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McKesson will replace some Moderna Covid-19 vaccines in the United States after they arrived colder than the low end of the required temperature range, Reuters reports.
The company, which is the US distributor of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines, said some of the gel packs used to maintain appropriate temperatures during shipping on Sunday were too cold and it also impacted some shipments slated for Monday.
Moderna expects to supply about 100m doses to the US by the end of the first quarter, with 200m doses in total by the end of the second quarter.
McKesson, which did not provide the number of doses affected by the temperature issue, said it had not shipped the vaccines and would replace them within the next 24 hours.
The doses are currently quarantined, waiting for a determination on whether they are viable, the company said.
McKesson coordinated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to notify each state expecting the shipments of the delay, the company said.
Summary
Here’s a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments across the globe over the last few hours:
- Joe Biden marks start of presidency with executive orders to tackle Covid-19. The president signed orders to mandate mask wearing and social distancing in federal buildings and lands, and to create a position of a Covid-19 response coordinator.
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UK reports 1,820 more Covid deaths, the most recorded in one day. The number of new cases also rose sharply to 38,905, after a fall earlier in the week which inspired optimism that lockdown restrictions were working.
- France may follow Germany in making clinical masks mandatory. Medical-grade face masks rather than cloth coverings could become mandatory in a number of European countries to help contain the rapid spread of highly contagious Covid variants first identified in the UK and South Africa.
- Dubai cancels non-essential surgery as Covid-19 cases surge. Dubai has ordered hospitals to cancel non-essential surgery for the next month after a surge in coronavirus cases in the Middle East’s tourism and business hub.
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Indian hesitancy sets back world’s biggest Covid vaccination drive. India’s Covid-19 vaccine drive has been hampered by turnout as low as 22% in some states, as fears over the safety of the vaccine and the spread of misinformation has fuelled widespread hesitancy.
- Spain logs record number of new Covid infections. Spain recorded 41,576 new cases in the preceding 24 hours, bringing the country’s total caseload to 2,412,318. It also recorded 464 deaths.
- Italy considers legal action over Pfizer vaccine delivery delays. Italy is preparing to take legal action against Pfizer over delays in delivery of pre-ordered Covid-19 vaccines. Italy received 48,000 vaccines for this week, out of an allocated 397,000, and was also left short by 165,000 last week.
- Record 343,00 people in UK receive first dose of Covid vaccine in one day. The NHS is scaling up its push to vaccinate 15 million people by mid-February, although with 25 days to go it will require about 400,000 immunisations a day to remain on track.
- Syria’s White Helmets awarded £920,000 to make PPE. Syria’s White Helmets, who rescue victims from the rubble of airstrikes, have added making personal protective equipment to their efforts saving lives in areas of the country outside Bashar al-Assad’s control.
Oxford scientists are preparing to rapidly produce new versions of their vaccine to combat emerging more contagious Covid-19 variants discovered in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, The Telegraph has reported.
The team behind the vaccine from Oxford and AstraZeneca is undertaking feasibility studies to reconfigure the technology, the newspaper said, citing a confirmation from the Oxford University.
A university spokesman told the newspaper that Oxford is carefully assessing the impact of new variants on vaccine immunity and evaluating the processes needed for rapid development of adjusted Covid-19 vaccines.
Separately, British prime minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that the nation’s medicines regulator will be ready and able to give approval to new versions of Covid-19 vaccines designed to counter new variants of the coronavirus that may appear.
Brazil has registered 1,340 new coronavirus deaths, bringing the country’s total to 212,831.
It has also registered 64,385 new cases of the disease, which now total 8,638,249.
Brazil’s foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo, said he still could not provide a timeline of when new coronavirus vaccine doses would arrive from India and China, raising concern in a country that is lagging behind others in vaccinating its people, Reuters reports.
Updated
The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to approve several Covid-19 vaccines from Western and Chinese manufacturers in the coming weeks and months, a document published on Wednesday shows, as it aims for rapid rollouts in poorer countries.
Covax, a global scheme co-led by the WHO, wants to deliver at least 2bn Covid-19 doses across the world this year, with at least 1.3bn going to poorer countries.
But it has so far struggled to secure enough shots due to a shortage of funds, while wealthy nations have secured large volumes of vaccines for themselves.
In the race to deploy vaccinations, regulatory approvals are key to confirming the effectiveness and safety of vaccines, and to boosting output. But some poorer countries rely mostly on WHO authorisations as they have limited regulatory capacity.
The WHO is therefore “expediting” emergency approvals, according to a Covax internal document seen by Reuters.
The Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) could be authorised by the WHO in January or February, the document says.
The same vaccine produced in South Korea by SK Bioscience could be approved by the UN agency in the second half of February at the earliest, a provisional calendar published by the WHO on Wednesday shows.
As well as vaccines, regulators usually authorise their manufacturing processes in different plants.
Covax has supply contracts with AstraZeneca and SII for about 400m doses and an option for many more hundreds of millions, although the timing of deliveries is uncertain.
Updated
Nobody should panic about getting access to a Covid-19 vaccine because everyone who wants one will get one, the World Health Organization said.
AFP reports:
The WHO’s assistant director general for access to medicines, vaccines and pharmaceuticals, Mariangela Simao, said the UN health agency was working towards ensuring access to coronavirus jabs all around the world.
“No one needs to panic, because you’re going to get a vaccine,” said Simao. “We’ve been working very hard to ensure that all countries, all populations, do have the opportunity to access these vaccines.”
Simao said that around 50 countries have started vaccination campaigns, with more than 40 of them being high-income states.
The WHO co-led Covax facility, a globally-pooled vaccine procurement and distribution effort, has struck agreements with five manufacturers for two billion vaccine doses.
It aims to secure vaccines for 20% of the population in each participating country by the end of the year, with funding covered for the 92 lower- and lower-middle income economies involved.
“We are expecting to have the first doses reaching countries end of February,” Simao said.
Amazon has offered to help with the Covid-19 vaccine efforts in the United States, according to a letter addressed to president Joe Biden, seen by Reuters.
The world’s largest online retailer has an agreement with a healthcare provider to administer vaccines at its facilities, Dave Clark, chief executive of Amazon’s worldwide consumer business, said in the letter.
He added, “We are prepared to leverage our operations, information technology, and communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts.”
Syria’s White Helmets, who rescue victims from the rubble of airstrikes, have added making personal protective equipment to their efforts saving lives in areas of the country outside Bashar al-Assad’s control.
The civil defence service’s uniform-making unit has recently pivoted to manufacturing PPE with the help of a £920,000 award from a nonprofit organisation funded by the UK, US and Dutch governments.
The local facility has already produced more than 2m masks, as well as protective gowns and face shields, and is handling the safe disposal of used PPE for north-west Syria’s vulnerable population of more than 3 million people.
“The Covid-19 pandemic was the most difficult challenge the White Helmets faced in 2020. We witnessed the spread of the virus in north-western Syria among humanitarian workers and medical personnel while the global pandemic made cross-borders logistics almost impossible,” said Munir Mustafa, the White Helmets’ deputy general manager for humanitarian affairs.
While doctors and humanitarian workers in Syria are still working at great personal risk to respond to and treat the disease, with the help of Creating Hope in Conflict: a Humanitarian Grand Challenge, the White Helmets have been able to scale up community efforts to keep people safe from coronavirus.
“Our volunteers and fellow humanitarians, healthcare providers, and other essential workers are safer now [thanks to the project] and can together continue caring for Syrian civilians and responding to the pandemic,” Mustafa added.
Dubai cancels non-essential surgery as Covid-19 cases surge
Dubai has ordered hospitals to cancel non-essential surgery for the next month after a surge in coronavirus cases in the Middle East’s tourism and business hub, Reuters reports.
Health authorities said the decision, which takes effect on Thursday and could be extended in a month’s time, aims to ensure preparedness of health facilities to manage Covid-19 cases.
The daily number of infections in the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, crossed the 3,000 threshold on 12 January and has continued to climb, hitting 3,506 on Wednesday. It is the highest in the Gulf Arab region where daily cases in each of the other five states have fallen below 500.
Visitors have flocked to international travel hub Dubai, as other countries imposed new lockdowns.
The UAE has lifted most coronavirus restrictions but mask-wearing in public and social distancing are still required. Britain this month removed the UAE from its travel corridors list due to the rise in infections.
Guardian reporters Archie Bland and Matthew Weaver looked into the flock of UK social media influencers who have headed to Dubai in recent weeks while their home country remains in lockdown, with the writer Clive Martin describing the hotspot as “the Covid Casablanca”.
Updated
Summary
Here is a quick re-cap of the key Covid-related events around the world:
- The French health ministry reported 26,784 new confirmed Covid cases over the past 24 hours, the highest since 18 November. Elsewhere, Spain logged another record number of new infections on Wednesday afternoon, recording 41,576 new cases in the preceding day.
- The government said a further 1,820 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Wednesday, in a new record daily toll, bringing the UK total to 93,290.
- Italy, which has received 48,000 vaccines for this week out of an allocated 397,000, is preparing to take legal action against Pfizer over delays in delivery of pre-ordered coronavirus vaccines.
- Two Daxing (a district of Beijing) cases reported on 17 January were analysed and are now believed to be highly similar to the new, more transmissible strain of the virus that began spreading in Britain, officials said on Wednesday.
- Mark Rutte, the Netherland’s prime minister, has said the Dutch parliament will be asked to agree a night-time curfew running from 8:30pm to 4:30am from this weekend, as he set out stringent curbs to halt the spread of new Covid variants.
- Zimbabwe’s foreign minister, Sibusiso Moyo, a former army general, has died after contracting Covid-19, presidential spokesman George Charamba said.
Some good news, as the Associated Press reports:
Zélia de Carvalho Morley (106) rolled up a sleeve and looked stoically to the side as a nurse slid in a Covid-19 shot. She was one of thousands in Brazil to get the shot on Wednesday, but one of very few old enough to recall an earlier viral pandemic that swept her nation and the world a century ago. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1914, Morley was a girl when the so-called Spanish flu killed millions around the world in 1918-1920, when no vaccines were available.
Updated
France reports 26,784 new Covid cases, highest since November
The French health ministry reported 26,784 new confirmed Covid cases over the past 24 hours, up from 23,608 on Tuesday and 23,852 last Wednesday.
Wednesday’s tally was the highest since the 28,383 registered on 18 November, during France’s second lockdown, Reuters reports.
Updated
Spain logs record number of new Covid infections
Spain logged another record number of new infections on Wednesday afternoon, recording 41,576 new cases in the preceding 24 hours and bringing the country’s total caseload to 2,412,318. It also recorded 464 deaths.
The new record came five days after the previous single-day high of 40,197 new cases.
The number of cases per 100,000 people also rose from 714 on Tuesday to 736 on Wednesday.
To date, the central government has distributed 1,346,100 doses of the vaccine to the country’s 17 self-governing regions, of which 1,025,937 have been administered, meaning that around 2% of the country’s 47 million people have been vaccinated.
On Wednesday, the regional health minister in Murcia, southeastern Spain, resigned after it emerged that he, his wife, and around 400 staff in the health department had been vaccinated despite the current round of vaccinations being intended for the staff and residents of care homes, and for frontline health workers.
Updated
Health authorities in Madrid have started mass testing hundreds of young people for Covid-19 at universities in a bid to detect asymptomatic carriers.
With the country in the grip of a third wave of infection, authorities called on young people to attend makeshift medical centres at nine university campuses to take a rapid antigen test, Reuters reports.
Updated
Argentina has approved use of Russia’s Sputnik Covid vaccination for the over-60s, its government announced in a statement on Wednesday.
The National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology, Argentina’s regulatory body, said the jab “is within an acceptable margin of safety and efficacy for the age group over 60 years,” according to Reuters.
Medical-grade face masks rather than cloth coverings could become mandatory in a number of European countries to help contain the rapid spread of highly contagious Covid variants first identified in the UK and South Africa.
Angela Merkel and the leaders of Germany’s 16 states agreed on Tuesday that either single-use surgical FFP1 masks or more protective FFP2 filtering facepiece respirators should be worn in the workplace, on public transport and in shops.
The French government is considering whether to adopt formal advice from its health advisory committee to make so-called clinical masks mandatory, because even multi-layer fabric masks do not offer enough protection against the new strains.
Merkel said the threat of the B117 coronavirus variant first discovered in Britain was a key factor behind the German government’s decision to extend and tighten lockdown measures, saying the country faced “British conditions” if it failed to stop its spread. Schools and nurseries as well as non-essential shops and hairdressers will remain closed in Germany until at least 14 February.
Read more here:
Students have protested across France over their conditions during the restrictions, saying they were being pushed to the brink of despair by solitude and financial uncertainty, AFP reports.
With president Emmanuel Macron due to speak with worried university students on Thursday, they demanded a return to full face-to-face teaching suspended due to the pandemic.
For the time being, only first-year students will be permitted to attend classroom tutorials, from January 25 but in half-groups.
Hundreds protested in Paris, brandishing slogans including “incompetent politicians, students in agony”.
Melanie Luce, president of France’s national student union UNEF, said classes should be opened for “all students” even if reduced numbers meant doing classes twice over and recruiting more teachers.
Updated
New record daily death toll in the UK
For the second day in a row a record number of deaths has been recorded in the UK.
#Breaking The Government said a further 1,820 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 – the highest number of UK deaths reported on a single day since the outbreak began
— PA Media (@PA) January 20, 2021
Our UK live blog has more details and reaction.
Updated
Portugal’s number of daily coronavirus cases rose from 10,455 to 14,647 on as hospitals struggle to cope with a surge in infections and deaths, Reuters reports.
The country also hit a record of 219 new deaths one more than Tuesday’s total, the health authority DGS said.
Around 45% of new cases, which brought the total of infections to 581,605, were concentrated in the Lisbon region, where hospitals are quickly running out of beds for coronavirus patients.
Currently 681 coronavirus patients are in intensive care units, above the 672 maximum allocation of ICU beds out of a total of just over 1,000, health authorities said.
João Gouveia, head of the association representing Portuguese intensive care workers, said:
The normal capacity of the health system was already exceeded long ago,. It is still not as catastrophic as it was in Italy and Spain but we are close to it.
Right now we still have a health system that can expand. But, in the case of ICUs, it is very limited due to a lack in human resources.
As part of the new lockdown imposed on Friday, all non-essential services shut and people were urged to stay home. But the government decided to keep schools open despite heavy criticism from all sides.
India’s vaccine drive has been hampered by turnout as low as 22% in some states, as fears over the safety of the vaccine and the spread of misinformation has fuelled widespread hesitancy.
On Saturday, India launched the world’s largest vaccination programme as it began the massive task of vaccinating its 1.3 billion citizens against coronavirus.
On the first day of India’s vaccine drive on Saturday, more than 200,000 vaccinations were given – the highest one-day total of any country – but nonetheless fell short of the nationwide government targets by over 100,000. By Tuesday evening, the government said 631,417 people had been vaccinated, far below the expected figure.
Read more here:
Members of the military are to be brought in to assist medical staff in Northern Ireland in the battle against Covid-19, BBC News NI reports.
It is understood health minister Robin Swann asked the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to help out, primarily at a number of hospitals across NI. Some 100 medically trained military personnel are expected to be deployed. Those brought in will assist nursing staff and help on the wards in a move designed to ease the pressure on staff.
The BBC added that it had approached the Department of Health for comment.
Updated
Kenya has identified two cases of the new Covid variant first seen in South Africa in two men who have since left the country, a senior health ministry official said on Wednesday.
Patrick Amoth, acting director general of health at the Ministry of Health, did not confirm where the infected men were tested or if they had been notified, Reuters reports.
“This was picked (up) because of our heightened surveillance system. These two gentlemen have since gone back to their country. At the point of picking them, they were all asymptomatic,” he told a news conference.
Italy considers legal action over Pfizer vaccine delivery delays
Italy is preparing to take legal action against Pfizer over delays in delivery of pre-ordered Covid-19 vaccines.
Italy received 48,000 vaccines for this week, out of an allocated 397,000, and was also left short by 165,000 last week.
The US pharmaceutical company angered several EU countries last week after announcing temporary delays in shipments due to a production upgrade aimed at boosting output.
Domenico Arcuri, Italy’s Covid-19 emergency commissioner, said he had the support of the country’s regional leaders to take legal action in the coming days.
“Protecting the health of Italian citizens is not a negotiable issue,” Arcuri said. “The vaccination programme cannot be slowed down, let alone for the many of Italians who have already received the first dose.”
Italy has so far administered over 1.2m Covid vaccine shots.
When contacted by Reuters, a spokesman for Pfizer refused to comment.
The Dutch parliament will be asked to agree to a night-time curfew running from 8.30pm to 4.30am from this weekend, the country’s prime minister, Mark Rutte, has said, as he laid out the latest measures to stop the spread of the new Covid variants.
The curfew will run until at least 9 February with flights from Britain, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela also banned from Saturday.
Rutte, whose government resigned last week over a scandal over child benefits in which more than 20,000 families were wrongly accused of fraud, said he would ask parliament to back the plan. Rutte is currently acting in a care-taker capacity.
He told a press conference on Wednesday:
We do not want to take such a big and drastic decision without parliamentary support … We will get through all this, but first we have to brace ourselves one more time as the British corona variant and other more contagious corona variants are coming our way.”
All experts inside and outside the outbreak management team warn of a third wave and we have to take this seriously. We must now do our utmost to stay as far ahead of that third wave as possible, to contain it as much as possible, and to sooner gain a positive pathway forward.
Under the curfew, one of the most stringent seen in Europe during the pandemic, people will not be allowed on to the streets unless they can prove it is for childcare or if they are able to provide a document from an employer proving the necessity of their movement.
Dog owners may also take their pets for a walk but shops will have to close at 8.15pm.
In a letter to parliament, the Dutch health minister Hugo De Jonge, said households would also be asked to further limit visits from others. He wrote: ‘The cabinet urgently advises not to receive more than one guest from the age of 13 per day and to pay a maximum of one visit per day.”
Updated
Efforts by Chinese authorities to change the narrative around Covid-19’s origins have reignited on social media this week after a government spokesperson revived a conspiracy theory that it came from a US army lab, Helen Davidson reports from Taipei.
Updated
Two cases in China resemble more infectious strain first seen in UK
Two Daxing cases reported on 17 January were analysed and are considered to be highly similar to the new, more transmissible strain of the virus that began spreading in Britain, Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of Beijing’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference on Wednesday.
The two cases have no genetic association with previous local and imported cases in Beijing, nor to recent local cases in other Chinese regions, Pang said, adding the source of infection was initially determined to be from overseas, according to Reuters.
See earlier posts about China’s health authorities ramping up anti-pandemic measures in response to its ongoing outbreak.
Updated
The German government’s decision to introduce the obligatory wearing of high-filtration medical masks, instead of fabric masks as has been the norm since early on in the pandemic, has prompted an inevitable scramble for them, amid fears of escalating prices, their affordability for those on low incomes, and fakes.
So-called FFP1, 2 or 3 masks (FFP stands for filtering face piece) and the thinner, paper masks often donned in operating theatres must now be worn in the workplace, on public transport and in shops, Angela Merkel announced yesterday evening, in response to experts’ advice that cloth face coverings do not offer sufficient protection from the more virulent mutations of the disease.
The decision follows the introduction of a medical mask rule in the southern state of Bavaria on Monday.
The over-60s and those with chronic, pre-existing health conditions are to receive vouchers in the post from their health insurers, towards buying masks in pharmacies. Employees who cannot keep a distance of 1.5 metres from colleagues must be provided with the masks by their employers, the government has said.
Earlier this week, the Robert Koch Institute, the government’s disease control agency, said that 16 cases of the so-called British variant, B117, had so far been detected in Germany.
Most of the cases were of people who had arrived from the UK. But at least three cases have since been detected in Berliners suffering from coronavirus who had not travelled for months, all of whom are being treated in hospital.
These samples were tested on 8 January and lead virologists to believe that the mutation from Britain has been circulating in the city for some time and may be more widespread in Germany than previously thought.
But due to the lack of gene sequencing that has so far been carried out in Germany, it was widely suspected that this mutation and others, such as the so-called South African variant, and one from Brazil, were likely more prevalent.
Gene sequencing was being carried out in Germany on only around one in 900 samples of the virus derived from positive test results until very recently.
But Jens Spahn, the health minister, announced in the past week that sequencing was immediately being increased to be carried out on 5% of positive test results in future, a figure he said might sound low but that if done in a targeted way, was efficient enough to track new mutations and their development.
Updated
Israel has included pregnant women among those getting priority access to Covid vaccines, seeing no risk to them or their foetuses, a senior public health official said on Wednesday.
“Today we are recommending that pregnant women, mainly those with high morbidity risk factors, get the vaccine,” Nachman Ash, the national coordinator on the pandemic, told public broadcaster Kan radio. “We have put them on the priority list.”
It came after the hospitalisation this week of several pregnant women with Covid complications amid surging contagions, Reuters reports.
Read my colleague Peter Beaumont’s story on how a surge in infections has dampened optimism over country’s advanced immunisation programme.
Updated
The Netherlands will ban flights from non-Schengen countries, including Britain and South Africa, from 23 January to curb infections of the new, more infectious coronavirus variants, Dutch news agency ANP reported on Wednesday (see earlier posts).
The flight ban, which the prime minister Mark Rutte said also will apply to all South American countries, will begin on Saturday.
“This is a very tough measure, but we are at a crossroads,” Rutte said in a televised news conference. “The British variant doesn’t leave us with an alternative.”
Updated
The UK’s medicine regulator will be ready and able to approve new versions of Covid vaccines designed to counter any future variants that may emerge, Boris Johnson said on Wednesday.
Asked if the government would develop a new rapid pathway to allow approvals of new versions of vaccines to protect against such variants, the prime minister confirmed:
Yes indeed … we’ve been talking about that with the scientists over the last days and weeks intensively, just in the last few hours … We’re confident that the (medicine regulator) MHRA will be in a position to turn around new applications for new variants of vaccines, as may be required to deal with new variants of the virus.
Updated
The threat of the B117 coronavirus mutation first discovered in Britain taking hold in Germany was a key factor behind the government decision to increase the length and scale of lockdown measures, Angela Merkel has said.
Following marathon talks between the government and leaders of the 16 Länder yesterday afternoon, the German chancellor said it was imperative to take measures to prevent the spread of mutations that experts say are far more infectious than the previous strain.
She warned that Germany faced “British conditions” if it failed to stop the spread of the B117 mutation in particular, which is known to have been in the country for several weeks.
“If we get British conditions,” she said “we would not be talking about whether schools should open or not, but about ambulances and overcrowded hospitals … but if all the rules are kept, we have a fair chance”, she said in response to a question as to when lockdown conditions might be relaxed.
Despite a light fall in registered coronavirus cases – the figure stood at 16,000 on Wednesday, while 1148 deaths had been registered in the previous 24 hours – a current lockdown in place since before Christmas is to be extended.
Schools and nurseries as well as non-essential shops and hairdressers will remain closed until at least 14 February.
Employers will be obliged to allow their employees to work from home wherever possible, to reduce the number of people on public transport and in work places. Medical masks will be obligatory on public transport, in shops as well as places of worship.
Merkel said that the decision to maintain homeschooling had been the most difficult decision she and the other leaders had made, following 11 hours of consultation, including with eight prominent experts.
“We wrestled for a long time to decide what is necessary regarding children and schools,” Merkel said. “We all know that it is incredibly restrictive for the children and parents affected by this. But there are indications which must be taken very seriously that the mutation B117 spreads more intensely amongst children and young people than was the case with the previous virus and we need to take these indications seriously.”
Merkel has repeatedly said the seven-day incidence rate needs to be brought below 50 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants. Nationwide it currently stands at 124 per 100,000, but with huge regional differences.
Updated
France issues warning over use of homemade masks against new variants
French health officials have advised people against wearing home-made fabric masks as they offer less protection against highly contagious new Covid-19 variants.
The scientific committee, which reports back to the French government, says category 2 masks are unlikely to halt the spread of the “English variant” or new coronavirus strains from Brazil and South Africa.
The experts’ advice, presented to ministers on Monday but not published, also suggested France double its social distancing rule from 1m to 2m.
France’s Haut Conseil de Santé Publique (high council for public health – HCSP) decided over the weekend that many cloth masks, often preferred because they can be washed and reused, did not guarantee protection against the new variants.
“Category 2 or material masks only filter 70%, while category 1 masks, like surgical masks, can go as high as 95% if worn properly. As the variant is more easily transmitted, it is logical to use masks with the highest filtering power,” Daniel Camus, of the Pasteur Institute in Lille and a HCSP member told France Info.
“We are not questioning the masks used up to now … but as we have no new weapons against them (new strains) the only thing we can do is to improve the weapons we already have,” Camus added.
Home-made barrier masks made under Europe-wide established specifications are consider category 1. However, even though they are subject to minimum requirements making them more efficient filters, the HSPC said they may not guarantee the correct level of protection.
Didier Lepelletier, the co-president of the committee’s Covid-19 working group, said everyone should now choose category 1 masks adding that home-made masks “have not been tested in terms of their performance”.
Updated
Yesterday UK recorded a further 1,610 coronavirus deaths – the highest number since the pandemic began. But what received less attention was the total number of excess deaths during #COVID19: now well over 100,000. Deaths which could have been entirely avoided. Unforgivable https://t.co/kS2AqIGBzv
— Dr Zubaida Haque (@Zubhaque) January 20, 2021
A Covid vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech appears to protect against a coronavirus variant spreading rapidly across the UK.
PA Media reports:
The results come amid growing fears that the variant, dubbed B117, has mutations that may reduce the effectiveness of the vaccines designed to protect against Covid-19. In a new study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, researchers from BioNTech collected blood samples from 16 people who had received the Pfizer vaccine in previous clinical trials. They found that a lab-made version of the virus – with all the mutations resembling the B117 variant – was neutralised by antibodies.
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Dublin’s annual St Patrick’s Day parade has been cancelled in light of the pandemic for the second year in a row, as organisers confirm virtual events will be held instead.
St. Patrick’s Festival returns from March 12 to 17 with six great virtual days and nights of online events! See our full statement and sign up for news and updates at https://t.co/AIawjx4TQ0 #stpatricksfestival pic.twitter.com/CYvvt9GgqT
— St. Patrick's Festival (@stpatricksfest) January 20, 2021
Updated
Russia’s sovereign wealth fund RDIF has filed for registration of Sputnik V in the EU and expects it to be reviewed in February, moving it closer to wider adoption across the world.
See the latest Covid death and case numbers from earlier.
Sputnik V and European Medical Agency teams held the Scientific Review of #SputnikV on Jan 19. RDIF filed for Sputnik V registration in the EU and expects it to be reviewed in February. Based on these reviews EMA will decide on the authorization of Sputnik V for the EU. pic.twitter.com/dq7HNjOHVA
— Sputnik V (@sputnikvaccine) January 20, 2021
Updated
The Vatican began offering free vaccinations against coronavirus to Rome’s homeless on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
Reuters reports:
The vaccinations took place in the atrium of the Paul VI Hall, the huge auditorium where weekly papal general audiences take place but which has been largely disused because of the coronavirus pandemic. They were overseen by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, 57, the Polish head of the papal charities office, who has taken on a leading personal role in looking after Rome’s homeless.
Updated
Turkey has vaccinated more than 1 million people in the first week of its nationwide inoculation programme, health ministry data shows.
The programme was launched last Thursday, with health workers the first to receive the Covid jabs developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd.
More than 600,000 people were vaccinated in the first two days, though the pace has slowed to about 100,000 per day since then, Reuters reported.
Updated
Morning everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the live blog until the evening. Please feel free to drop me a message on Twitter if you have any coverage suggestions.
Updated
Dutch government to introduce contentious nationwide curfew - reports
The Dutch government is set to add the first nationwide curfew since the second world war to its already broad lockdown on Wednesday in a bid to limit the spread of new coronavirus mutations in the Netherlands, broadcaster RTL said.
The curfew would allow only people with pressing needs to leave their homes between 8.30pm and 4.30am as of Friday night, RTL said, citing government sources.
Schools and non-essential shops have already been closed since mid-December, following the shutdown of bars and restaurants two months earlier. This lockdown will remain in place until at least 9 February, the prime minister Mark Rutte said last week.
The introduction of the first night curfew since that imposed on the Dutch by German occupiers in the second world war is highly contentious, and various political parties have already said they will never back it.
The government is discussing the curfew and other possible measures on Wednesday morning, and has said it will announce its decisions early in the afternoon.
It will then seek the backing of parliament for its measures in a debate. The curfew however can be imposed without the backing of opposition parties.
The government is also considering whether to ban travel to and from the UK and South Africa, RTL said, to limit the spread of the highly contagious variants of the virus which were first discovered there.
Infections in the Netherlands have decreased steadily in the past three weeks, but health authorities say the new variants will lead to a new surge by next month if social distancing measures are not tightened.
The Dutch government currently has a caretaker status, as Rutte last Friday handed his resignation to King Willem-Alexander following a damning report on his cabinet’s handling of childcare subsidies.
Rutte has said he will remain able to take decisions on Covid-19 policies until a new government is formed after 17 March elections, seeking broad support for measures from both coalition and opposition parties.
Updated
Jeanne Becart, the mayor of the Paris suburb of Garches, said public health officials told her to get ready to administer 1,200 Covid-19 vaccines a week. But for this week, the vaccination centre she set up has only been allocated 420 doses.
“I am a bit angry,” Bécart said inside the vaccination hub off the town square, where over the course of Monday the 15 volunteers, nurses and doctors on duty between them vaccinated 90 patients.
She had a plea for the French president, Emmanuel Macron: “Please Mr President, buy vaccines whatever the cost.”
France is not experiencing problems with the supply of vaccines, according to government officials. They say that, apart from minor fluctuations, the country is getting the doses from the manufacturers that were allocated to it.
The problem for France is that demand has exploded and is far outstripping the number of jabs available.
Many French people were initially sceptical, but as they have seen acquaintances get vaccinated with no adverse effects, large numbers decided the benefits outweigh the risks, say health officials.
“People have understood now that the vaccination is the solution,” said Barbara Thery, head of a vaccination centre in Le Cannet, just outside Cannes.
“So the relationship between the number of people who come forward and want to be vaccinated, and the speed at which we can do it, is not what we need,” she said.
Her centre has enough doses for 50 vaccinations per day but could easily dispense 200 a day if it had the doses, she said. France has approved both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for use.
The government ditched a plan to initially give the vaccine only to those in elderly people’s homes, meaning everyone 75 and over – a total of more than 6 million people in France – became eligible for the jab, but without the doses in place to vaccinate them straight away.
The health minister, Olivier Véran, said as fast as they were being produced, the vaccines were being shipped to vaccination centres.
A health ministry official said the supply was speeding up and the government was on track to meet its target of vaccinating 2.4 million people by the end of February.
In Saint-Denis, on the northern edge of Paris, the local mayor’s office set up a vaccination centre in a municipal building. For this week, it has been allocated 132 doses.
“Unfortunately that does not match the need,” said Katy Bontinck, the deputy mayor in charge of health. Because of the limited doses, the centre only opens on weekday afternoons.
Updated
The Portuguese economy minister, Pedro Siza Vieira, has tested positive for Covid-19 and is in self-isolation, his office reported late on Tuesday, the third cabinet member to be diagnosed with the virus in a week.
He had already been in quarantine at home since Saturday as a precautionary measure after the fnance minister, João Leão, tested positive following a meeting with top EU officials.
Siza Vieira and the prime minister, Antonio Costa, were also at that meeting.
Siza Vieira was the third minister to be diagnosed with the coronavirus in the past week, following Leão and the labour minister Ana Mendes Godinho.
Portugal, currently reporting the highest average of new cases per capita worldwide according to the ourworldindata.org website supported by Oxford University, has had 566,958 confirmed coronavirus cases and 9,246 deaths so far and went back into lockdown on Friday.
Updated
The spread of coronavirus in France could accelerate sharply in the coming months due to the emergence of a more contagious variant, two Paris hospital executives said on Wednesday, raising fears of a third lockdown in the country.
Karine Lacombe, head of infectious diseases at Paris’s Saint Antoine hospital, and Martin Hirsch, the director general of the Paris hospitals system, both warned of the extra strain this could put on healthcare infrastructure.
The two previous lockdowns enforced by the government last year were aimed at preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed by patients with Covid-19.
“We know this variant spreads much more quickly and, above all, it is more infectious. So, yes, we think that it will change the dynamic of the pandemic in the weeks to come,” Lacombe told BFM TV.
The spread of this variant, first detected in England, has prompted the UK, Germany and Ireland to reimpose strict lockdowns. France has stopped short such a measure for now – opting instead for a national 6pm curfew – but members of the government have warned it is not off the table.
“All the models reckon that some time between mid-February, early February, so in about 15 days or three weeks time and by mid-March, we will have an increase that could risk, if we cannot do otherwise, resembling what the English, the Irish and the Germans have been witnessing recently,” Hirsh said on France Info radio.
Tuesday’s figures show the seven-day moving average of new infections, which averages out daily data reporting irregularities, increased to 18,820, the highest since 23 November. The number of patients in intensive care units for the disease has now gone up for 10 consecutive days, to 2,839, a sequence unseen since early November, when France had just entered its second lockdown.
“We fear it will be extremely tough, especially in March. On a local level … when the number of admissions in ICU units will ramp up, we probably will need more restrictive measures than the curfew,” Lacombe said. “We must remain alert and act as soon as we spot a deterioration of the indicators.”
Updated
Zimbabwe’s foreign minister, Sibusiso Moyo, has died after contracting Covid-19, presidential spokesman George Charamba said on Wednesday.
Moyo, a former army general who rose to national fame when he announced the military coup that led to the removal of the late long-serving leader Robert Mugabe in November 2017, died at a local hospital early on Wednesday, Charamba said.
“The nation will be kept apprised of further developments regarding this untimely demise of the late minister, himself a decorated soldier and freedom fighter,” Charamba said.
Moyo was one of several generals who, after helping plot the coup, were rewarded with senior positions in the president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cabinet and the ruling Zanu-PF party.
Another cabinet minister, the retired general and agriculture minister Perrance Shiri, died of the virus last July.
Zimbabwe has suffered a surge in Covid-19 infections, with more than half of the 28,675 total cases and 825 deaths being recorded since New Year’s Day.
Updated
Speaking to a friend when infected with the coronavirus could be as dangerous as coughing near them thanks to lingering particles, research has suggested.
Coronavirus can be spread through a number of routes, including virus-containing droplets emitted when an infected person breaths, speaks or coughs – a factor experts said could help to explain why it seems to spread more easily in indoor settings.
While large droplets fall to the ground over short distances, tiny droplets known as aerosols can carry the virus over distances greater than two metres, and linger.
Now experts have developed models to explore the risk posed by large droplets and aerosols, and explore ways to mitigate it. Their results suggest it takes just a couple of seconds for expelled particles to travel beyond 2 metres.
Updated
Russia on Wednesday reported 21,152 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, including 2,452 in Moscow, pushing the national tally to 3,633,952. Authorities said a further 597 people had died overnight, taking the official death toll to 67,220.
Taiwan’s emerging Covid-19 outbreak has grown to a cluster of 10 people, after a new case was confirmed on Wednesday.
The cases are linked to a hospital in Taoyuan, where a doctor and nurse were first infected while treating a patient with Covid-19 who had flown in from the US. According to local media, the cases now include two doctors, four nurses, a caregiver, and the husband and daughter of one of the nurses.
Taiwan has recorded just 11 locally transmitted cases since April 2020 – the 10 linked to the hospital, and one woman in the capital, Taipei, who caught the virus from her friend, a pilot, in December, after he flew between the US and Taiwan while infectious and failed to disclose his symptoms or movements to authorities.
The new outbreak has emerged just weeks before the beginning of the lunar new year holiday, which typically sees widespread travel across the region as people visit friends and family. Numerous local governments in Taiwan have already cancelled lantern festivals as a result of the outbreak. Taipei has postponed its lantern festival and cancelled its lunar new year market.
Updated
The Covid-19 death toll and the level of hospital admissions in the UK means it is far too early to speculate about when the lockdown may be lifted or eased, the home secretary, Priti Patel, said on Wednesday.
She told Sky:
We are still in a perilous situation. When we still see hospitalisation figures, now standing at over 38,000 people, with the number of people still dying with coronavirus, with the number of hospital admissions increasing, this is no time to speak about the relaxation of measures. We have a long way to go.
Updated
The number of foreign visitors to Japan plunged 87% in 2020 to a 22-year low as the country mostly closed its borders in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Japan National Tourism Organization data showed on Wednesday.
The number of foreign arrivals, which include tourism and business arrivals, fell to about 4.1 million last year from 31.9 million in 2019. It was the lowest annual figure since 1998.
With the pandemic disrupting our learning, jobs, money and health, it’s no surprise many of us are feeling blue this January, Ruth Bushi reports.
Even without a pandemic, “this time of year is usually challenging for students anyway,” says Gareth Hughes, clinical lead of the advice site Student Space. The following tips won’t make you immune to financial hardship or job worries, but there are ways to ease the pressure:
Updated
Good morning from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours.
Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Updated
More Australian Open players test positive
Two more Australian Open players have tested positive for Covid-19, government officials said, as authorities were at cross-purposes over who would pay for the tournament’s quarantine bill. A total of 10 people associated with the Grand Slam, including four players, have now tested positive for the virus, Reuters reports.
More than 70 players and members of their entourages are confined to their hotel rooms for 14 days and unable to train for the 8-21 February Australian Open after passengers on three charter flights returned positive tests.
A number of players have complained about the conditions, drawing a backlash from Australians, who have criticised the players for being “entitled” even as thousands of the nation’s citizens remain stranded overseas:
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. If you’d like a break from the news why not read about these large, hummingbird-like, tear-drinking moths:
US CDC has administered 15.7m vaccines
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 15,707,588 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Tuesday morning and distributed 31,161,075 doses.
Reuters:
The tally of vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, as of 6:00am ET, the agency said.
The agency said 13,595,803 people had received one or more doses, while 2,023,124 people have got the second dose as of Tuesday.
A total of 1,745,441 vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours.
- UK coronavirus strain detected in at least 60 countries:, says WHO. The UK coronavirus strain has been detected in at least 60 countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, 10 more than a week ago. With the global death toll now well past two million, and new variants of the virus causing deep concern, countries across the world are grappling with how to slow infections until vaccines become widely available.
- Sadiq Khan: London missed out on early share of vaccine. A simplistic formula used to distribute coronavirus vaccines that did not take into account the size of GP practices has meant fewer people receiving one in London, according to the mayor, Sadiq Khan.
- The new South African strain has now been reported in 23 countries and territories, the WHO also announced in its weekly update. Like the UK strain, it is believed to be more infectious.
- North Korean defector numbers plunge amid pandemic. The number of North Koreans defecting to the South plummeted last year after Pyongyang closed its border in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Seoul’s unification ministry said Wednesday.The figure has been on a steady decline for some time but slumped to just 229 last year, the ministry said, far below the 1,047 of 2019.
- Beijing steps up Covid measures. China’s capital Beijing said on Wednesday it will investigate all individuals who entered the city from abroad from 10 December and shut down a subway station after reporting the biggest daily jump in new cases in more than three weeks.
- China’s National Health Commission said on Wednesday that a total of 103 new cases were reported on 19 January, down from 118 a day earlier. Northeastern Jilin province reported 46 new cases, however, setting another record in daily cases, while Hebei province surrounding Beijing reported 19 new cases. Beijing reported seven new cases, matching the total reported on 28 December.
- Joe Biden memorialised the more than 400,000 Americans who have died from Covid-19 during a vigil in Washington DC late Tuesday afternoon, as many Americans took to social media in collective mourning.
- Mexico reported its highest daily death toll since the coronavirus pandemic began, with 1,584 deaths confirmed Tuesday. There was also a near-record one-day rise in new virus cases of 18,894. Mexico has seen almost 1.67 million confirmed coronavirus infections and almost 143,000 test-confirmed deaths related to Covid-19. With the country’s extremely low testing rate, official estimates suggest the real death toll is closer to 195,000.
Updated
Japan’s vaccine programme chief denies reports of May roll-out
The chief of Japan’s coronavirus vaccination programme, administrative reform minister Taro Kono, denied media reports that vaccinations for the general population may start in May, as the country battles a third wave that has brought record numbers of infections and serious cases.
Reuters reports that the government has said it would prioritise medical workers, the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions in its vaccine programme expected to start by the end of February, but has not provided a timeline beyond that.
The timeline for the roll-out has garnered interest in Japan, with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga saying that the vaccines are key to a safe Olympics. Japan has arranged to buy 540 million doses from Western developers including Pfizer Inc , whose vaccine is expected to be the first to get regulatory approval.
Updated
Sadiq Khan: London missed out on early share of vaccine
A simplistic formula used to distribute coronavirus vaccines that did not take into account the size of GP practices has meant fewer people receiving one in London, according to the mayor, Sadiq Khan.
While areas such as Slough and Newcastle have successfully immunised 100% of their elderly care home residents, London is lagging behind in the vaccine race even as cases remain among the highest in the country.
The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh and Peter Walker report:
India started exporting coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday with the first shipment to the neighbouring Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, the foreign ministry said.
“First consignment takes off for Bhutan!” Anurag Srivastava, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs, said on Twitter. “India begins supply of Covid vaccines to its neighbouring and key partner countries.”
First consignment takes off for Bhutan!
— Anurag Srivastava (@MEAIndia) January 20, 2021
India begins supply of Covid vaccines to its neighbouring and key partner countries. #VaccineMaitri#NeighbourhoodFirst pic.twitter.com/ejofJuCObi
Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and the Seychelles are also expected to get the shots from the world’s biggest vaccine making country.
UK coronavirus strain detected in at least 60 countries: WHO
The UK coronavirus strain has been detected in at least 60 countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, 10 more than a week ago, AFP reports.
With the global death toll now well past two million, and new variants of the virus causing deep concern, countries across the world are grappling with how to slow infections until vaccines become widely available.
The South African strain, which like the UK one is believed to be more infectious, has now been reported in 23 countries and territories, the WHO also announced in its weekly update.
It added that the number of new deaths climbed to a record high of 93,000 over the previous seven days, with 4.7 million new cases reported over the same period.
The arrival of mass vaccination campaigns in the US and Europe had brought hope that the end of the pandemic was in sight; the European Union said Tuesday it was aiming to inoculate 70 percent of its adult population before the end of August.
But many EU countries - and other nations including India and Russia - have struggled to get their inoculation programmes off the ground.
The United States remains home to the world’s worst outbreak in overall numbers, and US President-elect Joe Biden made clear he would be taking no chances following his inauguration on Wednesday.
Recent days have also seen a renewed focus on the initial outbreak a year ago, with China defending its handling of the virus on Tuesday after independent experts criticised the speed of its response.
The Australian Department of Home Affairs mistakenly sent outdated letters to visa applicants erroneously telling them to immediately book international return flights out of Australia in the middle of a pandemic or risk having their applications derailed.
Ordinarily, the migration system requires applicants for some permanent visa types – including parent visas and partner visas – to be outside of Australia at the time they are granted.
Such travel is highly risky during the Covid-19 pandemic, however, which was recognised by the federal government when it introduced temporary time extensions to prevent unnecessary travel by visa applicants:
North Korean defector numbers plunge amid pandemic
The number of North Koreans defecting to the South plummeted last year after Pyongyang closed its border in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Seoul’s unification ministry said Wednesday.
The figure has been on a steady decline for some time but slumped to just 229 last year, the ministry said, far below the 1,047 of 2019.
The vast majority of Northern defectors first travel to neighbouring China, sometimes staying there for years before making their way on to the South via third countries, and only a handful directly cross the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, AFP reports.
But the North has a ramshackle health system that would struggle to cope with a major disease outbreak and imposed a strict border closure last January to try to protect itself from the virus that first emerged in China, its key ally.
The North has not confirmed a single case of Covid-19 - although experts have long said it is unlikely to have escaped the pandemic - and in September the commander of US forces in the South said Pyongyang had issued shoot-to-kill orders in its border areas to prevent the virus entering the country.
“It looks like the number of (North Korean) people entering the South decreased due to the effects of North Korean-Chinese border control and restrictions of movement from third countries due to Covid-19,” Seoul’s unification ministry said in a statement.
Inter-Korean relations have been in a deep freeze following the collapse of a summit in Hanoi between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump in 2019 over what the nuclear-armed North would be willing to give up in exchange for a loosening of sanctions.
South Korea may secure additional coronavirus vaccines for 20 million people from US drugmaker Novavax Inc, President Moon Jae-in said, according to a statement from the presidential office on Wednesday.
Reuters reports that Novavax entered into a development and supply agreement for its vaccine with South Korea’s SK bioscience Co last year, according to a statement in August.
Moon visited SK bioscience’s work site on Wednesday and said that the agreement between Novavax and SK bioscience “raised the possibility of securing vaccines for an additional 20 million people,” the statement said.
That is in addition to the vaccines that the South Korean government has secured so far.
The country has secured 106 million doses to allow for coverage of 56 million people, more than the 52 million residents of the country, Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency director Jeong Eun-kyeong said earlier this month.
Despite this, South Korean authorities have been working to secure additional vaccine volumes because of lingering uncertainties surrounding inoculation, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said last week.
In sport news:
Dean Smith has described the “very scary” scale of the Covid-19 outbreak that forced Aston Villa’s entire squad into isolation this month but says he is in favour of continuing the season.
Nine Villa players and five backroom staff members tested positive as the virus swept through the club, leading to illness and anxiety as well as the closure of the training ground, the postponement of two Premier League matches and the deployment of youth players to fulfil the FA Cup tie against Liverpool:
Updated
In case you missed it: China’s health authorities have again stepped up anti-pandemic measures in response to its ongoing outbreak - the worst since early 2020, and just weeks away from the start of Chinese New Year. Authorities said today there were 103 new cases confirmed on Tuesday, including 88 local transmissions.
The numbers are dropping in Hebei province - it recorded 19 new cases - but there is concern about a worsening situation in Jilin, which recorded 46. Millions more people have been put under lockdown, in Songyuan city, and Harbin city in Heilongjiang has temporarily shut down businesses and public venues.
Heilongjian reported 16 cases on Tuesday, the same number of officials who have been disciplined in the province for “being slack” according to state media title the Global Times. According to the report the 16 officials had been irresponsible and paralysed in their thoughts, with “formalism and bureaucracy” resulting in the county’s cluster.
Authorities appear to be very concerned about cases in the capital Beijing. Beijing is surrounded by Hebei province, and strict entry rules sought to keep the outbreak out of the city.
However with seven cases on Tuesday, the city’s authorities are now investigating all individuals who entered Beijing from overseas from 10 December. Of the seven cases, six lived in Daxing district and the local subway station has been closed. Further restrictions on Beijing are expected.
More on vaccinations in India now:
Indian authorities hope to give vaccines to 300 million people. The recipients are to include 30 million doctors, nurses and other front-line workers, to be followed by 270 million people who either are over 50 or have illnesses that make them vulnerable to Covid.
India on 4 January approved the emergency use of two vaccines, one developed by Oxford University and UK-based drugmaker AstraZeneca, and the other by Bharat Biotech. The regulator took the step without publishing information about the Indian vaccine’s efficacy.
Bharat Biotech has still not published data on its vaccine’s effectiveness but said it is complying with clinical trial guidelines.
The regulator maintains the vaccine is safe and gave its approval in the belief that it could be more effective in tackling a new variant of the coronavirus found in the U.K. The regulator and the company have said efficacy data will be published after ongoing late clinical trials conclude.
India’s homegrown coronavirus vaccine developer Bharat Biotech on Tuesday warned people with weak immunity and other medical conditions including allergies, fever or a bleeding disorder to consult a doctor before getting the shot — and if possible avoid the vaccine.
AP: The company said those receiving vaccinations should disclose their medical condition, medicines they are taking and any history of allergies. It said severe allergic reactions among vaccine recipients may include difficulty breathing, swelling of the face and throat, rapid heartbeat, body rashes, dizziness and weakness.
The vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech ran into controversy after the Indian government allowed its use without concrete data showing its effectiveness in preventing Covid. Tens of thousands of people have been given the shot in the past three days after India started inoculating health care workers last weekend in what is likely the world’s largest coronavirus vaccination campaign.
India vaccinated 148,266 people on Monday, taking its total to 381,305, the health ministry said.
One of South Africa’s most beloved food writers died from coronavirus in January, AP reports.
Dorah Sitole’s latest cookbook was widely hailed in December as a moving chronicle of her journey from humble township cook to famous, well-traveled author.
In “40 Years of Iconic Food,” Sitole engagingly described how she quietly battled South Africa’s racist apartheid system to find appreciation, and a market, for African cuisine. Her book became a holiday bestseller, purchased by Blacks and whites alike.
Sitole’s career started in 1980 at the height of apartheid when she was hired by a canned foods company to promote sales of their products by giving cooking classes in Black townships. She found that she loved the work.
Going down memory lane. The wonderful Dorah Sithole cooked live in studio on my Aljazeera show, South2North. She brought her world class talent and dazzling smile. Rest in peace Dorah. You will be surely missed. https://t.co/t8F5ZMZleT
— Redi Tlhabi (@RediTlhabi) January 5, 2021
In 1987, Sitole became the country’s first Black food writer when she was appointed food editor for True Love, one of the few publications for the country’s Black majority.
Sitole received numerous awards for her contribution to South African culture.
In one of her last interviews, Sitole said the highlight of her four-decade career was her trip across the continent.
“I had always wanted to travel through Africa and I had no clue what to expect,” she said on Radio 702. “It was almost like you don’t know what you are going into, and then you find it. I loved every moment and every country that I went to, I loved the food and the experience.”
Sitole is survived by her children Nonhlanhla, Phumzile and Ayanda.
Beijing steps up Covid measures
China’s capital Beijing said on Wednesday it will investigate all individuals who entered the city from abroad from 10 December and shut down a subway station after reporting the biggest daily jump in new cases in more than three weeks, Reuters reports.
The measures come amid what has become the country’s most severe outbreak since March 2020 ahead of the key Chinese Lunar New Year holiday season, when hundreds of millions travel, raising fears of another major wave that could bring the country back into a debilitating standstill.
The National Health Commission said on Wednesday that a total of 103 new cases were reported on 19 January, down from 118 a day earlier. Northeastern Jilin province reported 46 new cases, however, setting another record in daily cases, while Hebei province surrounding Beijing reported 19 new cases.
Beijing reported seven new cases, matching the total reported on 28 December. Of these new patients, six patients live in Daxing district and the city’s subway operator said it shut down the Tiangong Yuan metro station located nearby the Daxing patients as part of prevention measures.
Communist Party-backed Beijing Daily said the capital’s party and government leadership met late Tuesday and agreed to further tighten monitoring, minimise public gatherings and reduce passenger loads in public transport.
Updated
More now on the situation in Mexico, via AP:
The army has been given responsibility for transporting and guarding vaccines in Mexico, but a private security firm was apparently in charge inside the hospital.
Before Tuesday, Mexico had received only about 750,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and several people have been sanctioned for cutting lines to get doses.
Mexico’s total amount so far is enough to vaccinate about half of the country’s 750,000 front-line medical personnel, all of whom will need two doses.
Also Tuesday, authorities launched a campaign urging people to return rented oxygen tanks they no longer need, saying enormous demand amid the pandemic has created a shortage of the cylinders.
The consumer affairs agency launched an online campaign under the slogan “Return Your Tank, For The Love of Life.”
With hospitals in Mexico City and other states overwhelmed by a wave of Covid-19 cases, many families have turned to treating their relatives at home with supplementary oxygen, creating spot shortages of tanks and oxygen for refills.
But once patients recover, the agency said, many people simply keep the cannisters just in case someone else falls ill.
“By doing this they are depriving other patients of something they need at a given moment, and cannot get,” the agency said.
The shortages of oxygen, like those of vaccines, has also led to thefts.
On Tuesday, police in the town of Tultepec, just north of Mexico City, chased down a small freight truck carrying dozens of oxygen tanks, after the truck was reported stolen. Two suspects were detained at the scene.
Updated
Van Morrison will challenge the Northern Irish government in court over its “blanket ban” on live music in licensed venues arising from coronavirus restrictions, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
AFP: Solicitor Joe Rice said the Northern Irish singer-songwriter, who has released several protest songs against Covid-19 rules in recent months, will ask the high court in Belfast to review the policy.
“We will be seeking leave for judicial review to challenge the blanket ban on live music in licensed premises in Northern Ireland,” Rice said. “We’re not aware of any credible scientific or medical evidence to justify this particular blanket ban … and we’re going to challenge this in the high court.”
The UK, the country worst-hit in Europe by the virus, is struggling with its third and deadliest wave, blamed on a new strain believed to be highly infectious.
Devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which have responsibility for health policy, have all imposed strict lockdown measures at various stages of the health crisis.
The Northern Irish executive in Belfast has introduced regulations that prohibit live music in indoor licensed venues in Northern Ireland:
Covid-19 is unlikely to ever die out, even with vaccination efforts, but it could become more transmissible and less deadly, New Zealand’s director general of health has warned.
“If you think about influenza, which was first recorded in 1172 I think, in Europe … these viruses don’t tend to die out … They change over time and in fact what we are seeing with these new variants with the Covid-19 virus is that they tend become more transmissible and less deadly over time,” Dr Ashley Bloomfield told the AM Show on Wednesday.
However, Bloomfield said that vaccines would help humans develop immunity, adding to the natural immunity that people who have been infected will also develop.
He also warned if some of the new variants of Covid-19 escape managed isolation and quarantine, the impact could be greater than it was last year. These mutations have been detected in New Zealand’s managed isolation facilities:
If you fancy a break from the bad news, why not spend a few minutes thinking about sphinx moths (also known as hawk moths):
Updated
Mexico suffers record deaths
Mexico reported its highest daily death toll since the coronavirus pandemic began, with 1,584 deaths confirmed Tuesday. There was also a near-record one-day rise in new virus cases of 18,894, AP reports.
Mexico has seen almost 1.67 million confirmed coronavirus infections and almost 143,000 test-confirmed deaths related to Covid-19. With the country’s extremely low testing rate, official estimates suggest the real death toll is closer to 195,000.
The country’s Defense Department, meanwhile, said four doses of coronavirus vaccine were stolen at a public hospital in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City, probably by a hospital employee or with the aid of an employee.
“This theft was able to be carried out through the dishonesty and greed of a member of the hospital’s vaccination staff,” the department said in a statement.
Updated
Here is our video from the lighting ceremony in Washington. ‘Between sundown and dusk, let us shine the lights in the darkness along the sacred pool of reflection, remember all whom we lost,’ Biden said.
The memorial took place at the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial, with 400 lights placed around the pool to commemorate the 400,000 American victims of the pandemic. The memorial also included 400 bell tolls at the National Cathedral and churches across the country
China reports 103 new cases
Mainland China reported 103 new Covid-19 cases on Jan. 19, down from 118 a day earlier, the national health authority said on Wednesday.
Reuters: The National Health Commission, in a statement, said 88 of the new cases were local infections. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, fell to 58 from 91 cases a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 88,557, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,635.
The figures exclude cases reported in Hong Kong and Macau, which are Chinese territories but independently report their data. The commission also excludes cases reported in Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as its own.
Another way the US is mourning the more than 400,000 people who have died during the pandemic:
From my window, I'm hearing the Washington National Cathedral funeral bell, which has begun to toll 400 times—once for every 1,000 Covid deaths in this country. The first time the cathedral did this, it rang 200 times and took more than 19 minutes. There's a heaviness here.
— Madeleine Morgenstern (@MadeleineinDC) January 19, 2021
Updated
Here is a performance from the memorial:
Michigan nurse Lori Marie Key, who went viral singing 'Amazing Grace' at work, reprises the song at the national COVID-19 memorial ceremony pic.twitter.com/8OtCaNU5mw
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 19, 2021
Joe Biden holds memorial for 400,000 Americans who have died of Covid-19
Joe Biden memorialized the more than 400,000 Americans who have died from Covid-19 during a vigil in Washington DC late Tuesday afternoon, as many Americans took to social media in collective mourning.
The grim milestone was passed earlier on Tuesday as the latest figures from Johns Hopkins university show that about 401,128 people have now been killed by the virus in the US amid more than 24m cases – both numbers being by far the highest in the world.
“To heal, we must remember,” Biden said at the memorial. “It’s hard sometimes to remember, but that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation.”
The memorial was hosted by Biden’s inaugural committee, which described the event as “a chance to reflect and honor those no longer with us. The committee had called for a “national moment of unity”, asking Americans to light candles in their windows. Organizers also asked for participants to ring bells for a “national moment of remembrance”.
Organizers also illumined 400 lights along the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, to remember those who died:
Parliament’s spending watchdog has called on the government to explain and fix issues with the tax system that have denied whole groups of freelancers and self-employed workers financial support during the coronavirus pandemic.
The powerful cross-party public accounts committee (PAC) said some of the workforce had “not had a penny” from the government’s multibillion-pound support schemes despite repeat lockdowns blocking many from work, while some large companies had received taxpayer support and paid dividends to shareholders and high salaries to executives:
Speaking to a friend when infected with the coronavirus could be as dangerous as coughing near them thanks to lingering particles, research has suggested.
Covid can be spread through a number of routes, including virus-containing droplets emitted when an infected person breaths, speaks or coughs – a factor experts said could help to explain why Covid seems to spread more easily in indoor settings.
While large droplets fall to the ground over short distances, tiny droplets known as aerosols can carry the virus over distances greater than two metres, and linger.
Now experts have developed models to explore the risk posed by large droplets and aerosols, and explore ways to mitigate it. Their results suggest it takes just a couple of seconds for expelled particles to travel beyond two metres:
Germany extends partial lockdown
Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday that Germany is extending its pandemic restrictions, including the closure of schools and stores, until mid-February amid concerns that new mutations of the coronavirus could trigger a fresh surge in cases.
AP: Germany’s infection rate has stabilised in recent days, indicating that existing restrictions may have been effective in bringing down the numbers. On Tuesday, the country’s disease control center reported 11,369 newly confirmed infections and 989 deaths, for an overall death toll of 47,622.
“All our efforts to contain the spread of the virus face a serious threat,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin, noting that experts have linked surging infections in Britain and Ireland to the appearance of a more contagious virus variant there.
“Now is the time to guard against the danger posed by this mutated virus,” she said.
While individual instances of new variants have been found in Germany, scientists have said it isn’t dominant yet, she added.
“There’s still time, so to speak, to contain the risk,” said Merkel.
In addition to extending the closure of restaurants, most stores and schools until Feb. 14, Merkel and the governors of Germany’s 16 states agreed to require people to wear the more effective FFP2 or KN95 masks on public transport and stores. Employers will also be ordered to let staff work from home, wherever possible, to avoid office-driven infections.
Merkel said the goal remains to have fewer than 50 new coronavirus cases a week per 100,000 inhabitants. Germany’s nationwide average is currently 131.
The governor of the eastern state of Saxony, which until recently had the highest rates of infection in the country, said it was important to drive the number of new cases down further.
Updated
UK suffers record daily Covid deaths
The UK has reported the highest number of daily deaths since the pandemic started, as new data showed one in eight people are likely to have had the virus in England, PA Media reports.
Public Health England said a further 1,610 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 - the highest number of UK deaths reported on a single day since the outbreak began.
The new record brings the UK total for those who have died after contracting coronavirus to 91,470.
However, the true number of those who have lost their lives to the virus has already reached the 108,000 mark, once cases where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate is taken into account.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
As always, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
Germany is extending its national lockdown until 14 February, with new rules making it mandatory to wear medical masks in shops and on public transport.
Meanwhile the UK has reported the highest number of daily deaths since the pandemic started, as new data showed one in eight people are likely to have had the virus in England.
Public Health England said a further 1,610 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 - the highest number of UK deaths reported on a single day since the outbreak began.
Here are the other key recent developments in the pandemic so far:
- The eastern Spanish region of Valencia is to shut down all bars and restaurants “for a limited time” in a bid to slow the third wave of the coronavirus.
- The EU’s member states will agree by the end of the month on the form of a common vaccination certificate but there are no plans to give travel rights to holders of such documents, the European commission has said.
- However, Emirates and Etihad, two of the middle east’s biggest airlines, said they would be among the first companies to test an application that allows pre-travel verification of coronavirus tests and vaccinations. The United Arab Emirates carriers have partnered with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to be among “the first airlines” worldwide to trial the IATA Travel Pass, both airlines said in separate statements.
- The embattled Dutch government has said it needs to strengthen lockdown measures “as soon as possible” to rein in the spread of the coronavirus amid fears about more transmissible variants. Health minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to parliament that the government would announce extra measures tomorrow afternoon.
- Denmark has announced it would include homeless people among those given priority for Covid-19 vaccines. According to social services, Denmark has about 6,500 homeless people, and the decision follows calls from charities and officials who have pointed to an increased risk of transmission among the homeless. It also announced it would extend lockdown measures.
- The Amazonian city of Manaus in Brazil has begun administering Covid vaccines as the rainforest’s biggest city’s health system struggles desperately amid an increase in infections and dwindling oxygen supplies.
- Thai prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha warned that his government would prosecute anyone who shares false information about coronavirus vaccines in social or mass media. It came after the government was accused of acting too slowly to inoculate the country’s population and criticised the country’s coronavirus vaccine strategy as being too reliant on a company owned by the Thai king.
- The Covid pandemic has exposed how underfunded and powerless the World Health Organization is to carry out the tasks the world expects of it, an independent expert panel has said.
