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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Lucy Campbell (now); Aamna Mohdin, Haroon Siddique, Caroline Davies and Helen Sullivan (earlier)

UK warned of further restrictions – as it happened

We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:

Updated

Summary

  • The US president elect Joe Biden received his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on live television, as part of a growing effort to convince the American public the inoculations are safe. Biden was administered the dose at a Delaware hospital. He said: “I’m doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared when it’s available to take the vaccine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
  • Airlines including Delta, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will require UK passengers to present evidence of a negative Covid-19 test before departure under new pre-departure screening measures. It comes as international leaders react to the news of a highly infectious new strain of the coronavirus in the UK.
  • Peru suspended flights from Europe for two weeks and has put its health and travel authorities on high alert to prevent the entry of a new strain of coronavirus that appeared in the UK, the president Francisco Sagasti said on Monday.
  • Morocco will impose a three-week curfew from 9pm to 6am starting on Wednesday, to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Shops, malls and restaurants will have to close at 8pm across the country, but in the hard-hit cities of Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir and Tangier restaurants were asked to shut down for three weeks amid rising infections.
  • Boris Johnson is ‘working with Emmanuel Macron’ to resolve border delays. The UK prime minister said he had an “excellent” conversation with the French president and said he was keen to get the situation at Dover sorted out “in a few hours” if it was possible. Johnson said he and Macron are working to “resolve these issues as fast as possible” so that freight traffic can get moving again.
  • Half a million people have received first dose of vaccine in the UK. More than half a million people in the UK have been vaccinated against Covid-19, Boris Johnson said.
  • Delays at Dover affecting only small amount of freight, says UK PM. Boris Johnson insisted Channel port delays will only affect a small amount of food and medicine shipments coming into the UK. Johnson says the delays only involve “human-handled freight”, which only amounts to about 20% of the goods going to continental Europe.
  • UK supermarkets warn of food shortages if border crisis isn’t resolved soon. British supermarket group Tesco warned on Monday that there may be a shortage of some fruit and vegetables later this week if transport ties are not quickly restored with mainland Europe. The supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s has warned that some products could be missing from UK shelves due to restrictions at ports, but said food for a traditional Christmas lunch is available and already in the country.
  • Sweden one of 40 countries to ban travellers from Britain. Sweden has joined the list of countries, which include France, Israel, and Germany, that will stop allowing in foreign travellers from Britain in a bid to curb the rapid spread of a new strain of the coronavirus, the government said today. Sweden is also barring travellers from Denmark.
  • Europe’s medicines regulator approved the use of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The approval puts Europe on course to start inoculations within a week. EU countries including Germany, France, Austria and Italy have said they plan to start vaccinations from 27 December. Having gained the green light from the EMA, the final step is approval by the European commission, which is expected in the coming days. The commission typically follows the EMA’s advice.

The UK’s Foreign Office said on Monday it is advising against all but essential travel to the whole of Brazil based on the current assessment of Covid-19 risks.

Virgin Atlantic will require all travellers from London to the United States to present evidence of a negative Covid-19 test before departure under a new pre-departure screening from 24 December, a spokesman said on Monday.

The move follows an earlier request from the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, that airlines only allow passengers who test negative for the coronavirus to fly to New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport following the emergence of a highly infectious new strain in the UK.

Updated

The Netherlands on Monday joined a range of nations banning flights from South Africa to stop the spread of a new variant of the coronavirus.

The Dutch government said all passenger flights were banned with immediate effect until 1 January at the latest. An exception would be made for medical workers, it said, while cargo flights were also still allowed.

At least five countries and airlines, including Germany and Turkey, were reported to have banned flights to South Africa on Monday, after a mutation of Covid-19 had been found there and is believed to be responsible for a recent surge in infections.

There are no intensive care beds available in densely populated southern California or the state’s agricultural San Joaquin Valley, together home to nearly 30 million people, amid a deadly surge of Covid-19, the governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday.

The pandemic is overwhelming hospitals in the most-populous US state, even as the government and two of the nation’s largest pharmacy chains began a nationwide campaign on Monday to vaccinate nursing home residents against the highly contagious respiratory disease.

The US death toll from the virus has accelerated in recent weeks to 2,627 per day on a seven-day average, according to a Reuters tally.

The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has said US Covid-19 deaths will peak in January, when its widely cited model projects that more than 100,000 people will die as the toll marches to nearly 562,000 by 1 April 2021.

Nationwide, the number of hospitalised patients on Monday stood at nearly 113,400, near a record high of over 114,200 set on Friday, according to a Reuters tally.

In California, Newsom told a remote news conference he had requested help from nurses, doctors and medical technicians in the US military. The state has also sent nearly 700 additional medical staff to beleaguered hospitals.

California’s secretary of health and human services Mark Ghaly said many hospitals in the state may also soon run out of room for patients who need to be admitted but do not require intensive care.

Ghaly told the news conference the current surge was related to gatherings that took place over the Thanksgiving holiday and that a similar surge is expected after Christmas and New Year’s.

Newsom pleaded with Californians to comply with stay-at-home orders that restrict activity in most but not all of the state. “We are not victims of fate,” he said.

Updated

Qatar received its first coronavirus vaccines on Monday, just hours after regulators approved the jab for use in the Gulf state, which says it will inoculate all residents free of charge.

A shipment of 14 boxes of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine landed at Doha’s Hamad International Airport aboard a Qatar Airways passenger Boeing 787 from Brussels shortly after 8pm GMT, according to AFP.

Authorities have not said how many doses arrived.

Abdullatif al-Khal, the chair of the national health strategic group on Covid-19, said during a speech on state TV Monday that vaccinations would begin from Wednesday and the priority will be “the elderly, those with chronic conditions and medical staff”.

Qatar’s health ministry “issued the approval and registration of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, which is one of the two vaccines [the ministry] has secured agreements to purchase,” it said in a statement Monday, ahead of the delivery.

Qatar will also administer doses of the vaccine made by US firm Moderna Therapeutics.

The Gulf state has tested 44% of its population of 2.75 million and recorded 142,159 infections since the beginning of the pandemic, with the high rate attributed to aggressive testing and unsanitary accommodation for workers.

A confirmed 243 people have died of the virus and the rate of new infections per 100,000 for the past week was 37.7 - well down from the peak.

Updated

Nigeria is advising its sub-regions to limit public gatherings, close bars and night clubs over the next five weeks amid a surge in new Covid-19 cases, a government coronavirus task force said on Monday.

The continent’s most populous nation could be on the verge of a second wave with the number of confirmed cases rising within communities over the last few weeks.

Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, Abuja and the northern state of Kaduna have emerged as new hotspots with over 70% of confirmed cases, said Boss Mustapha, the chairman of the presidential task force for Covid-19, who is the country’s most senior civil servant.

The proportion of positive tests for the virus has increased since the second week of December, linking the spread to large gatherings and poor compliance with face mask, he said.

The statement advised states to limit meeting capacity of churches and mosques while pubs and event centres should be closed. The regions should enforce face mask use in public.

Nigeria, runs a federal system of government and local governments have the legal structure and enforcement to manage the pandemic within their jurisdictions, the statement said.

Lagos has ordered schools to shut indefinitely and banned concerts, carnivals and street parties and asked certain civil servants to work from home amid a rise in new Covid-19 cases.

The statement said the government was discussing restricting international travels to countries where a new, more contagious, strain of the coronavirus had been discovered.

Meanwhile, AP reports, missing from the action has been the US president Donald Trump, who has spent the last week largely out of sight as he continues to stew about his election loss.

Trump, who in the past has spread misinformation about vaccine risks, has not said when he intends to get the shot. He tweeted earlier this month that he was “not scheduled” to take it, but said he looked “forward to doing so at the appropriate time.” The White House has said he is still discussing timing with his doctors.

Trump was hospitalised with Covid-19 in October and was given an experimental monoclonal antibody treatment that he credited for his swift recovery. A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory board has said people who received that treatment should wait at least 90 days to be vaccinated to avoid any potential interference.

“When the time is right, I’m sure he will remain willing to take it,” White House spokesperson Brian Morgenstern said on Friday.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, however, offered a different explanation for the delay. She told reporters last week that Trump was holding off, in part, “to show Americans that our priority are the most vulnerable.”

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, have recommended that Trump be vaccinated without delay. He told ABC News:

Even though the president himself was infected, and he has, likely, antibodies that likely would be protective, we’re not sure how long that protection lasts. So, to be doubly sure, I would recommend that he get vaccinated.

Updated

Joe Biden receives Covid-19 vaccine

The US president-elect Joe Biden on Monday received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on live television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public the inoculations are safe.

The president-elect took a dose of Pfizer vaccine at a hospital near his Delaware home, hours after his wife Jill Biden. The injections came the same day that a second vaccine, produced by Moderna, will start arriving in states.

“I’m ready,” said Biden, who was administered the dose at a hospital in Newark, Delaware, and declined the option to count to three before the needle was inserted into his left arm.

I’m doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared when it’s available to take the vaccine. There’s nothing to worry about.

Other top government officials last week joined the first wave of Americans to be inoculated against Covid-19 as part of the largest largest vaccination campaign in the nation’s history.

The vice president Mike Pence, the house speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and other lawmakers were given doses on Friday. They chose to publicise their injections as part of a campaign to convince Americans that the vaccines are safe and effective amid skepticism, especially among Republicans.

The vice president-elect Kamala Harris and her husband are expected to receive their first shots next week.

Updated

Sudan will ban travellers from the UK, the Netherlands and South Africa from 23 December following the discovery of a new, more transmissible variant of the coronavirus, the head of the civil aviation authority told Reuters on Monday. The ban will last two weeks subject to renewal and more countries could be added to the list as the situation develops, Ibrahim Adlan said.

Updated

Delta Air Lines confirmed on Monday it will require pre-departure Covid-19 tests before passengers leave from the UK to New York.

The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, first disclosed the decision on Twitter after British Airways earlier said it would take the step as international leaders reacted to news of a highly infectious new strain. A Delta spokeswoman confirmed the decision to Reuters.

Updated

Peru suspended flights from Europe for two weeks and has put its health and travel authorities on high alert to prevent the entry of a new strain of coronavirus that appeared in the UK, the president Francisco Sagasti said on Monday.

Sagasti said no direct flights from the UK had entered the country since 15 December, when flights from Europe restarted. But health authorities were monitoring passengers from Britain who had entered through connecting flights, he said.

A new and more easily transmissible strain of the coronavirus has led to surging infection numbers in London and east and south-east England, prompting countries worldwide to suspend flights to and from the UK.

The announcement comes as hard-hit Peru nears 1m cases of Covid-19, amid growing concerns over a second wave of the virus following the end-of-year holidays.

Health officials in Peru have prohibited the use of private vehicles on 24, 25 and 31 December, as well as on New Year’s Day to reduce movement, and have discouraged Peruvians from visiting family over the holidays.

In addition, Peru prohibited the entry of non-resident foreigners who had been in the UK in the last two weeks. Peruvians or non-residents already in the country who had recently visited the UK will be required to spend 14 days in isolation.

Coronavirus cases in Peru hit 997,517 on Sunday, with 37,103 deaths from the disease, according to official figures.

Peru has already signed a preliminary agreement with Pfizer to buy 9.9m doses of its vaccine, and inked a firm deal with the Covax Facility, an alliance led by the World Health Organization, to acquire another 13.2m doses.

Sagasti’s government said last week it did not know when the first doses would be arriving in the Andean nation, nor how many would be included in the first shipment.

Updated

Morocco will impose a three-week curfew from 9pm to 6am starting on Wednesday, to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Shops, malls and restaurants will have to close at 8pm across the country, but in the hard-hit cities of Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir and Tangier restaurants were asked to shut down for three weeks.

The Moroccan government lifted a three-month lockdown in June, but maintained restrictive measures in some cities with higher infections.

On Monday, the country said it has recorded a total of 418,002 coronavirus infections, including 7,000 deaths.

Morocco has ordered vaccines from China’s Sinopharm and the UK’s AstraZeneca. Its economy is expected to contract by up to 7% this year due to the pandemic, the International Monetary Fund has said.

Summary

  • Boris Johnson “working with Emmanuel Macron” to resolve border delays. The UK prime minister said he had an “excellent” conversation with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and said he was keen to get the situation at Dover sorted out “in a few hours” if it was possible. Johnson said he and Macron are working to “resolve these issues as fast as possible” so that freight traffic can get moving again.
  • Half a million people have received first dose of vaccine in the UK. More than half a million people in the UK have been vaccinated against Covid-19, Boris Johnson said.
  • Delays at Dover affecting only small amount of freight, says UK PM. Boris Johnson insisted Channel port delays will only affect a small amount of food and medicine shipments coming into the UK. Johnson says the delays only involve “human-handled freight”, which only amounts to about 20% of the goods going to continental Europe.
  • UK supermarkets warn of food shortages if border crisis isn’t resolved soon. British supermarket group Tesco warned on Monday that there may be a shortage of some fruit and vegetables later this week if transport ties are not quickly restored with mainland Europe. The supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s has warned that some products could be missing from UK shelves due to restrictions at ports, but said food for a traditional Christmas lunch is available and already in the country.
  • Sweden one of 40 countries to ban travellers from Britain. Sweden has joined the list of countries, which include France, Israel, and Germany, that will stop allowing in foreign travellers from Britain in a bid to curb the rapid spread of a new strain of the coronavirus, the government said today. Sweden is also barring travellers from Denmark.
  • Europe’s medicines regulator approved the use of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The approval puts Europe on course to start inoculations within a week. EU countries including Germany, France, Austria and Italy have said they plan to start vaccinations from 27 December. Having gained the green light from the EMA, the final step is approval by the European commission, which is expected in the coming days. The commission typically follows the EMA’s advice.

Updated

British supermarket group Tesco warned on Monday that there may be a shortage of some fruit and vegetables later this week if transport ties are not quickly restored with mainland Europe, Reuters reports.

The transport of freight across the English Channel has been disrupted after France suspended travel links with Britain to try to curb a new faster spreading strain of Covid-19.

Tesco said that “there may be reduced supply on a few fresh items, such as lettuce, cauliflower and citrus fruit later this week, but we don*t expect any problems with availability on these lines today or tomorrow”.

Updated

As cases rise rapidly across London and south-east England, there are worrying signs that testing will struggle to meet demand.

Guardian correspondents Robert Booth and Josh Halliday report:

There were worrying signs this afternoon for the testing system in London and the south-east. Checks on availability of slots carried out by the Guardian showed none available for a time in five London boroughs with a combined population of 1.3m people.

Residents in parts of Kent, Essex and East Sussex logging onto the government’s testing portal were also told that no walk-through appointments were available and they would have to drive over 30 miles to get a test. One request from a postcode in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea was met with the response that no walk-through appointments were available and the nearest slot was 73 miles away in Bexhill-on-Sea.

Later checks on the same postcodes showed better availability, but the situation suggests either rising demand in line with increasing infection rates or capacity issues at the laboratories. The government confirmed there was a temporary shortage of some supplies at the government’s Lighthouse laboratory in Milton Keynes over the weekend but said the issue had been resolved and that it was back to full capacity on Monday.

Local health leaders were told on Monday that laboratory capacity issues were causing problems in the provision of tests in some areas, particular in London and Kent, which were placed under new tier 4 restrictions at the weekend.

DHSC indicated the shortage of supplies was not linked to the severe disruption at ports in Kent over the past week ahead of the Brexit deadline. There has been concern about the supply of pipets and reagents into the UK.

A microbiologist close to the UK’s testing laboratories said some supplies were “particularly vulnerable” because there was only a 48 hour supply in the country.

A DHSC spokesperson said.

Anyone who needs a test can get one.

Tests are available at sites in London and Kent, available to order for home delivery, and we have also launched a targeted community testing drive in both areas with additional capacity.

Updated

France reported 5,797 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, pushing the country’s total number of infections resulting from the new coronavirus to 2,479,151, Reuters reports.

There were also 351 new deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 60,900, health ministry data showed.

The World Health Organisation cautioned against major alarm over a new, highly infectious variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in Britain, Reuters reports.

WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan told an online briefing:

We have to find a balance. It’s very important to have transparency, it’s very important to tell the public the way it is, but it’s also important to get across that this is a normal part of virus evolution.

Being able to track a virus this closely, this carefully, this scientifically in real time is a real positive development for global public health, and the countries doing this type of surveillance should be commended.”

More reactions from Boris Johnson’s press conference.

Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner tweeted:

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey tweeted:

Updated

Schools should be allowed to remain closed for the first two weeks of next term, the UK’s biggest teaching union has said, as a leading scientist warned of early signs that a new Covid variant may infect children “slightly more effectively”than previous variants.

Many secondary pupils in England face a staggered return to class in January to accommodate mass testing in an effort to address the high number of cases among school-age children.

Scientists on Monday said they had “high confidence” that the variant appeared to be up 71% more transmissible than other variants in the UK, but cautioned that the biological mechanisms of the link are still unclear. Otherwise, the variant does not appear so far to make Covid more severe or undermine the effectiveness of vaccines — though monitoring is ongoing.

Prof Neil Ferguson, a member of the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said preliminary data hinted that the variant could more effectively infect children, though causality had not been established.

The mutations on the variant’s spike protein – the part of the virus that allows it to infiltrate cells in the lungs, throat and nasal cavity by interacting with a receptor called ACE-2 – could explain the potential link in children, Prof Wendy Barclay, another Nervtag member, said.

“The previous virus had a harder time finding ACE-2 and getting into cells, and therefore adults who have abundant ACE-2...were easy targets and children were difficult to infect,” she said. “The newer virus has an easier time doing all of that and therefore children are equally susceptible, perhaps, to this virus as adults.”

Other scientists interviewed by the Guardian suggested it was too early to reach conclusions on the variant’s transmissibility in children, given factors such as underlying community infection rates partly due to laxer attitudes to social distancing.

The UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, tweeted:

Updated

Here are two responses to Boris Johnson’s press conference:

The Green party MP Caroline Lucas tweeted:

The shadow health minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan tweeted:

Updated

And that’s the end of the press conference.

Lewis Goodall, the policy editor at BBC Newsnight, tweeted:

Updated

Further tightening of Covid restrictions 'likely', says Vallance

Sir Patrick Vallance said he expected the new variant of the coronavirus to spread across the country and hinted that more of England could soon be moved into tier 4.

The UK’s chief scientific advisor said that further restrictions would be likely needed in England and that measures may “need to be increased ... not reduced”.

He pointed to mixing over Christmas as a likely cause of further spikes in Covid case numbers in the coming weeks.

His warning at the Covid briefing at Downing Street this afternoon comes after London and large parts of south-east England were placed in tier 4 restrictions on the weekend.

Updated

Boris Johnson said he wanted schools to reopen as normal in January, and that was the priority, but he said this was dependent on the spread of the virus.

Updated

At the No 10 press conference, Sir Patrick Vallance reiterated advice to the public to help keep the spread of the new Covid variant in check.

He said it exists in all parts of the country, but people should “stay local” to prevent it spreading more quickly.

Sir Patrick said social distancing measures to reduce contact between people are “even more important” now, given the ability of the new Covid variant to spread rapidly.

Updated

Boris Johnson 'working with Emmanuel Macron' to resolve border delays

Boris Johnson said he had an “excellent” conversation with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and said he was keen to get the situation at Dover sorted out “in a few hours” if it was possible.

Johnson said he and Macron are working to “resolve these issues as fast as possible” so that freight traffic can get moving again.

Updated

There were about 500 lorries queuing at the motorway in Kent last night, but that’s now down to around 170, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said.

Shapps also urged people not to travel to Kent, in order to help prevent congestion issues and to help contain the spread of the new Covid variant.

Updated

Half a million people have received first dose of vaccine in the UK

More than 500,000 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, Boris Johnson said.

Updated

Delays at Dover affecting only small amount of freight, says PM

Boris Johnson said the UK understands other countries’ anxieties about the new Covid variant, but argued that the risk from a lorry driver sitting alone was very low.

He insisted Channel port delays will only affect a small amount of food and medicine shipments coming into the UK. Johnson says the delays only involve ‘human-handled freight’, which only amounts to about 20% of the goods going to continental Europe.

Updated

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has started his press conference. He said it is vital to stress that the delays occurring in Dover only affect human-handled freight, which is 20% of the freight coming in to the port.

Updated

Covid-19 case rates are now above 1,000 cases per 100,000 people in eight local areas of the UK, PA reports.

Three of the areas are in Wales:

  • Merthyr Tydfil (where the rate has jumped week-on-week from 926.6 to 1,299.6, which is the highest rate anywhere in the UK).
  • Bridgend (up from 777.3 to 1,122.1).
  • Blaenau Gwent (where the rate has climbed from 698.5 to 1,006.3).

The other five areas are in England:

  • Thurrock (a huge jump from 435.9 to 1,178.7).
  • Havering (up from 547.1 to 1,123.5).
  • Epping Forest (up from 448.8 to 1,078.3).
  • Basildon (up from 650.6 to 1,055.0).
  • Medway (up from 641.2 to 1,037.1).

All figures are based on data published on Monday afternoon and are for the seven days to 17 December. Data on new cases for 18-21 December is incomplete and therefore not included.

Updated

British Airways has agreed to allow only passengers who test negative for the novel coronavirus to fly to New York’s John F Kennedy international airport, the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, said on Monday, Reuters reported.

He said he has also asked Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic to “voluntarily agree” to screen passengers on flights to JFK.

“If they do not agree voluntarily, then New York State will pursue other options,” Cuomo said.

Updated

In Manchester, a city in north-western England, 10 directors of public health are asking anyone who has travelled to the city-region from any tier 4 area or Wales to act as if they have the new variant of Covid-19 and self-isolate for at least 10 days when they arrive.

In a statement, the health leaders said:

The 10 days should start from Saturday 19 December. This means remaining inside the house where they’re staying for the whole 10 days. Other people who live in the house do not need to self isolate unless anyone gets symptoms, but no visitors should be allowed in that house at all, even on Christmas Day.

Updated

Turkey’s coronavirus-related deaths rose to a new daily record of 254 on Monday, even as new infections dipped for a sixth straight day to near 3,400, health ministry data showed, according to a report by Reuters.

Updated

Boris Johnson to hold Covid briefing after Cobra meeting

Boris Johnson is holding a press conference at 5pm GMT amid freight chaos at Dover and travel bans prompted by the new strain of coronavirus across the south-east.

The prime minister will front the conference from Downing Street following the meeting of the emergency Cobra committee.

Updated

Sweden will stop allowing in foreign travellers from Britain and Denmark in a bid to curb the rapid spread of a new strain of the coronavirus, Reuters reports.

“To minimize the risk of it spreading here, the government has today decided on a ban of entry,” minister for the interior Mikael Damberg told a news conference, adding that Swedish citizens were exempt from the ban.

The ban will take effect from midnight on Monday. In addition, Sweden will stop all flights from Britain for 48 hours.

Italy reported 415 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday against 352 the day before, Reuters reports, while the daily tally of new infections decreased to 10,872 from 15,104, reflecting the customary decline in testing over the weekend.

The UK recorded a further 33,364 Covid-19 cases on Monday and 215 deaths of people who had tested positive for the virus within 28 days, Reuters reports.

Colombia will receive its first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech in February, Reuters reports.

The 1.7m doses are enough to vaccinate about 850,000 people as each requires two doses. First in line for inoculations will be healthcare workers and those over 80 years old, officials said in a statement.

Updated

The European drug regulator said today the use of the Covid-19 vaccine jointly developed by US company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on pregnant women should be considered case by case.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) does not have enough data from the companies’ clinical trials on the potential risks to pregnant women, Harald Enzmann, chair of the EMA’s human medicines committee, said in a briefing.

The agency can change its recommendation if more information becomes available, he said without disclosing the circumstances under which the vaccine might be deemed appropriate for pregnant women.

Enzmann also said he would urge caution in using the vaccine on people with a known history of anaphylaxis reaction after several cases of allergic reactions to the vaccine in the United States and United Kingdom.

His comments followed the regulator’s approval for use of the Covid-19 vaccine for people over the age of 16, putting Europe on course to start inoculations within a week.

Sudan is to ban travellers from Britain, the Netherlands and South Africa from Wednesday due to the discovery of the mutant strain of coronavirus, the head of the civil aviation authority told Reuters today.

The ban will last three weeks subject to renewal and more countries could be added to the list as the situation develops, Ibrahim Adlan said.

Updated

Sweden also bans travellers from Britain

Sweden has joined the list of countries that will stop allowing in foreign travellers from Britain in a bid to curb the rapid spread of a new strain of the coronavirus, the government said today. It is also barring travellers from Denmark.

“To minimise the risk of it spreading here, the government has today decided on a ban of entry,” the minister for the interior , Mikael Damberg, told a news conference, adding that Swedish citizens were exempt from the ban.

Denmark’s infectious disease authority said last week it had found nine cases of coronavirus infections involving the new mutant strain between 14 November and 3 December.

Updated

Covid-19 case rates have continued to rise in every area of Wales bar one, latest figures show.

The biggest jumps were in Merthyr Tydfil, Bridgend and Blaenau Gwent. Only Conwy recorded a drop.

The figures, for the seven days to 17 December, are based on tests carried out in NHS Wales laboratories and those conducted on Welsh residents processed in commercial laboratories.

They show that the number of new cases per 100,000 people in Merthyr Tydfil has risen sharply in a week from 926.6 to 1,299.6 – the highest rate in Wales – while in Bridgend the rate has increased from 777.3 to 1,122.1.

In Blaenau Gwent, the rate is up from 698.5 to 1,006.3. Conwy saw its rate drop from 95.6 to 77.6.

Another nationwide lockdown in Wales began on 20 December with plans to relax rules between 23 and 27 December scrapped. Two households will be allowed to meet on Christmas Day only.

Updated

Guardian photographer Sean Smith is out at the Port of Dover, which has been gridlocked since the port closed because a new variant of Covid-19 means a number of countries have suspended travel links from the UK.

Police and port security have stopped cars and lorries from entering the port.

A long line of lorries parked up southbound on on the M20.
A long line of lorries parked up southbound on on the M20. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian
Lorries parked on the M20
Lorries parked on the M20. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

Updated

India and Grenada are the latest countries to suspend flights from the UK.

Europe's medicines regulator approved the use of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved the use of the Covid-19 vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech, Reuters reports.

The approval puts Europe on course to start inoculations within a week.

EU countries including Germany, France, Austria and Italy have said they plan to start vaccinations from 27 December.

Having gained the green light from the EMA, the final step is approval by the European commission, which is expected in the coming days. The commission typically follows the EMA’s advice.

Updated

Mexico will analyse whether to suspend flights from the UK due to the discovery of a new strain of coronavirus there, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said, according to a report by Reuters.

Speaking at a regular government news conference on Monday, López Obrador said the health ministry would in the course of the day analyse the matter to see whether Mexico should follow other countries in suspending flights from Britain.

Updated

Spain becomes latest country to ban flights from the UK

In a statement on Monday afternoon, the Spanish government announced that flights from the UK would be suspended from Tuesday. Only Spanish citizens and those resident in Spain will be allowed to enter the country from then.

“Spain’s decision has been taken in conjunction with Portugal and will also result in the reinforcing of controls on the border with Gibraltar,” the statement added.

Updated

The Czech Republic and Canada have become the latest countries to suspend flights from the UK in response to new coronavirus strain.

The National Education Union, the UK’s largest teaching union, is calling for schools in England to close and teach remotely for the first two weeks of term in the new year.

The union has written to the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the secretary of state for education calling for new measures to be put in place to ensure the safest possible return of schools and colleges on the 4th of January.

With increasing infection rates and a new more easily transmitted strain of the virus, the teaching union is calling for:

  • Online learning for the first two weeks of the spring term except for key workers and vulnerable children to reduce cases amongst students and get testing set up.
  • Directors of public health to set up a testing system to be in place that would enable all children to be tested prior to a return to person-to-person teaching.
  • The two-week period from the 4th of January to be used to begin vaccinating education staff alongside NHS and care staff.

Updated

The French government’s decision on reopening the border to freight trucks from the UK is likely to rest on the introduction of some Covid screening.

The French government spokesman Gabriel Attal told RTL radio if new EU protocols were in place, it would aim to ensure 2,000-3,000 French lorry drivers “could come over the border as soon as possible once European coordination and a reinforced health protocol have been set up in the coming hours”.

Updated

Stanislaw Olbrich, a 55-year-old truck driver stranded 24 miles north of Dover after much of the world shut borders to Britain, told Reuters he just wants to get home for Christmas with his wife and three children in southern Poland.

Many countries, including the rest of Europe, closed their borders to Britain after the prime minister, Boris Johnson, effectively cancelled Christmas for millions because of an infectious new coronavirus strain.

For Olbrich, the border closures are a frustrating illustration of just how disruptive Covid-19 has become to normal life.

He said:

I take freight to Britain and I can’t go back home because of (the) stupid virus. But I don’t know if it is the virus – I think it’s politics.

It’s very difficult for me because I am away. My chances of going home for Christmas are going down. It’s stupid and I am nervous and unhappy about that.

Olbrich has been trucking since 2004, working two weeks on and two weeks off, bringing freight to Britain and then returning with a load to Poland.

Updated

The government is hoping for a new protocol for trucks using cross-Channel ferries and Eurotunnel trains this afternoon, likely to include a testing or track-and-trace regime.

It follows urgent talks between the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, and the French transport minister.

A government spokesperson also confirmed that the disused Manston airport which it acquired for Brexit traffic contingencies will be ready “with welfare” if required.

The spokesperson said:

The French transport minister has said they’re hoping to establish a protocol to ensure that movement from the UK can resume as soon as possible. However we must continue to prepare for disruption in Kent.

To control the flow of hauliers to the continent Operation Stack has been implemented and the lorry holding facility at Manston is now ready. We remain in close contact with Kent Resilience Forum and are working with local stakeholders to manage the situation.

While traffic heading towards the continent has initially been low today, we must continue to urge everybody – including all hauliers – to avoid travelling to Kent ports until further notice.

The government is also putting contingencies in place around Portsmouth where the “Operation Transmission” traffic relief model was being readied ahead of Brexit in 10 days time.

Updated

Here’s a map from Niko Kommenda, the Guardian’s visual projects editor, on where the new variant of Covid-19 has been detected in the UK.

Updated

Tunisia said on Monday it had suspended all air travel with Britain, Australia and South Africa, citing fears of a new coronavirus strain, Reuters reports.

Tunisia has reported a total of 120,687 coronavirus infections and 4,158 deaths.

The health ministry said it was holding an emergency meeting to follow up on the developments of the epidemiological situation around the world.

Updated

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman are closing their borders and suspending commercial flights over fears about a new coronavirus strain, Reuters reports.

Saudi Arabia shut its land and sea borders on Sunday and suspended international commercial flights for a renewable week although foreign flights already in the country can leave, the interior ministry said.

The measures do not apply to movement of goods from countries where the new Covid-19 strain has not appeared, said a ministry statement carried on state news agency SPA.

Updated

US health official says 'everything on table' about possible UK travel ban

The US assistant health secretary, Brett Giroir, on Monday said it was possible the US would ban travel from the UK as a new variant of the deadly coronavirus spreads in the country, but added nothing had been decided yet.

“I think everything is possible. We just need to put everything on the table, have an open scientific discussion and make the best recommendation,” he said in an interview on CNN, adding the White House coronavirus taskforce would meet later on Monday.

Updated

Singapore received its first batch of Covid-19 vaccines on Monday, said logistics firm DHL, which is involved in the transportation of the shots to the city state from Belgium, according to a report by Reuters.

DHL in a statement did not specify the size of the batch or name the vaccines being delivered, but Singapore last week said it had approved Pfizer/BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine, becoming the first Asian country to do so.

Updated

Prolonged restrictions on Dover trade could have “quite dramatic” ramifications for the UK, the port’s boss has warned, PA reports.

Around 4,000 lorries had intended to leave the UK through Dover but arrivals at the port are being met with signs saying “French borders closed”.

France has placed a ban on hauliers crossing the English Channel with their cargo.

Doug Bannister, chief executive of the Port of Dover, told the PA:

With the news that was released around this new variant that’s in the UK now, clearly what that meant is that a whole lot of people around Europe had to start thinking carefully about this.

But the one thing that we did see is, certainly during the first lockdown back in March and April, we did see that lorry drivers had been exempt.

The hope is that governments are in dialogue right now to try and determine what protocols need to be put in place.

The busy Kent port handles more than 120bn in trade every year so any disruption could be keenly felt.

And that’s the scale of the issue and this is trade that’s being denied from both British and European enterprise so a prolonged period will have quite a stark situation.

Updated

The number of Spaniards willing to receive Covid-19 vaccine shots as soon as they become available rose to over 40% in the latest official poll published on Monday, from 37% in a previous survey a month ago, Reuters reports.

Data from the Office for National Statistics’ coronavirus infection survey shows the new strain of Covid-19 was present in 28% of samples from Wales in the second week of December, the country’s deputy chief medical officer has said, PA reports.

Professor Chris Jones told a Welsh government press conference that this figure was “more than double the number in the previous week”.

He added:

Public Health Wales colleagues advise us that they feel this new strain could be causing up to 60% of coronavirus infections in Wales.

This new variant looks very likely to be the significant driver of the huge growth in cases we’ve seen in Wales in recent weeks.

A police officer talks to a lorry driver after the Port of Dover was closed and access to the Eurotunnel terminal suspended following the French government’s announcement that it will not accept any passengers arriving from the UK for the next 48 hours amid fears over the new mutant coronavirus strain.

Police officers talk to lorry drivers parked on the roads in Folkestone, Kent.
Police officers talk to lorry drivers parked on the roads in Folkestone, Kent. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

The Vatican told Roman Catholics on Monday that it was morally acceptable for them to use Covid-19 vaccines, even if their production employed cell lines drawn from tissues of aborted fetuses, Reuters reports.

A note from the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation, the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the use of such vaccines was permitted as long as there were no alternatives.

At her daily briefing, Nicola Sturgeon said she understood how upsetting the weekend’s announcement had been for the public but that the consequences of not acting now in the face of the new strain “could be catastrophic.”

Also speaking at the briefing, Police Scotland’s chief constable Iain Livingstone said that it would not be “appropriate or proportionate” to set up roadblocks to enforce the strict travel ban between Scotland and England, but added that he would be doubling the force’s operational presence in the border area, with “highly visible patrols” to deter people crossing over.

Sturgeon said that she would be taking part in a Cobra meeting with the UK and other devolved governments which is expected to start from 1.30pm, and would be chairing a meeting of the Scottish government’s resilience committee this afternoon, as she confirmed that there were 1504 new cases overnight, a higher than usual figure thought to be due to a processing backlog in UK Lighthouse system.

She reiterated her calls for Boris Johnson to secure a further Brexit extension or grace period, arguing “all of us would accept we have enough on our plates”.

Sturgeon said that Scotland’s R number is now “hovering around 1”, but that it was concern about the new strain that necessitated Saturday’s announcements:

“Failing to act quickly is almost always a mistake in the face of Covid”. She said that Scotland’s currently relatively low prevalence of the virus meant that there was still a chance of keeping the situation under control.

Jordan has suspended flights to and from the United Kingdom from today until 3rd January due to a new strain of the coronavirus detected in Britain, Reuters reports.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, was still displaying some coronavirus symptoms but his overall condition was stable, the government spokesman Gabriel Attal told reporters on Monday, according to a report by Reuters.

Macron, 43, tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday and has gone into quarantine at the presidential retreat of La Lanterne, close to the Palace of Versailles.

Updated

Danish lawmakers on Monday passed a law to ban mink breeding, retroactively creating the legal basis for its order to cull all mink in the Nordic country in November over fears of worsening the coronavirus epidemic, Reuters reports.

The law will ban mink breeding until 2022.

Updated

Russia will suspend flights to and from Britain for one week starting from Tuesday due to a new strain of the coronavirus detected in Britain, Reuters reports citing Russia’s coronavirus taskforce.

Updated

A scientific expert said it is likely that the new mutated coronavirus in the UK will become the dominant global strain of Covid-19.

Calum Semple, professor of outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told Sky News:

I suspect it will, or strains like it will (become dominant).

Because the virus has the evolutionary advantage in transmitting more quickly, it will out-compete all the other strains, and so it will naturally do that.

As immunity comes into the community more widely, then you’ll start to see more pressure on the virus and you’re more likely to see other escapes of other variations.

This is not a surprise, we deal with this with influenza year-on-year.

The flu vaccine typically contains three or four flavours of the influenza virus and we simply pick on a best-guess basis each season and then people that make the vaccines scale up in a timely manner.

A third of major hospital trusts in England currently have more Covid-19 patients than at the peak of the first wave of the virus, new analysis shows.

In two regions – eastern England and south-west England – more than half of trusts are above their first-wave peak.

Other trusts have seen their numbers rise so rapidly that they could pass their first-wave peak within days.

PA reports:

The analysis by the PA news agency found that of the 127 acute hospital trusts with a 24-hour (type 1) A&E department in England, 42 (33%) had more Covid-19 patients on December 18 than at the peak of the first wave in the spring.

Examples include:

- Mid & South Essex, which recorded 450 confirmed Covid-19 patients on December 18 compared with a first-wave peak of 374.

- East Suffolk & North Essex, which had 185 patients compared with a first-wave peak of 143.

- Barking, Havering & Redbridge, where there were 300 patients on December 18 versus a first-wave peak of 245. This is currently the only trust in London to have passed the peak.

- Gloucestershire, which had 171 patients compared with a first-wave peak of 149.

In other areas of England, such as the north-west, some trusts saw numbers hit a record high in the autumn before dropping more recently.

An example is Liverpool University hospitals trust, which saw a peak of 475 patients on October 30 but where the number now stands at 136.

But even in this region a handful of acute trusts are currently experiencing a new peak in Covid-19 patients, such as University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay.

Updated

Poland does not plan to introduce quarantine for people crossing land borders from the European Union, a government spokesman said on Monday, but flights from Britain to Poland will be suspended from midnight on Monday until further notice, Reuters reports.

“We do not plan to introduce border quarantine with other EU countries,” Piotr Müller told reporters.

Updated

The UK Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has called on the prime minister to address the nation on coronavirus, saying it is “out of control”, PA reports.

In a speech on devolution, Starmer said:

The news over the last 24 hours has been deeply disturbing. The number of coronavirus cases has nearly doubled in the last week.

Over 67,000 people have now tragically died and hospital admissions are rising. We cannot be in any doubt – the virus is now out of control.

He called on the government to step up, saying:

We can have no more over-promising and false hope, confused messages and slow decision-making. We need strong, clear and decisive leadership.

The prime minister needs to be straight with people about precisely what is going on and precisely what he is doing about it.

He must address the nation today after this morning’s Cobra meeting and hold daily press conferences until the disruption has eased.

Updated

Coronavirus infections rose by 10,002 since Friday in Switzerland, Reuters reports, as the country headed towards tougher restrictions on public life starting on Tuesday to curb the spread of the disease.

The total number of confirmed cases in Switzerland and neighbouring principality Liechtenstein increased to 413,991, the death toll rose by 201 to 6,204, and 391 new hospitalisations kept pressure on the healthcare system.

Updated

Oman will close its land, air and sea borders on Tuesday at 1am (2100 GMT) for one week, state television reported on Monday, Reuters reports.

The decision follows measures imposed by various countries following the outbreak of a new strain of Covid-19 in the UK, Oman TV said.

Updated

Hi, I’m Aamna Mohdin and I’ll be taking over the liveblog for the rest of the day. If you want to get in touch, you can email me (aamna.mohdin@theguardian.com) or message me on Twitter (@aamnamohdin)

That’s all from me, Caroline Davies. Thank you for your time. Handing over now to my colleague Aamna Mohdin.

The chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, Ken Marsh, has said there is “no way” officers will be knocking on the doors of “normal” households in London to check coronavirus restrictions were being followed now the city is in tier 4.

“We won’t be knocking on people’s doors at all, unless there is a large group and noise, ie a party or something like that.

“But normal day-to-day households? There’s no way that my colleagues will be dealing with that.”

He told BBC News if people refuse to open the door to police, officers have no power to force entry to the property, calling coronavirus laws a “toothless tiger”.

Updated

Portsmouth International Port has advised all passengers and hauliers heading to France not to travel to the port apart from for unaccompanied freight.

The move follows restrictions placed on trade by France in reaction to the newly identified variant of Covid-19 in the UK.

A spokeswoman for the Hampshire port said sailings have not been disrupted and they are not experiencing any queues of lorries, PA Media reports.

She added that services to Spain and the Channel Islands were operating as normal.

The port said in a statement:

Due to current travel restrictions in France, only unaccompanied freight has permission to sail.

Passengers and accompanied freight vehicles are advised not to travel to Portsmouth as they will be unable to sail as planned.

Please make sure if you are bringing unaccompanied freight you have a valid booking.

Services carrying unaccompanied freight vehicles from Portsmouth to France, and all passengers and freight from France to the UK, are unaffected.

Updated

The French government has said that “in the next few hours” it will establish a “protocol to ensure that movement from the UK can resume”.

In a post shared on Twitter by the French embassy in the UK, the French transport minister, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, said: “In the next few hours, at European level, we’re going to establish a solid health protocol to ensure that movement from the UK can resume.

“Our priority: to protect our nationals and our fellow citizens.”

Updated

Scotland will be taking part in UK government Cobra calls later this morning to address the “desperately serious situation” for the million of pounds worth of Scottish seafood currently stuck on lorries unable to cross the Channel.

Scotland’s deputy first minister, John Swinney, told BBC Radio Scotland: “One of the things we have feared has been a conjunction of different issues, of Brexit and of Covid coming together and unfortunately over the weekend and with the travel ban for freight into France that became a reality as a consequence of decisions that have been taken.”

The first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, will also chair a meeting of the Scottish resilience committee, to discuss freight disruption.

Swinney also said the Scottish government would press the UK government to extend the Brexit transition period, something Sturgeon also called for last night.

Swinney said this was “absolutely necessary” for Scottish producers. “ We face very acute threats as a country right now, they became more serious over the weekend because of the information on the spread of the virus, but coupled with the threats of Brexit, the first minister’s call is absolutely correct.”

Swinney emphasised there was very limited spread of the new variant in Scotland – still only 17 cases across the country – but that the Scottish government was monitoring the situation very closely.

He added that Scotland also has “substantially lower” rates than elsewhere in the UK: 115 cases per 100,000, compared with 467 per 100,000 in London.

Updated

Two cases of new strain identified in Australia

Australia has detected two cases of the new coronavirus strain identified in the UK. Two travellers from the UK to Australia’s New South Wales state were found carrying the mutated variant of the virus that Britain has said could be up to 70% more infectious, Reuters reports. Both are in quarantine, and the recent spike in infections in Sydney are not linked to this, authorities said.

Updated

India suspends all flights from UK

India said on Monday it was joining other countries in temporarily suspending all flights from Britain after the emergence of a new and more infectious strain of coronavirus.

“Considering the prevailing situation in the UK, Indian govt has decided that all flights originating from the UK to India shall be temporarily suspended till 31st December 2020,” the aviation ministry said in a tweet.

It said the suspension would come into effect from 11:59 pm (0629 GMT) on Tuesday.

Updated

Clinically extremely vulnerable people across London, the south-east and east of England have received further guidance on keeping safe as they are moved into the new tier 4 restrictions, the government has announced.

The updated guidance, from the Department of Health and Social Care, which is the same as was in place during November and which clinically extremely vulnerable individuals are strongly urged to follow, includes:

  • Socialising: stay at home as much as possible, except to go outdoors to exercise or attend health appointments.
  • Work: If people cannot work from home, they should not attend work. They may be eligible for statutory sick pay, employment and support allowance, universal credit or the coronavirus job retention scheme during this period. People in the same household who are not clinically extremely vulnerable can still attend work, in line with the new national restrictions.
  • School: If a GP or clinician has advised that a child should remain on the shielded patient list, they are advised not to attend school during term times. Children who live with someone who is clinically extremely vulnerable, but aren’t themselves, should still attend school.
  • Going outside: Avoid all non-essential travel – they should continue to travel to hospital and GP appointments as required unless told otherwise by their doctor. They are strongly advised not to go to any shops or to pharmacies, and government support is available for those who need it while they remain at home.

The clinically extremely vulnerable group includes those whose immune systems may be suppressed, or other specific conditions, for instance following an organ transplant, or those with specific cancers or severe respiratory conditions, such as cystic fibrosis.

Those with more general underlying health conditions or people aged 70 or over may still be more vulnerable to Covid-19 than the general population, so are also advised to stay at home as much as possible, to carefully follow the rules and minimise contact with others. Those who are clinically extremely vulnerable but living in tiers 1 to 3 should follow existing guidance - there is no formal shielding advice currently in place in areas outside tier 4.

Letters will be going out to all those affected by the new shielding rules for tier 4 areas later this week, although the DHSC advises they may take slightly longer than usual to arrive due to the Christmas period.

Updated

Unions are calling for urgent support from the UK government for workers caught up in the escalating travel crisis, PA media reports.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union said decisive action was needed to protect thousands of jobs caught in the crossfire of the closures to UK traffic across Europe.

Its general secretary, Mick Cash, said:

Thousands of workers on Eurostar, on the ferries and at our ports have been caught in the crossfire of the border crisis that has developed overnight and escalated this morning.

RMT is calling for an urgent package of government support and protection for the staff and services impacted by the decision to suspend operations.

We will be looking for emergency tripartite talks with the employers and government to ensure that the practical and financial underpinning required is made available without delay.

The Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association said Eurostar needed urgent financial assistance.

Its general secretary, Manuel Cortes, said:

Our union has been warning for months that Eurostar is in a fight for its survival and the latest developments only confirm our worst fears.

The government is guilty of twiddling its thumbs and doing little else to help this vital green strategic link with the continent.

Boris Johnson should make it clear right now that Eurostar will be given the help it needs to get through this Covid crisis.

Updated

France’s 48-hour ban on freight hauliers from Britain was “surprising”, the UK transport secretary has said, amid expected chaos at British ports.

Although Grant Shapps said the disruption was not a “specific problem” in regards to food and medicine shortages in the short term, the government’s aim was to “get this resolved as soon as possible”.

“Immediately as soon as the French said, perhaps slightly surprisingly, that they would stop hauliers rather than just passengers, we were in touch with a group known as the Kent Resilience Forum,” Shapps told Sky News on Monday morning.

“They are well used to planning for exactly these kind of circumstances.”

He added that discussions were continuing between the UK and French governments, and that Manston airport in Kent would open on Monday as a lorry park.

The Port of Dover this morning

Police and port security stop cars and lorries from entering the port of Dover.
Police and port security stop cars and lorries from entering the port of Dover. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

The supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s has warned that some products could be missing from UK shelves due to restrictions at ports, but said food for a traditional Christmas lunch is available and already in the country.

A spokesperson said:

“All products for the Great British Christmas lunch are already in the country and we have plenty of these.

We are also sourcing everything we can from the UK and looking into alternative transport for product sourced from Europe.

If nothing changes, we will start to see gaps over the coming days on lettuce, some salad leaves, cauliflowers, broccoli and citrus fruit - all of which are imported from the Continent at this time of year.

We hope the UK and French governments can come to a mutually agreeable solution that prioritises the immediate passage of produce and any other food at the ports.

The UK government is preparing to open a disused airport in Kent as a lorry park to ease disruption after the overnight French border closures, the Department for Transport has confirmed.

Manston airport was a back-up plan for Brexit congestion contingencies but has become a priority because construction on the lorry park the government was building in Ashford to cater for gridlock in January is not complete.

“We are currently preparing Manston ready to support Kent Resilience Forum’s plans to manage disruption in #Kent today … our message to #Hauliers is to avoid travelling to Kent until further notice,” the department said in a tweet.

The airport, near Ramsgate, has the capacity for 4,000 trucks, two-thirds of the 6,000 trucks transport secretary Grant Shapps said had been expected on Eurotunnel and the port of Dover on Monday morning.

Shapps played down the significance of the border closure on the flow of freight into the country ahead of Christmas, telling BBC Radio 4 Today programme that 80% of cargo came into the country through other ports through containers and “unaccompanied” trailers that are detached from their cabs before placed on ships.

The transport secretary also said truckers were resilient and would be able to cope.

“They’re a pretty hardy bunch, in fact they are well used to this kind of disruption … There’s been occasions actually where there have been weeks of delay,” he said.

Updated

Flights from Britain to Norway will be suspended with immediate effect for a minimum of 48 hours due to concerns over a new strain of coronavirus, the Norwegian health minister said in a statement on Monday.

The new strain of coronavirus is probably already in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Stormont’s first minister has warned.

Arlene Foster said ministers were very concerned about the highly infectious mutation and tests were ongoing.

She told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme: “It is probable that it is here and likely it is in the Republic too.”

Ministers have debated imposing a temporary ban on travel from the UK mainland to Northern Ireland in response to the new variant of Covid-19 No decision has been taken but ministers are expected to return to the issue today.

Health minister Robin Swann is to consult with Northern Ireland’s attorney general about the legality of a ban on travel from Britain. He is to give a statement in the assembly at midday.

Updated

The London stock market tumbled 1.8% in early trading in a sharp sell-off by investors reacting to the new lockdown restrictions, a new strain of coronavirus and stalled Brexit talks, Mark Sweney and Jasper Jolly report.

The FTSE 100, London’s blue-chip index, fell by 117 points to 6,410 points on opening on Monday. The heavy losses come as Brexit talks remain in limbo, France implements a ban on accompanied freight for 48 hours, and a new strain of coronavirus emerges in the UK.

The new strain – thought for now to be up to 70% more transmissible, but not more deadly – has prompted a wave of countries to ban travel from the UK.

The pound was also hit, falling 1.8% against the US dollar, to $1.32, and by 1% against the euro, at €1.09.

International Airlines Group, the owner of British Airways, was the biggest faller on the FTSE 100, down by 16%, followed by jet engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce, which fell 9%. Travel group Tui dropped 7% and Carnival, the cruise ship company, fell 9%.

Banks, which are heavily exposed to the UK economy, were also hit. Shares in Lloyds Banking Group, the largest high street lender, fell 6% and Barclays was down 5%.

The do not “panic buy” message is echoed by trade group Logistics UK, formerly the Freight Transport Association.

Alex Veitch, general manager, said the government needs to work with EU partners to come up with a pragmatic solution to give the French and other authorities confidence that drivers are Covid-free.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said the ban is only affecting outbound freight with drivers in a truck, and that inbound goods are still moving.

He said:

This is why we are saying at the current time, please, there is no need to panic-buy, there are goods available in the shops, retailers are doing everything they can.

But at the same time it is serious and we do need a resolution as quickly as possible.”

There is “no need” to panic-buy as a result of France’s ban on freight lorries from the UK, the chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation said.

Ian Wright told BBC Breakfast that there is, however, “concern” around food supplies in the longer term, particularly after Christmas.

He said:

“The problem is the return journey of drivers coming to the UK. If they cannot be guaranteed either that they will get out of the UK because of the congestion or that they will be able to secure a return journey full of whatever product it is, that’s going to make it much more unlikely for them to come in the first place.

And, over time, because the transport system requires these round trips, that will reduce the ability of us to bring food into the country after Christmas if that takes effect.

We need a pragmatic solution that gets drivers across the border and into the UK by whatever route in exactly the same way we had throughout the lockdown in March and in the earlier part of the year.

Updated

An emergency meeting of senior officials from the EU’s member states will coordinate the bloc’s response to the new strain this morning, with one option being a ban on travellers from the UK until 6 January.

The experts will look at the option of tests for hauliers to protect the supply chains between the UK and the continent.

During a videoconference call of the Europe advisers of the 27 heads of state and government on Sunday night, the capitals had shared details of their travel bans. A meeting of EU leaders in the immediate days has not been discounted by sources in Brussels, with a no deal Brexit also potentially looming.

Leading German virologist Christian Drosten has said he expects the new strain of Covid-19 discovered in the UK to be already in circulation in Germany, but that he was “everything but worried” about the viral mutation at the moment.

Speaking to broadcaster Deutschlandfunk on Monday morning, Drosten said the scientific data around the new N501Y mutation was still “unclear”. The internationally renowned coronavirus expert said claims that the strain was 70% more transmissible were likely an estimate for now, which still needed to be verified by British scientists over the course of this week.

“The question is: is this virus being washed up by a coming new wave in that region [in Ssouth-east England], or is this virus responsible for creating this wave in the first place”, Drosten said. “That’s an important difference”.

Drosten noted that the viral strain had also been detected in other countries, like the Netherlands, where it didn’t appear to have multiplied in a significantly more rapid way. “I am open to new scientific insights, and in science there are always surprises, but I am everything but worried in this respect”.

Germany has banned all passenger flights from the UK to Germany as of midnight on Sunday, with the country’s federal police warning that people should only travel to the UK “if it is absolutely necessary”.

Updated

Sterling slumped against the dollar and euro on Monday after the UK government announced new restrictions to curb a fast-spreading strain of the coronavirus and France, Germany and others cut transport ties with Britain.

The pound fell nearly 2% against the dollar to below $1.33 and 1% against the euro, deepening losses seen overnight in Asian trading hours.

Updated

Hong Kong will ban all flights arriving from the UK from midnight local time on Monday, becoming the first city in Asia to announce such a halt after a new strain of coronavirus was identified in Britain.

Health secretary Sophia Chan said there was a need to launch more vigorous and targeted measures to prevent further spreading of Covid-19 in Hong Kong. Asian nations including Japan and South Korea are closely monitoring the new strain, but have not immediately cancelled UK flights.

Updated

Asked if he could guarantee UK vaccine supplies would not be affected by the travel bans, UK transport secretary Grant Shapps told BBC Breakfast:

Yes I can and the reason is actually that the vaccine wasn’t coming in through the roll on, roll off – precious few lorries had brought it in that way.

It comes via containers and the container traffic isn’t affected at all, so this isn’t an issue with the vaccine at all and indeed will never be an issue for medicines regardless because we have freight contingencies in place.

He added:

The government has to steer a sensible path through all of these things and that’s what we’re trying to do. There’s no rule book for fighting coronavirus it’s easy to be a professor of hindsight and say you should do this at this particular time.

We try to take the best decisions based on the best science and the evidence at the right time, and in this particular case as I say I’m absolutely certain that we acted the moment the scientists came to us with hard evidence that there’s an issue with this particular variant where there hadn’t been with thousands of other mutations.

Updated

It is almost exactly one year since the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 was identified by Chinese scientists as the source of a new, lethal respiratory illness.

Since, more than 1.5 million people have died globally, economies worldwide have shut down multiple times and societies have isolated in their homes and watched holidays pass without the closeness of family and friends. Ahead of us is a year undertaking the most logistically challenging public health campaign ever.

But, in this, Yale professor and social epidemiologist Dr Nicholas Christakis brings cold comfort, as laid in his new book Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live. And that is because he sees a pattern. “One of the arguments in the book is that what’s happening to us may seem to so many people to be alien and unnatural, but plagues are not new to our species – they’re just new to us,” said Christakis, whose expertise is in how our behaviours influence contagion in society.

Here is the comfort that might be taken in Christakis’s observations of disease over millennia: plagues and pandemics end. They always end. They ended even before we had vaccines to respond to them. And how we react to these germs – through social distancing for example – determines the force with which they hit our society.

Further, while distributing vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna will be one of the greatest public health challenges of our time, they also represent one of mankind’s great achievements.

Updated

French health minister Olivier Veran said on Monday that it was possible a new strain of the Covid virus was circulating in France, although recent tests had not detected it in the country.

“It is entirely possible that the virus is circulating in France,” Veran told Europe 1 radio.

The new UK variant of the Covid virus appears to be 70% more transmissible, forcing new lockdown measures in Britain and travel restrictions from its European neighbours.

Updated

Qatar granted emergency use authorisation for the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech and is due to receive the first shipment today, state media reported.

A public health ministry statement said people aged 16 years and above would be eligible. Qatar has also signed an agreement with drugmaker Moderna Inc to buy its vaccine.

Oman will receive its first Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shipment on Wednesday, a health ministry official said with the initial phase would cover 20% of the population.

Saudi Arabia last week became the first Arab country to start inoculating people with the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

Kuwait has said it expects to start receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine before the end of the year.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain earlier this month rolled out a vaccine developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group

Updated

The UK’s coronavirus vaccination programme will not be affected by France’s ban on freight from the UK, transport secretary Grant Shapps said today.

He told Sky News that the disruption around the Channel ports in Kent “won’t have an impact” on the vaccine supply.

He said:

Most vaccine doesn’t come via what is called ‘Ro-Ro’, roll-on, roll-off, which is what we are talking about here. In other words, it’s not usually accompanied by a driver, by a haulier. It comes on those containers.

To put this into context, there are about 6,000 vehicles we would expect, just under, in Dover today, probably 4,000 would have gone across from Dover, just under about 2,000 on the Eurotunnel.

But there is probably something like 32,000 units that would have been the daily total, so the vast majority – including virtually all the vaccine – actually comes via container and there are good supplies in the meantime.

So this won’t have an impact on the vaccination programme.

Updated

Kenyan doctors working in government hospitals began a countrywide strike on Monday over inadequate insurance benefits and lack of protective equipment while treating Covid-19 patients, their union said.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union said on Twitter late on Sunday that there had been no resolution of grievances raised over the last eight months.

“The Kenya government has neglected the Welfare, Safety & Health of health care workers,” the union said. “No provision of medical insurance, Workman injury benefits & Compensation & lack of adequate quality PPEs.”

“This greatly hampers the fight against COVID19 in a country with an acute shortage of doctors,” it added.

Kenya reported 349 new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, with six fatalities, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 94,500 and the number of deaths to 1,639, the health ministry said.

The virus has been spreading to rural areas where the public health system is creaking and limited intensive care units (ICU) are full, which has led to patients being turned away, medics told Reuters this month.

Nearly three-quarters of Kenya’s ICU beds are in the two largest cities, Nairobi and Mombasa.

Updated

The UK government said it will provide refunds for rail and coach tickets bought for the previous Christmas travel window between 23-27 December.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps said this will apply to journeys in England booked on or after 24 November, when the Christmas travel window was announced.

Shapps said: “This ensures no one is left out of pocket for doing the right thing – staying home in tier 4, and elsewhere staying local and only meeting your Christmas bubble on Christmas Day.”

It comes after Boris Johnson announced a dramatic scaling back of the government’s relaxation of coronavirus restrictions over Christmas, which is now limited to just 25 December for people in tiers 1-3 in England, rather than the initial five days.

Updated

Japan and South Korea said they were closely monitoring the new strain of the virus identified in Britain, but neither immediately cancelled UK flights.

South Korea, which imposes a 14 day quarantine for everyone entering the country, said on Monday it was reviewing new measures for flights from the UK, and would test twice those coming in from Britain before they were released from quarantine, Reuters reports.

Taiwan, which also has a 14-day quarantine, said on Sunday there were no plans at present to stop flights from Britain.

An Indian government committee tasked with monitoring the pandemic, will meet on Monday to discuss the new strain, local media reported, but there was no clarity on whether flights to the UK would be halted. The UK is one of 23 countries that India shares an “air bubble” with.

Japan, where entry from Britain is already banned in principle, said it would keep in close touch with other countries as well as the World Health Organization to see how the new type of virus was spreading.

Updated

Hi. Caroline Davies here, taking over the blog for the next few hours. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com.

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today.

If you’d like a tangential break from coronavirus – here is a writer with a lot to say about sweeping historical changes (and love, and afternoons):

Not many sleeps left until Christmas – here is how to get ready:

Summary

Here are the key developments – and UK flight bans – from the last few hours:

  • Boris Johnson will hold crisis talks with ministers after France banned lorries carrying freight from the UK and countries around the world ended flights amid fears over the new mutant coronavirus strain.
  • A growing number of European and other nations have banned travel from the UK in a bid to stop a mutant strain of coronavirus crossing their borders. The full list is here.
  • France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Romania, Sweden, Croatia and the Netherlands have all said they will halt flights arriving from the UK.
  • The Czech Republic has imposed stricter quarantine measures for people arriving from Britain.
  • All three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – have halted all passenger flights from the UK. Lithuania will still allow flights to depart for the UK, while Estonia and Latvia have halted those as well. Latvia has also banned bus and ferry passenger traffic to and from the UK. The bans will go into effect on Monday and last until the end of the year.
  • Iran’s health ministry has ordered flights from Britain suspended for two weeks, the state news agency IRNA reported.
  • Israel said it was barring entry to foreign citizens travelling from Britain, Denmark and South Africa.
  • Kuwait has added Britain to a list of “high-risk” nations and banned flights.
  • El Salvador’s president announced that anyone who had been in Britain or South Africa in the past 30 days will not be allowed to enter the country.
  • Colombia is suspending flights to and from the UK starting Monday and Chile has introduced mandatory two-week quarantine for anyone who visited the UK in the last fortnight.
  • Turkey and Morocco have announced they will be suspending air travel from the UK.
  • The official Saudi Press Agency reports Saudi Arabia is also suspending international flights for one week.
  • Canada has halted flights from the UK for 72 hours. Prime minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement that for 72 hours starting at midnight Sunday, “all flights from the UK will be prohibited from entering Canada”. He added that travellers who arrived on Sunday would be subject to secondary screening and other health measures. A follow-up statement from the government said cargo flights were not included in the ban.

In other news:

  • South Korea recorded its highest daily death toll from the coronavirus, health authorities said on Monday, as a surge in infections strains the health system and prompted police raids on venues suspected of violating social distancing rules. As of midnight Sunday, there were 24 additional deaths, bringing the country’s total to 698, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said. Seoul and surrounding areas will ban most gatherings of five people or more later this week.
  • US congressional leaders have reached agreement on a $900bn package to provide the first new aid in months to an economy hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, the Senate’s top Republican and Democrat said on Sunday, but it remained unclear when Congress would vote to seal the deal.
  • Thailand is testing tens of thousands of people for Covid-19 after an outbreak at a shrimp market led to the biggest surge in cases in the country, which had appeared to have almost eradicated the virus.
  • In Australia, Sydney’s northern beaches coronavirus cluster has spread across the city, with transmission events recorded in the CBD, north shore and inner-west. However, authorities in New South Wales are continuing to defend their decision to allow mask use to be voluntary, as the cluster centred in the locked-down northern beaches grows by 15 to a total of 83 cases, after a record 38,578 Sydneysiders were tested on Sunday.

Updated

Thailand is testing tens of thousands of people for Covid-19 after an outbreak at a shrimp market led to the biggest surge in cases in the country, which had appeared to have almost eradicated the virus.

More than 1,000 people have tested positive over recent days, mostly migrant workers in Samut Sakhon, where coronavirus was detected late last week. Cases have since been reported elsewhere, including in Bangkok, which is 45km away by road.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha said the virus was under control but urged people to wear masks and practice social distancing. “We will have to cut the epidemic cycle quickly. We already have experience in handling it,” he wrote in a post on Facebook:

Here is our full story on the UK crisis meeting:

Boris Johnson to hold crisis meeting

Boris Johnson will hold crisis talks with ministers after France banned lorries carrying freight from the UK and countries around the world ended flights amid fears over the new mutant coronavirus strain, PA media reports.

The Prime Minister will chair a meeting of the Government’s Cobra civil contingencies committee on Monday amid warnings of “significant disruption” around the Channel ports in Kent.

Hauliers were urged to stay away from the area amid warnings of potential problems as the end of the Brexit transition period looms on 31 December.

Kent Police said they were implementing Operation Stack in a bid to ease potential congestion, while the Department for Transport said Manston Airport was also being prepared as another contingency measure against the anticipated level of disruption.

Countries including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, and Bulgaria announced restrictions on UK travel following the disclosure that the highly infectious new strain is widespread across south-east England.

Italian authorities also announced the mutant strain had been detected in a traveller who recently returned to the country from the UK.

With France suspending all traffic from the UK for 48 hours, it raised fears that trade flows could be severely disrupted while passengers across Europe could be left stranded in the final run-up to Christmas.

A No 10 spokesman said on Sunday: “The Prime Minister will chair a Cobra meeting tomorrow to discuss the situation regarding international travel, in particular the steady flow of freight into and out of the UK.

“Further meetings are happening this evening and tomorrow morning to ensure robust plans are in place.”

It’s the kind of Christmas story that could only happen during Covid.

Bronwyn Young, a longtime Canberra resident, had flown back into Australia for the festive season to visit her daughter, who she hadn’t seen for months.

As per thousands of other travellers being funnelled through Sydney she began the 14 days of quarantine mandated by government. A long, lonely wait.

In the second week of her imposed isolation, she looked out from her fifth floor room in the Pullman hotel, and saw the usual drab office building opposite. But this time something was different.

Stuck to the plate glass window of the building was a message to her, and the other travellers waiting to get home, that simply said “Merry Christmas from us 2 u”.

Image taken by Bronwyn Young while in Sydney hotel isolation, Dec 2020, of the impromptu Christmas arts and crafts window display.Photograph: Bronwyn Young

What followed was a heartwarming escalation of decorations and messages of support, ending in a phone call between Young and the office workers who had been waving at her the past week:

India has recorded 24,337 new cases of the novel coronavirus, health ministry data showed on Monday, taking its tally to 10.06 million infections.

India’s total number of infections passed the 10 million milestone mark on Saturday, but the rate of new infections has slowed considerably since a September peak.

A total of 145,810 people in India have died of Covid-19, with 333 deaths in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.

Christian youths participate in an online global Christmas carol singing celebrations ahead of the Christmas at a church in Ahmedabad on 20 December 2020.
Christian youths participate in an online global Christmas carol singing celebrations ahead of the Christmas at a church in Ahmedabad on 20 December 2020. Photograph: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images

Miles of lorry queues and travel chaos were expected across Kent on Monday morning after France announced a 48-hour ban on passengers and freight entering from the UK.

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, is to chair a Cobra meeting on Monday that will address “the steady flow of freight into and out of the UK”, a number 10 spokesperson said, amid expected significant disruption at ports in the south-east.

The European Union is to hold a similar crisis meeting today to coordinate its response to concerns about a fast-spreading new strain of Covid-19 after countries across the continent banned UK flight arrivals:

Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Seoul to ban gatherings of five people or more

South Korean capital Seoul and surrounding areas will ban most gatherings of five people or more later this week in an attempt to reduce coronavirus cases over the Christmas and New Year holidays, officials announced on Monday.

South Korea recorded its highest daily death toll from the coronavirus, health authorities said on Monday, as a surge in infections strains the health system and prompted police raids on venues suspected of violating social distancing rules.

Christmas grottos – the miniature, temporary Santa Claus-themed wonderlands that pop up around the world in December – seem to have taken a dark turn this year. In Britain and Australia, reports have trickled in of events that feel more akin to Fyre Festival than a festive celebration for the whole family.

In the UK, a drive-through grotto was criticised for long waits and creepy performers, including a “man in chains by a tree just staring at the car”.

When a grotto in Taverham Hall, near Norwich, opened on Friday, visitors complained of three-hour traffic jams and a Scrooge-like character who was deemed, in the organiser’s words, “too frightening for very young children”:

A reminder that today is the day of the grand conjunction – when stargazers will have the chance to see a Christmas “kiss” beneath interplanetary mistletoe as Jupiter and Saturn appear closer to one another and brighter than they have in 800 years.

Here is how to watch it:

Thailand confirms 382 new cases

Thailand confirmed 382 new coronavirus infections on Monday, with the majority of cases linked to a seafood centre outbreak in a province near the capital, the health ministry said.

The new cases include 360 migrant workers in the southwestern province of Samut Sakhon, where Thailand’s worst outbreak yet appeared at the weekend.

A healthcare worker takes a nasal swab sample of a child amid the coronavirus outbreak in Samut Sakhon province, Thailand.
A healthcare worker takes a nasal swab sample of a child amid the coronavirus outbreak in Samut Sakhon province, Thailand. Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

There were also 14 other cases in six provinces, all but one of which are located close to the capital Bangkok.

There were also eight imported cases.

France’s decision to block lorries arriving from the UK for 48 hours in response to the emergence of a new strain of Covid-19 will have a “devastating effect” on the supply of food and other consumer goods to Britain, industry representatives have warned.

The French government said on Sunday that all passenger and human-handled freight transport from the UK to France would be suspended for 48 hours from 11pm GMT.

Eurotunnel said access to its Folkestone terminal would be suspended for passenger and freight traffic from 11pm, adding: “Customers with bookings after this time are advised NOT to travel to the terminal as they will not be able to cross to France.”

Although there is no ban in the other direction, many of the 10,000 trucks that cross the Channel every day through the tunnel and via the port of Dover are empty, with regular pick-ups for perishable food from big distribution centres in north France and Belgium, including winter vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage and brussels sprouts.

The Port of Dover said on Sunday evening it was closing to all lorry traffic, tweeting: “Ferry terminal at the Port of Dover is closed to all accompanied traffic leaving the UK until further notice due to border restrictions in France.” It asked “accompanied freight [trucks] and passenger customers not to travel to the port”.

The decision is expected to create chaos in Kent from midnight with thousands of trucks returning to the EU unable to travel and the Brexit lorry park in nearby Ashford not ready until 1 January. The Department for Transport also has a facility in north-east Kent for lorries at Manston airport that may be forced to open on Monday:

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has revealed she suffers “imposter syndrome” and watches “bad crime shows” to wind down.

Ardern won a second term in a landslide victory in October after successfully leading her country through the coronavirus pandemic with fewer than 30 deaths.

In an interview with John Kirwan, a former All Black and mental health advocate, Ardern said she was “clawing her way to Christmas”, but has never found leadership lonely as she prefers a collaborative leadership style. Being around people constantly “makes me happy”, she said:

EU awaits watchdog’s coronavirus vaccine decision on Monday

The EU’s drug regulator will decide on Monday whether to authorise the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, with desperate countries hoping for the green light to finally start inoculating their citizens, AFP reports.

The Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency dramatically moved the decision on the jab ahead from December 29, following pressure to accelerate the process from Germany and other EU states.

The clamour for action grew as Britain and the United States have already started giving their citizens the vaccine developed by US giant Pfizer and German firm BioNTech under emergency national rules.

The EU will start Covid-19 inoculations on December 27 providing the EMA grants a one-year conditional marketing authorisation, the European Commission has said.

The regulator said it had worked around the clock to speed things up, but needed to make sure the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was safe and effective, in order to avoid any doubts that could affect uptake.

“We have been able to revise the timetables for the evaluation of the Covid-19 vaccines due to the incredible efforts of everybody involved in these assessments,” EMA chief Emer Cooke said last week.

“The number of infections is increasing across Europe and we are aware of the huge responsibility we have to get a vaccine to the market as quickly as is feasible, whilst maintaining the robustness of our scientific review.”

The EMA said that if a decision is not possible at the meeting on Monday, then it will hold another meeting on the original December 29 date to rethink.

A decision on another vaccine produced by US firm Moderna is due by January 6.

Britain’s worsening coronavirus crisis presents a truly bleak midwinter outlook on the front pages with focus split between Europe shutting its doors to Britons and the threat that severe restrictions on everyday life could last for months.

Here is what the papers have to say about it:

Canada bans flights from Britain for 72 hours

Canada has halted flights from the UK for 72 hours amid reports of a new, more contagious strain of the virus.

Canada announced its ban Sunday night. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement that for 72 hours starting at midnight Sunday, “all flights from the UK will be prohibited from entering Canada.” He added that travelers who arrived Sunday would be subject to secondary screening and other health measures. A follow-up statement from the government said cargo flights were not included in the ban.

2020 has been a year of unprecedented disruption, sadness and anxiety for many people. When news first emerged of a ‘novel coronavirus’ in China at the start of the year, few could have imagined its devastating global impact. Through the months that followed, Today in Focus tracked the spread of the virus and its effects, not only with our specialist journalists but with the people working on the front line.

In this episode of Today in Focus, Anushka Asthana looks back on a year like no other and revisits some of the people we spoke to along the way:

If you’d like a break from coronavirus news – Shirley Hazzard is a writer with much to say about sweeping changes and eras ending:

Thanks to those of you who have sent me messages on Twitter with updates on border closures to the UK.

If you have news, questions or comments, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

The latest on the $900bn aid deal in the US now:

US congressional leaders reached agreement on Sunday on a $900 billion package to provide the first new aid in months to an economy and individuals battered by the surging coronavirus pandemic, with votes likely on Monday.

The package would be the second-largest economic stimulus in US history, following a $2.3 trillion aid bill passed in March. It comes as the pandemic accelerates, infecting more than 214,000 people in the country each day. More than 317,000 Americans have already died.

“At long last, we have the bipartisan breakthrough the country has needed,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor, following months of contentious debate.

Republican and Democratic leaders said the package should have enough support to pass both chambers of Congress.

President Donald Trump supports the bill and will sign it into law, White House spokesman Ben Williamson said.

The package would give $600 direct payments to individuals and boost unemployment payments by $300 a week. It also includes billions for small businesses, food assistance, vaccine distribution, transit and healthcare. It extends a moratorium on foreclosures and provides $25 billion in rental aid.

Congress aims to include the coronavirus aid package in a $1.4tn spending bill funding government programs through September 2021.

But government funding is due to expire at midnight Sunday (0500 GMT Monday). The House voted 329-65 to extend funding through Monday, buying more time to pass the coronavirus package and the larger government spending bill. The Senate must approve the temporary spending bill on Sunday, and Trump must sign it into law, to avoid disruption.

South Korea reports record deaths

South Korea recorded its highest daily death toll from the coronavirus, health authorities said on Monday, as a surge in infections strains the health system and prompted police raids on venues suspected of violating social distancing rules, Reuters reports.

As of midnight Sunday, there were 24 additional deaths, bringing the country’s total to 698, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said.

There were a further 926 coronavirus cases, down from a record high 1,097 the day before.

The recent surge in cases has confounded efforts to contain it and the country is running short of hospital beds, prompting debate over whether the government should impose stricter social distancing measures.

As of Sunday, there were just four intensive care unit beds remaining in the greater Seoul area, according to health officials.

A man wearing a protective mask takes a nasal swab test at a temporary Covid-19 testing site in Seoul Square.
A man wearing a protective mask takes a nasal swab test at a temporary Covid-19 testing site in Seoul Square. Photograph: Simon Shin/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

The government has ordered private hospitals to free up more than 300 beds to be used for coronavirus patients, and has allocated $4.5 million to compensate the facilities.

Health officials have said imposing the nation’s highest level of social distancing restrictions would only be a final resort.

Seoul city is considering going further than the national rules to ban gatherings of more than five people, starting the day before the Christmas holiday, Yonhap news agency reported.

On Friday, Seoul police and health investigators staged late-night crackdowns on 60 businesses including bars and karaoke clubs suspected of flouting current rules, the city said in a statement on Monday.

Thirty five people, including business owners and customers, were criminally charged, the statement said.

Here is the latest on countries banning travel from the UK amid a new, more contagious, coronavirus strain.

The number of countries instituting the bans outside of Europe has grown, too.

Iran’s health ministry has ordered flights from Britain suspended for two weeks, the state news agency IRNA reported. Israel said it was barring entry to foreign citizens travelling from Britain, Denmark and South Africa. Kuwait has added Britain to a list of “high-risk” nations and banned flights. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said on Twitter that anyone who had been in Britain or South Africa in the past 30 days will not be allowed to enter the country.

Turkey and Morocco have announced they will be suspending air travel from the UK, while the official Saudi Press Agency reports Saudi Arabia is also suspending international flights for one week. There are unconfirmed reports that Canada has banned flights from Britain, too.

South Korea reports 926 cases, down from previous day's record

South Korea reported 926 new coronavirus cases, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Monday, down from a record high 1,097 the day before.

The recent surge in cases has confounded efforts to contain it and the country is running short of hospital beds, prompting debate over whether the government should impose stricter social distancing measures.

Updated

Mexico’s health ministry on Sunday reported 6,870 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 326 more fatalities, bringing the country’s totals to 1,320,545 cases and 118,202 deaths.

The government says the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.

Medical staffing is stretched increasingly thin as California hospitals scramble to find beds for patients amid an explosion of coronavirus cases that threatens to overwhelm the state’s emergency care system, AP reports.

As of Sunday, more than 16,840 people were hospitalized with confirmed Covid-19 infections — more than double the previous peak reached in July — and a state model that uses current data to forecast future trends shows the number could reach 75,000 by mid-January.

More than 3,610 Covid-19 patients were in intensive care units. All of Southern California and the 12-county San Joaquin Valley to the north have exhausted their regular ICU capacity, and some hospitals have begun using “surge” space. Overall, the state’s ICU capacity was just 2.1% on Sunday.

In hard-hit Los Angeles County, Nerissa Black, a nurse at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, estimated she’s been averaging less than 10 minutes of care per patient every hour. That includes not just bedside care, but donning gear, writing up charts, reviewing lab results and conferring with doctors, she said.

“And the patients who are coming in are more sick now than they’ve ever been, because a lot of people are waiting before they get care. So when they do come in, they’re really, really sick,” Black said Sunday.

The enormous crush of cases in the last six weeks has California’s death toll spiraling ever higher. Another 161 fatalities were reported Sunday for a total of 22,593.

Updated

Babies and young children have been forgotten and failed in England’s pandemic response, health visitors have said.

The annual survey by the Institute of Health Visiting found that 61% of health visitors in England reported an increase in cases of child neglect. Four out of five reported a rise in domestic violence and abuse, and perinatal mental illness.

The institute said the findings laid bare the damage the pandemic had done to families, with the youngest and most vulnerable suffering most:

Joe Biden to receive vaccine on Monday

US President-elect Joe Biden has announced that he will receive the coronavirus vaccine on Monday in front of the press:

Canada bans flights from Britain amid new coronavirus strain

Canada has joined in the bans on flights from Britain in a bid to block a new strain of coronavirus, the Associated Press reports. We will have more on this shortly.

The number of children being arrested for terrorism offences is rising as the pandemic creates a climate for lonely young people to be drawn in, police have warned.

A total of 17 under-18s were arrested in the year to September 2020 compared with 11 in the year to September 2019, police have said.

So far this year a total of 3,000 pieces of suspected terrorist content have been flagged up to the Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) compared with 2,796 in 2019, a rise of around 7%.

But the number of referrals of rightwing content rose 43%, from 134 in 2019 to 192 between 1 January and 20 November this year.

DCS Kevin Southworth, from the CTIRU, said that one unforeseen consequence of the global pandemic could be young people being radicalised.

“There has been a slight shift during the pandemic, which may simply reflect people being at home more, and ultimately perhaps spending more time online – Perhaps in some instances sadly who have less people to speak to, perhaps recoursing to online media for greater quantities of their time because they’ve been stuck in self-isolating, or lacking people to come into contact with. It could be a sad corollary really of the Covid pandemic that we’ve not yet really fully realised.”

Mainland China recorded 23 new Covid-19 cases on Dec. 20, the same number of cases from the previous day, said the country’s health authority on Monday.

The National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin that 21 of the new cases were imported. The two local transmissions were in the northeastern provinces of Liaoning and Heilongjiang.

Additionally, 15 asymptomatic cases were reported on Dec. 20, down from 10 the previous day. China does not include asymptomatic patients in its total confirmed case list.

Mainland China has now reported an accumulated total of 86,852 coronavirus cases, with 4,634 deaths.

Trump spiritual adviser tests positive for coronavirus

The leader of a north Georgia megachurch who has been a spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump has tested positive for Covid-19, AP reports.

Jentezen Franklin, the senior pastor of Free Chapel in Gainesville was absent from Sunday services, news outlets reported.

Pastor Javon Ruff announced the diagnosis during Free Chapel’s Sunday service, held both in-person and streamed live.

“We want to make you aware that Pastor Franklin has come in contact with COVID, but he is doing perfectly fine. He actually is doing great,” Ruff said. “He went and got tested and his test came back positive so he is doing the right thing to do and staying quarantined and continuing to be distanced. We’ll continue to pray and lift him up.”

The diagnosis came within days of Franklin attending a Christmas party at the White House. On Tuesday, Franklin posted on Instagram a photo of himself and his daughter at a White House Christmas party.

Trump watched Franklin’s church service during a National Day of Prayer earlier this year. Franklin, who previously told The Associated Press that he’s met with Trump at least 10 times on faith matters, also appeared at a virtual “call to prayer” event for Trump’s campaign when he and first lady Melania Trump were themselves being treated for Covid-19.

Australian state of New South Wales records 15 new cases

Some good news from Australia this morning, where the state of New South Wales – home to Sydney – has recorded 15 new cases of Covid-19 since 8pm last night – all are linked to an existing cluster on the city’s northern beaches.

This figure is down from the 30 new cases yesterday, as people in the northern beaches or with family their await news of what Christmas might look like for them.

State premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state also had a record day of testing.

More than 38,000 people came forward to get tested, so thank you so much to everybody who did that.

Summary

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, with me, Helen Sullivan.

The new coronavirus strain to emerge in the UK is causing travel havoc. France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Bulgaria all announced restrictions on UK travel following the disclosure that the highly infectious new strain is widespread across south-east England.

People have been rushing to leave the UK before deadline come into force. The UK’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, had earlier admitted the new variant was “out of control” and that tough new restrictions announced in the UK on Saturday may remain in place for months.

We’ll be bringing you the latest on that and more – and please get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullvan with any news, tips, comments or questions.

Here’s a summary of events so far:

  • France has announced a 48-hour travel suspension from the UK from midnight on Sunday because of the new strain of Covid-19. The UK transport secretary said it was expected to cause “significant disruption”.
  • Ireland will suspend flights from Britain from midnight on Sunday until Tuesday, following a cabinet review.
  • Germany has also announced a travel suspension until December 31 from the UK. Exemptions to the ban are the repatriation of aeroplanes and their crews, alongside, flights with medical personnel.
  • Italy has reported 352 coronavirus-related deaths on Sunday, down from yesterdays 553, the health ministry has said.
  • Israel is barring entry to non-citizens arriving from the UK, Denmark, and South Africa to avoid importing the new virus mutation. Israeli citizens arriving from those countries will need to isolate for 14-days.
  • Bulgaria will suspend all flights to and from the UK from midnight tonight until January 31, reports Reuters. The government had initially decided on a 10-day quarantine but has now opted for the temporary suspension.
  • US congressional leaders have reached agreement on a $900 billion package to provide the first new aid in months to an economy hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, the Senate’s top Republican and Democrat said on Sunday, but it remained unclear when Congress would vote to seal the deal.
    “At long last, we have the bipartisan breakthrough the country has needed,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor.
  • In Australia, Christmas travel plans have been hit hard by a new outbreak in the country’s biggest city, Sydney. Authorities in New South Wales, the country’s most populous state, of which Sydney is the capital, are concerned over the possible scale of infections after a new outbreak on the city’s northern beaches was discovered last week.

Updated

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Diddy's Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Rumours Explained: Mogul Still Eligible Despite 2026 Snub
A viral post falsely claimed Sean 'Diddy' Combs was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The post was satire, but some users were misled before fact-checking clarified the truth.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Slowly does it: how to be patient in a world that wants everything right now
From next-day delivery to kids’ TV shows on demand, have we forgotten how to wait for … anything? The good news is that patience is a skill that can be cultivated – by parents and children alike. Here’s how
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Jill Biden Loses £35K Bid for 'Heated Rivalry' Cameo as LGBTQ Auction Hits £250K
Jill Biden's £35,000 bid for a cameo in 'Heated Rivalry' was outbid at a charity auction, raising £250,000 for LGBTQ initiatives.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
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