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Bolivia’s cholita wrestlers are making a comeback to the ring after the iconic female fighters were forced to hang up their billowing skirts and bowler hats due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reports.
The indigenous women wrestlers have become symbolic at home and abroad of the power of women, reclaiming the pejorative Spanish term “chola” used for indigenous groups and proudly making it part of their heritage and strength.
Hit by the pandemic, the cholita wrestlers are now returning after a nine-month hiatus, but face an ongoing challenge with the lucrative tourist crowd still missing from matches.
“I will show that I am a good wrestler, and not just in the ring. I will also show that I have won against the pandemic, we will recover what we have lost,” said fighter Patricia Torres, who goes as “Gloria La Luchadora” in the ring.
I’ve been wrestling for about 10 years. I am a single mother of two children, and I have a trade. Because of the trade I am in, I am able to dedicate enough time to my children, to take them to school and to study.
Torres said that the green light for wrestling to resume in late November was a blessing, as some spectators were able to return to the stands, even if the pandemic was far from over.
“It’s very beautiful to have the public here, who have come out to have a look at fighting cholitas,” she said.
Before the pandemic, we were a part of the cultural heritage that wasn’t recognised, tourists came from all over the world to see just us, the fighting cholita luchadores of wrestling.
It is “not inevitable” that London will be placed under tighter coronavirus restrictions ahead of next week’s review of the tier system in England, the health and social care secretary Matt Hancock has said.
Hancock admitted there was concern in areas across the South East where infection rates had been beginning to rise, and said a formal review of the system would take place on 16 December.
It comes as three more London boroughs entered the top 20 areas with the highest rates of infection in England - Barking & Dagenham, Waltham Forest, and Redbridge. Rates are up in 31 of the 32 London boroughs, the exception being Brent, according to data published by Public Health England.
The mayor of London Sadiq Khan said that placing the capital under the harshest coronavirus restrictions would be “catastrophic”, but admitted the city was facing “a tipping point”.
Under England’s Tier 3 restrictions pubs and restaurants would only be able to offer takeaway services and households would be banned from mixing except in certain outdoor spaces such as parks. People would also be urged to avoid travelling outside the area and fans would again be banned from sporting events.
Hancock said that secondary school students in the capital would have increased access to coronavirus tests following rapid rises in infection rates among young people.
Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, he said that “by far the fastest rise” in cases in the south had been among children aged 11-18, and that targeted action was needed immediately.
I’m particularly concerned about the number of cases in London, Kent and Essex. Cases are rising and in many areas are already high. Looking into the detail, the testing results and surveys shows us that by far the fastest rise is among secondary school age children, 11 to 18 years old, while the rate among adults in London is broadly flat.
But we know from experience that a sharp rise in cases in younger people can lead to a rise among more vulnerable age groups later. We need to do everything we can to stop the spread among school age children in London right now - we must not wait until the review, which will take place on December 16. We need to take targeted action immediately.
Hancock said the government would be working with local authorities to “surge” testing units to allow students and their families to access tests.
We want to keep schools open because that is both right for education and for public health. We are therefore surging mobile testing units and will be working with schools and local authorities to encourage these children and their families to get tested over the coming days.
Following the briefing Khan tweeted his approval of the new measures.
I’m pleased the Govt will provide more testing resources for the areas of London worst hit by this virus - something we’ve repeatedly asked for. I’ve also raised concerns with the Health Secretary about the rise in cases in secondary school children. Nobody wants the capital to face Tier 3 restrictions, but with cases rising we face a tipping point. That’s why it’s important the Govt is providing this testing support and it’s essential that Londoners continue to follow the rules to reduce the spread of the virus.
Health experts have disagreed with Hancock’s statement, saying that the rising number of infections in London suggests that tighter restrictions may be needed. Prof Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia, told the BBC it “does sadly look like we’re heading that way”.
It is difficult to tell because if the epidemic is restricted to teenagers then the impact on hospitals in the area won’t be that great, but we know from the past that once it is prevalent in one age group it tends to leak into other age groups and ultimately into the age groups that are most vulnerable with the increase. So I’m not absolutely sure at the moment but it does sadly look like we’re heading that way for London.
The chairman of the London Assembly health committee, Dr Onkar Sahota, added that “the figures look like we will be heading for Tier 3”.
Asked on Times Radio if relaxing measures at Christmas would cause London to be placed under tougher restrictions, Dr Sahota said:
I think it’s certainly given the people a false sense of confidence that things will be alright. People are going to Regent Street, packing it up... we are traveling on the Tubes much more than we should be doing... Christmas will not be alright unless we follow the good public health measures.
Brazil reported another 53,347 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours and 770 deaths from Covid-19, the health ministry said on Thursday. The country has now registered 6,781,799 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 179,756, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the United States and India.
US daily deaths soar past 3,000 prompting pleas to scale back Christmas
The daily United States Covid-19 death toll has surpassed 3,000 for the first time, prompting pleas for Americans to scale back Christmas plans even with vaccines on the cusp of winning regulatory approval.
Covid-19 deaths reached 3,253 on Wednesday, pushing up the US total since the start of the pandemic to 289,740. A record 106,219 people were hospitalised with the highly infectious disease, threatening to overwhelm many healthcare systems.
Healthcare professionals and support staff, exhausted by demands of the pandemic, have been watching patients die alone as millions of Americans refuse to follow medical advice to wear masks and avoid crowds and smaller gatherings to contain the virus’ spread.
In California’s San Joaquin Valley agricultural region, less than 2% of intensive care unit (ICU) beds remain unoccupied, the California Department of Public Health said on Thursday.
The number of available ICU beds continued to drop throughout the most populous U.S. state, with just 7.7% availability in the heavily populated southern California region.
Nursing home residents and staff have also felt the burden.
“This is a pandemic that no one has ever experienced in our lifetimes,” Stephen Hanse, president of the New York State Health Facilities Association and the New York State Center for Assisted Living, told Reuters on Thursday.
The one-day death toll exceeded the number of lives lost on 9/11, underscoring the human toll and the call for Americans to redouble efforts. “No Christmas parties. There is not a safe Christmas party in this country right now,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of president-elect Joe Biden’s Covid-19 advisory board, told CNN on Thursday.
It won’t end after that, but that is the period right now where we could have a surge upon a surge upon a surge.
More than half of US states have recently introduced or resumed restrictions to try to curtail the rampant spread of the virus.
On Thursday, Virginia’s governor Ralph Northam imposed a midnight-to-5 am curfew among other measures that will kick in on Monday and last through at least 31 January.
“Case numbers have been rising for weeks, they’re higher now than they’ve ever been during this entire pandemic, Northam told a news briefing.
Providing a ray of hope, a vaccine could start reaching healthcare workers, first responders and nursing home residents within days in what Hanse called “light at the end of the tunnel.”
A panel of independent medical experts was due to decide later on Thursday whether to recommend that the US Food and Drug Administration authorise emergency use of a vaccine from Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE.
FDA consent could come as early as Friday or Saturday, followed by the first US injections on Sunday or Monday, Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine development program, told Fox News.
A second vaccine developed by Moderna Inc will be reviewed by the advisory panel next week.
Biden, who succeeds Donald Trump on 20 January, has set a goal of vaccinating 100 million people within the first 100 days of his administration.
Christmas mass in Bethlehem, normally attended by Christian congregations in the West Bank village, will be closed to the public this year due to Covid-19 restrictions, the Palestinian president said Thursday.
Each year, hundreds of believers attend midnight mass at the Saint Catherine Church next to the Church of the Nativity, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born.
“Due to the pandemic and for the security of all, the midnight mass will be reserved for clerics and the mass will be broadcast on Palestine TV worldwide,” Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said.
He was speaking in an interview with church officials in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority.
Days before, the PA imposed a new lockdown in several governorates in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and extended a curfew in force in the evenings and weekends throughout the territory to combat a surge in novel coronavirus infections.
Virus-related restrictions meant the towering Christmas tree in Bethlehem was lit on 5 December without the usual crowds.
Locals and pilgrims traditionally gather each year for the lighting of the tree in Manger Square, in front of the Church of the Nativity.
The Palestinian health ministry has recorded more than 78,000 cases of Covid-19, including 740 deaths in the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
The number of deaths from all causes recorded in Russia in October rose by nearly 50,000 on the previous year, the country’s statistics agency said on Thursday.
According to the Rosstat agency, 205,500 people died in Russia in October, a rise of 47,800 on October 2019.
It did not give any explanation for the excess mortality in its latest monthly report, but said 22,761 people died in October who were either among confirmed or suspected Covid-19 cases.
These included 11,630 cases where the primary cause of death was Covid-19.
The numbers are higher than AFP’s own count of 7,274 coronavirus deaths in October, based on official figures.
Between April and the end of October 2020, excess mortality in Russia now stands at almost 165,000 deaths compared to last year.
Since the start of the pandemic, only 45,280 deaths from Covid-19 have been officially recorded.
Russia has been criticised for its methodology in calculating coronavirus deaths with authorities only listing deaths which after post-mortem are considered to have had coronavirus as the primary cause.
The last time Russia recorded such a high monthly figure was in August 2010, a period that saw huge fires and the subsequent air pollution affect Moscow.
In many countries, especially in western Europe, almost all deaths of patients with a positive coronavirus test are included in the national Covid-19 death toll.
Russia was one of the first countries to announce the development of a vaccine which it named Sputnik V after a Soviet-era satellite.
It launched a mass vaccination programme last week with developers saying the vaccine is 95 percent effective based on interim trial results.
Despite the start of Russia’s vaccination campaign, however, Sputnik V is yet to complete its third and final phase of trials involving some 40,000 volunteers.
Since the emergence of the virus late last year Russia has registered over 2.5 million infections, over 44,000 of them fatal.
Russia’s second city St Petersburg on Tuesday logged a record number of virus deaths as authorities warned of an imminent lockdown and shuttered restaurants for the New Year’s holidays.
St Petersburg - one of Russia’s most popular tourist destinations - is struggling with a major health crisis, with hospitals overwhelmed with coronavirus patients but residents flouting social distancing and other measures.
By comparison, Moscow, the outbreak’s epicentre, registered 5,232 new cases and 71 new fatalities.
Walmart Inc said on Thursday it was entering into agreements with US states to administer Covid-19 vaccine to the public once it was approved for use.
The retailer said it was preparing over 5,000 Walmart and Sam’s Club pharmacies with freezers and dry ice to handle storage requirements for the vaccine doses.
“States will determine who should receive the first doses of the vaccine and when. Walmart will not have any say in who can receive the vaccine, but we are ready to support states once they do,” the company said.
Good evening 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_
Pfizer has said it plans to file for full US approval of its experimental coronavirus vaccine by April next year, even as their vaccine awaits emergency use authorisation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The remarks were made by William Gruber, senior vice-president of Pfizer vaccine clinical research and development, at a meeting of independent FDA advisers that are weighing emergency authorisation of the vaccine developed with German partner BioNTech.
Bahrain will provide the Covid-19 vaccine free for all its citizens and residents, state news agency BNA reported on Thursday.
The statement said that distribution of the vaccine will be done through 27 medical centres.
The Gulf state has recorded 88,495 cases of coronavirus and 347 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Summary
Here is a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments from across the world over the last few hours:
- US records more than 3,000 Covid deaths a day for the first time. The US recorded its highest level of coronavirus deaths in a single day on Wednesday, just two weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday period when health experts warned Americans not to travel or gather.
- London has highest Covid-19 case rate in England. London had the highest prevalence of Covid-19 cases in the week to 6 December, Public Health England (PHE) said, raising the prospect the capital will be moved into the strictest level of restrictions in the coming days.
- Spain’s March-May Covid-19 death toll nearly 70% above official count - stats institute. Spain’s coronavirus death toll between March and May was almost 70% higher than the official count at the time, data from the National Statistics Institute showed, prompting the opposition to complain of a government cover-up.
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Africa disease control head calls on rich nations to share excess Covid-19 vaccine doses. Countries that have ordered more Covid-19 vaccines than they need should consider distributing excess doses to Africa, the head of the continent’s disease control body said.
- Decomposing mink in Denmark ‘may have contaminated groundwater’. Decomposing mink buried in mass graves in Denmark after being culled because of coronavirus fears may have contaminated the groundwater, local radio has reported, as parliament announced a commission to investigate the government’s actions.
- Berlin wants to close shops and extend school holidays to fight case rises. Berlin’s mayor, Michael Müller, said he would seek the approval of the city’s parliament next Tuesday to close stores apart from supermarkets until 10 January, and also to extend the school break until that date or put lessons online for a week.
- Welsh secondaries and colleges to shut on Monday to stem Covid spread. Secondary schools and colleges in Wales will move to online learning from Monday in a “national effort to reduce transmission of coronavirus”, the country’s education minister has said.
- Israel abandons Covid-19 curfew plan ahead of Hanukkah. Israel reversed plans to impose a night-time curfew meant to prevent a new wave of coronavirus infections, minutes before the start of a Jewish holiday.
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Canary Islands removed from UK travel corridor list. The Canary Islands have been removed from the UK travel corridors list, meaning people arriving in the UK from the popular Spanish islands from 4am on Saturday must self-isolate.
- Rich countries leaving rest of the world behind on Covid vaccines, warns Gates Foundation. It could be too late for any kind of fair distribution of coronavirus vaccines because of the deals already made by rich countries, according to Mark Suzman, chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
That’s all from me, Jessica Murray, today, my colleague Lucy Campbell will be taking over shortly.
France says Covid-19 rates still too high to re-open cultural venues
France will not reopen museums, cinemas and theatres next week as planned because Covid-19 infection rates are not falling as fast as the government had hoped, prime minister Jean Castex said.
The French government had announced a lockdown imposed at the end of October to get to grips with a second coronavirus wave would be partially lifted by 15 December, including the re-opening of cultural venues.
But that was contingent on the number of new cases of infection falling to around 5,000 a day. France looks likely to to miss that target.
“We are not yet at the end of this second wave, and we will not reach the objectives we had set for 15 December,” Castex told a news conference.
“We cannot let down our guard. We have to stay focussed, and find our way through the next few weeks with lots of vigilance,” he said.
Though transmission rates are several times lower than they were at the peak of the second wave, France is currently recording an average of 11,368 new cases each day, according to Reuters data.
Theatres, cinemas and museums are now scheduled to re-open at the beginning of January, Castex said.
France will stick to its previously-announced plan to end a stay-at-home order on 15 December and replace it with a nightly curfew, Castex said.
But in a departure from the plan, the curfew will run from 8 pm each night - an hour earlier than planned - and will not be waived for New Year’s Eve.
The curfew will, though, be waived for 24 December, Christmas Eve, interior minister Gerald Darmanin told the news conference.
Every secondary school student in certain London boroughs and parts of the south-east will be tested for Covid-19 as the capital had the highest prevalence of the virus in England in recent days, Britain said.
Case rates per 100,000 people in London stood at 191.8, according to Public Health England, putting the city ahead of regions in the highest level of tier 3 restrictions.
“I am particularly concerned about the number of cases in London, Kent and Essex. Cases are rising and in many areas, already high,” health minister Matt Hancock said at a news conference.
“We’ve decided to put in place an immediate plan for testing all secondary school aged children in the seven worst affected boroughs of London, in parts of Essex that border London and parts of Kent.”
The World Trade Organization has failed to agree on a proposal to exempt Covid-19 vaccines from intellectual property rights - an idea staunchly opposed by pharmaceutical giants.
The plan aims to facilitate greater knowledge sharing and the rapid scale-up of production sites for urgent Covid-19 medical goods, including vaccines.
The notion was brought forward by India and South Africa, countries which want to boost the global production of vaccine doses to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
It is supported by around 100 countries, according to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, and by the World Health Organization.
However, “WTO members failed to reach a consensus on the proposal,” a Geneva trade official said.
“Members agreed to keep this item in the agenda of future... meetings to allow for further consideration of the waiver request.
“An oral status report will be presented at the next General Council meeting on 16-17 December 16-17 indicating the need for further discussions on this issue.”
The General Council is the organisation’s supreme decision-making body. WTO member states take decisions by consensus, meaning an agreement was unlikely, given the opposition in the room.
The trade official said members offered no indication of change in their well-known positions or of a likely consensus in the future.
American comedian and television host Ellen DeGeneres said she had tested positive for Covid-19 but was “feeling fine”.
DeGeneres, 62, host of the popular daytime show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, said she was following health guidelines and would return to her show after the holidays.
A representative said production of the show had been halted until January.
In social media post, DeGeneres said:
I want to let you all know I tested positive for Covid-19.
Fortunately, I’m feeling fine right now.
Anyone who has been in close contact with me has been notified, and I am following all proper CDC guidelines.
I’ll see you all again after the holidays.
Please stay healthy and safe.
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) December 10, 2020
DeGeneres is the latest celebrity to test positive for the disease. Actors Tom Hanks, Idris Elba, Bryan Cranston and Hugh Grant along with singers Kanye West, Bad Bunny and Gloria Estefan are among those who have said they were diagnosed with the virus or had suffered symptoms.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show is filmed in the Los Angeles area which this week re-imposed restrictions on household gatherings and shut down indoor and outdoor dining amid a surge of coronavirus cases.
Updated
Canary Islands removed from UK travel corridor list
The Canary Islands have been removed from the UK travel corridors list, transport secretary Grant Shapps has announced.
People arriving in the UK from the popular Spanish islands from 4am on Saturday must self-isolate.
The decision is a major below to the UK travel industry, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
Many firms recorded a surge in bookings for the Canary Islands when they were added to the travel corridors list in October.
Shapps said their removal was due to a rise in weekly cases and positive tests of the virus.
Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said:
It’s utterly devastating news for the thousands of British travellers who booked to go to the Canaries for Christmas and New Year.
It’s also a body blow for travel firms who’d seen an uplift in bookings for the winter after the Canaries were added to the travel corridor list.
It now means thousands of refunds and lost bookings for a sector that needed the Canaries to help them recover.
Botswana and Saudi Arabia have been added to the travel corridors list.
Israel abandons Covid-19 curfew plan ahead of Hanukkah
Israel has reversed plans to impose a night-time curfew meant to prevent a new wave of coronavirus infections, minutes before the start of a Jewish holiday.
At the start of the week, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had announced a night-time curfew from Thursday, the first day of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights.
This measure was criticised by a part of the population and public health experts, who considered it ineffective in combating the pandemic.
On Thursday, the government backtracked, saying “there will no new restrictions for Hanukkah” and that no new measures will be announced as long as fewer than 2,500 new Covid-19 infections are announced per day.
“If the number of new cases passes 2,500 per day, we will impose new restrictions for three weeks,” said a statement.
Since the start of the pandemic, Israel, a country of nine million people, has recorded 351,579 Covid-19 cases, including 2,937 deaths.
In the past 24 hours, just over 800 new infections were confirmed, according to the health minister.
The cancellation of the night-time curfew comes the day after the first Covid-19 vaccines ordered from US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its partner BioNTech arrived in Israel.
Israel has ordered 14m doses of the vaccine - covering seven million people, as two doses are required per person for optimal protection - from Pfizer and US biotech firm Moderna.
Netanyahu announced on Wednesday the country would start administering the vaccines from 27 December.
“I’m asking that every Israeli citizen be vaccinated, and to do so, requested to set an example and be the first person being vaccinated in Israel,” he announced Wednesday, saying “we’re bringing an end to the plague”.
Health ministry official Hezi Levy said on Thursday the first to be vaccinated would be medical personnel - around 250,000 people - then the elderly, at-risk people and their carers.
These groups would be followed by teachers, soldiers and finally, the rest of the population.
European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde has unleashed more stimulus to help the eurozone confront a second coronavirus wave, and warned the outlook remained fraught with uncertainty over the pandemic’s evolution and the rollout of vaccines.
At its final meeting of the year, the 25-member governing council boosted and extended their emergency measures to prop up the euro economy after a flare-up in Covid-19 cases halted a summer recovery and forced another round of restrictions.
The services sector especially is suffering under the renewed shutdowns, Lagarde said, while consumers “remain cautious” as they fret over jobs and money despite unprecedented efforts from governments and the ECB to support companies and households.
Lagarde said it would likely take until early 2022 for the recovery to take root, assuming that scientists are right in saying vaccines will have given the world “sufficient herd immunity” by the end of next year.
The ECB’s most drastic move was to bulk up its main virus-fighting tool, its pandemic emergency bond-buying programme (PEPP), by €500bn ($600bn) to €1.85tn. It also prolonged the scheme from June 2021 to March 2022.
The corporate and government bond purchases are aimed at keeping borrowing costs low to encourage spending and investment, in the hopes of boosting growth and driving up inflation.
The ECB also said it would offer more ultra-cheap loans to banks next year and extend the scheme’s most generous terms to June 2022. As observers had predicted, ECB governors left interest rates unchanged at historic lows.
“The monetary policy measures taken today will contribute to preserving favourable financing conditions over the pandemic period,” Lagarde said.
“At the same time, uncertainty remains high, including with regard to the dynamics of the pandemic and the timing of vaccine roll-outs.”
Britain’s Sky News said its breakfast show anchor Kay Burley would be taken off air for six months after she broke Covid-19 guidelines when she celebrated her 60th birthday with friends and colleagues in London on Saturday evening.
Burley, a founder presenter on the 24-hour news channel set up by Rupert Murdoch nearly 32 years ago who says she has done “more live TV than anyone else”, said she had agreed to step back “for a period of reflection”.
The channel’s political editor Beth Rigby and correspondent Inzamam Rashid, who both attended the event, had agreed to be off air for three months, the broadcaster said on Thursday.
“All those involved regret the incident and have apologised,” Sky News said. “Everyone at Sky News is expected to comply with the rules and the company takes breaches like this very seriously indeed.”
Burley said she had gone to a Covid-compliant restaurant on Saturday for her birthday and had later visited a second restaurant to use the toilet.
Newspaper reports said some of her guests had returned to her house in breach of strict rules.
“It doesn’t matter that I thought I was Covid-compliant on a recent social event,” she said in a statement. “The fact is I was wrong, I made a big mistake, and I am sorry.
“Some dear friends and colleagues - some of the most talented and committed professionals in our business - have been pulled into this episode and I regret this enormously,” she added.
She said she looked forward to returning to the channel which is now owned by US media company Comcast.
The total number of coronavirus cases in Turkey, including asymptomatic ones, since the outbreak began is 1.749 million, health ministry data showed, announcing such figures for the first time.
For four months, Ankara only reported daily symptomatic cases, but has reported all cases since 25 November.
On Wednesday, health minister Fahrettin Koca said the government would publish historical data for all cases starting Thursday.
Earlier, the ministry reported a record 220 deaths and 30,424 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours.
Italy reported 887 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday, a steep rise from 499 the day before.
The daily tally of new infections increased to 16,999 from 12,756.
There were 171,586 swabs carried out in the past day, up from a previous 118,475, the ministry said.
Italy has seen 62,626 Covid-19 fatalities since its outbreak emerged in February, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain.
Italy has also registered 1.787 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 stood at 29,088 on Thursday, down 565 from the day before.
There were 251 new admissions to intensive care units, rising steeply from 152 on Wednesday.
The number of intensive care patients decreased by 29 to 3,291, reflecting those who died or were discharged after recovery.
When Italy’s second wave of the epidemic was accelerating fast in the first half of November, hospital admissions were rising by around 1,000 per day, while intensive care occupancy was increasing by about 100 per day.
Secondary schools in Wales to move online from Monday
Secondary schools and colleges in Wales will move to online learning from Monday, education minister Kirsty Williams has said.
Williams said the decision was as part of a “national effort to reduce transmission of coronavirus”.
She said it followed advice from the country’s chief medical officer that the public health situation in Wales was “deteriorating”.
Williams said:
The virus is putting our health service under significant and sustained pressure and it is important we all make a contribution to reduce its transmission.
In his advice to me today, the CMO recommends that a move to online learning should be implemented for secondary school pupils as soon as is practicable.
I can therefore confirm that a move to online learning should be implemented for secondary school pupils and college students from Monday next week.
Further 516 Covid-19 deaths in the UK
In the UK a further 516 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Thursday, bringing the country’s total to 63,082.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 79,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
The government said that, as of 9am on Thursday, there had been a further 20,964 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.
It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 1,787,783.
Turkey’s daily coronavirus deaths rose to a record 220 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 15,751.
There were 30,424 new coronavirus cases, including asymptomatic ones, in the last 24 hours, data showed.
For four months, Ankara only reported daily symptomatic cases, but has reported all cases since 25 November.
Updated
Decomposing mink buried in mass graves in Denmark after being culled because of coronavirus fears may have contaminated the groundwater, a local radio has said, as the agriculture ministry admitted it had lost track of about 1.5 million bodies.
Denmark, the world’s largest exporter of mink fur, announced early last month it would cull up to 15 million mink after discovering a mutated version of the virus that could have jeopardised the effectiveness of future vaccines.
Unable to incinerate such a large number of dead animals at once, authorities buried tens of thousands in shallow 2-metre pits in a military training area in West Jutland, from which some recently began emerging as their bodies filled with gases.
Denmark’s Radio4 reported on Thursday that a study carried out for the Danish environmental protection agency had concluded groundwater in the area may already have become polluted and urged authorities to take rapid action.
Denmark’s parliament will establish a commission to investigate the government’s actions during November, where it ordered the culling of the country’s entire herd of mink to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, local media has reported.
Russia has agreed a deal with Argentina to supply 10m doses of its Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, which will allow the South American country to start vaccinating people this month.
Argentina president Alberto Fernández said the country had signed the agreement with Russia’s sovereign wealth fund which would allow them to vaccinate 300,000 people in December and reach 10 million people in January-February.
There was an option to receive more doses to inoculate 5 million more people in March, he said, adding his support for the quality of the vaccine, which Russia says is over 90% effective.
“When the Russian vaccine is in Argentina, the first person to get it will be me. I have no doubt in the quality of the vaccine,” he said at a press conference in Buenos Aires.
“Having a contract that tells us exactly when the vaccines will be able to reach Argentina is a step forward and gives great peace of mind,” he added, saying first doses would be for high-risk groups and essential health workers and teachers.
Argentina, has nearly 1.5 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 40,222 deaths, though the daily rate of infection has dropped significantly in recent months.
Argentina has already tied up deals for 22m doses of the Oxford vaccine being developed with AstraZeneca and with the vaccine programme COVAX. The Russian vaccine will cost less than $20 per person for the necessary two doses.
Updated
Berlin wants to close shops and extend school holidays to fight case rises
Berlin wants to close shops and extend the school Christmas holidays to try to get the coronavirus pandemic under control, the mayor of the German capital said as the country reported a new record number of cases of Covid-19.
Berlin’s mayor, Michael Müller, said he would seek the approval of the city’s parliament next Tuesday to close stores apart from supermarkets until 10 January, and also to extend the school break until that date or put lessons online for a week.
Germany’s coronavirus cases rose by 23,679 on Thursday to 1,242,203, setting a new record daily rise, while the death toll increased by 440 to 20,372, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases (RKI).
Europe’s largest economy was more successful than many neighbouring countries in keeping the pandemic under control in the first wave in March and April, but it has been struggling to turn the tide in a second wave, recording record daily deaths.
The country has been in partial lockdown for six weeks, with bars and restaurants closed but shops and schools open.
However, some parts of the country have started imposing tougher measures, including the southern state of Bavaria, which has the nation’s highest death toll, where people are only allowed to leave home for essential reasons as of Wednesday.
The health minister, Jens Spahn, backed the idea of a broader lockdown on Thursday: “There needs to be an overall shutdown in society for all of us, also around the turn of the year,” he told the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament.
The head of RKI, Lothar Wieler, said the situation had deteriorated over the past week and urged people not to travel over the Christmas holiday, saying that contacts would need to be cut by at least 60% to bring infections down.
The chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Wednesday threw her weight behind calls for a fuller lockdown, saying vaccines alone would not have a major impact on the pandemic in the first quarter.
About 43% of Germans would get a Covid shot as soon as a vaccine becomes available, according to a survey of 1,002 people conducted by Forsa on behalf of RTL and ntv on 7 and 8 December. Half of participants said they would hold off for the moment, and 7% said they did not want to get a Covid shot.
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London has highest Covid-19 case rate in England
London had the highest prevalence of Covid-19 cases in the week to 6 December, Public Health England (PHE) said, raising the prospect that the capital will be moved into the strictest level of restrictions in the coming days.
Case rates per 100,000 people in London stood at 191.8, PHE said, putting the city ahead of regions in the highest level of tier 3 restrictions, such as the West Midlands, where cases had fallen to 158.4 per 100,000 from 196.8 a week earlier.
Under the tier system brought in when a month-long national lockdown in England ended on 2 December, all hospitality except for takeaways must close in areas in the highest level.
The capital was originally placed in tier 2, avoiding the more restrictive category into which large swathes of England were placed.
“None of us want our city to move into tier 3,” the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, said. “Please continue to follow the rules – lives and livelihoods truly are dependent on it.”
Britain has Europe’s highest death toll from Covid-19, with more than 62,000 fatalities, and official data on Thursday showed the economic recovery from the pandemic had almost ground to halt because of the impact of restrictions which barred people from socialising in pubs and restaurants.
PHE said cases at a national level had plateaued, and the rate of infection had fallen in central and northeastern England, areas which had been placed in tier 3.
There has been discontent about the tier system from lawmakers in the ruling Conservative party, and the prime minister, Boris Johnson, had promised it would be reviewed on 16 December, holding out the possibility some areas would move to lower categories.
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96,415 tested positive for Covid-19 in England in week to 2 December
A total of 96,415 people tested positive for Covid-19 in England at least once in the week to 2 December, according to the latest test-and-trace figures.
This is down 13% on the previous week and is the lowest total since the week ending 7 October.
For the second week running, there has been a change in how the number of contacts reached through test and trace are calculated and reported.
Last week it was revealed that under-18s in a household are no longer all being traced individually, and instead a parent or guardian is now asked to confirm they have told their child to self-isolate.
This method has since been extended to cover adults in the same household, who can now be recorded as having been reached via only a single phone call.
The change means it is once again not possible to compare historically the proportion of contacts that have been reached each week under test and trace.
Under the old system, 60.5% of close contacts were reached in the week ending 18 November. But under the new system, 85.7% of close contacts were reached in the week ending 2 December.
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Spain's March-May Covid-19 death toll nearly 70% above official count - stats institute
Spain’s coronavirus death toll between March and May was almost 70% higher than the official count at the time, data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) has showed, prompting the opposition to complain of a government cover-up.
Spain was among the worst-hit European countries during the first wave of infections, with health ministry data showing fatalities approaching 900 per day by the end of March.
The latest INE statistics showed 32,652 people died of a confirmed case of coronavirus over the period, while another 13,032 were suspected to have died of the virus after showing compatible symptoms but were never diagnosed.
Covid-19 indirectly contributed to the deaths of a further 4,218 people over the period, the INE also said.
That compares with an official health ministry death toll at the end of May of just 27,127. It now stands at 47,019.
Several other sources, including excess mortality statistics, which compare overall deaths across the country with historical averages, have also suggested the official data underestimated the true coronavirus death toll.
Asked about the INE data, a health ministry spokeswoman said the discrepancy was due to differing data collection systems.
While the INE data, based on death certificates, is more comprehensive, results are not obtained until six to nine months after a death, she said. Health ministry data is less exhaustive but available more rapidly, the spokeswoman added.
Pablo Casado, leader of the conservative opposition People’s party, accused the left-wing coalition government of hiding the real figures.
“Spain does not deserve a government that lies and hides Covid deaths. The INE confirms what we already knew and have been denouncing,” he tweeted.
Since Spain entered a second state of emergency in October, the infection rate has dropped sharply, with the number of cases per 100,000 people falling on Wednesday to its lowest level since August.
The health minister, Salvador Illa, told a parliamentary hearing on Thursday the imminent arrival of vaccines was cause for hope. “If everything goes as expected and all the criteria of the European Medicines Agency are met, the first authorised vaccines will arrive in our country in less than a month,” he said.
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Pope Francis’ Christmas Eve Mass will start two hours earlier, the Vatican said, allowing even the limited number of people who can attend to get home by a 10pm Italian curfew to contain the coronavirus.
A programme for the pope’s Christmas activities showed that the Mass, which normally starts at 9.30pm, would instead start at 7.30pm.
As in all of the pope’s Christmas season events from 24 December to 6 January, public participation will be severely limited.
Since the outbreak began in February, Francis has often encouraged people to respect government regulations aimed at containing the virus.
Italy has recorded 61,739 Covid-19 fatalities, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain. It has also registered 1.77 million cases to date.
The Italian government has imposed a number of other restrictions during the holiday season, including a ban on travel within regions between 21 December and 6 January.
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The head of the EU drug regulator said the agency’s work on assessing Covid-19 vaccines had not been disrupted by a cyber attack that took place in the past two weeks.
The US drugmaker Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said on Wednesday documents related to the development of their Covid-19 vaccine had been “unlawfully accessed” in a cyberattack on the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The EMA had disclosed the attack hours earlier but gave no details about when or how it took place, who was responsible or what information was compromised.
“We have been subject to a cyber attack over the last couple of weeks,” Emer Cooke told EU lawmakers in a hearing on Thursday. “I can assure you that this will not affect the timeline for delivery of vaccines and that we are fully functional.”
Pfizer and BioNTech said they did not believe any personal data of trial participants had been compromised and the EMA “has assured us that the cyber attack will have no impact on the timeline for its review”.
The agency has said it will decide on a possible conditional approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by 29 December.
Hacking attempts against healthcare and medical organisations have intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic as attackers ranging from state-backed spies to cyber criminals hunt for information.
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It could be too late for any kind of fair distribution of coronavirus vaccines because of the deals already made by rich countries, according to Mark Suzman, chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Despite the unprecedented pace of scientific progress on the development of vaccines, he said it remains “really, really complicated” to ensure they are produced and distributed fairly.
Suzman announced on Wednesday the foundation is to give an extra $250m (£188m) to support the research, development and equitable delivery of tests, treatments and vaccines against coronavirus, bringing its total commitments to tackling the disease to $1.75bn.
Rich countries with just 14% of the world’s population have secured 53% of the most promising coronavirus vaccines, according to an alliance of campaigners which this week warned that deals already done could leave nine out of 10 of the world’s poorest unvaccinated next year. Canada has secured enough doses to vaccinate its citizens many times over.
Funding from the Gates Foundation has come at a pivotal moment, Suzman said. The first vaccinations began in the UK this week, while US regulators appear ready to approve emergency use of two vaccines. A second wave of vaccines is in advanced trials.
Asked if deals done by western governments with vaccine companies meant it was already too late for an equitable rollout, Suzman said: “At the moment, as you say, it definitely is a risk and that’s why we think it’s so important to be taking action now.”
Updated
Moderna has dosed the first participants in a mid-to-late stage study testing its Covid-19 vaccine candidate in adolescents aged 12 to less than 18, and aims for data ahead of the 2021 school year.
The trial will enrol 3,000 healthy participants in the US and will assess the safety and effectiveness of two doses of the company’s vaccine candidate given 28 days apart.
Moderna has submitted applications seeking emergency use authorisation (EUA) in the US and EU after full results from a late-stage study showed the vaccine was 94.1% effective in adults with no serious safety concerns.
Rival Pfizer/BioNTech have also sought EUA after their coronavirus vaccine’s two-dose regimen proved 95% effective against Covid-19 and had no major safety issues.
Meanwhile, a panel of outside advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration will meet on Thursday to discuss whether to recommend the use of Pfizer’s vaccine for people aged 16 and older.
A similar meeting of advisers to the FDA is scheduled for 17 December to discuss Moderna’s vaccine.
Pfizer is also studying its vaccine candidate in participants as young as 12.
England’s Covid test-and-trace system is making a £500 ($665) support payment for people told to isolate available through its app, as it outlined a plan for the next phase of the service.
The support payment for people told to self isolate was already available by phone, email or text message, but not through the app.
The app had been criticised as the privacy set-up meant it could not confirm who had been asked to self-isolate, meaning people could not apply for support payments through it.
The payment is designed to encourage people to stay at home when they test positive for Covid-19 to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.
Updated
Africa disease control head calls on rich nations to share excess Covid-19 vaccine doses
Countries that have ordered more Covid-19 vaccines than they need should consider distributing excess doses to Africa, the head of the continent’s disease control body said.
As African countries begin to feel the effects of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said it was unlikely to secure enough vaccine shots.
Many African states are relying on Covax, a global Covid-19 vaccine allocation plan co-led by the World Health Organization, which is working to lower prices and discourage hoarding.
“Some countries have got like three times to four, five times more than what they need,” Nkengasong told a news briefing, adding those countries can help poorer ones kickstart vaccination programmes to protect their citizens. He did not name any states.
The WHO has repeatedly called on governments to make a vaccine protecting against Covid-19 a “public good”.
Britain became the first Western nation to begin the mass-vaccination of its population against Covid-19, and other countries, such as Canada and the US, may also do the same in the next few weeks.
The United Nations should convene a special session to discuss ways that will ensure an equitable distribution and access to vaccines, Nkengasong said.
The African Union-owned CDC organisation is working with the Afreximbank and the World Bank to figure out how to raise funds for the procurement of the vaccines needed for the continent.
In October, Nkengasong said Afreximbank was ready to raise up to $5bn to purchase Covid-19 vaccines.
Cases and deaths were rising in Africa, Nkengasong said, adding that more vigilance, particularly mask wearing and social distancing, was needed as end-of-year holidays approached. “The second wave is here,” he said.
Updated
Sweden registered a record number of daily Covid-19 cases on Thursday, though it said it still has spare bed capacity in hospital intensive wards.
The Stockholm region, among the hardest hit, appealed to the National Health Board on Wednesday to send it more hospital staff, as Covid infections have filled intensive care wards in the capital.
Sweden, which has not opted for the kind of lockdown adopted by most other European nations, registered 7,935 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, above a previous high of 7,240 daily cases recorded on 20 November.
Sweden still has 148 unoccupied beds in intensive care wards nationwide, corresponding to 22% free capacity, said Irene Nilsson-Carlsson, senior public health adviser at the National Health Board.
“It is not an acute crisis,” she told a news conference, adding that around half of the patients now in Swedish intensive care wards were Covid-19 patients.
Sweden registered 58 new fatalities on Thursday, taking the total death toll to 7,354. Sweden’s death rate per capita is several times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours but lower than some larger European countries.
In an effort to curb a severe second wave, the government has tightened recommendations for public gatherings, while high schools have been told to switch to distance learning for the rest of the term.
Updated
Denmark will expand tighter lockdown measures currently in place to cover almost 80% of the population after the country registered its highest number of new daily infections.
“There is widespread infection throughout society and incipient pressure on the hospital system,” the health minister, Magnus Heunicke, said on Thursday, adding a further rise in infections in the coming days was expected.
On Monday, the government announced a partial shutdown of 38 municipalities, including the capital Copenhagen, after signs of a rapid rise in infections, resulting in the closure of bars, restaurants and museums.
A total of 69 municipalities will now face tighter lockdown measures as of Friday, covering almost 80% of the population.
In the last 24 hours, 3,132 new infections have been registered, a record for Denmark during the epidemic. That also coincides with a record number of tests performed, more than 110,000.
Updated
The US is preparing to distribute a coronavirus vaccine within days as the country’s daily death toll surpassed 3,000 for the first time.
Covid-19 deaths reached 3,253 on Wednesday, pushing up the US total since the start of the pandemic to 289,740, with a record 106,219 people hospitalised with the virus.
A vaccine could start reaching healthcare workers, first responders and nursing home residents as soon as Sunday, though more likely early next week, according to Trump administration officials.
The US army general Gustave Perna, the chief operating officer of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine development program, said all the vaccine doses remained in the hands of the pharmaceutical companies.
“But we’ve worked many rehearsals and planning cycles ... and that’s why I’m confident that as soon as EUA [emergency use authorisation] comes aboard, we’ll start packing to the final destinations and distribution will begin within 24 hours,” Perna said.
A panel of independent medical experts was due to decide on Thursday whether to recommend a vaccine from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration.
FDA consent could come as early as Friday or Saturday, followed by the first US injections on Sunday or Monday, Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to Operation Warp, told Fox News.
A second vaccine developed by Moderna is a week behind. Widespread inoculations, however, could take months.
In the meantime, intensive care units at hundreds of hospitals across the country were at or near capacity, data from the US Department of Health and Human Services showed.
Ten mostly rural counties in California reported having no ICU beds on Wednesday, according to state health figures analysed by Reuters.
Updated
Uzbekistan said large-scale trials of a Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine would begin this week among its population.
Vaccine maker Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical has delivered 3,000 doses of the vaccine and 3,000 placebos to the Central Asian country for phase 3 testing, the Uzbek innovation ministry said. The trials involving 5,000 adults will begin on Friday.
The innovation minister, Ibrokhim Abdurakhmonov, and the deputy minister, Shakhlokhon Turdikulova, received the vaccine last month along with members of their families, a ministry spokeswoman told AFP.
Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical won approval from the Chinese authorities for first-phase human trials of its vaccine in June.
Phase 3 trials are also planned for Indonesia, Pakistan and Ecuador, a Zhifei press release said in November.
Zhifei’s founder, Jiang Rensheng, has seen his personal worth triple to $19.9bn this year according to an annual Chinese rich list published in October.
Uzbekistan, a country of about 34 million people, in September placed an order for 35m doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
The country has recorded 74,498 coronavirus cases with 71,740 recoveries and 611 deaths.
Updated
Belarus to close land border over virus concerns
Belarus has said it will temporarily close its land border in late December to curb the spread of Covid-19, a move that the opposition viewed as a further clampdown on dissent.
According to a government decree, Belarus nationals and foreigners who hold temporary or permanent residency will not be able to leave the country via land border checkpoints starting 20 December. The decree did not state how long the measure will last.
For more than four months, the ex-Soviet republic has been gripped by historic anti-government protests that erupted following an August presidential election in which incumbent Alexander Lukashenko secured a sixth term in office.
Lukashenko’s opponents believe the polls were rigged and that political novice Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in place of her jailed husband, was the true winner of the election.
Several western leaders have refused to recognise the election results and backed Tikhanovskaya, who fled to neighbouring Lithuania shortly after the vote.
The EU imposed sanctions on Lukashenko and his allies citing election rigging and a violent police crackdown on protesters.
In response to the border closures, Tikhanovskaya said on Thursday the “regime is doing everything to turn our country into a modern Gulag”, referring to the Soviet-era labour camps established under Joseph Stalin.
Lukashenko “fears publicity and justice and hopes that closed borders will help hide all his crimes”, Tikhanovskaya wrote on her Telegram channel.
Several Belarusian opposition figures have fled across the border to EU members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in the wake of a brutal crackdown on the protests.
The new restrictions will apply to all border checkpoints on the ground, including those at railways and river ports. Entry via Minsk National airport – the country’s main international airport – will remain open.
Exceptions will be made for diplomats, Belarus citizens holding residency abroad and those travelling for study, or in the case of a serious illness or death of a close relative.
At the start of the pandemic this spring, Lukashenko repeatedly dismissed virus concerns and did not impose a nationwide lockdown. The 66-year-old strongman leader is rarely seen wearing a mask or taking precautionary measures even though he has said he had contracted an asymptomatic case of the coronavirus this summer.
Updated
A vending machine that issues coronavirus tests and stores the samples has been installed in a Latvian hospital, as the Baltic state turns to automation to help contain the spread of Covid-19.
The machine at the Pauls Stradins Clinical University hospital in Riga is the first of 100 planned under a countrywide rollout and, says a board member of the company that built it, the first of its kind in the world.
It dispenses PRC swab tests. A technician collects the completed kits once a day and results are available within 24 hours, said Didzis Gavars of the E Gulbja Laboratory.
“The device removes the need for two to five medical workers to administer the tests, and it removes any risk of infection”, he said.
The EU last week asked countries in the bloc to expand testing capacities to track local outbreaks.
The state is paying for tests at the hospital, where the machine is reserved for staff, but other machines will charge €53 (£47) per test.
Updated
Suspected Covid case on 'cruise to nowhere' was false alarm
A suspected Covid-19 case aboard a “cruise-to-nowhere” from Singapore which forced the ship to return to dock and nearly 1,700 guests to isolate was a false alarm, the government said.
Passengers on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas vessel were held in their cabins for more than 16 hours on Wednesday after an 83-year-old man tested positive for Covid-19 aboard the ship when he sought medical help for diarrhoea.
But Singapore’s health ministry said on Thursday the man did not have the virus, after three subsequent tests on land came back negative.
While authorities praised the response to the incident, tourism experts said it highlighted testing frailties and the burden that puts on businesses trying to resume operations even in a country that has largely tamed the virus.
The health ministry said close contacts of the guest would no longer need to quarantine and that it would help review testing processes aboard the ship.
Miami-based Royal Caribbean, which had just started offering the trips after it halted global operations in March due to the pandemic, said in a statement it welcomed the news and that it would work to “refine” its protocols.
The cruises-to-nowhere were part of Singapore’s efforts to revive a tourism industry hit by the pandemic as borders around the world have closed.
Singapore’s tourism board chief, Keith Tan, said the cruise incident was a learning experience but also a validation of precautions such as pre-departure testing and requirements that guests carry an electronic contact tracing device at all times.
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The US senate is expected to vote as early as Thursday on a one-week extension of federal government funding to provide more time for legislators to work out a larger spending package including coronavirus relief, if lawmakers can reach a deal after months of argument.
The Democratic-majority House voted 343-67 on the stopgap measure on Wednesday. If passed and signed by President Donald Trump, it would prevent federal programmes from running out of money on Friday at midnight (5am GMT on Saturday) by extending current funding levels until 18 December.
The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has said the Senate will take it up this week and send it to Trump in time to avoid a government shutdown.
The move gives Congress seven more days to enact a broader, $1.4tn (£1tn) “omnibus” spending measure for all government agencies from the Pentagon to national parks.
The pandemic has roared back to levels surpassing those seen early in the crisis, with more than 200,000 new infections reported each day and fresh shutdowns in some areas. More than 286,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 so far, and millions have been thrown out of work.
Congressional leaders hope to attach a long-awaited Covid-19 relief package, the first since $3tn in aid was approved last spring to help mitigate pandemic-related shutdowns, job losses and other hardships.
Updated
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be running the liveblog for the next few hours.
Please do get in touch if you have any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
Health services in Brazil, Mexico and Paraguay are dangerously stretched as a second wave buffets a region where the first never ended.
US records more than 3,000 Covid deaths a day for the first time
The US recorded its highest level of deaths in a single day from the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday, just two weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday period when health experts warned Americans not to travel or gather.
According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, 3,124 deaths were recorded, with an additional 221,276 cases identified. It is the first time the US has recorded more than 3,000 deaths in a single day.
The US healthcare system is under considerable pressure: hospitalisations from Covid were also at a record on Wednesday, at 106,000.
Coronavirus infections and deaths in Germany are likely to rise further in the coming weeks, a senior health official at the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases (RKI) said on Thursday, Reuters reports.
The current rise in Covid-19 infections is worrying, RKI chief, Lothar Wieler, said. “The situation is still very serious and has deteriorated over the past week. Currently we are seeing a rise in infections.”
Updated
Denmark’s government will expand tighter lockdown measures currently in place in 38 municipalities to about 30 new municipalities, broadcaster TV2 reported on Thursday, citing anonymous sources, according to a report by Reuters.
On Monday, the government announced a partial shutdown of 38 municipalities, including the capital Copenhagen, after seeing signs of infections rates rising exponentially, resulting in the closure of bars, restaurants and museums.
Updated
A&E attendances at hospitals in England continue to be below levels of a year ago, according to the latest figures from NHS England.
A total of 1.5 million attendances were recorded in November 2020, down 31% from 2.1 million in November 2019, PA reports.
NHS England said the fall is “likely to be a result of the Covid-19 response”, suggesting that people were still staying away from A&E departments because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Updated
Intensive care units in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, reached 99% capacity on Tuesday for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Local Sweden reports:
As of Wednesday, there were 83 patients with Covid-19 in the region’s intensive care units, a slight fall from 89 on Tuesday.
“That is equivalent to the total number of intensive care places which we have available normally,” said Björn Eriksson, healthcare director for the region, at a press conference. Stockholm has made more intensive care places available during the pandemic, but on Tuesday, these approximately 160 care places reached 99% capacity, including Covid-19 and other patients.
Eriksson said Stockholm’s healthcare workers were so overworked that he had formally asked the national board of health and welfare for specialist nurses and nursing assistants to be sent from other regions, and has asked private health caregivers to make their staff available too if possible.
And he said that while the healthcare system was working to make places available, there were “not large margins”, partly because the winter has meant more people are seeking care for other emergencies.
Updated
UK economic growth slowed in October as restrictions were tightened to control the spread of the second wave of Covid-19, PA reports.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.4% month-on-month in October, marking the sixth month in a row of recovering output from the nadir of the recession in April.
But growth pared back significantly from 1.1% in September as new restrictions were brought in to try to curb rising cases of coronavirus, hitting pubs and restaurants hard.
The ONS added that the economy still remained 7.9% below pre-pandemic levels.
Experts are predicting GDP will slam back into reverse in November and the final quarter of 2020 due to the second national lockdown in England.
The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said:
I know people are worried about the winter months, but we will continue to support people through our Plan For Jobs to ensure nobody is left without hope or opportunity.
Updated
Russia confirmed 27,927 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours on Thursday, pushing the national tally to 2,569,126, Reuters reports.
Authorities said 562 people had died overnight, taking the official death toll to 45,280
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged an additional $250m (£187m) on Thursday to support the development of low-cost and easier to deliver treatments and vaccines against Covid-19, Reuters reports.
The Gates Foundation’s latest contribution, its largest till date, comes on top of the $70m funding that it added in November. This brings its total commitments to the global pandemic response to $1.75bn, the foundation said.
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On the allergy warning over the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 jab, Prof David Salisbury, a former Department of Health director of immunisation in the UK, said these reactions were only discovered after clinical trials, PA reports.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
When you do clinical trials, you very often screen out people who might have a reaction.
So you only discover this sort of event in the surveillance that goes on after the programme runs out.
When asked if there could be a range of reactions as the vaccine is rolled out across the world, he said:
They will happen. What will also happen is there will be events after vaccination that actually have nothing to do with it.
We need to be very careful to separate out coincidence from causality.
Updated
Morning, I’m Aamna Mohdin and I’ll be taking over the liveblog for the next few hours.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, asking you to spare a thought for the rats.
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- Half of Americans would take vaccine, poll shows. A survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows about a quarter of US adults are not sure if they want to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. Roughly another quarter say they will not.
- A citizen journalist detained for more than six months after reporting on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has had a feeding tube forcibly inserted and her arms restrained to stop her pulling it out, her lawyer has claimed. Zhang Zhan, a 37-year-old former lawyer, has been on a hunger strike at a detention facility near Shanghai. Zhang was arrested in May and accused of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble”, an accusation frequently used against critics and activists inside China, after reporting on social media and streaming accounts. Last month she was formally indicted on charges of spreading false information.
- US to confirm record daily death toll for Wednesday – reports. It looks like the US will again confirm a record new death toll for Wednesday, for the first time exceeding 3,000 deaths – higher than the toll of 9/11 – in 24 hours. The Guardian relies on Johns Hopkins for official data and they have not yet posted 9 December’s toll, but the Washington Post, New York Times and Covid-tracking Project’s figures each suggest that it will be a record day.
- South Africa now experiencing Covid-19 “second wave”, the health minister declared on Wednesday. “As it stands as a country we now meet that criteria,” Zweli Mkhize said in a statement, as the country registered nearly 7,000 new cases in the last 24-hour cycle.The country now counts 828,598 infections after 6,709 new cases were detected between Tuesday and Wednesday.
- Australian scientists said on Thursday they had developed a rapid genome sequencing method that would cut to within four hours the time taken to trace the source of coronavirus cases, helping to quickly contain any future outbreaks.
- Japan has reported a record daily number of coronavirus cases, prompting health experts to urge people not to travel in the run-up to the new year holidays. The country reported 2,811 new infections on Wednesday, as well as a record 555 people with serious Covid symptoms, the Kyodo news agency said.
Updated
Citizen journalist detained over Wuhan reporting 'restrained and fed by tube'
A citizen journalist detained for more than six months after reporting on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has had a feeding tube forcibly inserted and her arms restrained to stop her pulling it out, her lawyer has claimed.
Zhang Zhan, a 37-year-old former lawyer, has been on a hunger strike at a detention facility near Shanghai. Zhang was arrested in May and accused of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble”, an accusation frequently used against critics and activists inside China, after reporting on social media and streaming accounts. Last month she was formally indicted on charges of spreading false information.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Zhang’s lawyer, Zhang Keke, said he visited his client on Tuesday afternoon, and found her unwell and exhausted.
“She was wearing thick pyjamas with a girdle around the waist, her left hand pinned in front and right hand pinned behind,” he wrote. “She said she had a stomach tube inserted recently and because she wanted to pull it out, she was restrained.”
Zhang Keke said she was in “constant torment” from 24 hours a day of restraints, and needed assistance to go to the bathroom:
Air pollution in many towns and cities across the UK now exceeds pre-pandemic levels, exacerbating the risk of Covid-19 and putting the health of millions of people at risk.
A study published on Thursday says that although air quality improved dramatically in the first half of the year as the country went into lockdown, pollution now exceeds pre-Covid levels in 80% of the 49 cities and large towns that were analysed.
There is growing evidence that exposure to toxic air increases the risks from Covid-19 and the authors of the study say their findings underscore the need for local councils to do more to reduce car use and improve air quality by prioritising walking and cycling:
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 23,679 to 1,242,203, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Thursday.
The reported death toll rose by 440 to 20,372, the tally showed.
Japan will buy 10,500 deep freezers to store novel coronavirus vaccines and is considering purchasing dry ice in bulk as it prepares to protect its population from the virus, the Ministry of Health said on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Japan has agreements to buy a total of 290 million doses of the vaccines from Pfizer Inc, AstraZeneca Plc and Moderna Inc, or enough for 145 million people if everyone gets two shots as required.
Pfizer’s vaccines need to be kept at around minus 75 Celsius (minus 103 Fahrenheit, and Moderna’s at about minus 20C, posing logistics problems.
Pfizer, as well as Moderna and its domestic partner Takeda Pharmaceutical, plan to build networks to keep vaccines at the appropriate temperature as they are distributed to where they will be deployed, the ministry said in a statement.
Japan has had more than 165,000 cases of novel coronavirus infection and 2,417 fatalities, with the capital, Tokyo, particularly hard hit. Tokyo reported 352 new cases on Tuesday.
Japan reports record new cases
Japan has reported a record daily number of coronavirus cases, prompting health experts to urge people not to travel in the run-up to the New Year holidays.
The country reported 2,811 new infections on Wednesday, as well as a record 555 people with serious Covid symptoms, the Kyodo news agency said.
Record daily case numbers were seen in six of the country’s 47 prefectures, including the popular tourist destinations of Kyoto and Kagoshima, a city in the far south-west:
And now for a break from coronavirus news:
In a groundbreaking “armpit advertising” campaign revealed on Thursday, Cricket Australia announced a commercial partnership with the Australian deodorant and antiperspirant brand Rexona.
Part of the deal requires umpires in the domestic Twenty20 competition to sport the product’s branding under their arms, which will be fully revealed to the watching world upon the signalling of a six (both arms raised, two logos revealed) or a bye (just one):
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Covid-19: the relationship between stress and health – podcast
As we head into the pandemic’s winter months, Natalie Grover speaks to Prof Kavita Vedhara about the continued impact of Covid-19-related stress on long-term mental health and how this might affect our ability to fight off infection:
In the Pacific, 33 Tokelauans who have been stranded overseas since the start of the pandemic will finally reach home - just in time for Christmas - having spent weeks in quarantine in Samoa.
Radio New Zealand reports the group has set sail on board the MV Mataliki for Tokelau from Apia, where they had to spend 21 days in quarantine (an extra week on the usual mandated figure), after two passengers on their flight from New Zealand tested positive for Covid-19.
Tokelau, a New Zealand dependency in the South Pacific, remains free of Covid-19.
In French Polynesia, seven more Covid-19 deaths have been recorded, bringing the total number of pandemic fatalities in the territory to 86.
The French territory has recorded 15,332 confirmed cases: but more than 5000 in the past month.
All but 62 of French Polynesia’s cases have come after borders were re-opened in July and mandatory quarantine abolished in an effort to boost tourism and restart a faltering economy.
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The European Central Bank is expected Thursday to unleash more stimulus to help shore up a eurozone economy devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, analysts said, in a move eagerly awaited by financial markets.
AFP: The Frankfurt institution already has a €1.35tn ($1.6tn) emergency bond-buying programme in place, but ECB chief Christine Lagarde all but promised in October that extra support was on the way.
Just how urgent that help was would likely be borne out by a fresh set of economic forecasts that the ECB is due to publish, central bank watchers suggested.
In September, the ECB had been pencilling in quarter-on-quarter growth of 3.1% in the final three months of 2020.
But that prognosis is likely to be downgraded after a surge in virus cases necessitated renewed restrictions across Europe.
The prospect of imminent mass vaccinations could temper the gloomy outlook for 2021, as could the possibility of the EU overcoming vetoes by Poland and Hungary on the pandemic recovery fund.
But with the jury still out on whether a post-Brexit trade deal can be found before a year-end deadline, the economic prospects for the 19-country single currency area are still anything but certain.
“In view of the second wave of infection and the renewed contraction of the euro economy, the ECB will do everything possible to keep financing conditions very favourable,” said an economist at German state-owned investment bank KfW, Fritzi Koehler-Geib.
Any additional stimulus would be “awaited almost as eagerly as the Santa Claus,” she said.
India recorded 31,521 new coronavirus cases, data from the health ministry showed on Thursday.
The country has a total of 9.77 million infections, the second-highest in the world after the United States, but the daily tally has been slowly dropping since hitting a peak in September.
Deaths rose by 412, with the total now 141,772.
South Korean authorities scrambled on Thursday to build hospital beds in shipping containers to ease strains on medical facilities stretched by the latest coronavirus wave, which shows little sign of abating with 682 new cases, Reuters reports.
The resurgence of infections has rekindled concerns about an acute shortage of hospital beds, prompting Seoul city to begin installing container beds for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
Health authorities plan to step up testing by launching temporary sites at some 150 locations across the greater Seoul area.
“We’re in a critical situation where our anti-virus efforts and medical system’s capacity could reach their limits before long,” Health Minister Park Neung-hoo told a meeting, vowing to mobilise all available resources.
“Above all, we will secure sufficient treatment centres and hospital beds for critical cases so that they can receive proper treatment in a timely manner.”
In Seoul, with a population of 10 million, only around 3% of hospital beds were available for severe cases, and 17% for all patients, according to Park Yoo-mi, a quarantine officer at the city government.
The city has dispatched 50 epidemiological investigators to 25 districts to help track down potential patients, in addition to 10 sent from the central government, Park said.
A total of 274 military and police officers and other administrative staff will also be mobilised for epidemiological surveys starting Friday, she added.
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A four-year-old Sydney boy with autism stranded in India and separated from his father since March has missed specialist treatment for so long he has become non-verbal.
While just over half of those registered as stranded with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in September have returned home, the number of Australians registered has since grown to 36,875.
In March, Tulika Singh travelled to India with her sons Yuvraj and Ayushmaan to visit her family, with the intention of returning to their home in Strathfield in April. Her husband remained in Sydney.
As Australia shut its borders and India was placed in a nationwide lockdown, Tulika was unable to purchase flights home and nothing has changed in the months since.
While she checks booking sites up to three times a day, she is unable to afford the three fares she needs, which cost about $24,000
Her seven-year-old, Ayushmaan, has been unable to attend school all year, but Tulika is more concerned about Yuvraj.
Before they left for India, Yuvraj had made progress in therapy and had begun to speak. However he has not been able to attend his Australian therapy sessions since March.
“He has stopped talking and he’s stopped responding to me,” Tulika said. “It’s happened gradually.”
A medical assessment by a therapist Yuvraj saw in Mumbai stated he had stopped speaking entirely. It noted his close relationship with his father and suggested their separation was a cause for his regression:
US to confirm record daily death toll for Wednesday – reports
It looks like the US will again confirm a record new death toll for Wednesday, for the first time exceeding 3,000 deaths in 24 hours. The Guardian relies on Johns Hopkins for official data and they have not yet posted 9 December’s toll, but the Washington Post, New York Times and Covid-tracking Project’s figures each suggest that it will be a record day.
As the Times’ Michael Barbaro points out, the US has now suffered more deaths in a day than died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
2,977
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) December 10, 2020
The number of people killed on September 11, 2001.
3,011
The number of people killed by the coronavirus on December 9, 2020.
Think about that. A 9-11 level of death, every day, is upon us.
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Los Angeles’ health director has broken down as she delivered the latest total death figures for the county – 8,075 people – ABC reports.
A video below:
Los Angeles County Health Director Barbara Ferrer broke down as she revealed the latest tallies of coronavirus cases and deaths.
— ABC News (@ABC) December 9, 2020
There were 9,243 new cases and 75 new deaths recorded in LA County on Wednesday, according to the health department. https://t.co/A28M0IC9wl pic.twitter.com/vrQf2y5Jgx
Australian scientists develop genome sequencing to trace Covid-19 cases within four hours
Australian scientists said on Thursday they had developed a rapid genome sequencing method that would cut to within four hours the time taken to trace the source of coronavirus cases, helping to quickly contain any future outbreaks, Reuters reports.
Genome sequencing can help scientists monitor small changes in the virus at a national or international scale to understand how it is spreading and provide insight into how different cases are linked.
“When a new ‘mystery’ coronavirus case is identified, every minute counts,” Ira Deveson, scientist at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, said in a report, prepared in collaboration with the University of New South Wales.
Genomic testing helps track the source of mystery cases, the ones whose source of infection remains unknown. But results often take more than 24 hours now.
The novel coronavirus genome is about 30,000 letters long, but tiny compared with the 3 billion letters that make up the DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, of the human genome.
The virus can alter the genetic signature of the hosts as it replicates itself inside them.
“By identifying this genetic variation, we can establish how different cases of coronavirus are linked,” UNSW scientist Rowena Bull said.
Australia has largely avoided the high number of cases and deaths from the virus compared with other developed countries, cautiously easing restrictions after reporting zero local Covid-19 cases for the past several days.
It has reported just under 28,000 cases of Covid-19 and 908 deaths since the pandemic began but estimates there are fewer than 50 active cases remaining, mostly returned travelers from overseas in hotel quarantine.
California’s Lake Tahoe is temporarily shutting down to outside tourists, the latest economic blow as a deadly surge in coronavirus cases is forcing millions in America’s most populous state back under lockdown restrictions.
The news comes as California saw its deadliest day of the pandemic so far, according to a count by the Los Angeles Times, with more than 219 deaths from the virus recorded on Tuesday.
Large swathes of California went back under the strict lockdown rules over the weekend, with restaurants forced to halt outdoor dining, personal care businesses ordered to close and stores operating at reduced capacity. Residents are asked to stay home except for essential activities, and hotels are barred from accepting most out-of-state guests:
British holidaymakers will be barred from the European Union from 1 January under current Covid-19 safety restrictions, with the EU commission indicating there will be no exemption for the UK.
Only a handful of countries with low coronavirus rates are exempt from rules that prohibit nonessential visitors from outside the EU and European Economic Area (EEA) – with the UK included only until the end of the Brexit transition period.
EU member states agreed in October to adopt a European council proposal to allow nonessential travel from a small group of countries with lower levels of Covid cases including Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.
An EU commission spokesman last week said there were no plans to extend that to the UK. “This is a decision for the council to make,” he said:
Britain’s economy will bounce back next year from the Covid pandemic but a fifth year of weak business investment will delay a full recovery until the end of 2022, according to CBI forecasts.
A combination of Brexit uncertainty, which is expected to continue into next year with or without a deal, and the blow to business confidence during the first and second lockdowns will delay a rebound in private sector investment.
Business investment has remained flat since the 2016 Brexit vote as companies struggled to assess the impact of Brexit while negotiations continued:
South Africa now experiencing Covid-19 ‘second wave’: minister
South Africa, the African country most affected by coronavirus, has entered a second wave of the pandemic, the health minister declared Wednesday.
“As it stands as a country we now meet that criteria,” Zweli Mkhize said in a statement, as the country registered nearly 7,000 new cases in the last 24-hour cycle.
The country now counts 828,598 infections after 6,709 new cases were detected between Tuesday and Wednesday.
South Africa had reined in its first wave which occurred in July at an average of 12,000 cases detected daily. Numbers then gradually came down, at a point dropping below 1,000 in September.
The minister said the number of new infections detected in parts of the country suggest that “we should expect faster rising numbers with a higher peak than in the first wave”.
Most of the cases have been detected in the southern parts of the country, including Cape Town.
Mkhize said the new cases recorded over the last two days have mostly been found in the 15-19 year age group.
The infections are believed to have been fuelled by recent “super spreader” year-end parties where young people drank alcohol and failed to wear masks or respect observe distancing.
The minister warned that the health care system could be “overwhelmed” if large gatherings were not banned.
Half of Americans would take vaccine, poll shows
A survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows about a quarter of US adults aren’t sure if they want to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. Roughly another quarter say they won’t.
Many on the fence have safety concerns and want to watch how the initial rollout fares — skepticism that could hinder the campaign against the scourge that has killed nearly 290,000 Americans. Experts estimate at least 70% of the US population needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, or the point at which enough people are protected that the virus can be held in check.
Early data suggests the two US frontrunners – one vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech and another by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health – offer strong protection. The Food and Drug Administration is poring over study results to be sure the shots are safe before deciding in the coming days whether to allow mass vaccinations, as Britain began doing with Pfizer’s shots on Tuesday.
Despite the hopeful news, feelings haven’t changed much from an AP-NORC poll in May, before it was clear a vaccine would pan out.
In the survey of 1,117 American adults conducted 3-7 December, about 3 in 10 said they are very or extremely confident that the first available vaccines will have been properly tested for safety and effectiveness. About an equal number said they are not confident. The rest fell somewhere in the middle.
Among those who don’t want to get vaccinated, about 3 in 10 said they aren’t concerned about getting seriously ill from the coronavirus, and around a quarter said the outbreak isn’t as serious as some people say.
About 7 in 10 of those who said they won’t get vaccinated are concerned about side effects. Pfizer and Moderna say testing has uncovered no serious ones so far. As with many vaccines, recipients may experience fever, fatigue or sore arms from the injection, signs the immune system is revving up.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live global coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest from around the world for the next few hours.
In the US, a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows about a quarter of US adults aren’t sure if they want to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. Roughly another quarter say they won’t.
Meanwhile, South Africa has entered a second wave of the pandemic, the health minister declared Wednesday.
“As it stands as a country we now meet that criteria,” Zweli Mkhize said in a statement, as the country registered nearly 7,000 new cases in the last 24-hour cycle.
The country now counts 828,598 infections after 6,709 new cases were detected between Tuesday and Wednesday
- Brazil reports highest daily cases since mid-August. Brazil reported 53,453 additional confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the highest daily rate since mid-August, and 836 deaths from Covid-19, the health ministry said on Wednesday. The country has now registered 6,728,452 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 178,995, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the United States and India.
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German biotech firm BioNTech said that regulation documents related to the Covid-19 vaccine it is developing with Pfizer had been “unlawfully accessed” after a cyberattack on Europe’s medicines regulator. Earlier, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is responsible for assessing and approving medicines, medical devices and vaccines for the European Union, said it had been targeted in a cyberattack. It gave no further details.
- Marty Wilde is to become one of the first celebrities to get the Covid-19 vaccination. The 1950s pop star, best known for his hit Teenager in Love, will be given the jab on Thursday. Vaccinations began being administered at 70 hospital hubs across the UK from Tuesday - starting with healthcare workers, people living in care homes and the elderly.
- Spain’s rate of confirmed coronavirus cases reach lowest level since August. Spain’s rate of confirmed coronavirus cases fell to 193 cases per 100,000 people on Wednesday to reach the lowest level recorded since August, health ministry data showed, Reuters reports. The ministry reported 9,773 infections since Monday, bringing the total up to just over 1.7 million, while the number of deaths increased by 373 to 47,019.
- Slovakia ordered schools and most shops closed for at least three weeks from 21st December. The central European country also ordered outside seating at restaurants to end from Dec. 11, only allowing take-away as the number of COVID-19 cases continued to rise.
- The creators of the Sputnik V vaccine have denied that Russians must quit drinking for nearly two months while receiving the jabs. Scientists attempted to head off a public row over whether millions would have to go teetotal to join the country’s mass vaccination programme. Following a day of heated deliberations, the head of the Gamaleya research centre that developed Sputnik V said that patients should avoid drinking for just six days.
- England’s chief medical officer has warned of a “disastrous” resurgence in coronavirus cases if people stop adhering to social distancing guidelines now that the mass vaccination programme has begun. Prof Chris Whitty told MPs that the winter months were high risk for the NHS, particularly because of respiratory infections. He stressed the importance of immunising an estimated 20 million people made a priority for a jab before any substantial easing of restrictions.
- Canada becomes third country to approve Covid-19 vaccine. Canada on Wednesday approved its first Covid-19 vaccine, clearing the way for doses of the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE shots to be delivered and administered across the country, Reuters reports. Canada is the third country after the United Kingdom and Bahrain to give the green light to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
- Study suggests Covid-19 circulating in Italy in late November 2019.Covid-19 was circulating in Italy in late November 2019, three months before the first local transmission was detected, a new study has shown.Analysis was carried out on a swab taken from a four-year-old child, who had respiratory problems and was vomiting, on 30 November 2019. He developed a rash the next day and the illness was mistaken for measles.
- Furious Merkel says German death rate ‘unacceptable’. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said the country’s residents could be proud of what they had achieved and there was now “light at the end of the tunnel”. She said a creative, inquisitive spirit had brought about a number of vaccines – “the best scientists in the world”, she said, “have shown us the qualities that people really have in them”.
