Got vaccinated? You’ll have a certificate to prove it. While Australia waits to see exactly how its covid vaccination plan will be rolled out, as well as in what circumstances the voluntary jab will be “required” , the government has announced a plan enabling those who have received the vaccine, to prove it.
Government services minister Stuart Robert said an immunisation history statement, available through the government’s MyGov or Medicare sites and apps, would display proof of Covid-19 immunisation status. Hard Copies will also be made available.
Australia’s vaccine program is slated to begin within weeks.
Vaccination certificates are a very good Inititiative but they should also be available on the excellent Service NSW app which is on millions of phones and has played a key role in NSW’s contact tracing. https://t.co/3yQ3TyyAje
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) February 6, 2021
Before the pandemic, AstraZeneca was highly regarded in the business and pharmaceutical world – seen as one of the UK’s best companies. Now because of Britain’s successful vaccine program, it is a household name.
The Anglo-Swedish firm, which publishes annual results on Thursday, has sprung to prominence as maker of one of the world’s first Covid-19 vaccines, approved for use in the UK, EU and India. Inevitably headlines have followed. AstraZeneca has been the focal point of the vaccine supply wars between the UK and the EU and has, as part of that row, faced questions over its effectiveness in the over-65s.
Last week brought some respite when analysis of fresh data from three trials found that a single dose of its vaccine conferred an average 76% protection for at least three months and cut transmission of the virus by 67%.
AstraZeneca’s collaboration with Oxford University on the vaccine boosted its reputation and drove its share price higher. The drugmaker overtook Royal Dutch Shell and Unilever in May to become, for a couple of months, the biggest FTSE 100 company.
Updated
Hundreds protest Covid restrictions in Denmark
Hello, Rebecca Ratcliffe here, taking over from my colleague Yohannes Lowe.
AFP has reported this from Copenhagen, where hundreds of people took to the streets on Saturday night to protest against Denmark’s Covid-19 restrictions and its plans for a digital vaccination certificate.
Organised by a group calling itself “Men in Black Denmark”, 600 or so people gathered in the bitter cold in front of the parliament building to protest the “dictatorship” of Denmark’s partial lockdown.
Plans for a digital vaccine “passport” were a main target of their anger.
Like other European countries, Denmark intends to develop a digital certificate for Covid vaccination for travel. It could also potentially be used for sports and cultural events and restaurants.
Protest organisers say such a passport implied an obligation to be vaccinated and amounted to a further restriction on individual freedom. Vaccination is not compulsory in Denmark.
Demonstrators, including some wearing hoods, marched with torches in the centre of the Danish capital, chanting “We have had enough” and “Freedom for Denmark.”
Protesters carried a picture of prime minister Mette Frederiksen made to look like North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
The authorised march was largely peaceful and there was a large contingent of police deployed.
Non-essential shops, bars and restaurants are closed in the Scandinavian country of 5.8 million people and the government has extended the restrictions until at least 28 February. Primary schools can reopen on Monday.
Updated
Summary
Here is a quick re-cap of some of the major events in the UK and from around the world:
- AstraZeneca has reportedly said its vaccine developed with the University of Oxford appeared to offer only limited protection against mild disease caused by the South African Covid variant, based on early data from a trial.
- The Australian state of Victoria has recorded another day without locally acquired cases, after nearly 15,000 tests were conducted.
- The UK government said a further 828 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Saturday, bringing the UK total to 112,092.
- Ten care home residents have died after a Covid outbreak in Fife, Scotland. NHS Fife said 25 residents and 43 staff at Mossview Care Home in Lochgelly tested positive for the virus.
- The Netherlands on Saturday surpassed a million confirmed Covid infections since the start of the pandemic, official data showed.
Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid shot less effective against South African variant, study suggests
AstraZeneca said on Saturday its vaccine developed with the University of Oxford appeared to offer only limited protection against mild disease caused by the South African Covid variant, based on early data from a trial, Reuters reports.
The study from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand and Oxford University showed the vaccine had significantly reduced efficacy against the South African variant, according to a Financial Times report published earlier in the day.
“In this small phase I/II trial, early data has shown limited efficacy against mild disease primarily due to the B.1.351 South African variant,” an AstraZeneca spokesman said in response to the FT report.
“However, we have not been able to properly ascertain its effect against severe disease and hospitalisation given that subjects were predominantly young healthy adults.”
Updated
A major teaching hospital in England has been forced to suspend its vaccination clinics because it does not have enough eligible people to be vaccinated, reports the Observer’s James Tapper.
Updated
A first shipment of 88 litres of active ingredients to make AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine in Brazil arrived from China on Saturday.
Reuters reports:
With those supplies flown into Rio de Janeiro on a cargo plane, the Fiocruz biomedical centre can begin filling and finishing 2.8m doses.
The federally funded centre expects to receive more ingredients this month to make a total of 15m shots of the vaccine developed with Oxford University.
The Fiocruz production line, originally scheduled to start producing in December, has sat idle due to delays getting the first shipment of supplies from China.
The AstraZeneca Plc vaccine is the central pillar of Brazil’s national inoculation program and the federal government has ordered material for Fiocruz to make up to 100m shots.
To start inoculating its 210m people, Brazil has relied initially on the Chinese vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech Ltd and 2m ready-to-use AstraZeneca shots imported from India last month.
Updated
As Western Australians enjoy having their freedom back this weekend after a five-day lockdown, plans for the first stage of the vaccine rollout in that state have been detailed.
The most at-risk frontline workers will start getting vaccinated by 22 February.
The state will get 10,000 doses for the limited initial rollout “to tackle the greatest threat”, premier Mark McGowan said.
That’s in line with Australia’s approach to prioritise quarantine and international border staff, high risk frontline healthcare workers and aged and disability care staff.
Updated
Victoria records another day of zero locally acquired Covid cases
Some good news in Australia with Victoria, where the Australian Open tennis tournament starts on Monday, has recorded another day without locally acquired cases, after nearly 15,000 tests were conducted, the Guardian’s Rosemary Bolger reports.
Yesterday there were 0 new cases reported. 14,862 test results were received - #EveryTestHelps. More info will be available later: https://t.co/lIUrl0ZEco#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData #StayStafeStayOpen pic.twitter.com/DtSaa1TqkJ
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) February 6, 2021
That will be a relief for tournament organisers who have had to contend with quarantining players and officials for two weeks and last minute disruptions caused by a Melbourne quarantine hotel worker testing positive last week.
Speaking of Australia’s strict hotel quarantine system for people arriving from overseas, New South Wales, where the bulk of travellers arrive, has announced some extra checks.
Arrivals in Sydney will now have to get tested two days after they leave quarantine. It’s an additional precaution after several cases of someone developing symptoms after the two-week quarantine period.
Updated
Brazil has had 50,630 new confirmed Covid-19 cases reported in the past 24 hours, and 978 deaths from Covid, the health ministry said on Saturday, Reuters reports.
It has now registered 9,497,795 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 231,012, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the US and India and its second-deadliest.
Updated
The rate at which cases of Covid-19 have fallen since the start of the year is dramatically lower in the UK’s poorest regions than in wealthier areas, according to detailed analysis of government data.
Toby Helm, the Observer’s political editor, and Robin McKie, the Observer’s science and environment editor, report:
Updated
The Turriff Show, one of Scotland’s largest agricultural events, has been cancelled for a second year due to the pandemic.
The Aberdeenshire-based two-day show, which attracts well over 20,000 people annually, was scheduled to be held in August this year.
But organisers said the “continued uncertainty of hosting large-scale events” in the coming months had forced them to call it off, according to the BBC.
Alan Gaul, the 2021 president, said:
It is with deep regret and much consideration that we had to make the extremely difficult decision that the next Turriff Show will take place in 2022 and not 2021 as we had hoped. The release of the vaccine gave us all fresh hope for our 2021 event. But as time has moved on and with the possibility of restrictions for mass gatherings, social distancing and lockdown measures continuing to be in place for the foreseeable future and the uncertainty of when and how long it will be before we can return to some form of ‘normality’ as we know it, it was felt to be the right decision to take.
Updated
Hospitals in France were treating 27,369 people for the disease, down 245 from the previous day, marking the fourth consecutive daily fall in Covid-19 hospital numbers, Reuters reports.
The number of Covid patients in intensive care eased to 3,225, down 20 from the previous day, data showed (see earlier post).
Updated
The French health ministry has reported 191 deaths over 24 hours, against 651 on Friday, with 20,586 new confirmed cases over 24 hours, down from the 22,139 recorded the previous day.
France has given 1.86m people a first dose of a Covid vaccine and 247,260 people a second dose, the health ministry said on Saturday.
The first-dose total compared with 1.84m as of Friday, Reuters reports.
Updated
Here is a nice shot of the artist Luke Jerram with his glass sculpture of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine at the Paintworks yesterday in Bristol, England.
The sculpture, which is one million times larger than the actual vaccine nanoparticle, marks the 10 millionth vaccination to be administered in the UK.
Updated
The Department for Health and Social Care has said more areas of the UK will have additional testing made available to control the spread of Covid variants.
A statement said:
More areas will have additional testing made available to control and suppress the spread of Covid-19 variants.
Working in partnership with local authorities, additional surge testing and sequencing is being deployed to targeted areas around Worcestershire WR3, an area in Sefton PR9, and areas in Bristol and South Gloucestershire, where Covid-19 variants have been found.
Surge testing is in addition to existing extensive testing, and in combination with the lockdown rules and remembering hands-face-space, will help to monitor and suppress the spread of the virus.
Positive cases will be sequenced for genomic data to help understand Covid-19 variants and their spread within these areas.
Updated
In the UK, the school leaders’ union has dismissed plans to lengthen the school day to help children catch up after the unprecedented disruption caused by the pandemic as “superficially attractive” but unhelpful, reports my colleague Mattha Busby:
Updated
A mosque in England has been turned into a pop-up Covid vaccination centre to help ease mistrust in the Muslim community about getting the jab, PA Media reports.
Young children went with their grandparents and relatives aged over 68 in the bitter winter chill to the makeshift clinic at the London Muslim Centre for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
It comes just days after local medical officials in Tower Hamlets said only three out of 200 people who had been contacted had turned up for an appointment, according to Asad Jaman, of the East London Mosque.
Jaman said misinformation, confusion and negative online information had created concerns about the vaccine.
He said:
We are telling the people that it is wise for you to take the vaccine because you are not only helping yourself but you are helping the community and beyond. As a Muslim, it is very important that we give time and support the preservation of life.
Updated
A further 571 people who tested positive for Covid-19 have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 75,357, NHS England said on Saturday.
Patients were aged between 17 and 100, with the deaths occurring between 5 December and 5 February.
All except 29, aged between 36 and 98, had known underlying health conditions.
Updated
Some 500 protesters marched through the Swiss tax haven of Zug on Saturday, wearing white protective suits and chanting dystopian slogans to voice displeasure with Covid curbs.
Reuters reports:
The demonstration was reminiscent of a rally a week ago in Vienna, where thousands opposed to that country’s even-stricter lockdown faced off against police.
Though Switzerland’s restrictions have been less severe than those in Germany, Austria or Italy - restaurants and non-essential shops are closed but ski areas are open - there is still a steady buzz of opposition.
In Zug, police watched but did not intervene as a group of protesters filed from the train station to the centre of the lakeside city known for shell companies with letter-box addresses and attractive tax rates.
Marchers wore placards that read “Wearing a mask is modern slavery”. A loudspeaker droned, “Closeness is dangerous” and “Denounce those you love”.
Updated
Patients in England are facing a hidden national dentistry crisis, fuelled by the pandemic, that will lead to a rise in oral cancer in coming months and years, dentists and patient advocates have warned.
Read the full story by my colleague James Tapper here first:
Updated
The number of Covid patients requiring intensive care in Portugal’s struggling hospitals dipped on Saturday from the previous day’s record high, as the country reported fewer daily deaths and new infections.
Data from Portugal’s health authority showed 891 people were in intensive care, 13 fewer than on Friday, while a total of 6,158 people were in hospital with Covid-19, down from 6,412 the previous day, Reuters reports.
There were 214 deaths from Covid-19, below Friday’s 258, and the number of daily infections totalled 6,132, in a further retreat from end-January levels.
Updated
The seven-day rolling average of first doses given in the UK is now 440,896.
Based on the latest figures, an average of 392,754 first doses of vaccine would be needed each day in order to meet the government’s target of 15m first doses by 15 February, PA Media reports.
Updated
828 further Covid-linked deaths registered in the UK
In the UK, 828 more people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, bringing the total to 112,092, according to government data.
This daily number is down from 1,014 recorded the previous day.
The UK recorded 18,262 cases on Saturday, down from 19,114 on Friday, figures show.
The figures showed 11.465m people had received a first dose of a Covid vaccine, up from 10.971m on Friday.
Government data up to 5 February shows of the 11,975,267 jabs given in the UK so far, 11,465,210 were first doses – a rise of 494,163 on the previous day’s figures.
Some 510,057 were second doses, an increase of 4,064 on figures released the previous day.
See the official release here.
Updated
A musical family from Faversham in Kent who shared a video of their living room performance of a third lockdown-themed Totally Fixed Where We Are has gone viral.
University of Kent history lecturer Dr Ben Marsh, his wife Danielle, and their children – Alfie, Thomas, Ella, and Tess – all star in their newest video- a rendition of Bonnie’s Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart:
Updated
Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog for the rest of the evening. As always, feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
Germany is in talks with BioNTech and other vaccine makers about possible funding to help them secure capacity and raw materials, the country’s health minister, Jens Spahn, has said.
According to Reuters, the discussions follow a government “vaccine summit” this week with state leaders and representatives of pharmaceutical companies and the European commission to discuss progress in vaccinating the population.
Delays to the European Union’s vaccine rollout and concern about new variants make it harder for European governments to ease current pandemic restrictions. Spahn tweeted:
At the Vaccine Summit, BioNTech outlined a potential funding requirement of up to €400m for reserving capacity and raw materials into next year. We are in exchange with the company to further firm this up.
We are also talking to other vaccine manufacturers about this. We want to secure sufficient capacity for Germany, Europe and the world for 2022 in case of problematic mutations or necessary booster vaccinations.
Updated
Bodies have begun to pile up in Bolivia as a fierce second wave has overwhelmed funeral homes and cemeteries, according to officials, stoking fears the growing backlog could become yet another focal point of infection. Reuters reports:
The bodies of the dead, wrapped in impromptu Andean alpaca wool blankets and blue plastic bags or even packed into suitcases have inundated funeral parlors in the capital La Paz, the hardest hit region of the Andean nation.
Jorge Silva, Bolivia’s vice-minister of consumer protection, said authorities have found corpses strewn on the floors of garages, porches, and hallways of funeral homes, and he accused some owners of seeking to profit from the recent spike in deaths by taking on more corpses than they can safely handle.
‘This is good business for these companies but logically, it also puts the health of the population at risk’, he said, calling the homes ‘focal points for infection’.
But funeral home owners in El Alto, Bolivia’s second largest city, said many cemeteries had stopped accepting the bodies of Covid-19 victims, leaving them with few options.
‘We in El Alto have no place to bring our dead’, said Carmen Apaza of the Taylor Funeral Home.
Bolivia is among South America’s poorest countries and the second wave of coronavirus cases has pummelled its ailing health care system, pushing many hospitals to the brink of collapse.
The country, initially slow to lock down vaccines, recently received a batch of Russian Sputnik V doses to start its inoculation program. It expects to receive one million more doses via the Covax programme later this month.
Bolivia has reported 225,910 infections and 10,687 deaths from Covid-19 since the outbreak began, according to a Reuters tally. Infections in recent days have reached 80% of the first wave peak.
Health experts in Bolivia estimate January was the second deadliest month since the pandemic began.
Updated
India’s government has urged states and union territories to accelerate vaccinations after a review found “substantial” room for speeding up the programme, Reuters reports.
India started what it says is the world’s biggest vaccination programme on 16 January, aiming to reach 300 million people by July-August.
Twelve states and union territories have vaccinated 60% of their healthcare workers so far but many need to improve their performance, the government said after a review by the federal health secretary.
It said in a statement there remains ‘substantial scope for improvement in the number of average vaccinations per vaccination session’.
India vaccinated about 3 million healthcare workers in the first two weeks of the campaign – an average of just over 200,000 a day – but will have to accelerate to meet its summer coverage target.
The government asked states to schedule all healthcare workers for vaccination at least once by 20 February and all frontline workers by 6 March.
India, the world’s most populous country after China, is relying on the CoWIN app to link beneficiaries with vaccines despite initial glitches in the software which slowed the vaccination programme.
India has officially reported more than 10.8m infections; the world’s highest after the United States, though its daily cases have come down sharply since a mid-September peak of nearly 100,000. The death toll is almost 155,000.
A “wonderful, caring” nurse has died with Covid-19 in the hospital where she had worked for 18 years, the PA news agency has reported. Estrella Catalan, 52, died on Friday after weeks in the critical care unit of Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, where she had worked since September 2002.
Catalan was a staff nurse on the Gunthorpe and Heydon wards, as well as the emergency department and acute stroke team. Sam Higginson, the chief executive of Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NNUH), said:
Our deepest and heartfelt condolences are with Estrella’s loved ones and friends at this very difficult time and with all those who worked alongside Estrella and knew her. She was a wonderful person and a caring and conscientious nurse, who loved to teach and mentor students; she will be terribly missed.
This is a heartbreaking reminder of the situation we are facing every day to help others and we want to thank our staff for their ongoing courage and commitment during the pandemic.
Covid kills 10 people after care home outbreak
In Scotland, 10 people have died after a large outbreak at a care home in the town of Loghgelly, in Fife, Scotland. NHS Fife said that 25 residents and 43 members of staff had tested positive in Mossview Care Home.
The care home was temporarily closed to new admissions during the outbreak, but has now reopened as it has been 14 days since the last positive test, NHS Fife has said. The healthcare provider did not give any details about how the virus entered the care home.
Sadly, 10 people died after contracting Covid-19 and our thoughts are with their loved ones at this difficult time.
NHS Fife’s Health Protection Team and the Fife Health and Social Care Partnership worked closely with Fife Council’s Environmental Health Service to support the management of the care home and offer advice to prevent spread of the virus.
According to the latest Office for National Statistics data, one in 115 people in Scotland is estimated to have had the disease by the week ending 30 January. This marks the lowest rate in the UK, compared with one in 65 people in England, one in 70 in Wales and one in 65 in Northern Ireland.
Denmark will lift a ban on flights coming from the United Arab Emirates from Sunday, the UAE embassy to Denmark has said.
According to Reuters, Denmark said two weeks ago it would temporarily halt flights from the Gulf state for five days after concerns were raised about the tests administered in the emirate of Dubai before departure.
Passengers travelling from the UAE to Denmark must present a negative result no older than 24 hours before boarding. On arrival, they must take another test and isolate for 10 days, the embassy said, adding that these rules would apply until 28 February.
Updated
Netherlands confirms 1m infections
Reuters reports that official data shows the Netherlands has passed the mark of 1m confirmed infections since the start of the pandemic. The Institute for Public Health (RIVM) reported 4,075 new infections, taking the total number of cases to 1,001,826 in the 11 months since the virus was first found in the country of 17 million people.
Updated
Scotland has recorded a further 48 deaths, new figures reveal. The latest daily data showed a further 895 people were confirmed as having the disease, which was 5.9% of all those who were tested for it.
A total of 6,431 people in Scotland have now died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus. Meanwhile, a total of 1,729 are in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19 – a decrease of 65 from the previous total.
The number of intensive care patients has fallen by six in the last 24 hours to stand at 117. The figures also showed that 786,427 people have received the first dose of a vaccine, with 10,332 having had both doses, the PA news agency reports.
Updated
A further seven people with Covid-19 have died in Northern Ireland, the PA news agency has reported. Another 390 positive cases of the virus were also notified by the Department of Health on Saturday. There are 602 Covid-positive inpatients in hospital, 67 of whom are in intensive care.
A total of 10,302,620 vaccinations have taken place in England between 8 December and 5 February, according to provisional NHS England data, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 403,577 on the previous day’s figures.
Of this number, 9,831,897 were the first dose of the vaccine, a rise of 401,636 on the previous day’s figures, while 470,723 were the second dose, an increase of 1,941.
The German finance minister Olaf Scholz has said he is angry that more Covid-19 vaccines were not ordered last year, as Ursula von der Leyen renewed her defence of the European commission’s record on rolling them out.
According to Reuters, EU countries have so far given first doses to just under 4% of their populations, compared with 11% for the United States and almost 17% for Britain, according to Our World in Data. Von der Leyen has been under fire for the EU’s slow rollout. Scholz told BBC radio’s Today programme:
I’m angry about some of the decisions that were taken last year. I think there had been the opportunity to order more of the vaccines.
Asked about von der Leyen’s responsibility for the slow rollout, Scholz, speaking in English, replied:
I think it is necessary that anyone learns the lesson, and this is also (true) for Europe. I think the European Union is strong.
Scholz, a Social Democrat, and von der Leyen, a Christian Democrat, served together in Germany’s ruling coalition until 2019, when she quit to take over as European commission president.
In an opinion piece to run in Sunday’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, von der Leyen said it was misleading to say that sealing vaccine contracts earlier would have speeded up their delivery.
“The bottleneck lies elsewhere. Producing a new vaccine is an incredibly complex business,” she wrote, adding that “among the hundreds of components needed, important ingredients are in short supply worldwide”.
Describing the fight against the virus as “not a sprint, it is a marathon”, von der Leyen added that “mutations worry us”. She said: “We need to prepare today for a scenario in which the virus can no longer be sufficiently suppressed with current vaccines.”
Updated
Myanmar has approved Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, the Russian Direct Investments Fund said on Saturday on the official Twitter account for the vaccine. “Myanmar becomes the 21st country to register Sputnik V,” the RDIF said in the tweet.
Updated
Slovenia will reopen ski resorts and some shops and has eased restrictions on people entering the country imposed to help reduce the rate of Covid-19 infections, Reuters reports. The country’s leaders have been coming under pressure over their handling of the pandemic.
The agency reports:
From Saturday, daily migrant workers and academics entering Slovenia from European Union countries that have lower 14-day incidences of Covid-19 will not have to present negative coronavirus tests, or be quarantined, the government said.
Also, ski resorts as well as shops and service businesses not larger that 400 square meters will be allowed to reopen next week, with weekly mandatory testing of employees, the economy minister Zdravko Pocivalsek said.
The Alpine country of 2 million people, which imposed strict lockdown rules in October to tackle rising Covid-19 infections, recorded 990 new cases and 18 deaths on Friday.
The number of daily cases, which in January stood on average at about 1,500, have varied lately and fell in recent days, enabling the government to ease restrictions after having been criticised publicly over a long lockdown that has been hurting the economy.
In January, a member of the centre-right ruling coalition quit the government and called for a non-confidence motion, citing its poor handling of the pandemic, among other issues.
But the motion was dropped after some deputies became infected and would not have been able to take part in the vote.
Only citizens of Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic, which currently have a worse epidemiological situation than Slovenia, will have to present negative coronavirus tests, the government said.
People from EU states or from within the Schengen free-movement area arriving for health or family reasons are also exempt from restrictions if they return to their countries within 12 hours.
Slovenia has vaccinated up to 50,000 people with two doses and had 15,742 active coronavirus cases as of Friday. The total number of cases is 173,201, according to its National Institute for Public Health.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a summary of the latest developments:
- It is too early to talk about reopening society in the UK, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said. Reports had said pubs could reopen in April, though it was suggested they would not be allowed to serve alcohol until May.
- About a sixth of the Welsh population has now had a first dose of a Covid vaccine, authorities said. Public Health Wales has said a total of 556,997 first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine had now been given in the country with a population of over 3 million.
- China recorded its lowest daily number of cases on the mainland since 17 December 2020, according to the national health authority. Reuters reported that China recorded 12 new cases on 5 February, down from 20 the previous day.
- The Trump administration’s unprecedented string of 13 executions in Indiana may have spread the virus at significant levels. The Associated Press reported that 70% of death row inmates were sick with Covid-19, while guards and travelling prison staff were also ill.
Updated
Brazilian health regulator Anvisa has said that Pfizer has applied for full regulatory approval of its Covid-19 vaccine developed with BioNTech, Reuters reports.
This is the second vaccine submitted for registration in Brazil. AstraZeneca applied for full regulatory approval on 29 January for the vaccine it developed with Oxford University. It will be made in Brazil in partnership with the federally funded Fiocruz biomedical center.
Updated
African leaders have opened a two-day virtual summit to discuss the continent’s Covid-19 response as well as other issues that have been overlooked during the pandemic, AFP reports.
The African Union summit comes almost exactly one year after Egypt recorded the first coronavirus case in Africa, prompting widespread fears that member states’ weak health systems would quickly be overwhelmed.
But despite early doomsday predictions, the continent has been hit less hard than other regions so far, recording 3.5% of virus cases and 4% of deaths worldwide, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Today, though, many African countries are battling damaging second waves while straining to procure sufficient vaccine doses. “This disease has caused great suffering and hardship across our continent,” South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, the outgoing AU chairman, said in opening remarks on Saturday. “It is not only a severe health emergency. It is also a grave economic and social crisis.”
In his opening speech he was expected to call for “a fresh injection of resources” from the International Monetary Fund to “correct the glaring inequality in fiscal stimulus measures between advanced economies and the rest of the world”.
African leaders have been speaking out against vaccine hoarding by rich countries at the expense of poorer ones. “There is a vaccine nationalism on the rise, with other rich countries jumping the queue, some even pre-ordering more than they require,” Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chairman of the AU’s executive body the African Union Commission, said in a recent interview.
Updated
Sixth of Welsh population receive first vaccine dose
Public Health Wales has said a total of 556,997 first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine had now been given in the country with a population of over 3 million.
The agency said 2,471 second doses were also given. In total, 84.7% of those over 80 have received their first dose of the vaccine, along with 78.2% of care home residents and 81.5% of care home staff.
There have been a further 675 cases of coronavirus in Wales, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 195,599. Public Health Wales reported another 49 deaths, taking the total in Wales since the start of the pandemic to 4,961.
Iran is to begin its coronavirus vaccination campaign within a week, President Hassan Rouhani has said, after the country received its first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V jab, AFP reports.
The Islamic republic is fighting the Middle East’s deadliest outbreak of the coronavirus, with over 58,000 lives lost out of more than 1.4 million cases of infection. Iran has bought 2m doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour told AFP.
The first batch arrived in the country on Thursday, and the country is scheduled to receive two more batches by February 28. ‘Vaccinations will start this very week; this is a real cause for celebration,’ Rouhani told a televised meeting of Iran’s Covid-19 taskforce.
He did not give a specific date, only saying that the programme would begin before next Wednesday, which marks the 42nd anniversary of the victory of the Islamic revolution.
Health workers would be the first to get the jabs, followed by the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions, Rouhani said. The president expressed hope that the first three categories would be inoculated before the Persian New Year on 21 March.
Iran started clinical trials of one of its own vaccines in late December, and according to Rouhani, they may become available by early summer.
Updated
We reported earlier that Boris Johnson was urging caution as reports suggested pubs could reopen in April, without serving alcohol. Now, the PA news agency is reporting that a shadow minister has criticised the “unviable” suggestions.
Government sources have been dismissive of the idea of “dry pubs” opening. Lucy Powell, Labour’s shadow minister for business and consumers, said:
These half measures would be deeply damaging for pubs and hospitality.
Rather than forcing them to open but not sell alcohol, the government should protect jobs and businesses by making the furlough scheme smart and giving businesses access to the emergency support they need – keeping it in place until necessary measures are lifted.
Ideas like this could see Covid cases rise and business thrown under the bus needlessly.
The vaccine gives us a way out – the last thing businesses need now is ridiculous speculation about reopening under unviable terms.
Updated
Italy has signed a decree authorising the emergency use of monoclonal antibodies, its health minister Roberto Speranza has said. According to Reuters, Italy’s medicines regulator, AIFA, gave the green light on Friday for emergency use of Covid-19 antibody therapies developed by the US drugmakers Eli Lilly and Regeneron.
Updated
In England, Worcestershire county council is setting up surge testing in the WR3 postcode after the South African variant was identified in the area.
The PA news agency reports that mobile testing has been set up at the White Hart pub in Fernhill Heath, near Worcester, for adults with no symptoms living within walking distance, while home testing kits are also being made available. The council said:
Working in partnership with NHS Test and Trace, every person over the age of 18, living in the WR3 postcode and some WR9 postcodes, is strongly encouraged to take a Covid-19 test this week, even if they are not showing symptoms.
To find out if your postcode is included in this testing and for more information please visit the Covid-19 variant pages of the county council website.
Dr Kathryn Cobain, the director for public health in Worcestershire, said:
I urge everyone offered a test to take it up to help us to monitor the virus in our communities and to help suppress and control the spread of this variant.
Updated
Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, has brought back some restrictions on workplace capacities and leisure activities, including shutting cinemas, to curb a rise in Covid-19 cases, Reuters reports.
The measures follow a raft of restrictions brought in by the neighbouring emirate of Dubai, a regional tourism and business hub which has welcomed foreign visitors for its peak winter season, over the past few weeks.
Only 30% of employees will be allowed to attend workplaces at Abu Dhabi government and semi-government entities and all employees must undertake a weekly PCR test unless they have been vaccinated, Abu Dhabi media office said on Saturday.
Workers that can do their jobs remotely, and those over 60 or with health conditions, must work from home.
VOX Cinemas said on their Instagram account on Friday they will close theatres in Abu Dhabi until further notice to comply with a government-mandated closure of cinemas in the emirate.
Capacities at shopping centres, gyms and restaurants have also been reduced, local newspaper the National reported, citing a notice issued to businesses in Abu Dhabi.
The moves came as daily infections tripled in around six weeks to hit a record 3,977 on 3 February in the UAE. The Gulf state does not give a breakdown for each emirate.
Along with mandatory mask-wearing in public and social distancing, Dubai has further restricted capacity at restaurants, social gatherings, hotels and malls, and banned live entertainment. It also reinstated a requirement for all incoming air passengers to take a test to prove they are virus-free.
Abu Dhabi has maintained a requirement for some sort of virus test, or proof of vaccination, for anyone crossing the border into the emirate from Dubai since June.
The UAE has rolled out one of the world’s fastest vaccination campaigns.
Updated
There were times during the sunny lockdown last spring when you might have mistaken my local park for some sort of idealised Victorian sanatorium, filled with joggers, skippers, stretchers and barbell-raisers. On the deserted roads nearby, families cycled in liberated gaggles. Inside living rooms, children started the day by doing star-jumps with their parents. It felt like a new start.
There was only one problem: it was a mirage. Subsequent research by Sport England found that overall activity levels fell dramatically for both adults and children. During the pandemic, an ongoing crisis became even worse.
Malaysia reported 3,847 new cases on Saturday, bringing the total number of infections to 238,721, Reuters reports. The health ministry also reported 12 new deaths, taking the total number of fatalities to 857.
Updated
Reuters reports that Beijing has approved Sinovac Biotech’s vaccine.
Sinovac Biotech said on Saturday that its unit’s Covid-19 vaccine has been formally approved for use by the general public by China’s medical products regulator.
It marks the second Covid-19 vaccine green-lighted for public use in China, after a shot developed by a Beijing institute affiliated to state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) was approved in December.
Prior to the approvals, both vaccines have already been used in China’s vaccination program mainly targeting key groups deemed to be at higher risk of exposure to the virus.
Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, and Laos have granted emergency authorisations for the CoronaVac vaccine developed by Sinovac Life Sciences, Sinovac said in a news release.
The approval is based on the two-month results from late-stage clinical trials overseas, from which the final analysis data has not yet been obtained, Sinovac said.
Scientists are helping to “second guess” future mutations of Covid-19 in order to create new potential vaccines, the chairman of the UK vaccines taskforce, Clive Dix, has said. Asked whether it was possible to produce a vaccine that was comprehensive at tackling new mutations, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today:
Yes, absolutely. The UK is properly at the forefront of surveying all of these variants. We have actually sequenced nearly 50% of all the virus that has been sequenced in this pandemic at the Sanger centre in Cambridge.
Taking that data and having scientists look very seriously at what’s emerging – where the mutations are occurring, what they might do to the protein – we can kind of second guess some mutations that haven’t even occurred yet and we can go ahead and make those.
And that’s part of the collaboration – we’ll make libraries of future vaccines, just small amounts, enough to then, if it does occur, do a quick clinical study to see that it works and then start manufacturing.
Dix said studies would help both the world get “ahead of the game” on vaccine-evading new variants. Asked whether there could be a mutation that could escape the current vaccines on offer, he told Today:
Of course – when it will occur and whether it will occur is one thing. That’s what happened with flu, we get these pandemic threats with flu. We should learn from flu ... I believe this virus will be very similar – it will last a long time, it will be travelling around the world in different places, it will be endemic in certain countries and we need to do that work, yes.
I think there is the possibility but we will be ahead of the game. We’re not going to wait for it to happen – we now have capabilities in the UK to be responsive and that capability won’t just be for the use of the UK of course. Once we’ve done it, it will actually help the whole world because it will be part of that whole surveillance and reaction.
Updated
Papua New Guinea has reported three new cases, the National Department of Health said, with infections on the rise in the southwestern Pacific nation of 8.8 million.
The new cases, all in the National Capital District, bring the country’s total to 894 known infections. Health ministry data show the number has increased by some 40 cases in just over two weeks. There have been nine deaths.
Wednesday saw 16 new cases, 11 of which were in the West New Britain (WNB) province. The province reported its first coronavirus case in November, but infections have been spreading rapidly, standing at 194 and accounting for a fifth of the country’s total.
Health officials blamed the spread on the province’s poor response to lockdown, “poor work culture” and poor adherence to infection prevention and control.
“This has now placed WNB as a hotspot for Covid-19 in the New Guinea Islands region and it is likely to be transmitting cases to its neighbouring provinces as well as the rest of the country,” the ministry said on its Facebook page on Saturday.
Seventeen of Papua New Guinea’s 22 provinces have reported positive cases, with 43,728 tests administered.
Intensive care units (ICU) in the UK are still “in the thick of it”, according to a professor of critical care medicine at Imperial College London. Anthony Gordon, an ICU consultant at St Mary’s Hospital in London, asked whether the vaccine programme provided hope that the end of the pandemic was near, told BBC Radio 4’s Today:
Yes, I’m hoping that will translate soon. I think we’re all hoping that there is relief from all of this, from the lockdowns and so on eventually, but at the moment we are still very much in the thick of it for a little while longer.
Asked about his own experience, he added:
What I’m seeing is that we’re still extremely busy. We’ve expanded into these surge ICUs and they are still fully open and full with patients.
I think the ever-increasing numbers coming in are starting to plateau – we’re seeing fewer patients coming in now but we’re still full and these patients, once they become ill, stay ill for a long time in the intensive care units, so we’re absolutely full to the rafters still.
Russia has reported 16,627 new cases on Saturday, taking the overall national number of confirmed infections to 3,951,233. Russia’s coronavirus crisis centre said 497 more patients had died in the past 24 hours, bringing the Russian official death toll to 76,229.
Too early to talk about reopening – UK prime minister
It is “still early days” to start talking about opening up society, Boris Johnson has warned, as reports suggest pubs could reopen in May.
Johnson has committed to setting out a “road map” later this month for easing restrictions as he faces pressure from Conservative MPs to relax the current lockdown once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
A quick update from me on where we are. Some encouraging progress this week, but we’re not there yet. This weekend please stay at home to protect the NHS and save lives. pic.twitter.com/oyOwwfyadB
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) February 5, 2021
Downing Street confirmed on Friday that the vaccine programme planned to reach all those aged 50 and over, as well as adults aged 16-65 in an at-risk group, by May.
Mark Harper, the chairman of the Covid Recovery Group – made up of lockdown-sceptic Tory MPs – said it would be “almost impossible to justify having any restrictions in place at all” by the time the top nine groups had been inoculated.
The Sun has reported that ministers are preparing to allow pubs to serve takeaway pints in April before fully reopening in May. Restrictions such as the 10pm curfew will be scrapped to ease confusion, the paper suggested.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph said the prospect of dry pubs was being discussed as an option to allow bars to open their doors in April.
A senior government source was dismissive about the idea, telling the PA news agency: “We are not going to open pubs that can’t sell booze. What would be the point of that?”
Updated
Here’s a little more from the UK’s former health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who has told BBC Breakfast that a blanket guarantee over lost income to anyone who is forced to self-isolate may need to be considered.
He described the fact that 20-40% of people who are asked to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace do not actually do so as “one of the biggest issues we need to address”.
Following NHS Test and Trace chief Baroness Dido Harding’s comments this week that around 20,000 people a day contacted by the system are not fully complying with instructions to self-isolate, Hunt said many are worried about losing their income.
I do think we need to look at whether we should give people a blanket guarantee that if they are asked to isolate, the government will make up any salary losses because this is a public health issue.
The UK’s former heath secretary Jeremy Hunt believes a 10-year plan and sustained funding increase for the social care sector is needed, saying it goes hand-in-hand with the work being done in the NHS.
Hunt, who spent a decade serving in successive Conservative-led governments that focused heavily on swingeing cuts to public services, has told BBC Breakfast:
We need to be much better at looking after people at home so they don’t need to go into A&E.
I think that if there is one thing that comes out of this pandemic that people would support very strongly is to say ‘let’s look at the incredible job done not just by the NHS frontline workers but by care workers’.
He said the nation needs to have a “plan B” to continue to tackle the pandemic, despite the successful vaccine programme which has raised hopes of reopening society.
In November and early December we weren’t thinking about this Kent variant that arose and there will be other variants.
Hunt pointed out that the vaccines minister had said in Parliament that there are 4,000 different mutations around the world, and it may well be that one of those is immune to the vaccines.
We need to have a plan B that makes sure that having done all of this work with this brilliant vaccine programme, that is by far the most successful anywhere is Europe, that is not then undermined because we suddenly find ourselves subject to a new mutation that is immune to all these vaccines.
And the former heath secretary added that suppressing the virus now should be a key part of plans to deal with potential new variants.
The worry that we have to really plan for is that we will have a new mutation that will be immune to the vaccines we are giving out at the moment.
In order to make sure we do not get caught out by that again we need to get transmission levels down to the kind of levels where we can do incredibly thorough contact tracing like they do in Korea and Taiwan – several hundred people sometimes from just one case and doing the genomic editing of every single case that we get so that you can understand what it is.
When you can get to that level of thoroughness you know you will not have to go back to another lockdown if you have one of these horrible new variants.
Intensive care units in some areas of England are seeing a rise in admissions, a consultant Daniele Bryden has said. The vice dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We know that the picture in the rest of the country is actually quite mixed and that there are some parts of the country, like the Midlands, like the North, that have an increase in numbers in some areas.
And that’s on a background that for many of these parts of the country, they’ve not just gone through the second wave of Covid, they’re actually in their third wave of Covid because many of them had sustained pressure in the autumn coming up to the winter.
Some units ... are not just under considerable pressure but are still seeing a rise in admissions.
The small Central American nation of Honduras, tired of waiting to obtain vaccines through a United Nations program, has secured shots through a private deal, AP reports:
With coronavirus cases still climbing, Honduras got tired of waiting to get vaccines through a United Nations program, so the small Central American country struck out on its own, securing the shots through a private deal.
Honduras “cannot wait on bureaucratic processes or misguided decisions” to give citizens “the peace of mind” offered by the Covid-19 vaccine, said Juan Carlos Sikaffy, president of the Honduran Private Business Council, which helped complete the purchase by providing a bank guarantee.
Other nations are getting impatient too. Unlike past disease outbreaks, where less wealthy countries have generally waited for vaccines to be delivered by the UN and other organisations, many are now taking matters into their own hands. Experts are increasingly concerned that these go-it-alone efforts could undermine a UN-backed program to get Covid-19 shots to the neediest people worldwide.
Countries including Serbia, Bangladesh and Mexico recently began vaccinating citizens through donations or commercial deals – an approach that could leave even fewer vaccines for the program known as Covax, since rich countries have already snapped up the majority of this year’s supply.
Led by the World Health Organization, a coalition for epidemic preparedness known as CEPI and a vaccine alliance called Gavi, Covax was created to distribute Covid-19 vaccines fairly. Countries can join either to buy vaccines or to get donated shots.
Mustaqeem De Gama, a diplomat at the South African mission in Geneva, cited “a level of desperation” fuelled by spreading virus variants and “the uncertainty of when any Covax vaccines might arrive.” He doubted that countries that signed up for Covax “will even get 10% of what they require”.
Even if the effort succeeds, Covax’s stated goal is to vaccinate less than 30% of people in poor countries, meaning that governments must seek other sources to obtain enough shots to achieve herd immunity.
Updated
Perth, Australia’s fourth largest city, opened up today after a snap, five-day lockdown. Western Australia has thankfully recorded yet another day of zero local transmissions, extending its Covid-free run to five days. That has allowed it to move out of lockdown and into a less onerous set of restrictions.
The good result was reflected across the country. Australia did not record a single locally-transmitted case of Covid-19 on Saturday.
Photograph: Stefan Gosatti/Getty Images
Updated
Relaxed restrictions in Australia have allowed a large crowd to attend horse racing at Royal Randwick racecourse in Sydney. General admission tickets were banned in December after a spike in Covid-19 cases, meaning the first races of the season were without crowds.
Updated
The AstraZeneca/University of Oxford vaccine has been found to protect people against a new contagious coronavirus variant at similar levels to other variants, according to a paper released on Friday.
The vaccine was found to be 74.6% effective against a British variant, known as B117, according to the paper, which is yet to be peer reviewed.
Updated
Trump's string of executions a likely superspreader event
The Trump administration’s unprecedented string of 13 executions in Indiana may have spread Covid-19 at significant levels, AP reports.
An analysis of records by AP shows 70% of death row inmates were sick with Covid-19, while guards and travelling prison staff were also ill. Media witnesses potentially returned home while infected, AP reports:
Records obtained by the Associated Press show employees at the Indiana prison complex where the 13 executions were carried out over six months had contact with inmates and other people infected with the coronavirus, but were able to refuse testing and declined to participate in contact tracing efforts and were still permitted to return to their work assignments.
Other staff members, including those brought in to help with executions, also spread tips to their colleagues about how they could avoid quarantines and skirt public health guidance from the federal government and Indiana health officials.
The executions at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, completed in a short window over a few weeks, likely acted as a superspreader event, according to the records reviewed by AP. It was something health experts warned could happen when the justice department insisted on resuming executions during a pandemic.
It’s impossible to know precisely who introduced the infections and how they started to spread, in part because prisons officials didn’t consistently do contact tracing and haven’t been fully transparent about the number of cases. But medical experts say it’s likely the executioners and support staff, many of whom travelled from prisons in other states with their own virus outbreaks, triggered or contributed both in the Terre Haute penitentiary and beyond the prison walls.
Updated
New York state is expanding eligibility criteria for its vaccination program beyond healthcare workers and aged care residents. It will now begin allowing people with some chronic health conditions that put them at greater risk of severe illness to be vaccinated, the New York Times reports.
The United States is currently vaccinating 1.3 million people per day.
Updated
In Mexico, Reuters reports on a remarkable team of public health workers going door-to-door in one of the capital’s poorest districts to offer hope to families.
The virus is currently tearing through Mexico. The nation has recorded 1.9 million cases and 164,000 deaths.
Now a team of 30 travelling public health workers is engaged in one of the country’s only outreach efforts in Iztapalapa, home to some of the city’s most densely packed suburbs. They travel door to door in Mexico City, identifying the sick and organising testing.
Reuters reports:
The local public health program, one of the only such outreach efforts in the city, also lends dozens of oxygen concentrators plus still more refillable metal tanks to those receiving treatment at home.
The outreach comes at a time when the rate of vaccinations in Mexico has slowed to a trickle as the country copes with delays from vaccine makers, and the government’s official death tally adds more than 1,000 fatalities daily, likely a significant undercount.
Cases to date total over 1.9 million, with 164,290 deaths.
Enrique Ruiz, the doctor in charge of the program, stresses that the goal is to quickly identify sick residents via mobile testing sites that can begin to bring the outbreak under control.
“If we detect any symptoms, we invite them to come get tested right away.”
Updated
In Australia, recent debate has been focused on the plight of thousands of citizens stranded overseas.
The problem has been exacerbated by a lack of quarantine places.
The government has signalled it will increase capacity at the quarantine facility at Howard Springs in the Northern Territory.
But experts on Saturday called for a national quarantine plan, and the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, spoke to the media today, urging the government to do more:
This is quite clearly in the constitution, the commonwealth responsibility, and they should be working constructively with the states on real solutions, working with premier Palaszczuk and other state premiers to make sure that we keep Queenslanders, and indeed all Australians, safe.
His shadow cities minister, Andrew Giles, made similar comments, telling the ABC:
Instead of blaming people for not coming home back in March, the Morison government should take responsibility for getting people home. It was in September that the prime minister promised that everyone would be home by Christmas, we’ve still got 40,000 people trapped overseas, many of whom are in really desperate and vulnerable circumstances and the government that’s still not doing enough to get people home. I guess when it comes to quarantine, I’m deeply frustrated and indeed deeply angry that we’ve got a national government that’s not upholding its constitutional responsibility. Just today in the Age we’ve got a number of prominent epidemiologists calling for a national quarantine plan to address precisely these issues. This should have happened a long time ago. And the government’s got to get on with it rather than continuing to hide behind the states.
On Friday, the federal, state and territory governments agreed to increase the cap on international passenger arrivals from mid-February. But people will still need to go through hotel quarantine, even with a vaccine.
Updated
In the United States, the supreme court has told California it cannot enforce a ban on church services due to Covid-19.
AP reports that the high court issued orders late Friday in two cases where churches sued over Covid-19 restrictions. The court ruled the state, for now, cannot ban indoor worship. It can, however, cap numbers at indoor services at 25% of the building’s capacity.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented.
Updated
Thanks to Graham Readfearn for taking us through the latest developments.
Let’s go to South Korea, momentarily, where the government has announced an easing of curfews on more than 500,000 restaurants and other businesses outside Seoul.
The easing of restrictions allows the venues to stay open an hour later, Reuters reports.
The South Korean government has faced a backlash over its tough social distancing rules. It had previously relied on aggressive testing and tracing to tackle earlier waves, without the need for widespread lockdowns.
The restrictions had pushed businesses to the brink.
Hundreds of restaurant and cafe owners across the country have complained about the impact of the bans on their businesses.
The new announcement means they can stay open until 10pm, vice health minister Kang Do-tae told a briefing.
He said anyone who flouted the new rules would be ordered to close for two weeks.
South Korea is about to mark the Lunar New Year holiday, when tens of millions of Koreans travel to be with families. But the government is pleading with them to stay home, citing the risk of another surge in cases. Authorities are maintinaing a ban on private gatherings of more than four people.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 393 daily new COVID-19 cases on Friday. That brings total infections reported in South Korea to 80,524, with a death toll of 1,464.
I’m going to handover now to my very excellent colleague Christopher Knaus who will guide you through the next few hours of live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Wash your hands and don’t touch your face. And wear a mask.
My colleague Helen Livingstone has sent this update on a new community case of coronavirus reported from New Zealand earlier today.
New Zealand’s director of public health, Dr Caroline McElnay, has told reporters the person had been staying at Auckland’s Pullman Hotel on the same floor as other confirmed cases.
But she said it’s not yet clear how the person caught the virus.
All of the hotel’s recent guests have been asked to self-isolate at home for five days after leaving and McElnay said Saturday’s case was picked up on the fifth day of the person’s self-isolation.
The two close contacts with whom they were living have tested negative and McElnay said the positive case had told the Ministry of Health they had been isolating separately in their home in Hamilton, in the North Island, and had worn a mask in communal areas.
The person is the fourth to have tested positive after leaving the hotel since last month, while a fifth person caught it from one of the returnees.
Here’s our full report on the new case.
Updated
WA’s health minister, Roger Cook, has been giving details about the vaccination roll-out in the state, which will focus first on people exposed to the “greatest potential threat” - overseas arrivals.
He has told reporters the state expects the first batch of about 10,000 Pfizer vaccines to arrive around 22 February.
Cook listed those who would be first in line would include hotel quarantine workers - including hotel staff, police and security - and airport staff and others who had face-to-face contact with travellers.
People involved with transporting overseas travellers, some sea port staff, and emergency and ward staff at Fiona Stanley and Royal Perth hospitals would also be among the first in line.
Updated
WA records no new cases for sixth day running
The Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan is speaking to reporters and has just confirmed there have been no new cases overnight in WA.
So that’s a full donut day for Australia.
With a further 8,477 tests conducted yesterday, I can once again confirm that WA has recorded zero new local cases of COVID-19 overnight.
— Mark McGowan (@MarkMcGowanMP) February 6, 2021
Thank you again to every Western Australian who has been tested over this week. It's fantastic to see those testing numbers remaining high. pic.twitter.com/wj8CtLHEYP
Updated
Western Australia’s snap five-day lockdown centred on Perth was lifted at 6pm on Friday.
The lockdown started last Sunday after a security guard at a quarantine hotel tested positive for the UK variant.
We’re still waiting for WA to report their figures for today, but people are out and about. The Perth and Peel regions have a “post-lockdown phase” with some restrictions, including mandatory mask wearing when in public.
Is Australia about to confirm a donut day, where we get a big fat 0 for cases of coronavirus detected in the community?
So far today Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria have all reported their latest 24-hour figures, and have all returned donuts.
We wouldn’t expect any positive community cases from Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory or the Northern Territory.
Can Western Australia bring it home?
Updated
China records 12 new cases, lowest count for almost two months
China has recorded its lowest number of daily cases on the mainland since 17 December 2020, according to the national health authority.
Reuters is reporting that China recorded 12 new cases on 5 February, down from 20 the previous day:
The National Health Commission, in a statement, said four of the new cases were locally transmitted, including three in the north-eastern border province of Heilongjiang and one in neighbouring Jilin.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 89,681, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,636.
Updated
The day so far in coronavirus news
We appear to be in a very slight lull (it’s all relative) so it’s a good chance to summarise what’s happened in the last few hours.
- In Australia, Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia have all reported zero new cases of the virus in the community.
- Health authorities in Victoria say its contact tracing of a Noble Park person linked to a hotel cluster is going well, with 60% of 1,129 contacts all testing negative. But it’s early days, they warn.
- Also in Victoria, the government has revealed measures to improve hotel quarantine, including a review of ventilation systems, putting in buffers between rooms with large families and staggering meal times so doors are not all being opened at the same time.
- Spectators at the Australian Open in the main courts will have to wear masks if the court roof is closed, the Victorian government has confirmed.
- Some developments with two China-developed vaccines. Reported results from trials of CoronaVac, from Sinovac Biotech, suggest it stops hospitalisations and death, but is less effective at preventing transmission. Mexico says it’s had an application from makers of the one-shot CanSino vaccine.
- In the United States, the Biden administration will start to gather data from schools to work out how the pandemic has affected attendance, distance-learning and closures. The Trump administration had said the data wasn’t needed.
On we go.
Updated
Do you know the difference between the South African variant of the coronavirus and the Brazilian strain?
The Guardian’s science correspondent Nicola Davis has this detailed explainer on variants, what they are, how they behave and what it could mean for vaccines.
The Kent variant described here – B117 – is known in Australia as the UK variant, and is the same strain that prompted a snap three-day lockdown in Brisbane (where I live) in early January.
Updated
While we’re thinking about vaccines, there are some late-stage trial results emerging for another Chinese-developed effort, CoronaVac.
Trial results suggest it’s good at keeping people out of hospital, but not as effective at preventing infection.
Reuters reports that trials in Brazil and Turkey with 12,396 people show the vaccine, from Sinovac Biotech, stopped all users from being hospitalised and dying:
The vaccine was 83.7% effective in avoiding cases that required any medical treatment, but only 50.65% effective at keeping people from getting infected, according to a statement.
In comparison, the two currently authorised Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc proved to be about 95% effective in preventing illness in their pivotal late-state trials. Those studies were done in the United States before broad reports of variants.
Updated
In Mexico, the government has announced the Chinese manufacturer of the CanSino coronavirus vaccine has submitted paperwork to have the single-shot vaccine approved.
AP reports that Mexico is running out of vaccines. CanSino has carried out trials with more than 14,00 volunteers enrolled, but the results haven’t been revealed yet:
Foreign relations secretary Marcelo Ebrard wrote that the vaccine had been “applied successfully” in the trials, but did not release specific data.
Mexico has been promised 8m doses of the CanSino vaccine by March, and is particularly upbeat about the Chinese shot because it is relatively easy to handle, and will be finished and bottled at a plant in Mexico.
Mexico registered 13,757 confirmed infections on Thursday, to reach 1.89 million so far. There were 1,682 deaths confirmed on Thursday, for a total of almost 163,000.
Mexico City, the current epicentre of the pandemic in Mexico, remains under the highest level or alert with hospitals over 80% full.
Updated
Drawing your eyes to an investigation into attempts by social media companies to reduce the damage being caused by the spread of coronavirus misinformation.
The journalistic investigation found hundreds of pages with more than 40 million collective followers were spreading misinformation while utilising Facebook’s fundraising tools.
Not-for-profit First Draft has this useful summary of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s project that examined how Facebook and Twitter were doing.
Last year, social media companies made significant strides in ridding their platforms of Covid-19 misinformation. Both Facebook and Twitter committed to the principle that “no user or company should directly profit from Covid-19 vaccine mis/disinformation.”
But a recent investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found otherwise. At least 430 misinformation-generating Facebook pages – including more than 20 verified with Facebook’s “blue tick” with a collective 45 million followers – were found to directly use Facebook’s fundraising tools, either through contributions from followers or sales of merchandise.
“The Bureau’s findings suggest Facebook has failed to adequately implement this agreement and appropriately enforce its own policies,” authors Jasper Jackson and Alexandra Heal noted. Although Facebook has since taken action to remove the misleading content, many Pages remain live.
Updated
Victoria announces hotel quarantine changes
In that Victorian press conference we reported on earlier, some changes to hotel quarantine were announced after two hotel workers tested positive to Covid-19 in recent weeks. AAP reports:
Victoria will review airflow within quarantine hotels and change mask policies for staff as it seeks to avoid a repeat of two suspected Covid-19 leaks.
Emergency services minister Lisa Neville, overseeing the revamped program, announced a ventilation review of all hotels within the system was under way.
“We don’t think at this stage this is about ventilation, but again we’re not leaving any stone unturned,” she told reporters on Saturday.
From Thursday night, hotel quarantine staff are also required to wear a face shield and surgical mask. Neville said the change was based on updated advice from infection prevention control experts, with hotel quarantine workers previously wearing just N-95 masks.
They will still don the more protective N-95 mask along with a face shield for encounters with infectious guests and when entering rooms for medical emergencies. In addition, hotel quarantine organisers have put “buffers” between family groups and other guests from Wednesday, resulting in 140 rooms being taken out of the system.
Food delivery times are also being staggered, reducing the risk of people opening doors at the same time.
The moves follow a case of suspected Covid-19 transmission among two separate groups of guests at Melbourne’s Park Royal Hotel, and a worker at the Grand Hyatt testing positive to the virus.
Updated
Australian Open spectators will have to wear a mask when the roof closes on the main courts.
Australian Associated Press is reporting the Victorian government clarified on Friday night the mask policy for spectators on the main courts of Rod Laver Arena, Margaret Court Arena and John Cain Arena.
“These venues are deemed to be indoor spaces under the restrictions and mask use is required by all spectators and officials,” a government spokesman said.
Spectators can take off masks when the roof is open, while players are exempt from the rule.
Updated
The Northern Territory government has reported that two children who arrived on a repatriation flight from New Delhi on 4 February have tested positive for coronavirus.
The children were not showing any symptoms, but were in the care of health teams at the NT Centre for National Resilience at Howard Springs.
In a statement, the government said since repatriation flights to the NT began on 23 October 2020:
- 3,393 international arrivals have undertaken quarantine at the Howard Springs centre.
- 64 positive coronavirus cases have been reported from international repatriation.
The total number of cases diagnosed in the territory is 102. All cases have been related to international or interstate travel, with no cases of community transmission.
Updated
The US government’s education department will, for the first time, start gathering data from schools on the effects of the pandemic, including on how many children have gone back into classrooms.
The Associated Press reports the department will collect monthly data from 7,000 schools after the president, Joe Biden, called for the measures in an executive order last month.
The Trump administration had previously declined to collect data on the subject, saying it wasn’t the role of the federal government to do so.
The data will show how many schools have actually reopened, how many are carrying out remote learning, and also ask students about attendance rates.
Ian Rosenblum, an acting assistant department secretary, said in a statement the government wanted to know about any disparities across schools.
To do that, we need more information about how students are learning during this pandemic – and we simply don’t have it right now.
The new survey will collect data from 3,500 schools that enrol fourth graders, and 3,500 schools that enrol eighth graders. It will be made available to the public on a monthly basis through June, with collections starting later this month.
Updated
NSW records 20th consecutive day of no new cases in community
New South Wales has recorded the 20th day in a row of no coronavirus cases detected out in the community.
There have been 16 new positive cases in the past seven days, but they’ve all been detected in people who were in hotel quarantine after returning from overseas.
NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of #COVID19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) February 6, 2021
Two new cases were acquired overseas, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 4,930. There were 12,521 tests reported to 8pm last night. pic.twitter.com/9l0kYoDPsz
Updated
Health authorities in Victoria, Australia trying to prevent a coronavirus outbreak have said the next 48 hours will be critical, as the government reveals some changes to the way the state runs hotel quarantine.
The state has the added pressure of hosting an international tennis tournament, with the Australian Open due to start on Monday.
Two ministers and the state’s chief health officer have just provided an update, after earlier today revealing there had been no new cases in the past 24 hours.
The health minister, Martin Foley, said that so far, all the close contacts of a man from the Noble Park area linked to a case from the Grand Hyatt, where some tennis players have been staying, had tested negative.
So far 60% of the person’s 1,129 primary close contacts had tested negative. Foley said:
This is encouraging, but there will be more results needed over the next few days. The next 48 hours will be critical in making sure that we’re in a position to get on top of this.
The police minister, Lisa Neville, revealed some changes to the state’s hotel quarantine to try to stop outbreaks. Some 140 rooms had been removed from the system to create buffers, particularly around large families.
Meal delivery times were being staggered, she said, so that hotel doors were not all being opened simultaneously. She also reiterated the state was not now using any private security firms, and instead police were doing those duties.
All these changes are about acknowledging this is a changing virus. It’s changing, it’s mutating and it’s showing us new things.
Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, said it was encouraging that so far there had been no positive results from the 14 sites the Noble Park man had visited, but it was “still early days” because the potential exposures had been less than a week ago at the end of January and early February.
So, a zero day, absolutely encouraging. But lots of close contacts, lots of exposure sites. And we really need to see that 14-day period play out before we can be much more reassured about no further cases occurring.
Updated
Another day of zero cases of community transmission of coronavirus for Queensland. One case has been detected of a person currently in hotel quarantine.
Saturday 6 February – coronavirus cases in Queensland:
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) February 5, 2021
• 0 new locally acquired cases
• 1 overseas acquired case
• 5 active cases
• 1,311 total cases
• 1,803,657 tests conducted
Sadly, six Queenslanders with COVID-19 have died. 1,294 patients have recovered.#covid19 pic.twitter.com/OlEFIuDQYR
Greek scientists advising the government on how to handle the pandemic debated for more than eight hours over what measures should be tightened before further restrictions were announced a few hours ago.
In another sign of how difficult the on-off approach to lockdown has become for countries reeling from the economic effects of coronavirus, epidemiologists held their longest session yet before extra curbs were eventually unveiled.
At just over 162,000 coronavirus cases, Greece has fared better than most other European nations.
But the arrival of the “British variant” of the virus and lax rule keeping has helped spur a surge in its case count with diagnoses doubling over the course of the last week alone.
The extent of the lockdown and whether it should include all retail stores – already limited to customers having to pre-book visiting slots to stores – taxed experts most, along with the issue of whether all schools should also re-close.
Ultimately a night time curfew was brought forward to 6 PM (from 9 PM) over the weekend while only super markets, grocery stores, petrol stations and chemists were spared being closed.
Hairdressers and beauty salons are among the stores that can continue to operate but only on weekdays. The measures, which include high schools returning to remote learning, will be enforced until at least February 15th.
On Friday, 1195 infections were confirmed by the public health organisation, EODY, continuing a trend that has seen rates surpass the 1,000 mark since Tuesday. A further 19 fatalities were also announced this evening bringing the death toll to 5922.
The Greek economy contracted by just over 10 percent in 2020 with a second lockdown in November exacerbating the toll on public and private finances that were only starting to recover from the country’s punishing long-running debt crisis.
Updated
New Zealand reports fifth Covid case from quarantine hotel
New Zealand’s health authorities say they have detected a fifth positive case of coronavirus from a quarantine hotel.
The person had spent 14 days in the hotel before spending a further five days in isolation at home in Hamilton on the north island. For that reason, authorities think the risk to the community is low.
A statement from the NZ Ministry of Health says: “The case reinforces the importance of the self-isolation and repeat testing strategy we have adopted around people leaving managed isolation at the Pullman [Hotel].”
An individual who had been a guest at the managed isolation facility at the Pullman Hotel and has been isolating at home in Hamilton since 30 January has tested positive for #COVID19
— Ministry of Health - Manatū Hauora (@minhealthnz) February 5, 2021
Read the full update at https://t.co/CtNJnlAoBg
Updated
Victoria reports no new Covid cases in past 24 hours
More than 23,000 people in Victoria were tested for coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with no positive results returned.
That will be a huge relief for the Australian state, where the Australian Open tennis tournament is about to start.
Health authorities have also confirmed that all 17 close contacts of a positive case of hotel quarantine worker in one of the hotels used in preparation for the tournament have also tested negative.
Yesterday there were 0 new cases reported. 23,227 test results were received - thank you for getting tested. #EveryTestHelps us #StaySafeStayOpen.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) February 5, 2021
More later: https://t.co/lIUrl0ZEco#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/QxCasDBxCE
Updated
Hello wherever you are and whatever time it is. Graham Readfearn here in Australia to take you through the next several hours of the Guardian’s live coverage of the global Covid-19 pandemic.
A quick update on where things are at.
- Greece has joined several other European countries, including France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, in deciding not to give people over 65 the AstraZeneca vaccine.
- Lebanon is to start an easing of its countrywide lockdown that has been in place since 14 January. Intensive care capacity is at 90% across the country.
- A major study from economists has tracked an “unprecedented” rise in poverty, caused by the pandemic, in many developing countries across three continents.
- All 17 close contacts of a Melbourne hotel quarantine worker have tested negative for the virus. The case had put the Australian Open tennis tournament at risk.
- The UK government is exploring the idea of documentation that would allow travellers to prove they have been vaccinated against coronavirus, the Foreign Office minister James Cleverly has said.
- Latest figures from Johns Hopkins University show 165m people have caught covid-19 during the pandemic, with 2.29m deaths.
Thanks for staying with us. I hope you are as safe as you can be.
