French health authorities on Thursday reported new 12,696 Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, down from Wednesday’s 14,064, while the number of patients hospitalised for the disease fell at a one-month low.
The number of people in France who have died from Covid-19 infections rose by 324 to 54,140, versus increase of 310 the day before. The cumulative number of cases now totals 2,257,331.
France will ensure free Covid-19 vaccinations for all who are in its social security system and has earmarked €1.5bn euros of next year’s social security budget to cover the cost, prime minister Jean Castex said.
Castex said the vaccination campaign would begin in a matter of weeks, pending regulatory approval by the European Medicines Agency.
The inoculation programme would be staggered over three categories of people, he said, commencing with the most vulnerable in nursing homes.
“The vaccination will be free for all,” Castex told a press conference.
France has ordered some 200m doses from different pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines, Castex said, enough to inoculate 100 million people - more than France’s population.
The Covid-19 vaccination will be voluntary in France. Castex assured citizens the approved vaccines would be safe.
“The remarkable mobilisation worldwide has allowed the rapid development of vaccines. However, this timeframe in no way means that we have compromised safety,” the prime minister said.
According to an Ipsos poll for the World Economic Forum, only 59% of French respondents said they would get a Covid-19 vaccine if it became available, compared with 67% in the US and 85% in Britain.
Even after the trials, several months would be needed to know if a vaccine was successful in halting transmission
Castex said the spread of the virus was continuing to slow in France and would soon go below the threshold of 10,000 new infections per day. France recorded more than 80,000 new cases at the peak of the second wave in November.
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US president-elect Joe Biden has selected former Obama administration official Jeffrey Zients to be his White House coronavirus coordinator and former surgeon general Vivek Murthy to return in that role, Politico has reported.
Politico also reported Marcella Nunez-Smith, a co-chair of Biden’s Covid-19 advisory board, will play a key role in the incoming administration’s response, focusing on healthcare disparities.
Aviation industry opposition to requiring mandatory Covid-19 vaccination for passengers has intensified as impending drug approvals trigger a debate over their role in air travel.
Airports Council International, which represents airports worldwide, joined most airlines in calling for a choice between testing or vaccination, fearing a blanket rule imposing pre-flight inoculation would be as disruptive as quarantines.
Qantas Airways triggered the debate last week when it said a Covid-19 vaccination would be necessary for passengers on its international flights, which remain largely idle because of Australia’s strict border controls.
But other airlines, and now global airports, are worried that waiting for vaccines would bar people from travelling until they are rolled out widely, crippling business in regions, such as Europe, that have relatively small domestic aviation markets.
ACI World director general Luis Felipe de Oliveira told Reuters:
Just as quarantine effectively halted the industry, a universal requirement for vaccines could do the same.
While we welcome the rapid development and deployment of vaccines, there will be a considerable period before they are widely available.
The industry cannot wait till vaccination becomes available worldwide. During the transition period, tests and vaccines together will play a key role on the industry recovery.
Australia has indicated people arriving from abroad will need to be vaccinated or to self-isolate in one of a limited number of hotels.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the policy could spread to other countries, noting proof of vaccination is already required for yellow fever for some destinations. “Other governments are moving in that direction,” he told reporters on Thursday.
Chile has extended a state of catastrophe that allows for the control of movement of people through curfews and lockdowns.
“The virus is still with us and therefore continues to pose a serious threat to health and life,” president Sebastián Piñera said as he announced the measure.
The Latin American nation has brought the coronavirus outbreak, which hit in March, largely under control, reporting 1,400 new infections on average each day compared to as many as 6,000 daily at the peak in June.
Lockdowns have been removed in many parts of the country, including the capital Santiago, the borders have been reopened to foreigners and people have begun returning to offices and classes.
On Wednesday though, with the virus still blighting the country’s southern cities and numbers ticking up in the capital and elsewhere, authorities warned of a potential second wave to hit in January before any vaccines arrive, which could in a worst-case scenario result in 9,500 new cases each day.
“We think that’s the reality and has happened in other countries, and with much greater strength than the first wave,” said health minister Enrique Paris.
US president Donald Trump said he would support a coronavirus relief bill, as lawmakers in Congress seek to hammer out an agreement to help Americans hit by the economic fallout of the deadly disease before the end of the year.
US House of Representative Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said earlier on Thursday he is more optimistic that a coronavirus relief bill can get done in Congress now the national election is over.
Airbnb is making it harder to book apartments on New Year’s Eve in Paris, New York, London and other top destinations to limit the risks of illegal parties in the time of Covid-19.
As of Thursday, travellers who don’t have positive reviews on their Airbnb profile won’t be able to rent a place for a single night on 31 December in the US, France, Britain, Canada, Mexico, Australia and Spain, the San Francisco-based company said in a statement.
People planning to spend the last day of the year in properties let through Airbnb will also have to pledge they won’t organise any parties on New Year’s Eve and they are aware of the legal charges they might face if they fail to abide by the rule, the company said.
All bookings made under previous conditions will be maintained, Airbnb said. But it added that most single-day reservations aimed at organising large year-end gatherings were usually made in December.
Last-minute bookings by people seeking to rent a place close to their own home and who haven’t received positive reviews will also be restricted, Airbnb said.
The new temporary rules come on top of previous measures put in place in August, under which Airbnb forbade all parties and gatherings of more than 16 people in its listed flats worldwide to limit the spreading of the novel coronavirus.
The firm also made it impossible to rent a full home for a single night on Halloween in the US and Canada to prevent illegal parties.
Turkey recorded 32,381 new coronavirus cases, including asymptomatic ones, over the past 24 hours.
President Tayyip Erdoğan announced new measures on Monday to combat the surge in cases and deaths, including introducing a weekday curfew and a full lockdown at weekends.
The Covid-19 death toll, rose by 187 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total fatalities to 14,316 the ministry data also showed.
Italy reports record number of deaths
Italy registered 993 more coronavirus fatalities on Thursday - the highest daily toll since the beginning of the pandemic.
There were 23,255 new confirmed infections, up from 20,709 on Wednesday.
The infection curve has been showing signs of flattening over the last week, while the number of hospital admissions, including into intensive care, has been declining.
Prime minister Giuseppe Conte is due to address the nation at 8.15pm CET and outline measures in the latest government decree which includes a ban on inter-regional travel over Christmas.
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Obama, Clinton and Bush pledge to take Covid vaccine on TV to show its safety
Former US presidents Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton have pledged to get vaccinated for coronavirus on television to promote the safety of the vaccine.
The trio’s effort comes as the Food and Drug Administration prepares to meet next week to decide whether to authorise a Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech.
More than 3,100 people died from the coronavirus in America on Wednesday, a record single-day high and more than the number of people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Obama, Bush and Clinton’s willingness to address the seriousness of the pandemic is markedly different from the attitude of Donald Trump, who remained silent as the US passed 250,000 coronavirus deaths in November.
In an interview with SiriusXM host Joe Madison, Obama said he would trust Anthony Fauci if the infectious disease expert declares a coronavirus vaccine to be safe.
“People like Anthony Fauci, who I know, and I’ve worked with, I trust completely,” Obama said. “So, if Anthony Fauci tells me this vaccine is safe, and can vaccinate, you know, immunise you from getting Covid, absolutely, I’m going to take it.”
Many Americans say they will not agree to be vaccinated against Covid-19. A poll by Gallup, released in mid-November, showed that 42% of the country would not take the vaccine even if it was “available right now at no cost”.
Portugal’s government has announced a nationwide plan to vaccinate people against the coronavirus voluntarily and free of charge, and said it hoped to inoculate nearly 10% of the population during the first phase that will kick off next month.
Priority will be given to those over 50 with pre-existing conditions, such as coronary disease or lung problems, frontline professionals from sectors such as health, military and security, as well as people in care homes and intensive care units.
The first phase of vaccination should be completed between January and February, said Francisco Ramos, the coordinator of the vaccination taskforce set up by the government. He added the first phase could extend until April if there are delays.
He said shots would be administered at 1,200 vaccination points in health centres across the country.
Around 2.7 million people will be vaccinated in the second phase.
“Vaccination is the main factor of success in the fight against the pandemic,” he said.
Earlier at the event, health minister Marta Temido said the country’s public health service will be responsible for the distribution of vaccines.
Temido said the country would buy 22m doses of Covid-19 shots for €200m ($243.14m). It had signed agreements to buy the shots with potential manufacturers CureVac, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson&Johnson, Sanofi and GSK.
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Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he hopes distribution of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine will begin this month, a day after the government said it had reached a deal with the US drugmaker to acquire 34.4m doses.
López Obrador added that more analysis is still needed to determine priorities among groups set to receive the vaccine.
UK's Covid-19 death toll surpasses 60,000
The UK’s total death toll from Covid-19 has surpassed 60,000, by the government’s preferred measure of deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
Official daily data showed that 414 new deaths were reported, taking the total since the start of the pandemic to 60,113.
The number of deaths over the past seven days was 3,085, down 5% compared with the previous seven days.
The UK reported 14,879 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, taking the total over the past seven days to 100,857, down 17% compared with the previous seven-day period.
The total number of cases since the start of the pandemic stood at 1,674,134.
Italy’s regions have hit out at the government over its latest curbs to control the coronavirus, saying they were not consulted over measures that are too hard on families and do not compensate hard-hit businesses.
Under a decree approved late on Wednesday, Italians will not be able to move between the country’s 20 regions from 21 December to 6 January except for work, medical reasons or emergencies. On Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day they cannot even leave their towns.
In a joint statement the regional governments said they had not been consulted and “the lack of discussion has made it impossible to balance the curbs with the needs of families”.
Since the start of Italy’s pandemic there has been constant friction between the central government led by prime minister Giuseppe Conte and the regional authorities, most of which are in the hands of the centre-right opposition.
“Reading an unexpected decree that bans movements between towns in the same region on 25 and 26 December and 1 January... is crazy,” said Attilio Fontana, governor of the northern Lombardy region which has reported the most cases and deaths.
While the increase in new infections and hospital admissions has slowed in recent weeks, Italy is still reporting more daily Covid-19 fatalities than any other European nation and the government is worried about gatherings over Christmas.
Millions of Italians live in small towns and villages and the new rules will ban movement between them at Christmas and on New Year’s Day, even if they are within walking distance.
“These families must remain divided even at Christmas. This is yet more proof that the government does not know Italy,” said Matteo Salvini, leader of the rightist League opposition party.
The government is expected to introduce more measures late on Thursday aimed at preventing gatherings during Christmas, with Conte due to hold a news conference to illustrate them at 7.15pm GMT.
All ski resorts will be closed until January, a draft document seen by Reuters shows, while the Christmas Eve mass, traditionally held at midnight, must be brought forward to allow worshippers to return home before a 10pm curfew.
Canadian health authorities could complete their regulatory review of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine within the next week or 10 days, a senior medical official said.
Although Canada has signed supply deals with seven manufacturers, officials say the first decision is set to be on the vaccine Pfizer has developed with its German partner BioNTech.
“Things have been progressing really well, and we’re expecting within the next week to 10 days to be making a final decision,” said Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser to the top official at Health Canada, the federal health ministry.
Sharma told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp that officials were expecting more information from the manufacturer over the next few days.
“I think we’re saying around mid-December at the latest, but it really depends on the data,” she said.
Britain on Wednesday became the first country to approve the Pfizer candidate.
A second wave of the virus is sweeping Canada, setting daily records for the number of new cases. So far, Canada has reported a total of 389,778 cases of Covid-19 and 12,325 deaths.
Officials said they expect the first vaccine doses to arrive in the first quarter of next year. The premier of the western province of Alberta said on Wednesday that Ottawa had told him to expect deliveries starting on 4 January.
Health Canada is also reviewing vaccine candidates from AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson but has announced no decisions.
A couple in Hawaii are facing reckless endangerment charges after they boarded a flight with their four-year-old son even though they had tested positive for Covid-19.
Wesley Moribe and Courtney Peterson knew they had tested positive when they boarded a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Lihue, said Coco Zickos, a spokeswoman for Kauai police, according to NBC News.
San Francisco airport officials had instructed them to isolate and not to travel, but the couple “knowingly boarded a flight aware of their positive Covid-19 test results, placing the passengers of the flight in danger of death”, Zickos said in a statement.
The couple were arrested on second-degree reckless endangerment charges shortly after their arrival at Lihue airport. A relative took their son home, and the couple posted bail. If convicted, they could face a $2,000 fine and up to a year in jail.
Czechs raised glasses in pubs, ate lunch at restaurants and hit the shops for the first time since October as coronavirus measures were eased before the Christmas season.
After curbing one of Europe’s fastest spreads of Covid-19, and despite fears the re-opening could lead to a surge of infections, Czechs cooped up for weeks headed eagerly out to shops, hairdressers, restaurants and pubs allowed to open with capacity requirements.
“It is certainly a huge benefit and I think it adds to the Christmas atmosphere that people can enjoy the shops again,” said Marcela Judlova after shopping on Prague’s central Wenceslas Square.
Daily infections still hover in the thousands. The death rate in recent weeks is also among the highest in Europe and has jumped 12-fold to 8,515 in the last two months.
Neighbouring countries are keeping tighter measures for now. Germany said on Wednesday it would extend measures, including keeping restaurants shut, until 10 January.
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Morocco has extended its medical state of emergency - in force since March to curb the spread of Covid-19 - until 10 January.
The government decided to prolong the state of emergency in the country by another month, the official news agency MAP reported.
Daily detected cases in Morocco are running at above 5,000 per day and recorded deaths from the virus have reached almost 6,000, in a country of 37 million.
The death rate has been relatively low, at around 1.7% of 364,000 recorded cases.
But in the port city of Casablanca, the beating heart of the Moroccan economy, under-staffed hospitals are close to bursting. Hard-stretched medical staff, on the front lines of the pandemic since March, are showing signs of exhaustion.
Morocco hopes to launch a campaign by the year-end to inoculate 20 million adults within three months, using vaccines from China’s Sinopharm and a UK-sourced shot developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
Under the state of emergency, Casablanca, with 3.3 million residents, has been under a night-time curfew since September, while travel curbs have been enforced on several other cities.
Sweden has not needed face masks yet, a top health official said, as deaths from the pandemic climbed above 7,000 and a day after the World Health Organization expanded recommendations for when masks should be used.
The WHO said on Wednesday that in places where the epidemic is spreading, people - including children and students aged 12 or over - should always wear masks in shops, workplaces and schools that lack adequate ventilation, and when receiving visitors at home in poorly ventilated rooms.
However, the Swedish Health Agency, largely behind Sweden’s no-lockdown strategy, has refrained from recommending masks, citing poor evidence of their effectiveness and fears that masks might be used as an excuse to not isolate when experiencing symptoms.
“Face masks may be needed in some situations. Those situations have not arisen in Sweden yet, according to our dialogue with the (healthcare) regions,” Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, said.
“WHO is clear that the state of evidence for masks is weak. All studies so far suggest that it is much more important to keep your distance than to have a face mask,” he said.
In a bid to stem a severe second wave, prime minister Stefan Löfven announced on Thursday that high schools would switch to distance learning for the rest of the year.
Sweden registered 35 new Covid-19 related deaths on Thursday, taking the total to 7,007.
The country also registered 6,485 new coronavirus cases on Thursday. This is compared with a high of 7,240 daily cases recorded two weeks ago.
Sweden’s death rate per capita is several times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours, but lower than several European countries that opted for lockdowns.
The White House coronavirus taskforce member Anthony Fauci will meet with members of president-elect Joe Biden’s team on Thursday, after President Donald Trump’s administration delayed the transition process for weeks amid a coronavirus surge.
Fauci has already met with incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain, he told CBS News in an interview.
Fauci has become the most high-profile member of the White House taskforce in the months since the pandemic began, often clashing with Trump on how to protect Americans. CNN also confirmed the meeting.
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Rich nations stand to lose hundreds of billions of dollars in economic output over the next five years if poorer countries do not get equal access to Covid-19 vaccines, a report has said as concerns grow about “vaccine nationalism”.
As the World Health Organization (WHO) seeks to plug funding gaps in its ACT Accelerator programme for global Covid-19 treatments, researchers said their findings showed there was a financial – as well as a moral – case for ensuring equal access.
“Governments are increasingly focusing on investments that can help their own economies to rebound,” said Hassan Damluji, deputy director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which commissioned the report by the Eurasia Group research firm.
“The ACT Accelerator is precisely one of those investments. It is both the right thing to do, and an investment that will pay dividends by bringing the global economy back from the brink, benefiting all nations.”
As nations prepare to roll out mass Covid-19 vaccination programmes, with Britain becoming the first to approve a vaccine for use this week, there has been concern that “vaccine nationalism” could see poorer countries left behind.
The WHO says the programme needs $38bn (£28bn) – of which about $28bn is still outstanding – without which lower-income countries will not be able to get prompt access to Covid-19 drugs including vaccines.
Thursday’s report assessed the economic benefits of ensuring swift, equal global access to vaccines to 10 major economies – Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Qatar, South Korea, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, the UK and the US.
It found boosts to the global economy as a result meant they stood to gain at least $153bn in 2020-21, and $466bn by 2025, in an analysis based on IMF World Economic Outlook forecasts of varying vaccination scenarios.
The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, hailed the report, and said contributing to the ACT Accelerator was “the smart thing for all countries – socially, economically and politically”.
Its findings are in line with an earlier study that found wealthy countries stood to lose $119bn a year through uneven vaccine access, said Andrea Taylor, a researcher at the Duke Global Health Institute’s project tracking Covid-19 data.
“It is in the best interests of wealthy nations to invest in equity and it will cost all of us more if we don’t, both in terms of mortality and GDP,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
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Facebook bans false claims about Covid-19 vaccines
Facebook said it would remove false claims about Covid-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts, following a similar announcement by YouTube in October.
The move expands Facebook’s current rules against falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the pandemic.
The social media company says it takes down coronavirus misinformation that poses a risk of “imminent” harm, while labelling and reducing distribution of other false claims that fail to reach that threshold.
Facebook said in a blog post the global policy change came in response to news that Covid-19 vaccines will soon be rolling out around the world.
Misinformation about the new coronavirus vaccines has proliferated on social media during the pandemic, including through viral anti-vaccine posts shared across multiple platforms and by different ideological groups, according to researchers.
A November report by the nonprofit First Draft found 84% of interactions generated by vaccine-related conspiracy content it studied came from Facebook pages and Facebook-owned Instagram.
Facebook said it would remove debunked Covid-19 vaccine conspiracies, such as that the vaccines’ safety is being tested on specific populations without their consent, and misinformation about the vaccines.
“This could include false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects of the vaccines. For example, we will remove false claims that Covid-19 vaccines contain microchips,” the company said in a blog post.
It said it would update the claims it removes based on evolving guidance from public health authorities.
Facebook did not specify when it would begin enforcing the updated policy, but acknowledged it would “not be able to start enforcing these policies overnight”.
The social media company has rarely removed misinformation about other vaccines under its policy of deleting content that risks imminent harm.
It previously removed vaccine misinformation in Samoa where a measles outbreak killed dozens late last year, and it removed false claims about a polio vaccine drive in Pakistan that were leading to violence against health workers.
Facebook, which has taken steps to surface authoritative information about vaccines, said in October it would also ban ads that discourage people from getting vaccines.
In recent weeks, Facebook removed a prominent anti-vaccine page and a large private group – one for repeatedly breaking Covid misinformation rules and the other for promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory.
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Conditions at Madrid and Catalan elderly care homes 'alarming'
Conditions at elderly care homes in the Spanish regions of Madrid and Catalonia, where thousands died when the pandemic began, remain “alarming” despite improvements, Amnesty International has warned.
In a sharply worded report on retirement homes during the pandemic, Amnesty said the “vast majority” of seniors had not been properly cared for, and the measures put in place by both regions were “inefficient and inadequate”, and violated their rights.
Spain has been one of Europe’s worst-hit countries, with the virus infecting more than 1.6 million people and causing nearly 46,000 deaths.
Close to half of that number are believed to be elderly people who died in homes, Amnesty said, indicating that an upcoming Spanish government report was expected to put the figure at between 47% and 50%.
“The vast majority of older people living in residences in Madrid and Catalonia were not properly looked after, nor referred to hospitals when needed, were isolated in their rooms, sometimes for weeks, without contact with their families and some weren’t even able to die with dignity” during the first months of the pandemic, it said.
Although some improvements had been made, “the situation in residential homes remains alarming in the second wave,” Amnesty said.
Regional protocols that recommended treating older people in residences rather than sending them to hospital “have not been changed” despite being shown to be “discriminatory”, family visits were still not guaranteed nor had the authorities taken the necessary steps to strengthen staffing levels, it said.
Amnesty said denying older people the right to healthcare was strongly linked to the austerity measures and public healthcare cuts following the 2008 financial crisis.
Esteban Beltrán, director of Amnesty’s Spain office, said:
A health emergency is no excuse for not providing adequate care for the elderly. Homes are not car parks for elderly people.
The authorities must protect them.
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Support for Sweden’s government and public confidence in authorities’ ability to handle the coronavirus crisis are sliding as the country’s anti-lockdown approach continues to be tested by high numbers of deaths and new cases.
A six-monthly poll by Statistics Sweden this week showed support for the centre-left Social Democrats – the party of the prime minister, Stefan Löfven – had dropped nearly five points to 29.4% since May, amid signs Swedes are increasingly unconvinced by the country’s strategy.
A survey last week found confidence in authorities’ capacity to control the crisis had fallen sharply to 42% from 55% in October, while 44% of respondents said they felt not enough was being done to fight Covid-19, up from 31% the previous month.
More than 80% of those surveyed said they were either “somewhat” or “very worried” that Sweden’s health service would not be able to cope with the challenge.
“It is quite clear that the increased rate of infection, combined with the measures the authorities have taken, have led to a sharp increase in concern,” Nicklas Källebring of the Ipsos polling agency told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
Brazil’s Butantan Institute biomedical centre has received 1m doses of a Chinese vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech that is undergoing late-stage testing by the institute in São Paulo state.
The consignment of CoronaVac vaccine, which will be packaged and labelled at Butantan’s facilities, arrived at São Paulo’s Guarulhos airport.
It is the second shipment of the vaccine, which still needs approval from federal health regulator Anvisa before it can be used, to arrive in Brazil, after 120,000 doses landed from China on 19 November. Butantan said it expected Sinovac to publish efficacy results for the treatment by 15 December.
“By the end of this month of December, we will be receiving 6m doses,” and another 40m by 15 January, the São Paulo governor, João Doria, said.
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, who many expect to be challenged by Doria in the 2022 presidential election, has long criticised the Sinovac vaccine.
Doria, meanwhile, has accused Anvisa of becoming overly politicised after a surprise suspension of the Sinovac trial due to the suicide of a volunteer. The trial was restarted but the president called the halt a “victory” for Bolsonaro.
Anvisa said on Wednesday it was open to approving Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use, that authorisations would be analysed on a case-by-case basis and that to be considered the vaccine must be in late-stage trials in Brazil. It said no requests had been received so far.
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Switzerland won't bow to foreign pressure on ski resorts, says minister
Switzerland will not bow to foreign pressure to close ski resorts over year-end holidays as some neighbours have done, health minister Alain Berset has said, while warning infection rates in the nation remained “very worrying”.
The government is due to discuss on Friday its “middle path” approach to fighting the pandemic, which has kept the country relatively open and relied on the public to comply with hygiene measures designed to slow the spread of Covid-19.
That is showing mixed success, with rates of new infections settling in at stubbornly high levels.
Neighbours France, Italy and Germany are keeping winter sports under wraps over the holidays. Austria will let resorts reopen for Christmas while making ski holidays nearly impossible.
“Switzerland does not react to pressure from other countries,” Berset told reporters after visiting health workers in Basel, saying Bern was in constant contact with neighbours.
Still, public opinion could swing against Switzerland should people see it as profiting from others’ prudence, he said.
There is no pressure on us, but there may be difficulty for Switzerland’s reputation if there are sudden outbreaks all over Europe and others would say it is coming from Switzerland.
Then it does not matter if it is true or false. It is very unpleasant for us.
Swiss health authorities have reported more than 340,000 infections and 4,747 deaths since the outbreak began.
German companies affected by a decision to extend a partial lockdown to slow the Covid-19 pandemic should expect less generous state aid from January onwards, conservative state premiers have said.
The chancellor, Angela Merkel, and state leaders on Wednesday agreed to extend restrictive measures designed to stem a tide of new coronavirus infections until 10 January.
The measures, which had been put in place since 2 November and were due to expire on 20 December, include keeping restaurants, bars, hotels, gyms and entertainment venues shut.
Berlin has earmarked €15bn ($18bn) for November and €17bn for December to compensate affected firms through a scheme which entitles them to claim up to 75% of their monthly sales.
But Saxony’s premier, Michael Kretschmer, and Bavaria’s leader, Markus Söder, both said this scheme would change from January onwards, which meant less state aid per individual firm.
The new scheme should help companies to cover fixed costs, but it would not compensate for lost profit or a lack of income for entrepreneurs themselves, Kretschmer told MDR broadcaster.
State support could no longer be as extensive as in November and December because it was simply too costly over a longer period, he added.
Söder said the federal government was currently working on the details of the new scheme, but it was already clear now that firms should brace themselves for less support.
Söder told RTL/ntv:
The state aid of 75% sales compensation is available in November and December. You can’t do that forever. Therefore, from January there will be slightly less, but more broadly designed support for more sectors.
The German finance minister, Olaf Scholz, said last week he was planning to almost double the borrowing he had eyed for next year to finance emergency aid for businesses during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The parliamentary budget committee on Friday agreed to a debt figure of almost €180bn for 2021, the second largest amount of net new borrowing in the history of postwar Germany.
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The World Health Organization’s European office is planning a meeting next week with the health ministers of its 53 member states to look into protecting schools from Covid-19, including alternating classes, regional director Hans Kluge said.
“To bring transmission down in schools, you need to bring transmission down in communities,” Catherine Smallwood, the WHO’s senior emergency officer, said.
The Spanish region of Catalonia will keep its current coronavirus restrictions in place and will not progress to more relaxed measures on Monday as originally planned, due to worsening infection rates, the regional government said.
Switzerland cannot allow a third wave of the coronavirus, its health minister, Alain Berset, has said, calling the situation “very worrying” as infection levels stabilise at a high level. He said the country may need to tighten restrictions.
The government is due to discuss on Friday its approach to fighting the pandemic. Coronavirus infections rose by 4,455 in a day, data from Swiss health authorities showed.
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The promise of Covid-19 vaccines is “phenomenal” and “potentially game-changing”, Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe, has said.
He said supplies were expected to be very limited in the early stages and countries must decide who gets priority, though the WHO said there is “growing consensus” that first recipients should be older people, medical workers and people with co-morbidities.
The new coronavirus still had the potential to do “enormous damage”, Kluge said, but “the future looks brighter” as other vaccine candidates, including from Moderna and AstraZeneca, have also delivered positive trial results. He added:
The more candidates we have, the more opportunities for success.
Vaccines, combined with other public health measures, bring the end of an acute phase of the pandemic and the rebuilding of economies within reach.
Britain approved Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday.
A WHO official, asked about the different regulatory processes, said the global health agency and the European Medicines Agency had asked Britain to share documents that it used in its approval to help expedite the other bodies’ own assessments.
Sharing could build confidence among people who eventually will be targeted for inoculations, said Siddhartha Datta, WHO programme manager for vaccine preventable diseases.
“This decision is a big decision by any of the national regulatory authorities, because it will instil trust in the system,” Datta said. “It’s extremely important that this process is robust, the process is based on evidence and a decision is being made and shared in a transparent mode.”
The WHO has already received data from Pfizer and BioNTech on the vaccine and was reviewing it for “possible listing for emergency use” that could be a benchmark for other nations’ use.
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WHO looks at possible 'e-vaccination certificates' for travel
The World Health Organization does not recommend countries issuing “immunity passports” for those who have recovered from Covid-19, but is looking at the prospects of deploying e-vaccination certificates like those it is developing with Estonia.
Estonia and the United Nations health agency in October started a pilot project for a digital vaccine certificate - a “smart yellow card” - for eventual use in interoperable healthcare data tracking and to strengthen the WHO-backed COVAX initiative to boost vaccinations in developing countries.
The reality of vaccinations is growing, since Britain on Wednesday approved a Covid-19 shot from Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, while Moderna and AstraZeneca have delivered positive trial data amid their push for approval.
“We are looking very closely into the use of technology in this Covid-19 response, one of them is how we can work with member states toward an e-vaccination certificate,” said Siddhartha Datta, Europe’s WHO programme manager for vaccine-preventable diseases.
He cautioned that any technology initiative must not overwhelm countries in the midst of pandemic responses, must conform to varying laws and ensure seamless border-crossing service.
For instance, some national Covid-19 tracing apps do not function abroad.
Estonia earlier this year separately began testing a “digital immunity passport”, potentially to track those recovered from Covid-19 with some immunity, though questions remain over whether, or for how long, someone might by protected.
But another WHO official, Catherine Smallwood, the WHO’s senior emergency officer for Europe, said the agency is sticking to guidance against using immunity passports as part of bids to resume some cross-border travel normalcy.
“We do not recommend immunity passports, nor do we recommend testing as a means to prevent transmission across borders,” Smallwood said, urging countries instead to base travel guidance on Covid-19 transmission data.
Smallwood also said rapid antigen tests, in use by some airlines to test passengers boarding or getting off flights, may be “less appropriate” for enabling international travel. The antigen tests are less accurate than molecular PCR tests, so some people might slip through the cracks.
Updated
England’s National Health Service (NHS) is looking at ways to deploy Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine in care homes with the medical regulator, but there is no guarantee it will happen, deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said.
Britain became the first country to approve the vaccine candidate developed by Germany’s BioNTech and Pfizer on Wednesday, jumping ahead of the rest of the world in the race to begin a crucial mass inoculation programme.
Prime minister Boris Johnson said it was “fantastic news” but warned of logistical challenges in distributing the vaccine, which has to be stored at -70C (-94F).
Although it can be kept for five days in a regular fridge, Van-Tam said there was a limit to how often it can be taken out of a fridge and put back, with implications for its distribution to care homes.
Van-Tam told ITV’s This Morning programme on Thursday:
The NHS, the (medicine regulator) MHRA are working really hard, right now, to try and find a solution, so that we can get this into care homes if we possibly can.
At this point, there is no absolute assurance of that, because... one thing we can’t do is... end up with a vaccine that’s been handled incorrectly, and then isn’t properly viable at the end of the distribution chain.
Britain has said that care home residents and their carers are the highest priority to get the vaccine, along with those over 80, although the doctor who chairs the vaccine committee that drew up the list has said operational practicalities will influence the roll-out.
Pfizer UK country manager Ben Osborn said the firm had experience in delivering around 1bn sterile injectables a year to 165 countries and territories.
“I sincerely hope that this gives the people of the UK confidence that we’re ready now to deliver the vaccine to all four corners of our nation,” he told journalists on Wednesday.
US logs a record 3,157 coronavirus deaths in one day
The US recorded its highest daily number of coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, as the number of people admitted to hospital with Covid exceeded 100,000 for the first time since the pandemic began.
According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, there were 3,157 new deaths recorded on Wednesday. The previous high was the 2,607 deaths recorded on 15 April, at the beginning of the pandemic.
There were 200,070 new cases on Wednesday, only the second time that new cases had exceeded 200,000. With the total caseload now standing at 13,911,728, the US is expected to record its 14-millionth case on Thursday.
Dr Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said about 90% of hospitals in the country were at stretched capacity.
We are at a very critical time right now about being able to maintain the resilience of our healthcare system.
The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult in the public health history of this nation, largely because of the stress that’s going to be put on our healthcare system.
Greece extends lockdown to 14 December
Greece will extend its coronavirus lockdown by a week to 14 December, citing persistently high infection rates.
“The epidemiological burden remains high,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas told reporters as he announced the extension.
An exception will be made for shops selling Christmas decorations, which can open from 7 December, he said.
After weathering the first wave of the pandemic with relatively low fatalities compared to other European countries, Greece has been hit with scores of deaths daily in recent months.
More than 2,600 people have died of the virus, including nearly 90 on Wednesday, and over 600 people are in intensive care. Nearly 2,200 new infections were announced Wednesday.
“Many hospitals in northern Grece are still under serious pressure,” Petsas said.
He added the first vaccines are expected in Greece by early January and the country will be able to inoculate more than 2.1 million people per month. The government has said that vaccination will be on a voluntary basis.
Imposed on 7 November for three weeks, the lockdown had already been extended by a week to 7 December.
Petsas on Thursday also dismissed media reports alleging that daily government coronavirus tallies have been distorted because of shoddy bookkeeping at the state health organisation.
He called the claims “conspiracy theories” that have been denied by the state committee of health experts monitoring the virus.
A magistrate has ordered a preliminary investigation into the media reports.
Prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also faced criticism this week over a mountain bike trip on the outskirts of Athens last weekend, at a time when other Greeks are only allowed to exercise outdoors near their homes.
Updated
England’s Covid-19 test and trace system has stopped trying to contact under-18s separately to ask them to self-isolate if a parent says they will tell their child, helping to boost the proportion of contacts of cases successfully traced.
After weeks near a record low of around 60% of contacts of positive cases being successfully traced, 72.5% of the 246,604 people identified as a close contact of someone who tested positive for Covid-19 in the week to 25 November were reached.
“Under-18s in a household will no longer be contact traced individually, providing the parent or guardian in the household confirms they have completed their legal duty to inform their child to self-isolate,” the health ministry said.
“This operational improvement has resulted in an increase in the proportion of contacts reached, and the proportion reached within 24 hours.”
The last remaining foreign staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have left North Korea, the latest in a mass exodus of foreigners amid strict coronavirus lockdowns.
North Korea has reported zero confirmed cases of coronavirus, but the government has imposed stifling measures that in some cases go beyond the controls already in place in the politically and economically isolated country.
International ICRC staff left Pyongyang on Wednesday and the organisation’s ongoing work there will be managed by its delegation in Beijing, said Graziella Leite Piccoli, the ICRC’s deputy head of delegation for east Asia.
“They have completed their assignments in the DPRK,” she said, using the initials of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “They will be going to their home countries to reunite with their families.”
The ICRC office remained open with very limited activities given the current anti-coronavirus measures, Piccoli said.
The ICRC staff are among around 40 foreigners who left Pyongyang this week, including staff of several embassies and other aid organisations, according to a report by NK News, a website that monitors North Korea.
“The latest departure suggests that foreign humanitarian workers only have a skeletal presence in North Korea right now,” the NK News CEO, Chad O’Carroll, wrote.
North Korea has suspended almost all international flights and cross-border train and road traffic, with residents near the border warned that guards would shoot anyone trying to cross.
In the capital, imported goods have often become scarce as trade dwindled under the self-imposed restrictions, foreign residents said.
Many ambassadors, diplomats and others have left the country this year after enduring weeks-long lockdowns and have been unable to return.
According to the World Health Organization, as of 25 November, North Korea had identified 8,594 people as suspected coronavirus cases, but no one has tested positive.
Updated
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the blog for the next few hours - please do drop me a line if you have any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
Iran coronavirus cases pass 1m
Iran’s total number of coronavirus cases hit 1 million on Thursday with 13,922 new cases recorded in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, as the Middle East’s worst-affected country’s death toll reached 49,348.
Reuters reported that ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV 358 people had died from the coronavirus since Wednesday and confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection had reached 1,003,494.
Iran has introduced tougher restrictions to stem a third wave of coronavirus infections, including closing non-essential businesses and travel curbs.
Updated
The European court of human rights has dismissed a legal complaint from a French citizen who claimed the anti-Covid 19 measures put in place by the French government were insufficient, AP reported.
In a decision on Thursday, the Strasbourg-based court said Renaud Le Mailloux’s application is inadmissible as he could not establish he was directly affected by the measures he complained about.
Le Mailloux, who lives in the southern French city of Marseille, had joined an unsuccessful judicial action in France seeking an injunction on the French government to provide health professionals with FFP2 and FFP3 facemasks, surgical masks for patients, and mass coronavirus testing facilities for all.
The court said applicants “cannot complain about a provision of domestic law, a domestic practice or public acts simply because they appear to contravene the European convention on human rights.”
It added that applicants “must produce reasonable and convincing evidence of the likelihood that a violation affecting them personally will occur”.
Scores of lawsuits have been filed over France’s handling of the pandemic, targeting the government, nursing homes and others.
The government has acknowledged some missteps, but argues that mask shortages were a worldwide problem earlier this year, and that it made policy decisions based on the limited scientific knowledge about the virus at the time.
Updated
The ink is still fresh on the British government’s stamp of approval for the rollout of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, but in India travel agents are already fielding requests from customers who want to travel to the UK to get vaccinated.
Even though foreigners are unlikely to have early access to the vaccination in the UK, regardless of age or profession, that has not stopped some Indian travel agents making plans for a possible surge in vaccine tourism to the UK in 2021.
One travel agent told Press Trust India that he was planning on arranging a three-night package to the UK for Indians who want to take advantage of the government vaccine rollout, which could start as early as next week. It is unknown if and when the vaccine would be available privately in the UK.
Another travel agent in Mumbai said after the announcement of approval for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, he had received multiple queries from Indians with UK visas on how and when they might be able to travel to the UK.
They were also seeking clarification whether travellers from India coming solely for a vaccination could be exempt from the two-week quarantine. “I have told them it is too early to say,” he said.
Updated
The African Union’s disease control group has set a target of 60% of the continent’s population vaccinated against Covid-19 in the next two to three years.
The continent of 1.3 billion people has recorded more than 2.2 million confirmed coronavirus infections, according to Reuters.
Some European countries expect to start rolling out vaccination campaigns in the next few weeks, but the control group said that vaccinations were unlikely to start in Africa until midway through next year.
“We hope that for that for this to be meaningful, our 60% must be reached in the next two to three years. We should be deliberate in this,” said John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “If the delay takes us to four to five years then the virus will be endemic in our communities.”
He said there were logistical problems to overcome in Africa, including how to keep vaccines cold.
“We have a window from now to January and February to keep strengthening our systems, which is the refrigeration,” said Nkengasong.
Updated
In Russia, Moscow will open its new Covid-19 vaccination centres on Saturday and the first people to receive the shot will be teachers, doctors and social workers, mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a large-scale voluntary vaccination programme against Covid-19 to begin next week across Russia, saying teachers and doctors should be first in line to get the flagship Sputnik V vaccine.
People in Moscow will be able to register for the jab online from Friday, Sobyanin said in a statement on his website.
Russia, which has resisted imposing stringent lockdown measures, reported a record 28,145 new infections earlier on Thursday, including 7,750 in Moscow.
Updated
Hackers targeting vaccine distribution chain, IBM warns
IBM is sounding the alarm over hackers targeting companies critical to the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, in what Reuters calls “sign that digital spies are turning their attention to the complex logistical work involved in inoculating the world’s population against the novel coronavirus”.
The agency reports:
The information technology company said in a blog post published on Thursday that it had uncovered “a global phishing campaign” focused on organisations associated with the Covid-19 vaccine “cold chain” - the process needed to keep vaccine doses at extremely cold temperatures as they travel from manufacturers to people’s arms.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reposted the report, warning members of Operation Warp Speed - the US government’s national vaccine mission - to be on the lookout.
Understanding how to build a secure cold chain is fundamental to distributing vaccines developed by the likes of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE because the shots need to be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below to avoid spoiling.
IBM’s cybersecurity unit said it had detected an advanced group of hackers working to gather information about different aspects of the cold chain, using meticulously crafted booby-trapped emails sent in the name of an executive with Haier Biomedical, a Chinese cold chain provider that specializes in vaccine transport and biological sample storage.
The hackers went through “an exceptional amount of effort,” said IBM analyst Claire Zaboeva, who helped draft the report. Hackers researched the correct make, model, and pricing of various Haier refrigeration units, Zaboeva said.
“Whoever put together this campaign was intimately aware of whatever products were involved in the supply chain to deliver a vaccine for a global pandemic,” she said.
Haier Medical did not return messages seeking comment. Messages sent to the email addresses used by the hackers were not returned.
IBM said the bogus Haier emails were sent to around 10 different organizations but only identified one target by name: the European commission’s directorate-general for taxation and customs union, which handles tax and customs issues across the EU and has helped set rules on the import of vaccines.
Representatives for the directorate-general could not immediately be reached for comment.
IBM said other targets included companies involved in the manufacture of solar panels, which are used to power vaccine refrigerators in warm countries, and petrochemical products that could be used to derive dry ice.
Who is behind the vaccine supply chain espionage campaign isn’t clear. IBM’s Zaboeva said there was no shortage of potential suspects. Figuring out how to swiftly distribute an economy-saving vaccine “should be topping the lists of nation states across the world,” she said.
Updated
More on vaccinations in Finland, where the government has announced its plans for free universal distribution (see earlier post), from Reuters:
Finland is purchasing vaccines under the European Union’s joint scheme in which deliveries will be shared between different countries in proportion to their population.
Under the agreements the European commission has secured so far, Finland will get 3.6 million doses, which is enough to give the necessary two doses to 1.8 million citizens out of Finland’s 5.5 million population, its public health authority said, adding purchases would continue.
Healthcare personnel treating Covid-19 patients or working in elderly care homes would be first to get their shots in January, followed by the elderly and other vulnerable groups, the government said.
It ruled out vaccinating children before more studies on the topic had been concluded.
Authorities warned the pandemic was rapidly worsening. The disease’s 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants has doubled to 101 cases from 55 in the previous two-week period.
Nevertheless, Finland’s incidence rate was among the lowest in Europe on Wednesday, behind Iceland at 55.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and Ireland at 83.8, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control data showed.
Updated
Italy announces Christmas travel restrictions
Italy on Thursday announced national travel restrictions for the Christmas holidays designed to limit the spread of Covid-19 in the European country first hit by the pandemic.
The new rules, together with an existing curfew and other regulations already in place, seek to curb circulation throughout the country during the festive period by limiting the number of gatherings.
“If we let down our guard now, the third wave is just around the corner,” the health minister, Roberto Speranza, told parliament on Wednesday.
Travel between Italy’s regions will be prohibited from 21 December until 6 January, with people barred from travelling outside their own towns on 25 and 26 December and 1 January.
The decree includes the “strong recommendation” to avoid hosting those who do not live together.
Other regulations set to be signed later on Thursday are expected to mandate a 10-day quarantine for those arriving in Italy from foreign countries, beginning on December 20.
The move is in part designed to prevent Italians from travelling to ski slopes that are still open in neighbouring EU countries.
The government is expected to retain a colour-coded risk-based system that imposes varying levels of anti-coronavirus restrictions on different regions.
Bars and restaurants are expected to remain closed in regions in red or orange zones. A current 6pm closure in yellow zones may remain, as may a nationwide 10pm curfew.
In yellow zones, where eateries are open but required to shut at 6pm, the government is debating whether to allow restaurants to serve lunch on Christmas Day and 26 December.
Ski slopes are expected to be off-limits, as well as cruises.
The health ministry reported 20,709 new cases on Wednesday and 684 deaths, bringing the cumulative toll to more than 1.6m infections.
Updated
Lebanon will not have enough hospital beds to cope with increasing Covid-19 cases, the health minister in the caretaker government warned on Thursday, saying compliance with a two-week lockdown that ended this week had been patchy.
In a tweet on Thursday morning, Hamad Hassan said cases were on the rise and although more hospital beds had been added, these would not be enough.
Intensive care units were at critical capacity when Lebanon ordered the lockdown and the caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab, had warned the shutdown may be extended if people did not comply.
Reuters reported that the health ministry said on Wednesday 1,842 Covid-19 cases and 22 deaths had been recorded in the past 24 hours. Recorded deaths due to Covid-19 total 1,055 in the country of 6 million, where healthcare is deteriorating.
On top of the Covid-19 pandemic, Lebanon is in the throes of a major financial and economic crisis and still grappling with the aftermath of the 4 August explosion at Beirut port.
Updated
Indonesia has recorded its biggest daily rise in coronavirus infections, with 8,369 new cases, the country’s Covid-19 task force has said.
This brought the total number of infections in Indonesia to 557,877. The task force data also showed 156 new deaths related to COVID-19, taking the total to 17,355.
Those figures make the country the worst affected in south-east Asia. Last month it entered recession for the first time in 22 years.
Updated
In the United Kingdom, the first country in the west to approve the Pfizer vaccine, the deputy chief medical officer, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, said he did not expect other regulators, particularly the US regulator, to be very far behind.
“I think this will all be solved in a matter of days, in the sense that I think other regulators are very close behind,” the told BBC Breakfast.
He said there was no indication that there would be any difficulty in giving the vaccine to people with chronic underlying conditions.
Updated
Finland’s government said on Thursday it had agreed a national strategy for Covid-19 vaccinations, planning to give them to everyone and to begin with vaccinating selected healthcare staff from January onwards.
“Finland’s goal is to protect the entire population by offering the vaccine free of charge to all those willing and who don’t have a health obstacle,” the minister of social affairs and health, Krista Kiuru, said, in remarks reported by Reuters.
Updated
In Hungary, a record number of new deaths, 182, was reported on Thursday. The country recorded a rapid rise in new cases through November, with one of the sharpest rates of increase in Europe.
The country has meanwhile found itself at loggerheads with the EU over its decision to purchase and distribute the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine, which the EU views as needing more evidence before it should be deployed.
Thursday’s tally brought the total number of deaths to 5,324, while infections rose by 6,635 to 231,844. As of Wednesday, Hungary ran the European Union’s fifth-highest death rate per 100,000 people over a two-week period, based on data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Viktor Orbán’s government imposed a partial lockdown three weeks ago to slow the spread of the virus, including a 7pm curfew and closing secondary schools.
Updated
Record number of new cases in Russia
Hi there - this is Archie Bland picking up the global coronavirus liveblog, and beginning in Russia, where 28,145 new cases, a record high, and 554 deaths have been recorded in the last 24 hours.
Those figures compare with 25,345 new cases and 589 deaths, the latter figure also a record, the previous day.
There have now been 2,375,546 cases officially recorded since the pandemic began, leaving Russia fourth in the world behind the United States, India and Brazil. The official death toll since the pandemic began is 41,607.
Hundreds of thousands of masked students in South Korea, including 35 confirmed Covid-19 patients, took the highly competitive university entrance exam today despite the viral resurgence that has forced authorities to toughen social distancing rules.
About 493,430 students were taking the one-day exam at about 1,380 sites across the nation, including hospitals and other medical facilities where the 35 virus patients and hundreds of other test-takers in self-quarantine sat separately from others, according to the education ministry.
The annual exam, called “suneung,” or the College Scholastic Ability Test, is crucial for many students. Job prospects and social standing can often depend on which university you graduate from.
This year’s exam had been originally scheduled for November but were delayed due to the virus outbreak. Experts say on-and-off online classes have widened the gap between high achievers and low performing students due to reduced interaction with teachers, digital distractions and technical difficulties.
“If the exam had been delayed again, our kids would have felt much more psychological pressure ... I think it’s fortunate the exam is taking place now,” said Kim Sun-wha, mother of a test-taker. “I hope everyone would avoid making mistakes, do their best and get good results.”
Students are required to have their temperature taken before entering test sites, wear masks throughout the exam and have their maintain distance from each other.
There are worries that the nationwide exam could accelerate the viral spread in South Korea. During a virus briefing Thursday, health official Lee Sang-won said he felt “really sorry” that he has to ask students to be vigilant and avoid gatherings even after the exam is over later Thursday.
“I’d like to offer words of consolation to test-takers who have studied and come to take the exam under a particularly difficult situation,” Lee said. “I want to tell you to put aside stress and enjoy yourselves fully (after the test), but it’s regrettable that I can’t say that under the current situation.”
Associated Press report that on Thursday, South Korea reported 540 new cases, taking the total to 35,703 with 529 deaths.
Updated
France was once home to the father of immunisation, Louis Pasteur, but it is now among the most vaccine-sceptic nations on Earth - a pressing concern as it prepares one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in its history, AFP reports.
A survey in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper at the weekend showed only 41% of the French planned to get inoculated, compared with the 58% recorded in a recent Gallup poll in the US, where coronavirus and vaccine scepticism is also high.
Macron rejected a call from Greens leader Yannick Jadot to make the jab compulsory, saying he hoped to win over people with “conviction” and “transparency” instead.
Richard Lamette, a 65-year-old Paris-based plumber, told AFP he had no plans to get the Covid shot “until it has been well tested on the population”.
Remarking that several of his admittedly younger colleagues had contracted the virus but recovered within 10 days, he said he felt that the dangers had been “a bit exaggerated”.
“Other diseases kill far more people, like cancer and cigarettes and they don’t make as much of a fuss about them,” he argued.
In the UK, the market for student rentals is as active as ever, regardless of Covid restrictions on campuses. “It may be more difficult for students this year but it’s busier than we would have thought,” says Martin Blakey, chief executive at the student housing charity Unipol. “Students are really determined to have as close as possible to a traditional uni experience, and are planning their future as they normally would.”
But finding a flatmate in a pandemic isn’t easy. Drama student Daisy Widdess*, who found a flat last week, says she is one of the lucky ones. “A lot of people have absolutely no idea who they’re going to live with. We haven’t had the chance to meet many people and the friends we have made don’t know each other. It’s a whole palaver.”
If you are feeling worried about who to live with or how to find a house, here’s what to do next:
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today.
I would like to thank my tea, coffee and water vessels for their support throughout my blogging career. I look forward to working with them tomorrow:
cannot stress enough the importance of having at least four empty cups on your desk at any one time
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) December 3, 2020
South Korea reaches deal to buy AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine candidate
South Korea has reached a deal with AstraZeneca PLC to purchase its coronavirus vaccine candidate as it seeks to secure supplies amid a resurgence of outbreaks, local media reported on Thursday.
The government has said it was in final talks with global drugmakers including AstraZeneca, Pfizer Inc and Johnson & Johnson over their experimental vaccines, and launched a preliminary review of AstraZeneca’s product in October for potential fast-track approval.
The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said health authorities signed a contract with the Britain-based company on 27 November, and were nearing agreements with Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, citing an unidentified government official.
“The AstraZeneca deal has been done, and a memorandum of understanding was reached with both Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. But further negotiations are needed to finalise the amount of supplies and the timing of shipment,” the official was quoted as saying.
The KDCA has said 172 billion won ($157 million) was set aside to buy an initial 60 million doses this year, enough to vaccinate about 60% of the country’s population of 52 million, around the second quarter of 2021.
It has secured 20 million doses via the Covax facility, an international Covid-19 vaccine allocation platform co-led by the WHO.
Updated
Important koala news alert.
An Australian family discovered a living Christmas angel on their tree this year:
hello from an actual Christmas tree angel https://t.co/UIq8V1PIAn
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) December 3, 2020
Updated
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- Former US presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have all volunteered to be vaccinated on camera in order to try to convince people to get vaccinated:
- CDC chief warns Americans face ‘rough’ winter from Covid-19 surge. The head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Wednesday the Covid-19 pandemic, still raging with unprecedented fury nationwide, will pose the country’s grimmest health crisis yet over the next few months, before vaccines become widely available.
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California’s agricultural workers have contracted Covid-19 at nearly three times the rate of other residents in the state, a new study has found, laying bare the risks facing those who keep a $50bn industry afloat. Farmworkers have been deemed “essential” and thus continued to work throughout the duration of the pandemic.
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China is carrying out sweeping inspections on food importers, supermarkets, e-commerce platforms and restaurants to prevent the spread of coronavirus through imported cold chain products, the country’s market regulator said on Wednesday.
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South Korean drugmaker Daewoong Pharma said on Thursday it had sought regulatory approval for Phase II trials of its anti-parasite niclosamide drug to treat Covid-19 patients, sending its shares up nearly 6%.
- Localised coronavirus outbreaks in parts of South Africa have raised fears that the country could see a resurgence in cases compounded by gatherings during the upcoming festive season. Officials in Africa’s hardest virus-hit country are scrambling to contain infections after a flare-up was reported in the impoverished Eastern Cape province and adjacent Western Cape province last month.
- Former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing died on Wednesday from complications linked to Covid-19, his foundation said. Giscard was admitted to hospital in September with respiratory problems. He recovered but was re-admitted in mid-November. He was 94.
- Meanwhile the global Covid death toll is nearing 1.5m, with 1,488,992. Currently, the world is regularly suffering more than 10,000 deaths per day, according to Johns Hopkins University. There are 64.3m cases worldwide.
- Eli Lilly and Co said on Wednesday the US government has purchased 650,000 additional doses of its Covid-19 antibody drug for $812.5 million. The doses will be delivered through 31 January, with at least 350,000 delivered in December, the company said. The drug has been authorised by the UUS Food and Drug Administration for emergency use, and the government bought 300,000 doses in October.
- Brazil opens route for emergency approval of Covid-19 vaccines and outlined the requirements for companies looking to do so. Authorisations will be analysed on a case-by-case basis and that to be considered the vaccine must be in late-stage trials in Brazil. It said no requests had been received so far.
- US suffers highest daily deaths since April. The United States has recorded 2,597 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is its worst toll since 15 April and its second-worst toll of the pandemic so far.15 April saw record deaths just shy of this week’s figure, at 2,607 dead in one day.
- Covid vaccinations will begin next week, says Boris Johnson. Mass immunisation against coronavirus will begin next week, UK prime minister Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday as he moved to defuse a diplomatic row over claims that Brexit was responsible for the fast-track approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
Obama, Clinton and George W. Bush offer to receive vaccines on television to promote public confidence
CNN reports that former US presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have all volunteered to be vaccinated on camera in order to try to convince people to get vaccinated:
NEW: Three former US presidents – Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton – are volunteering to get their Covid-19 vaccines on camera in order to promote public confidence in the vaccine's safety, @jamiegangel reports
— Adam Levine (@cnnadam) December 3, 2020
From CNN:
Freddy Ford, Bush’s chief of staff, told CNN that the 43rd President had reached out to Dr. Anthony Fauci –the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the nation’s top infectious disease expert – and Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, to see how he could help promote the vaccine.
...
Clinton’s press secretary told CNN on Wednesday that he too would be willing to take the vaccine in a public setting in order to promote it.
...
Obama, in an interview with SiriusXM host Joe Madison scheduled to air Thursday, said that if Fauci said a coronavirus vaccine is safe, he believes him.
“I may end up taking it on TV or having it filmed, just so that people know that I trust this science, and what I don’t trust is getting Covid,” Obama said.
Updated
South Africa fears virus comeback as cluster outbreaks flare
Localised coronavirus outbreaks in parts of South Africa have raised fears that the country could see a resurgence in cases compounded by gatherings during the upcoming festive season, AFP reports.
Officials in Africa’s hardest virus-hit country are scrambling to contain infections after a flare-up was reported in the impoverished Eastern Cape province and adjacent Western Cape province last month.
The national number of new daily cases crept over 3,000 last week, up 50 percent from an average of 2,000 earlier in November.
More than half the increase is driven by infections in the Eastern Cape and around 25 percent by cases in the Western Cape.
“(The) small cluster outbreaks which we are seeing... are transient,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said during an emergency trip to the Eastern Cape last week.
“Something has to be done,” he stressed.
South Africa’s coronavirus transmission rate had slowed significantly after infections peaked in July, with less than three daily cases detected per 100,000 people between the end of August and the start of November.
South Korea Daewoong Pharma eyes Phase II trials of coronavirus drug, shares jump
South Korean drugmaker Daewoong Pharma said on Thursday it had sought regulatory approval for Phase II trials of its anti-parasite niclosamide drug to treat Covid-19 patients, sending its shares up nearly 6%, Reuters reports.
Drugmakers worldwide are rushing to develop treatments for the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 1.5 million people since it first emerged in China late last year.
Daewoong Pharma, which has sought permission from South Korea’s food and drug safety ministry to hold Phase II clinical trials of its coronavirus drug DWRX2003, said 200 infected patients would participate.
The company said its anti-parasite nicholasmide drug DWRX2003 does not need to be refrigerated, unlike some vaccine candidates, which could reduce concerns over supplying the drug domestically or exporting it.
The viral effect of the drug helped minimize weight losses in hamsters, potentially improving the survival rate, it added.
The company said it was also preparing to seek regulatory approval for Phase II trials in the United States.
The governor of American Samoa has denied US air force planes permission to land on the US territory over concerns over Covid-19.
Over the weekend, a group of 31 US officials on three planes en route to an American base in Antarctica sought permission to land at Pago Pago and stay overnight in the territory.
But American Samoa governor Lolo Matalasi Moliga denied the request at the weekend saying he could not, in good conscience, risk exposing his people to the novel coronavirus.
American Samoa is the only US jurisdiction still free of Covid-19. Neighbouring Samoa, an independent nation, recorded its first two cases last month, both imported on a repatriation flight, after nine months keeping the virus from its shores.
Lolo wrote: “Please know that we fully understand and are very much sensitive to the importance and significance of this mission to the United States’ continued presence in the Antarctic.”
“[But] American Samoa remains the only US Jurisdiction which has not been ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic and we have made great sacrifices to maintain and to continue our ‘Free Coronavirus Bubble’.”
Lolo said the protocols proposed - where the Americans would stay in a quarantine centre overnight before flying out - could not guarantee the virus would be kept contained.
“Accordingly, I regret to inform you that this mission cannot come through American Samoa because I cannot in good conscience subject our people to this deadly virus. We are a small island with very limited resources, limited healthcare facilities and finite options if the virus does enter our shores. Our population is very vulnerable because of the high incidence of diabetes, hypertension, heart diseases, and many other underlying medical conditions.”
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 22,046 to 1,106,789, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Thursday.
The reported death toll rose by 479 to 17,602, the tally showed.
China orders inspections to prevent Covid spread via cold chain
China is carrying out sweeping inspections on food importers, supermarkets, e-commerce platforms and restaurants to prevent the spread of coronavirus through imported cold chain products, the country’s market regulator said on Wednesday.
“The current epidemic prevention and control situation is still complex and austere, and the risk of the disease entering through imported cold chain links is continuously rising as the exchange of international personnel and goods increases,” State Administration for Market Regulation said in a statement on its website.
Reuters: While China has already stepped up testing and disinfection of imported frozen products at ports and in local markets, driving up costs and curbing demand, the latest comments from Beijing showed inspections on cold chain imports would only strengthen.
China has repeatedly detected the virus on packaging on products ranging from German pork knuckles to Ecuadorian shrimp, triggering disruptive import bans, even as the World Health Organization says the risk of catching Covid-19 from frozen food is low.
The administration has also asked for authorities to have all cold storages registered by the end of the year, according to the statement.
Imported cold-chain food products cannot be sold in China without a report showing they have undergone a nucleic acid test for the coronavirus, the market regulation administration said, reiterating an existing policy.
Updated
India’s daily rise in coronavirus infections stayed below 40,000 for a fourth straight day, as 35,551 new cases took the tally to 9.53 million, health ministry data showed on Thursday.
India’s daily rate has fallen since the south Asian nation reported the world’s highest such tallies through most of August and September, despite a busy festival season last month that experts had warned could trigger a spike in infections.
But its tally remains the world’s second highest after the United States, where the figure is 13.7 million.
Deaths in India rose by 526, taking the toll to 138,648, the ministry added.
Australia’s airports are calling for aviation workers to be among the first Australians to receive Covid-19 vaccines “due to their exposure to a high number of passengers”.
The calls follow comments from Scott Morrison earlier this morning explaining how coronavirus vaccines will be rolled out across Australia, in response to news out of the UK that a Covid-19 vaccine has been given final approval and its citizens could begin receiving vaccinations next week.
James Goodwin, chief executive of the Australian Airports Association, said the prime minister must also “make it clear whether a vaccine will be mandatory for those wanting to travel overseas and how it will be proven and recognised”.
Goodwin said:
We acknowledge health, emergency services workers and the vulnerable should be at the front of the queue but aviation workers must not be forgotten in the rollout of Australia’s vaccination program.
Airports are critical infrastructure and have been keeping international terminals open to help the government bring Australians home from overseas, highlighting the need for aviation workers to be prioritised for the vaccine.
As vaccines begin to rollout across the globe, the appetite for international travel will increase and aviation workers will need to be protected.”
Goodwin also said the government should consider making vaccine doses available for people to purchase if they need to go overseas before the vaccine program has been fully rolled out to the public.
Australia has targeted March 2021 to begin the rollout of a Covid vaccine after the UK became the first western country to license a vaccine against the coronavirus.
While British prime minister Boris Johnson says vaccinations will begin there next week, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and health minister Greg Hunt say that won’t impact Australia’s timeline.
“In Australia, we’re in a very strong position,” Morrison says.
“That enables us to get this right, to get the balance right, to ensure first and foremost the safety, which enables us to roll out the vaccine across the country successfully.”
Hunt has reaffirmed the country is on track to vaccinate healthcare workers and aged-care residents in March:
In more festive tree news:
In New York, what is normally a chaotic, crowded tourist hotspot during the holiday season was instead a mask-mandated, time-limited, socially distanced locale due to the coronavirus pandemic, AP reports.
The Rockerfeller Christmas tree, a 75-foot (23-meter) Norway spruce, had its holiday lights turned on in an event that was broadcast on television but closed to the public.
In the days following the lighting until the early part of January, those wishing to take a look at the tree will have to follow a host of rules.
The plaza where the tree is physically located will be closed to the public; instead, there will be specific tree-viewing zones on the midtown Manhattan blocks on either side.
Now I’m ready for my closeup. 🎄😉⠀
— Rockefeller Center (@rockcenternyc) December 3, 2020
⠀
Click the link in bio for tree viewing info — no tickets required! pic.twitter.com/fe2WnHteVX
Visitors will join a virtual line, and can get text messages to let them know when it’s their turn. At that point, they will be directed to specific pods, each of which can hold four people, to look at the tree. There will be a five-minute limit to tree-viewing.
Of course, everyone will have to be wearing masks and maintain social distance. Entrance to the skating rink and retail will be separate.
The restricted approach is a necessary one, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said earlier this week. “It will be limited, the number of people that can get close. This is what we got to do to protect everyone.”
Workers at Rockefeller Center first put up a tree in 1931. It became an annual tradition starting in 1933. This year’s tree came from Oneonta, in central New York.
And now for a break from the bad news, for the very purest Christmas joy – an Australian family has discovered a live koala in their Christmas tree:
the expression on this koala's face
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) December 3, 2020
https://t.co/kftr13LqdT
Updated
California farmworkers contracted Covid at almost three times the rate of other residents
California’s agricultural workers have contracted Covid-19 at nearly three times the rate of other residents in the state, a new study has found, laying bare the risks facing those who keep a $50bn industry afloat.
Farmworkers have been deemed “essential” and thus continued to work throughout the duration of the pandemic. Epidemiologists already knew that this primarily Latino workforce was disproportionately affected by the virus, with Latino individuals experiencing five to seven times the risk of Covid-19 mortality relative to white individuals in the US.
But a study from the University of California, Berkeley, published Wednesday, is the first to explore the prevalence of infection rates among the workforce putting food on tables across America.
The study surveyed 1,091 farmworkers from mid-July through the end of November in the Salinas Valley, home to more than 50,000 agricultural workers. Key findings include that 13% of these workers tested over this five-month period tested positive. Comparatively, just 5% of all Californians tested came back positive. The study also found that one in five of the workers tested were antibody positive, meaning they had been infected some time before.
Of the positive cases among the farmworkers, 45% of those cases were asymptomatic. The study found that 57% of workers who reported experiencing symptoms and 58% who had symptoms and later tested positive had continued working when they had symptoms:
Germany reports 22,000 new cases
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 22,046 to 1,106,789, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Thursday. The reported death toll rose by 479 to 17,602, the tally showed.
US suffers record daily death toll – reports
CNN and the New York Times, using their own tallies, are reporting that the US has confirmed its highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic.
Johns Hopkins has not yet confirmed this – their most recent toll, for 1 December, is the highest since April and the second-highest overall.
15 April saw record deaths just shy of this week’s figure, at 2,607 dead in one day. The figure for 1 December is 2,597.
The New York Times puts the figure for 2 December at more than 2,760 while CNN has it at 2,670.
Mainland China reported 16 new Covid-19 cases on 2 December, up from nine cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Thursday.
The National Health Commission said all of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose to six from three a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 86,567, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
Mexico’s health ministry on Wednesday reported 11,251 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 800 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 1,133,613 cases and 107,565 deaths, Reuters reports.
The 11,251 new cases announced on Wednesday represent one of the biggest one-day totals recorded by Mexico since the pandemic began.
The government said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
CDC chief warns Americans face 'rough' winter from Covid-19 surge
The head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Wednesday the Covid-19 pandemic, still raging with unprecedented fury nationwide, will pose the country’s grimmest health crisis yet over the next few months, before vaccines become widely available.
CDC Director Dr Robert Redfield urged stricter adherence to safety precautions such as wearing face coverings, social distancing and good hand hygiene to slow the spread of a highly contagious respiratory virus now claiming well over 2,000 US lives a day.
The sober message from one of the nation’s top health officers followed Thanksgiving holiday observances in which millions of Americans disregarded warnings to avoid travel and large gatherings even as Covid infections and hospitalisations surged largely unchecked.
Besides the monumental loss of life, Redfield said, the country faces the prospect of a healthcare system strained to the point of collapse. The contagion has now reached every corner of the country - with 90% of all hospitals in areas designated as coronavirus “hot zones” - and continues to spread on a much steeper trajectory than any previous wave of the pandemic.
“The reality is that December, January and February are going to be rough times,” Redfield told a livestream presentation hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
“I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”
Covid vaccinations will begin next week, says Boris Johnson
Mass immunisation against coronavirus will begin next week, UK prime minister Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday as he moved to defuse a diplomatic row over claims that Brexit was responsible for the fast-track approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
The prime minister said hopes of normal life returning in the spring had given way to “sure and certain knowledge that we will succeed” after Britain became the first country in the western world to approve a Covid vaccine:
US suffers highest daily deaths since April
The United States has recorded 2,597 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is its worst toll since 15 April and its second-worst toll of the pandemic so far.
15 April saw record deaths just shy of this week’s figure, at 2,607 dead in one day.
Updated
By global standards South Korea’s figure remains extremely low but the rise has alarmed authorities, who have tightened social distancing measures.
The exam itself is a particular concern, with nearly 500,000 pupils gathering in test centres across the country.
Plastic see-through dividers have been set up on each desk and students are required to wear facemasks throughout the test.
Students will be checked on arrival and those showing temperatures of 37.5 C or higher - or other coronavirus symptoms - will have to take the test in a separate designated area.
All were advised to refrain from gathering and talking during breaks, with exam rooms to be ventilated after each session.
The exam itself was delayed for two weeks due to the earlier disruptions to teaching, and all high schools across the country have returned to online classes for a week to try to prevent school clusters.
South Korea falls into hush mode on Thursday as hundreds of thousands of students sit the high-stakes national university entrance exam, with the added tension of strict anti-coronavirus measures, AFP reports.
Success in the day-long test - which teenagers spend years preparing for - can mean a place in one of the elite colleges seen as key to future careers, incomes, and even marriage prospects.
Adding to the pressure is the coronavirus epidemic, which both delayed and disrupted the school year in the South, forcing all classes online for a time.
The country brought its outbreak broadly under control with its “trace, test and treat” approach, but in recent weeks has seen new infections jump from around 100 a day to more than 500.
Updated
Stranded Australians who were promised their hotel quarantine fees in Sydney would be waived if they flew home on tickets booked before 13 July are now being told by the government to pay for their 14-day stay in Darwin – in some cases more than AU$5,000 (US$3,700) – after the commercial flight they booked was cancelled.
Some stranded Australians have been forced to decline seats on specially organised government repatriation flights after being told the free quarantine stays are “not applicable” if they accept the government’s offer to repatriate them via the Howard Springs quarantine camp.
One family of four who have been stranded in Italy for more than five months after their commercial flight to Sydney was cancelled have been told by both the Northern Territory and federal governments they will have to pay $5,000 for their two-week stay at the Howard Springs centre in the territory:
Solidarity also found no Covid-19 survival benefit from treatment with the HIV drug lopinavir, the immune booster interferon or hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug championed by US President Donald Trump despite a lack of evidence of benefit in Covid-19.
The release in October of the trial’s summary findings sparked a reevaluation by some of the utility of remdesivir, which was shown to shorten Covid-19 hospitals stays by five days compared with a placebo in an earlier US government-run trial.
The WHO last month declared that remdesivir, which is given as an intravenous infusion, should not be used for patients hospitalised with Covid-19, regardless of how ill they are, since there is no evidence that it can improve survival or reduce the need for mechanical ventilation.
The US Food and Drug Administration in October approved remdesivir, which is sold under the brand name Veklury, for Covid-19 patients over the age of 12 who require hospitalisation. The drug is authorised or approved for use as a Covid-19 treatment in more than 50 countries.
An editorial in the influential New England Journal of Medicine cites problems with a World Health Organization study that found Gilead Sciences Inc’s antiviral remdesivir failed to improve Covid-19 survival, and said it does not refute trials that demonstrated benefits of the drug in treating the illness, Reuters reports.
The editorial, by David Harrington at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, infectious disease specialist Dr. Lindsey Baden and Brown University biostatistician Joseph Hogan, was published on Wednesday along with the WHO study.
They noted that the trial called Solidarity, which looked at four drugs, was conducted in 30 countries ranging from Switzerland and Germany to Iran and Kenya, leading to inconsistencies in the data collected.
The findings are complicated by the fact that there is “variation within and between countries in the standard of care and in the burden of disease in patients who arrive at hospitals,” they write.
Pupils in England sitting GCSEs and A-levels next summer will be given advance notice of topics and allowed to take in exam aids including formula sheets, as part of a package of measures to mitigate for learning disruption caused by the pandemic.
After months of uncertainty for pupils and their teachers, the government’s long-awaited announcement on the 2021 exam series promises that students will be awarded more generous grades, in line with last summer’s significantly improved results:
Brazil opens route for emergency approval of Covid-19 vaccines
Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa said on Wednesday it was open to approving Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use and outlined the requirements for companies looking to do so, Reuters reports.
Anvisa said authorisations would be analysed on a case-by-case basis and that to be considered the vaccine must be in late-stage trials in Brazil. It said no requests had been received so far.
AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Sinovac currently have vaccines in Phase III trials in Brazil.
The regulator said producers should still seek the usual registrations for their vaccines. On Tuesday, Brazil’s Health Ministry unveiled a preliminary plan for national immunisation, prioritising indigenous people, health workers and those aged 75 years and older.
The ministry said it has so far guaranteed access to 142.9 million doses of vaccines against Covid-19.
Of those, 100.4 million doses are under an agreement with AstraZeneca, and another 14.5 million through the Covax Facility co-led by the World Health Organization.
Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello told lawmakers on Wednesday that Brazil would begin receiving about 15 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine between January and February, with 100 million doses arriving by the middle of the year.
New Zealand confirms nine new cases in managed isolation facilities
NewsHub reports that New Zealand has confirmed nine new cases, all in managed isolation and quarantine facilities, and four of which are active.
The other five are historical.
Two of the historical cases are Pakistan cricket team members.
“The four active cases are made up of a person who arrived in the country from the UK on November 29, two people who flew in on November 21 from Qatar and one other November 30 arrival from the US,” NewsHub reports.
The devastation caused by Covid-19 presents an opportunity for countries to rebuild their economies in a way that is environmentally responsible, researchers say.
“The only way you can meet the Paris agreement is by taking advantage of this moment … by combining the recovery from Covid-19 with the response to climate change,” said Dr Nick Watts, the chief sustainability officer for the NHS.
Watts is one of the authors of the annual Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, which tracks the impacts of global heating on health. The series has been running since 2015, when the Paris agreement was signed with the goal of holding global temperatures to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels:
Lilly to supply 650,000 more doses of bamlanivimab to US government
Eli Lilly and Co said on Wednesday the US government has purchased 650,000 additional doses of its Covid-19 antibody drug for $812.5 million.
The doses will be delivered through 31 January, with at least 350,000 delivered in December, the company said.
The drug has been authorised by the UUS Food and Drug Administration for emergency use, and the government bought 300,000 doses in October.
The new purchase is part of a US government deal to secure nearly 1 million doses of Lilly’s bamlanivimab, a treatment similar to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc’s Covid-19 antibody therapy that US President Donald Trump received in October during his illness.
The treatments belong to a class of drugs called monoclonal antibodies that are manufactured copies of antibodies created by the body to fight against an infection.
Lilly anticipates manufacturing up to one million doses of bamlanivimab by the end of 2020 for use around the world through early next year.
Global death toll nears 1.5m
The global Covid death toll is nearing 1.5m, with 1,488,992, according to Johns Hopkins University. There are 64.3m cases worldwide.
In recent weeks, the global daily toll has regularly been above 11,000, with two days over 12,000 seen in the last seven days.
Former French president dies of Covid complications
The former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing has died from complications linked to Covid-19, his foundation said on Wednesday.
Giscard, who was 94 and served as France’s leader from 1974 to 1981, had recently been hospitalised in Tours with respiratory problems. He recovered but was re-admitted in mid-November.
“His state of health had worsened and he died as a consequence of Covid-19,” his family said in a statement to AFP.
The Foundation Valery Giscard d’Estaing said on Twitter that: “In accordance with his wishes, his funeral will take place in the strictest family intimacy.”
He was known for steering the modernisation of French society during his presidency, including allowing divorce by mutual consent and legalising abortion, and was one of the architects of European integration:
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next few hours.
You can find me on Twitter (singing praises and yelling are both options) @helenrsullivan.
Former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing died on Wednesday from complications linked to Covid-19, his foundation said. Giscard was admitted to hospital in September with respiratory problems. He recovered but was re-admitted in mid-November. He was 94.
Meanwhile the global Covid death toll is nearing 1.5m, with 1,488,992. Currently, the world is regularly suffering more than 10,000 deaths per day, according to Johns Hopkins University. There are 64.3m cases worldwide.
Here are the other key developments from the last few hours.
- Germany will extend restrictive measures designed to stem a tide of new Covid-19 infections until 10 January, the chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday after talks with German state leaders. The measures, which had been due to expire on 20 December, include keeping restaurants and hotels shut and limiting private gatherings to five people from two households.
- Spain caps end-of-year parties to 10 and restricts domestic travel. The Spanish government agreed with regional authorities on Wednesday that a maximum of 10 people per household will be allowed to gather for the Christmas and New Year holidays to avoid spreading the coronavirus, the health minister Salvador Illa said.
- Vaccines won’t prevent short-term coronavirus surge - WHO expert. The World Health Organization does not believe there will be enough supplies of coronavirus vaccines in the next three to six months to prevent a surge in the number of infections, its top emergency expert said.
- UK put speed before public confidence in vaccine, says EU agency. The European Medicines Agency has suggested British regulators prioritised speed over winning public confidence to enable the UK to become the first western country to license a coronavirus vaccine.
- France to carry out border checks to stop skiers spreading Covid. France will carry out random border checks over the holiday season targeting French skiers on their way to and from foreign resorts – particularly Switzerland and Spain – where slopes stay open, the prime minister, Jean Castex, said.
- Beware fake coronavirus vaccines, says Interpol. Interpol has issued a global alert to law enforcement agencies around the world warning them that organised crime networks may try to sell fake Covid-19 vaccines or steal real supplies.
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Putin orders Russia to begin mass Covid-19 vaccinations. President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian authorities to begin mass voluntary vaccinations against Covid-19 next week, as Russia recorded 589 new daily deaths from the coronavirus.
- North America seeing record-setting daily Covid-19 cases. Covid-19 deaths in the Americas have increased nearly 30% in November compared to the end of October, while North America is seeing record-setting daily cases registered, the WHO regional director, Carissa Etienne, said.
