susan Hopkins said the tests had enabled them to find many cases of infection in people without Covid-19 symptoms that would otherwise have been missed.
She explained the programme was about case detection, and people with a negative test were not being told they did not have the disease.
Instead it was identifying those who do have Covid-19, and telling them to isolate.
Prof Richard Tedder, senior research investigator in medical virology, Imperial College London, said: “The data presented on the performance of the Innova lateral flow assay for detecting Sars-CoV-2 clearly indicate in this study that when compared against a benchmark molecular test such as a quantitative PCR the lateral flow test is very very much less sensitive, detecting only about half of the known positive samples subjected to testing.”
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Britain’s Prince William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, took their three young children to a special pantomime performance on Friday to meet and thank healthworkers, delivery drivers and volunteers for their efforts during the pandemic.
Prince William delivered a short speech to thank the workers from across Britain who had supported communities and battled to keep the country operating earlier this year.
The couple embarked on a short national tour earlier this week to meet and thank frontline workers, care home staff and teachers for their efforts during the pandemic.
On Friday the couple arrived walking down a red carpet with their three young children – George, Charlotte and Louis – who stopped to watch actors dressed as elves waving and juggling.
They later watched the performance staring the actor and comedian Julian Clary and singer Elaine Paige.
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The World Health Organization warned that Christmas celebrations could turn to “sadness” if people fail to keep up their guard against Covid-19 during the festive season.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of deaths in the coronavirus pandemic was surging and urged people to think very carefully about their holiday season plans.
“The festive season is a time to relax and celebrate but... celebration can very quickly turn to sadness if we fail to take the right precautions,” he told a news conference.
As you prepare to celebrate over the coming weeks, please, please consider your plans carefully. If you live in an area with high transmission, please take every precaution to keep yourselves and others safe.
“That could be the best gift you could give - the gift of health.”
Tedros said there had been a 60 percent increase worldwide in deaths from the respiratory disease over the past six weeks.
However, some continents are witnessing bigger death toll surges than others, said Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19.
She said there had been nearly a 100 percent increase in the number of deaths per week in the WHO’s Europe region over the past six weeks, a 54 percent increase in the Americas and 50 percent in Africa.
“This virus is still circulating. Most of the world remains at risk,” she said.
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Some Spanish ski stations, including exclusive Baqueira Beret favoured by the royal family, are set to open from next week while observing nationwide coronavirus restrictions.
Ski resorts have become a divisive issue in Europe as some countries like France, Germany and Italy have shut them after some ski stations became Covid-19 breeding grounds last winter, helping the early spread of the illness in Europe.
Privately owned Baqueira Beret, in the Pyrenees near the French border, said on its website it will open on Monday, though it will limit the number of skiers to guarantee social distance.
“The starting shot of the winter 2020-2021 will be fired on December 14,” the resort said on Friday.
Spain’s Sierra Nevada resort in Andalusia said it will open to skiers next Friday.
Switzerland has said it will open its ski resorts.
Austria announced this month that skiing will be allowed from December 24th but hotels will stay closed until January 7th and visits from abroad will likely be much reduced given quarantine requirements for people from countries with more than 100 cases per 100,000 - which include Germany, France and Italy.
Pyrenean microstate Andorra, whose economy relies heavily on winter sports, has not set a date yet for opening resorts but it will not be before January.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex said after ordering resorts in his country closed that police would make random border checks to prevent people leaving the country to go skiing in neighbouring countries.
Castex said after meeting with ski station representatives on Friday that the government was considering opening the resorts from January 7.
Spain’s Aragon region, which also borders France, has not decided when - or if - the slopes will open before Christmas.
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Brazil confirms first case of person being reinfected with Covid-19
Brazil’s health ministry is studying 58 suspected cases of Covid-19 re-infection after confirming the first case of a person getting re-infected with coronavirus, a ministry spokeswoman said.
The first case was a health worker in the northern city of Natal, a 37-year-old woman, who tested positive in June and again 116 days later in October, the ministry said on Thursday.
The re-infection was confirmed by the FioCruz biomedical research center in Rio de Janeiro, it said in a statement.
So far 58 suspected cases of re-infection have been reported and are being studied, the spokeswoman said.
The cases involve people who tested positive and their re-infection must be confirmed as a separate infection and not the re-appearance of the same infection, she said.
The FioCruz researcher who did the genetic sequencing of the infection of the case in Natal, Paola Resende, said it looked like the woman did not generate enough anti-bodies to avoid getting infected again more than 90 days later.
Resende told Reuters that the woman was infected by a separate strain of coronavirus the second time.
The pathogen of the sample collected in June belonged to the B.1.1.33 strain and the October sample was from the B.1.1.28 strain. Both had already been detected in Brazil,” she said.
Indoor dining restrictions will be reinstated indefinitely in New York City, governor Andrew Cuomo announced as coronavirus cases and hospitalisations continue climbing in the city and throughout the state.
As of Monday, only takeout orders and outdoor dining will be allowed in the city, one of the world’s great cuisine capitals, the governor said at a news conference in Albany.
The Democrat had been hinting at a clampdown on indoor dining for a week, saying he was waiting to see if hospitalization rates stabilized.
They have not, and Cuomo said that despite the economic pain to one of the city’s biggest and most vital industries, he needed to act.
“In New York City, you put the CDC caution on indoor dining together with the rate of transmission and the density and the crowding, that is a bad situation,” he said.
As #COVID19 indicators continue to rise, it’s time to shut down indoor dining. This is painful. So many restaurants are struggling. But we can’t allow this virus to reassert itself in our city.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) December 11, 2020
I fully support @NYGovCuomo's decision. Together we'll fight back this second wave. https://t.co/NWY9xmjGdh
UK reports 424 further Covid-related deaths, slightly fewer than the day before
The UK reported 424 new Covid-related deaths on Friday, as the number of coronavirus patients admitted to hospital increased week on week.
The government’s Covid dashboard showed:
- 21,672 people tested positive in the last 24 hours.
- 1,622 people were admitted to hospital overnight.
- 10,194 people were hospitalised with Covid in the last week, 560 more than the previous week (a rise of 5.8%).
- There were 1,267 Coronavirus patients needing help breathing with a mechanical ventilator on 10 December.
- 119,025 people tested positive in the last week, a 17.7% increase from the previous week.
- 2,906 people died within 28 days of a positive Covid test last week, 5.3% fewer than the previous week.
- Between 23 March and 7 December 2020, there have been 232,898 people who have had to go into hospital with coronavirus.
- Between 31 January and 11 December 2020, there have been 1,809,455 people who have had a confirmed positive test result.
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France reported 13,406 new coronavirus infections on Friday, fewer than Thursday’s 13,750 but well above the 11,221 reported last Friday, while intensive care cases dropped again and are now well below a government target.
After falling for weeks following the November lockdown, early December’s partial easing has led to an increase in infection rates and the daily count has not dropped to the 5,000 set by the government as a precondition for further loosening.
But the number of people in intensive care - the most important measure of a health system’s ability to deal with the disease - dropped again by 75 to 2,884 and is now well within the government target level of 2,500 to 3,000, health ministry data showed.
The total case count since the start of the pandemic rose to 2.35 million, while the number of deaths rose by 627 to 57,567. Friday’s reported toll included 304 hospital deaths, compared to 292 on Thursday, and a three-day batch of 323 retirement home deaths.
On Thursday, the French government postponed a further planned easing of lockdown measures by three weeks and said that an 8pm curfew from15 December would remain in place for New Year’s eve but will be waived for Christmas.
In London, police have criticised “selfish” people for holding parties, large weddings and unlicensed music events as the city faces rising coronavirus cases.
High infection rates mean the UK capital could be headed for tier 3 restrictions. London has increasing infection rates, according to the latest official figures.
In an effort to tackle the Covid spread in London, thousands of extra tests are being made available for schools in areas of concern.
The mayor, Sadiq Khan, who has said London going into tier 3 would be “catastrophic” for hospitality in the capital, has introduced new measures “to try to turn the tide of rising case numbers”.
These include expanding community testing with 10 extra mobile testing units and up to 30 additional police officers this weekend.
Downing Street has warned Londoners to be “vigilant” to control the spread of the virus.
A No 10 spokesman said: “We would encourage people to remain vigilant and to adhere to local restrictions and to follow the social distancing rules that are in place.”
The Metropolitan police said almost 40 attendees at a wedding had been reported for fines earlier this week in an area with a high infection rate, and that the organiser now faces a potential £10,000 fine.
The force said its officers have also broken up unlicensed music events and made arrests at protests, as well as at central London shopping areas where people have failed to follow the regulations.
A small number of arrests were made after hundreds of young people were photographed gathering outside the world-famous Harrods department store last Saturday, the first weekend since England’s national lockdown was lifted.
The deputy assistant commissioner Matt Twist, the Met’s lead for Covid-19 operations, said: “It is really saddening that in the week a vaccine finally began its rollout to the most vulnerable, offering a ray of hope to us all, that we are facing the possibility of tougher restrictions.
“But I’m afraid the infection rates show not all of us are being careful enough.”
He said “collective actions” in the days and weeks ahead “will have very serious consequences” and warned that if people do not change their behaviour now “then people will die who could have otherwise lived – it’s that simple”.
He added: “We will not allow the irresponsible and selfish actions of a few jeopardise the safety of the entire city, but we also urge everyone to ensure they too are taking personal responsibility to do all they can to protect themselves and their community.”
Speaking at a session of the London assembly, the police commissioner, Cressida Dick, praised the “heroism and dedication” of Met officers in the face of challenges caused by the pandemic.
“My officers obviously don’t know when they go into a house whether someone has had Covid,” she said.
“They have been dealing with the deceased, sadly, to support families where people have died of Covid.
“It’s been a very different year for us in the way in which we work.”
Portugal reports record number of daily deaths
Portugal reported 95 deaths linked to Covid-19 on Friday, its worst daily toll since the pandemic started.
The figures — from the national DGS health authority — came a week before the government is expected to re-evaluate plans to ease restrictions over the Christmas period.
The country of just over 10 million people has now reported 5,373 deaths and a total of 340,287 infections, up by 5,080 cases from Thursday.
After a relatively mild first wave, cases rose sharply in the second, though they have eased slightly recently.
The number of infections per 100,000 people measured over the past 14 days is, at 533, more than double that in neighbouring Spain, data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control showed.
The government said on Saturday it would ease coronavirus rules over Christmas to let people visit loved ones, but added it would keep checking the data and reevaluate its plans on 18 December, Reuters reported.
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A further 275 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 43,812, NHS England said on Friday.
Patients were aged between 34 and 99. All except eight, aged between 60 and 95, had known underlying health conditions.
The deaths were between November 1 and December 10.
Genetic mutations discovered which could aid Covid treatments
Scientists have identified mutations in five genes associated with the development of life-threatening illness in patients with Covid-19.
UK researchers said their work, published in the journal Nature, sheds light on the mechanisms that underpin severe coronavirus symptoms and could lead to potential new drug treatments for the disease.
Dr Kenneth Baillie, the project’s chief investigator and senior research fellow at University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, said: “This is a stunning realisation of the promise of human genetics to help understand critical illness...
“Our results immediately highlight which drugs should be at the top of the list for clinical testing. We can only test a few drugs at a time, so making the right choices will save thousands of lives.”
Dr Baillie and his team performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 2,244 critically-ill patients with Covid-19 from 208 intensive care units (ICU) in the UK.
GWAS is a commonly used study design which allows scientists to identify which genes are involved in human disease.
Working with experts from the GenOMICC consortium, a global collaboration looking into the links between genetics and critical illness, the researchers compared the genetic information of Covid-19 patients in ICU with samples provided by healthy volunteers from other studies.
The team found that variations in five genes - Ifnar2, TYK2, OAS1, DPP9 and CCR2 - was associated with the development of severe illness in Covid-19 patients.
The scientists said that they were able to pinpoint two molecular processes – antiviral immunity and lung inflammation – associated with the genes.
Innate antiviral defences are known to be important early in the disease while the inflammatory processes triggered by the infection are a key feature of severe Covid-19, the researchers said.
But the team said the research was not aimed at predicting who is likely to get critically ill with Covid-19 but focuses more on finding “biological clues that will lead us to effective treatments”.
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Restrictions on non-essential travel between Mexico and the US could be extended until 21 January, following a proposal by the Mexican government.
Mexico has proposed to the US that restrictions on non-essential travel at their shared border be extended for another month as authorities continue to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, the Mexican foreign ministry said on Friday.
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Drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi have said their potential Covid-19 vaccine won’t be ready until late next year because they need to improve the shot’s effectiveness in older people, AP is reporting.
The companies said early trials showed the vaccine produced an “insufficient” immune response in people over 60 because it didn’t contain enough of the material that triggers the production of disease-fighting antibodies.
They said they plan to reformulate the vaccine and do more testing, which is likely to delay approval to the fourth quarter of 2021 from the middle of the year.
“The results of the study are not as we hoped,” Roger Connor, president of London-based GSK Vaccines, said in a statement.
The delay is a setback for plans to vaccinate large numbers of people around the world amid a pandemic that has already taken more than 1.5 million lives.
GSK and Sanofi plan to produce up to 1bn doses of their Covid-19 vaccine annually, and they have signed agreements to supply millions of doses to the US, European Union, Canada and developing countries.
The difficulties underscore the challenges scientists face as they race to develop Covid-19 vaccines, condensing a process that usually takes years into a matter of months.
Public health experts say several vaccines will be needed to end the pandemic, because of the challenges in rapidly producing and distributing enough doses to vaccinate billions of people.
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Companies in the US are considering various options to get employees back to work after the Covid vaccine has been rolled out, Reuters is reporting.
Options on the table include giving workers a choice between a free vaccine and a cash bonus if everyone gets inoculated, to being reassigned or even losing your job.
Keen to avoid a backlash or violating the law, companies are discussing options with lawyers, health care experts and polling their workers to gauge when to offer carrots and when to use a stick.
Workplace programmes could come following US approval of the first vaccine this week. But a Pew Research poll shows 21% of Americans are firmly opposed, with 60% likely to get a shot.
Among big employers starting to formulate policies are oil giant Chevron Corp, auto maker Ford Motor Co, retailer Target Corp, restaurant chain Ford’s Garage, the United Steelworkers union, and refiners’ Marathon Petroleum and Citgo Petroleum.
Their efforts are preliminary given FDA vaccine approvals remain outstanding.
Experts say that private employers could set up mandatory vaccinations so long as they exempt workers with religious and medical conditions, while the direct threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic will allow mandatory programs to win approvals soon.
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Australia has cancelled the production of a locally made vaccine against Covid-19 after trials showed it could interfere with HIV diagnosis, Reuters is reporting.
The government has instead securing additional doses of rival vaccines.
Antibodies generated by the vaccine being developed by the University of Queensland (UQ) and biotech firm CSL, one of four candidates contracted by the Australian government, were found to lead to some false positive HIV test results, the makers said.
While the vaccine had elicited a “robust” immune response to the novel Sars-COV-2 virus without serious adverse effects in a Phase 1 trial with 216 participants, re-engineering a fix could take another 12 months, they said.
CSL and the Australian government had together decided to stop Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials.
“While this is a tough decision to take, the urgent need for a vaccine has to be everyone’s priority,” said UQ professor Paul Young.
CSL, which had a contract to produce 51 million doses of the UQ vaccine, will instead produce an extra 20 million doses of the Oxford vaccine being developed with Britain’s AstraZeneca, taking the total to 53 million.
The government said it has also secured additional doses of Novavax vaccines.
Australia also has a contract for 10 million doses of a vaccine being developed by Pfizer, with regulatory approval expected by January 2021.
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All school pupils aged 14-16 in Sweden’s capital Stockholm will switch to remote learning for the rest of this year to help stem a severe second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
It is the first time Sweden, known as one of the rare Western countries to eschew mandatory lockdowns and masks in response to the pandemic, has recommended distance education for significant numbers of secondary school students.
“We must drastically reduce our contacts, so unfortunately I am forced to recommend that (Stockholm region) municipalities end on-site teaching for students in advanced stage education starting on Monday,” regional infections control chief Maria Rotzen Ostlund said in a statement.
Stockholm has been the Swedish region hardest hit by the Covid-19 respiratory disease, accounting for more than a third of the Nordic country’s death toll from the virus.
A further 7,370 new coronavirus cases were registered nationwide on Friday, Health Agency statistics showed, down from 7,935 new infections recorded on Thursday.
An additional 160 deaths were reported, one of the highest daily numbers since the start of the pandemic, taking the total to 7,514. Sweden’s death rate per capita is several times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours but lower than several European countries that opted for lockdowns.
Covid has opened up - and exacerbated - all sorts of divides in societies around the world. In England, there has been a deepening of longstanding north-south divisions, which has seen most of the north put under the tightest Covid restrictions and most of the south spared the same pain.
Today the UK government announced a targeted testing drive for secondary school and college students in parts of north-east London, Essex and Kent. London and Essex are in tier 2, while Kent is in tier 3, the highest level of restrictions.
Most of the north of England is still in tier 3 but the offer has not been extended to schools there. Nor was the offer there in October and November, when rates there were the highest in the country — at one point in mid-November one in four children in Hull were off school because of outbreaks.
Jonathan Reynolds, the MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in Tameside, Greater Manchester, which has seen the highest Covid death rate across the whole pandemic, said teachers were “livid” at the government’s southerncentric approach. He said the region had bid for school testing kits, but wasn’t automatically offered any, as in London and the south-east.
I just able to discuss this with @AndyBurnhamGM as schools in my area are livid, and the good news is we already have a bid to Govt that includes this and we may well get it first.
— Jonathan Reynolds (@jreynoldsMP) December 11, 2020
Good news but unfortunately it’s another example of poor communication from Govt @helenpidd https://t.co/rbLOMsdXFY
The Guardian asked the department of health and social care (DHSC) why London and the south-east seemed to be getting preferential treatment in terms of school testing allocation, and received this response:
The evidence shows us there is a clear rise in cases in secondary school age children in these areas and we must act to target these rates - about one in three people who have coronavirus have no symptoms and will be spreading it without realising it.
Our recent pilots in Liverpool have shown rapid testing is effective and can help us quickly assess where the virus is spreading most and take action to stop it in its tracks.
Local Authorities in tier 3 can apply for national support and funding for community testing to target high case rates.”
Local authorities in tier 3 areas, the highest level of restrictions, have been invited to apply for the new six-week community testing programme to complement wider local strategies to tackle the virus, and drive down submissions.
Since mid-November Directors of Public Health across the country have been able to receive 10,000 rapid tests to cut transmission rates, applying tests how they see fit in their communities.
UK: R value rises slightly to between 0.9 and 1
The reproduction number, or R value, of coronavirus transmission across the UK is now between 0.9 and 1, the Government Office for Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said.
Last week, the R number was between 0.8 and 1.
R represents the average number of people each Covid-19 positive person goes on to infect. When the figure is above 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially.
An R number between 0.9 and 1 means that on average every 10 people infected will infect between 9 and 10 other people.
Meanwhile, the R value in England is between 0.8 and 1, but Sage said it is not confident that R is below 1 in all English regions, particularly in London and parts of the South East.
Updated
7pm curfew introduced in Switzerland
Switzerland has ordered restaurants, bars and shops to close down from 7pm across much of the nation, the government said on Friday, as the country continues to face a persistently high level of Covid-19 infections and deaths.
The government said regions less badly hit by the pandemic would still be allowed to have locations open until 11pm, in the measures which go into effect on Saturday.
The exception would apply to cantons that had a virus reproduction rate below 1 and an infection incidence below the national average over at least a week.
The measures, decided after discussions between the government and local authorities, also affect events and cultural activities which have been restricted to groups of five people.
“The level of infections with the coronavirus remains high and in some cantons is rising again,” the government said in a statement. “Hospitals are close to their limits and health personnel are under pressure. The situation is disturbing.”
On Friday, authorities reported 5,136 new cases and 106 more deaths in Switzerland and neighbouring principality Liechtenstein.
Switzerland has been trying to steer a middle course between shutting down the economy and preventing the spread of the virus.
But so far the strategy has had mixed results, with the number of infections much higher than during the first outbreak in March and April. Infection rates have once again begun to rise, after a drop off since early November.
The new restrictions, which come into effect on Saturday, run until 22 January.
Updated
In-person Christmas shopping has begun in earnest for many Scots today as non-essential shops across the west of the country emerge from near lockdown restrictions today.
At her lunchtime briefing, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, pleaded with the public to exercise caution. “The very, very last thing we want to see is overcrowding,” she said, emphasising that those in the surrounding areas should not be travelling into Glasgow to do their festive shopping, given the ongoing ban on travel between level 3 local authorities.
The chief constable, Iain Livingstone, said Police Scotland’s starting point over the festive period would be “explaining the rules and encouraging people to comply”, but added that the force had issued 90 fixed-penalty notices for breach of travel restrictions since they came into force last month.
Sturgeon was also challenged on the recent decision by the Welsh government to move to online learning until Christmas, as well as the move from the Glasgow association of Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, to ballot teachers on strike action over classroom safety concerns.
Sturgeon said there was a “material difference” in the prevalence of the virus in Wales, which is three times that in Scotland right now, but added that, as in England, there were plans to have further testing in schools.
Updated
Calls are growing for Germany to go into a tighter lockdown as the country’s disease control centre reported record daily increases in coronavirus cases and deaths.
The Robert Koch Institute said the country’s 16 states reported 29,875 new cases of Covid-19, breaking the previous daily record of 23,679 cases reported the day before.
The number of deaths from the virus rose by 598, to a total of 20,970. The previous daily record of deaths was 590, set on Wednesday.
“There clearly need to be extra measures, and I want to say as health minister that they are needed sooner rather than later,” Jens Spahn said.
“We wouldn’t be able to forgive ourselves if this Christmas became above all a festival for the virus,” he added. “And if we’re honest, the virus doesn’t take much account of whether we’ve all finished our Christmas shopping or not.”
Restrictions implemented at the beginning of November closed restaurants, bars, leisure and sports facilities but schools and non-essential shops have remained open.
The latest polls show nearly 50% of Germans back tougher restrictions, while 35% support the current lockdown measures. There have been protests against the regulations that have garnered much attention, but polls show less than 15% of Germans think they are too strict.
Updated
My colleague Angela Giuffrida in Rome has just published this excellent exclusive report. It reveals how the World Health Organiztion has been accused of conspiring with the Italian health ministry to remove a report revealing the country’s mismanagement of the first Covid wave.
Updated
Infections down in England – but not in London
The percentage of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England has continued to decrease according to the weekly infection survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
An estimated 481,500 people within the community population in England had Covid-19 in the week of 29 November to 5 December 2020, equating to one in 115 people (95% credible interval: one in 120 to one in 105).
Though rates decreased in most English regions, the proportion of people testing positive in London has increased and there are early signs of increase in the east of England.
Other findings from the ONS include:
- In the most recent week, the percentage of people testing positive has decreased in older teenagers and young adults, those aged 25 to 34 and 50 to 69; rates continue to be highest among secondary school age children.
- The percentage of those testing positive has increased in recent weeks in Wales , with the ONS estimating 25,600 people in Wales had Covid-19 last week, equating to 1 in 120 people.
- The percentage testing positive in Northern Ireland continues to decrease in the most recent week; the ONS estimates that 7,800 people in Northern Ireland had Covid-19, equating to 1 in 235 people.
- The percentage testing positive in Scotland has remained relatively stable in recent weeks; during the most recent week (29 November to 5 December 2020), the ONS estimates that 43,300 people in Scotland had Covid-19, equating to 1 in 120 people.
Katherine Kent, co-head of analysis for the Covid-19 Infection Survey, said:
The evidence for England continues to show an overall decline in the level of infections, though we have recorded an increase in London and may have begun to see an increase in the East of England. Rates have declined in both older teenagers and young adults and remain highest amongst secondary school children. Across the UK, it’s a mixed picture. Infections appear to be increasing in Wales whilst remaining stable in Scotland. Northern Ireland is continuing to see falling infection rates.”
Updated
Self-isolation in the UK cut from 14 to 10 days
The self-isolation period for contacts of a positive coronavirus case will be cut from 14 days to 10, the UK’s chief medical officers have announced.
Those required to quarantine after returning from countries which are not on the travel corridor list will also see their isolation period reduced, in an approach agreed by all four nations.
Health chiefs said in a joint statement that following a review of the evidence, they were “confident” that the self-isolation period could be shortened.
This reduction already applies in Wales following an announcement by the Welsh Government earlier this week, while it will take effect in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland from Monday.
The new rules will apply to all those who are currently self-isolating, including those who began doing so before Monday.
Updated
Businesses across Northern Ireland reopened on Friday after a two-week circuit-breaker lockdown but infection and death rates remain high, fuelling fears of a swift resurgence of the virus.
Shops, cafes, restaurants, hairdressers, cinemas and gyms can reopen and normal church services resume. Pubs that do not serve food remain shut.
The region recorded 14 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday. There were 67 deaths in the past week, up seven on the previous week, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 1,099.
Officials also recorded 441 new cases on Thursday and said community transmission remained high, with the R value at around 1, meaning an infected person on average passes the disease to one other person. Hospitals are at 101% occupancy.
The region’s chief scientific adviser, Ian Young, said compliance with the circuit-breaker had been disappointing.
Some ministers in the Stormont executive are nervous the disease will roar back. “If there is a festive free-for-all with public health advice ignored, then it will cost lives and place unbearable pressure on our hospitals,” said Robin Swann, the health minister. “We must avoid these catastrophic consequences.”
Arlene Foster, the first minister, defended the easing of restriction and said authorities would closely monitor the R number. “We have made provision that people can get together over Christmas but they should do so in a safe way, and just because we say you can doesn’t mean that you have to, and that’s very key.”
Updated
The UK’s AstraZeneca will investigate combining its experimental vaccine with Russia’s Sputnik V candidate, it has said, in a move Russian scientists have suggested could sharply boost efficacy.
The developers of Sputnik V suggested on Twitter last month that AstraZeneca try the combination, saying:
Sputnik V is happy to share one of its two human adenoviral vectors with AstraZeneca to increase the efficacy of (the) AstraZeneca vaccine. Using two different vectors for two vaccine shots will result in higher efficacy than using the same vector for two shots.
On Friday, AstraZeneca said it was considering how it could assess combinations of different vaccines, and would soon begin exploring with Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, which developed Sputnik V, whether two common cold virus-based vaccines could be successfully combined.
Data published in a journal this week showed that AstraZeneca’s vaccine, being developed along with the University of Oxford, has average efficacy of 70.4%, based on a pooled analysis of interim data from late stage trials.
Russia has claimed Sputnik V is 92% effective at protecting people, according to interim trial results. Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund, which has funded Sputnik V, said:
This shows the strength of Sputnik V technology and our willingness and desire to partner with other vaccines to fight against Covid together.
Indonesia reports worst daily death toll
Indonesia has reported 6,310 infections and 175 deaths, the largest number of fatalities in a day, data from the country’s taskforce show With Friday’s data, Indonesia’s total number of cases rose to 605,243, while the number of deaths rose to 18,511, both are the highest tallies in Southeast Asia.
Russia, which began vaccinating vulnerable people in Moscow on Saturday, has resisted imposing a strict lockdown as it did in the spring, relying on targeted measures instead, though the Kremlin says places like St Petersburg are nearing a “red line”.
Some critics have called into question the official death toll, pointing to the significantly elevated number of excess deaths during the pandemic.
There were almost 50,000 more deaths in October compared with the same month last year and, with a total 205,456 deaths, October accounted for more deaths than any other month in 10 years, according to the state statistics service Rosstat.
Moscow rolled out its Sputnik V vaccine to doctors, teachers and social workers last weekend and a senior official said on Thursday that vaccinations would begin across the country by the end of the week.
There are concerning signs of a possible resurgence of infections in the UK, where a member of the government’s scientific advisory group, Sage, has warned people to respect social distancing measures. Speaking in a personal capacity, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter told the BBC:
The downward trend that happened after the higher tiers and lockdown has now stopped, cases are going up.
[There are] 350, 400 deaths a day in the UK – that’s about 10,000 a month. And these are real deaths. These are extra deaths that would not have happened normally.
They are from Covid, they are not just with Covid.
I am sure people wanted a downward trend before Christmas to produce a, kind of, buffer before the Christmas season, because there is bound to be some effect.
Now, I wouldn’t want to say what the size of that effect is going to be because it depends crucially on people’s behaviour. And, how much they obey the rules and are sensible.
Asked why there would be a Christmas impact on Covid, he said:
Because there will be more travel. People will be mixing. And we can just see how behaviour just influences things.
This could be just a blip, and it might not be that big, I wouldn’t want to say. I think we need to look beyond that towards the whole winter, I think. We can’t make this disappear and we can’t let it get out of control. And, it won’t get out of control... that won’t be allowed to happen. So, it’s keeping a lid on it.
Germany needs immediate hard lockdown, says interior minister
Germany must go into a hard lockdown immediately to slow the spread, its interior minister Horst Seehofer has said, as the chancellor and the heads of the German states prepare to discuss further measures. He told Der Spiegel magazine:
The only chance to regain control of the situation is a lockdown, but this must happen immediately. If we wait until Christmas, we’ll have to struggle with high numbers for months.
The nation reported its worst daily numbers of infections and deaths on Friday.
Updated
Hundreds die as Russia suffers most costly day
Russia reported 613 deaths in the last 24 hours on Friday; its worst daily toll so far. That takes its official cumulative death toll from the pandemic to 45,893. Authorities confirmed 28,585 new infections nationally, including 7,215 in Moscow, pushing the national case total to 2,597,711.
The main priority of the UK government is to keep children in school, its culture secretary Oliver Dowden has said. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said:
We are doing everything we can first of all to prioritise kids remaining in schools, and the vast majority of children remain in schools. And, secondly, to ensure that schools continue to be a safe place – and I pay tribute to teachers and head teachers and all the work they have done.
When asked why England wasn’t following Wales lead and closing schools, he said the government’s testing plans had the objective of keeping pupils in education through mass testing.
The German chancellor Angela Merkel and the premiers of the nation’s 16 federal states will discuss new anti-pandemic measures on Sunday, the government of the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg has said.
It added that a “hard lockdown” until at least 10 January was necessary in the state to bring down the number of infections.
Germany reported its worst daily numbers of infections and deaths on Friday. The European Union’s most populous nation went into a partial lockdown early last month, closing restaurants and bars and limiting the number of people allowed to meet. But schools and shops have remained open.
Merkel has urged German states, which are responsible for most disease-control measures, to introduce tougher measures before Christmas, but has met resistance.
However, most state governments agree on introducing tougher measures after Christmas.
The French culture minister Roselyne Bachelot has requested an extra €35m (£31m, $42m) to help cultural venues that will not reopen as planned on 15 December, as France seeks to stave off a third wave. She has told BFM Television:
We already provided €7.5bn in aid to the sector. I told the prime minister that we would need an extra €35m to help the sector go through the end of the year. I know I will get that.
France will not reopen museums, cinemas and theatres next week as planned because infection rates are not falling as fast as the government hoped, the prime minister Jean Castex said on Thursday.
Hong Kong’s government has secured millions of doses of vaccines for delivery as soon as January, the territory’s leader Carrie Lam has announced.
Assuming we adopt the two-dose regime, we need to procure 30m doses, and I’m happy to report that ... we have made a breakthrough and reached an agreement with two manufacturers.
Lam said Hong Kong has signed advance procurement orders with the mainland Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac, as well as Pfizer, to supply 7.5m vaccines each. The first batch of 1m doses will arrive early next year, she said. Officials are also on the cusp of securing a deal with AstraZeneca for 7.5m doses of its vaccine and are striving to secure a deal with a fourth supplier.
Our next step is for the HKSAR government to be fully prepared to provide vaccination for the public.
Based on WHO advice “and common sense”, elderly people – especially those in residential care homes – would be prioritised; alongside healthcare workers, chronic patients and care home staff. This accounts for about 3 million people.
Lam said advance orders mean those delivered may not have gone through all clinical trials or received approval yet.
This is unlike normal procurement procedures. The policy objective is to provide free vaccines for the 7.5m people in Hong Kong.
This was why they are procuring different options from at least two manufacturers, she said.
#BREAKING: #HK Chief Executive #CarrieLam says one million vaccines shots for #COVID19 produced by mainland pharmaceutical firm #Sinovac can arrive in Hong Kong as soon as Jan 2021; while the first batch of #Pfizervaccine HK buy may arrive in HK in the first quarter of 2021. pic.twitter.com/UoCxW8qb92
— Candice (@candicewongky) December 11, 2020
Swissmedic has said it received additional details from companies on their vaccines that would enable it to issue authorisations quickly once sufficient data on safety, efficacy and quality were available.
However, it added: “An emergency approval for vaccines is not a legal option in Switzerland,” the agency said, ruling out what it called “premature vaccinations” for the Alpine country.
The world’s eyes are on the UK as the first country to approve and roll out a vaccine – from Pfizer and its partner BioNTech.
Switzerland said this month it has signed a contract to deliver 3m doses of the same vaccine. It has also signed agreements with Moderna and AstraZeneca.
An emergency approval for vaccines is not a legal option in Switzerland, the nation’s agency for therapeutic products has said.
Swissmedic works closely with international partner authorities and reviews all applications for Covid-19 vaccines as a matter of urgency and in a ‘rolling’ procedure.
Hello, I’m taking over from Helen Sullivan and will be with you for the next few hours. If you’d like to get in touch, your best bet’s probably Twitter, where I’m KevinJRawlinson.
A couple of pulled apart liquorice allsorts; laboratory sample tubes; several wooden blocks that cost US$225 – in 2020, anything can be a nativity.
This week the internet gathered around to puzzle over a festive selection of “minimalist nativity sets” discovered by a Twitter user Kirby Jones, in a post that has been liked nearly half a million times.
Last night I discovered “minimalist nativity sets” and I am WEEPING pic.twitter.com/XuRoGq8i1v
— Kirby Jones (@kejones_) December 5, 2020
The four sets discovered by Jones inspired others to post their own favourite odd nativities – fitting for a year in which the coronavirus pandemic means Christmas looks very different.
In one a science-themed version, an angel’s halo was made from the cap liner of a cryotube. In others, Poker chips and cacti played the three wise men.
In what one user claimed was “accidental minimalist activity”, but could have been a holy apparition – a toilet roll symbolised the newborn Baby Jesus, who slept in the heavenly peace under the watchful gaze of two cans of toilet spray. In other minimalist nativities, the role of Baby Jesus was performed by an old slice of apple, a bottle of pills, a miniature jar of raspberry jam, Pikachu, a purple earplug, salt, and a grape:
Sanofi/GSK announce delay in vaccine project
An experimental Covid-19 vaccine developed by Sanofi and Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline showed an insufficient immune response in clinical trial results, the French drugmaker said on Friday, a blow to efforts to fight the pandemic, Reuters reports.
The two companies said they planned to launch another study next year, hoping to come up with a more effective vaccine by the end of 2021.
The news comes as a disappointment for a crop of vaccines under development that rely on more conventional proven designs as the shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech using breakthrough technology gets rolled out across Britain.
Friday’s results, Sanofi said, showed “an immune response comparable to patients who recovered from COVID-19 in adults aged 18 to 49 years, but a low immune response in older adults likely due to an insufficient concentration of the antigen.”
Phase III studies were expected to start this month.
Sanofi said it would launch a phase 2b study in February of next year instead after a recent challenge study in non-human primates performed with an improved antigen formulation demonstrated better effects.
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- FDA panel approves Pfizer vaccine. A panel of outside advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration voted overwhelmingly to recommend emergency-use authorization of a vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and its German partner, BioNTech SE.
- Canada could start vaccinations within days. Canada on Wednesday approved the use of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE and vaccinations are expected to start next week with high-risk people such as healthcare workers receiving the first doses.
- Rebound in carbon emissions expected in 2021 after fall caused by Covid. Greenhouse gas emissions, which plunged by a record amount this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, are set to rebound next year as restrictions are lifted further and governments strive to return their economies to growth, according to a global study.
- Biden advisor delivers stern Christmas warning. A top coronavirus adviser to President-elect Joe Biden delivered a stern holiday message to Americans on Thursday - “no Christmas parties” - and warned they face a Covid-19 siege for weeks to come despite the latest moves toward US government approval of a vaccine.
- South Korea mobilises military to help frontline workers. South Korea will mobilise military forces in the capital Seoul to help frontline health workers deal with a surge in coronavirus, with 689 new cases reported on Friday, and as the death toll and number of patients in critical care rose.
- Advisers to Mexican health regulator to review Pfizer vaccine on Friday. An advisory committee for Mexican health regulator Cofepris will review Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine application on Friday, a health official said, as the country registered another 11,897 coronavirus cases and 671 more deaths.
- Australia terminates vaccine deal with after false positives for HIV. The Australian government has terminated its agreement with Australian biotech company CSL Limited to supply 51m doses of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by the University of Queensland, after vaccine trial participants returned false positive test results for HIV.
An experimental Covid-19 vaccine of Sanofi and Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline showed an insufficient immune response in clinical trial results, the French drugmaker said on Friday, a blow to efforts to find ways to fight the pandemic, Reuters reports.
The two companies said they planned to launch another study next year, hoping to come up with a more effective vaccine by the end of 2021.
The news comes as a disappointment for a crop of vaccines under development that rely on more conventional proven designs as the shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech using breakthrough technology gets rolled out across Britain.
Friday’s results, Sanofi said, showed “an immune response comparable to patients who recovered from Covid-19 in adults aged 18 to 49 years, but a low immune response in older adults likely due to an insufficient concentration of the antigen.”
Phase III studies were expected to start this month.
Sanofi said it would launch a phase 2b study in February of next year instead after a recent challenge study in non-human primates performed with an improved antigen formulation demonstrated better effects.
The eureka moment that helped Masahiro Hara perfect the Quick Response, or QR code, sprang from a lunchtime game of Go more than a quarter of a century ago.
He was playing the ancient game of strategy at work when the stones arranged on the board revealed the solution to a problem troubling the firm’s clients in Japan’s car industry – and which is now being repurposed as a weapon in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
As an employee of the automotive components firm Denso Wave, Hara had been fielding requests from factories to come up with a better way to manage their inventories of an ever-expanding range of parts.
Workers wanted a less labour-intensive way to store more information, including kana and kanji characters, but the barcodes then in use could hold only 20 or so alphanumeric characters of information each. In some cases, a single box of components carried as many as 10 barcodes that had to be read individually.
Having helped develop a barcode reader in the early 1980s, Hara knew the method had its limitations. “Having to read so many barcodes in a day was very inefficient, and workers were tired of scanning boxes multiple times,” Hara, now a chief engineer at the company, said in an online interview from its headquarters in Aichi prefecture, central Japan.
“We had been making barcode readers for 10 years so we had the knowhow. I was looking at the board and thought the way the stones were lined up along the grids … could be a good way of conveying lots of information at the same time”:
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 29,875 to 1,272,078, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Friday.
The reported death toll rose by 598 to 20,970.
Following that news, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison says Covid-19 vaccines will be approved on ‘an Australian timetable’ after a vaccine developed at the University of Queensland was cancelled when participants returned false positive test results for HIV.
While the UK and US have approved a vaccine by Pfizer, Morrison says Australia won’t be rushed into a decision. ‘We want to ensure that Australians, and I think all of us feel very strongly this way, have full confidence, absolute full confidence that when it gets the tick they can get the jab,’ he says:
Australia terminates vaccine deal with CSL Limited after false positives for HIV
The Australian government has terminated its agreement with Australian biotech company CSL Limited to supply 51m doses of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by the University of Queensland, after vaccine trial participants returned false positive test results for HIV.
Australia had hoped the protein vaccine would be available by mid-2021. Phase one clinical trials in humans began in July in Brisbane, with phase two and three clinical trials due to commence in December. It is one of four vaccines secured by the Australian government:
Updated
Mexico’s coronavirus spokesman said Thursday the country’s median age of death from Covid-19 was a shockingly young 55, as compared to an average of 75 in many European countries, AP reports.
Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell said that nonetheless, Mexico’s future coronavirus vaccination program would target the oldest Mexicans first.
López-Gatell said the country’s high rates of obesity, diabetes and hypertension explained Mexico’s lower average age of death. He said Mexico has among the highest rate of obesity in the world.
López-Gatell said Mexico’s approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine could come Friday. But he said all acquisitions of vaccines would be at the federal level, and that individual state governments could not purchase their own.
That came after one opposition-party state governor said some fellow governors were weighing acquiring vaccines on their own.
Mexico has seen a total of 1,217,126 test-confirmed coronavirus cases and 112,326 confirmed deaths, although official estimates of deaths are closer to 150,000.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been named Time magazine’s person – or persons – of the year for 2020 for their performance in the US’s pandemic election:
The magazine said: “Together, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris offered restoration and renewal in a single ticket. And America bought what they were selling: after the highest turnout in a century, they racked up 81 million votes and counting, the most in presidential history, topping Trump by some 7 million votes and flipping five battleground states.”
Advisers to Mexican health regulator to review Pfizer vaccine on Friday
An advisory committee for Mexican health regulator Cofepris will review Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine application on Friday, a health official said, as the country registered another 11,897 coronavirus cases and 671 more deaths.
Cofepris’ New Molecules Committee will meet at noon for the review, which deputy health minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell described as similar to the meeting of outside advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday.
The US advisory committee voted overwhelmingly to endorse emergency use of Pfizer’s vaccine, paving the way for the FDA’s authorisation.
“The moment of launching the vaccination in Mexico is coming closer,” Lopez-Gatell told his nightly news conference on Thursday, without specifying when Cofepris could make a final determination.
Pfizer submitted details about its vaccine to Cofepris last month. Mexico’s government has already inked an agreement with Pfizer to acquire 34.4 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, with the first batch expected to arrive this month.
Mexico has recorded 1,217,126 coronavirus cases and 112,326 deaths. Officials say the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher.
In the US, the speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives died of Covid-19, a medical examiner ruled Thursday, a day after the Republican’s unexpected death, raising concerns that other members of one of the world’s largest legislative bodies might have been exposed at their swearing-in last week, Reuters reports.
Dick Hinch, who was sworn in 2 December as leader of the state’s newly Republican-led, 400-member Legislature, died Wednesday. He was 71 and had been starting his seventh two-year term in the state House.
His death was announced Wednesday night by his office, which did not give details of what it called “this unexpected tragedy.” Hinch is the first New Hampshire speaker to die during the session, according to House Clerk Paul Smith.
The swearing-in of the House and the 24-member state Senate was held outdoors at the University of New Hampshire because of the coronavirus pandemic. Hinch was photographed wearing a mask, though it did not cover his nostrils.
More than a quarter of House members, most of them Democrats, skipped the ceremony after learning the day before that several Republican lawmakers had tested positive for the virus after attending a Nov. 20 indoor GOP caucus meeting where many attendees weren’t wearing masks.
The British government’s test-and-trace programme to combat Covid-19 has repeatedly failed to meet targets for delivering test results and contacting infected people despite costs escalating to £22bn, a damning official report has revealed.
The National Audit Office (NAO) has found that the centralised programme is contacting two out of every three people who have been close to someone who has tested positive, with about 40% of test results delivered within 24 hours, well below the government’s targets.
The report said a target to provide results within 24 hours of in-person testing deteriorated to a low of 14% in mid-October before rising to 38% in early November.
Call handler contracts for those working on test and trace were worth up to £720m but many staff had very little to do, auditors said.
By 17 June, the utilisation rate – the proportion of time that someone actively worked during their paid hours – was 4% for health professionals and 1% for call handler staff, the report shows:
South Korea mobilises military to help frontline workers
South Korea will mobilise military forces in the capital Seoul to help frontline health workers deal with a surge in coronavirus, with 689 new cases reported on Friday, and as the death toll and number of patients in critical care rose.
Reuters: Of the new cases, 673 were locally transmitted, which brings the total tally to 40,786, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said. The death toll increased by eight to 572 deaths.
The surge in cases has delivered a blow to South Korea’s vaunted pandemic-fighting system which successfully used invasive tracing, testing and quarantine to avoid lockdowns and blunt previous waves, and keep infections below 50 per day for much of the summer.
The authorities scrambled to build hospital beds in shipping containers this week to ease strains on medical facilities stretched by the latest coronavirus wave.
The number of patients in serious or severe conditions have grown near 170, prompting the health authorities to seek more beds nationwide.
Calling the current wave a critical crisis, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said he will dispatch around 800 military, police and government workers in every district of the greater Seoul area to help track down potential patients.
Frontline workers and medical staff are struggling each day to conduct endless epidemiological investigations, testing and securing insufficient beds, as the confirmed cases grow in various areas including the metropolitan Seoul area, Chung told a government meeting on Friday.
“In the end, in order to tamp down this wave, it is key to seize the victory in virus-prevention efforts in the greater Seoul area,” said Chung.
The majority of the new cases have been reported in the capital city of Seoul, the neighbouring port city of Incheon, and Gyeonggi Province, which is home to 13.5 million people and surrounds both cities.
Looking back at 2020: a year like no other
A look back at how the Guardian covered a year that began with the outbreak of a pandemic, witnessed global anti-racism protests after the killing of George Floyd, and ended with the voting out of President Donald Trump:
Have you made a nativity set, no matter how simple (or complicated)?
Let me know on Twitter:
I wrote about home made minimalist nativity sets in which the role of Baby Jesus has been performed by an old slice of apple, a bottle of pills, a miniature jar of raspberry jam, Pikachu, a purple earplug, salt, and a grape: https://t.co/y6oxXtUIGw
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) December 11, 2020
FDA panel approves Pfizer vaccine
A panel of outside advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration voted overwhelmingly to recommend emergency-use authorization of a vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and its German partner, BioNTech SE.
The FDA is expected to grant approval within days, paving the way for a mass inoculation campaign unparalleled in US history to be launched as early as next week. The advisory panel is due to review a second vaccine from Moderna Inc next week.
Biden advisor delivers stern Christmas warning
A top coronavirus adviser to President-elect Joe Biden delivered a stern holiday message to Americans on Thursday - “no Christmas parties” - and warned they face a Covid-19 siege for weeks to come despite the latest moves toward US government approval of a vaccine.
“The next three to six weeks at minimum ... are our Covid weeks,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of Biden’s coronavirus advisory board, told CNN.
“It won’t end after that, but that is the period right now where we could have a surge upon a surge upon a surge.”
Osterholm stressed that it would be several months before the nation sees widespread availability of vaccines, the first of which cleared a key US regulatory hurdle on Thursday.
Nevertheless, Osterholm said sizeable quantities of vaccines would not be available to the public at large before March or April. Healthcare workers and nursing home residents are likely to be designated as first in line for the shots.
Osterholm’s blunt admonition came as Covid-19 caseloads soared higher, straining healthcare systems in cities and small towns across the country and leaving intensive care units in hundreds of hospitals at or near capacity.
He urged Americans to do their utmost to slow the contagion by limiting social interactions to members of their immediate households, and above all, “No Christmas parties.”
“There is not a safe Christmas party in this country right now,” he said.
Rebound in carbon emissions expected in 2021 after fall caused by Covid
Greenhouse gas emissions, which plunged by a record amount this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, are set to rebound next year as restrictions are lifted further and governments strive to return their economies to growth, according to a global study.
The UK showed the second biggest fall in emissions globally, down 13% for the year compared with 2019, with only France showing a larger drop, of 15%. The plunge reflects the prolonged and severe lockdowns in both countries, with surface transport particularly affected:
In 2020 Pantone’s colour of the year choice, Classic Blue, proved eerily prescient. Announced weeks before the first Covid-19 cluster was discovered, it is a shade used for medical scrubs around the globe.
Perhaps knowing that lightning is unlikely to strike twice, for 2021 the US-paint brand’s team of trend forecasters have selected two shades – Ultimate Grey and Illuminating – the second time they have done so in the Colour of the Year’s two decade history.
Used by fashion, graphic and interior designers, the Pantone Institute’s colour matching services are a resource for predicting palettes that might prove popular with consumers. Their colour of the year choices are often contentious.
This year, the combination has been likened to the shades of hi-vis vests, road markings and “screaming sickly urban melancholy, a brutalist facade, cold sunshine and cement”. Vogue described it simply as “really weird”:
Canada could start vaccinations within days
Canada on Wednesday approved the use of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE and vaccinations are expected to start next week with high-risk people such as healthcare workers receiving the first doses.
Canada would receive 30,000 doses next week and up to 249,000 by the end of the year. The following are the current plans by the 10 provinces and three territories to start inoculations:
Immunisation in Canada’s worst-affected province may start on 14 December at two nursing homes. The initial batch is expected to be 4,875 doses.
Canada’s most populous province and the second-worst affected province will start immunisation on 15 December. It expects to receive 6,000 doses on Monday that it will split between two cities, the head of the province’s vaccine deployment program said. Another 90,000 doses are expected by the end of December.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest Covid news from around the world for the next few hours.
Canada on Wednesday approved the use of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE and vaccinations are expected to start next week with high-risk people such as healthcare workers receiving the first doses.
Canada would receive 30,000 doses next week and up to 249,000 by the end of the year.
The following are the current plans by the 10 provinces and three territories to start inoculations:
Immunisation in Canada’s worst-affected province, Quebec, may start on14 December at two nursing homes. The initial batch is expected to be 4,875 doses. More on this shortly.
Meanwhile the global coronavirus infections total is nearing a staggering 70m.
- US records more than 3,000 Covid deaths a day for the first time. The US recorded its highest level of coronavirus deaths in a single day on Wednesday, just two weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday period when health experts warned Americans not to travel or gather.
- London has highest Covid-19 case rate in England. London had the highest prevalence of Covid-19 cases in the week to 6 December, Public Health England (PHE) said, raising the prospect the capital will be moved into the strictest level of restrictions in the coming days.
- Spain’s March-May Covid-19 death toll nearly 70% above official count - stats institute. Spain’s coronavirus death toll between March and May was almost 70% higher than the official count at the time, data from the National Statistics Institute showed, prompting the opposition to complain of a government cover-up.
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Africa disease control head calls on rich nations to share excess Covid-19 vaccine doses. Countries that have ordered more Covid-19 vaccines than they need should consider distributing excess doses to Africa, the head of the continent’s disease control body said.
- Decomposing mink in Denmark ‘may have contaminated groundwater’. Decomposing mink buried in mass graves in Denmark after being culled because of coronavirus fears may have contaminated the groundwater, local radio has reported, as parliament announced a commission to investigate the government’s actions.
- Berlin wants to close shops and extend school holidays to fight case rises. Berlin’s mayor, Michael Müller, said he would seek the approval of the city’s parliament next Tuesday to close stores apart from supermarkets until 10 January, and also to extend the school break until that date or put lessons online for a week.
- Welsh secondaries and colleges to shut on Monday to stem Covid spread. Secondary schools and colleges in Wales will move to online learning from Monday in a “national effort to reduce transmission of coronavirus”, the country’s education minister has said.
- Israel abandons Covid-19 curfew plan ahead of Hanukkah. Israel reversed plans to impose a night-time curfew meant to prevent a new wave of coronavirus infections, minutes before the start of a Jewish holiday.
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Canary Islands removed from UK travel corridor list. The Canary Islands have been removed from the UK travel corridors list, meaning people arriving in the UK from the popular Spanish islands from 4am on Saturday must self-isolate.
- Rich countries leaving rest of the world behind on Covid vaccines, warns Gates Foundation. It could be too late for any kind of fair distribution of coronavirus vaccines because of the deals already made by rich countries, according to Mark Suzman, chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
