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Summary
Here’s a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments across the globe over the last few hours:
- Germany aims to roll out BioNTech/Pfizer Covid vaccine on 27 December. Germany will begin coronavirus vaccinations on 27 December with elderly care home residents, health minister Jens Spahn announced, with the EU aiming for all 27 member states to begin on the same day.
- Brazil sees record daily Covid-19 infections as cases top 7 million. Brazil registered over 70,000 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, a daily record, as a second wave of infections spreads across the country.
- Twitter bans harmful false claims about Covid-19 vaccinations. Twitter has said users will be required to remove new tweets that advance harmful false or misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccinations, in an expansion of its rules on coronavirus misinformation.
- France reports biggest daily jump in Covid-19 cases since 21 November. France reported 17,615 new confirmed Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, sharply up from the 11,532 on Tuesday and 14,595 a week ago.
- Israel PM Netanyahu to get vaccine this week. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will become one of the first world leaders to get vaccinated when he gets the jab on Saturday.
- Danish PM confirms Christmas lockdown. Shopping malls will close starting on Thursday and other stores, with the exception of supermarkets and food shops, will close from 25 December. Students still in school will be sent home as of Monday.
- The global scheme to deliver vaccines to poorer countries faces a “very high” risk of failure, potentially leaving billions of people with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024, internal documents have revealed. The risk of failure of the Covax project is higher because the scheme was set up so quickly, operating in “uncharted territory”, one internal report says.
Peru’s government told people in the country not to invite friends and family who live outside the home to Christmas and New Year celebrations, a measure aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
Coronavirus cases in Peru totalled 987,675 as of Tuesday with 36,817 deaths so far, according to official figures. Health authorities are warning of a possible second wave of infections early next year.
“Families who live together can be together, but we should not go to visit our other relatives or friends because the pandemic continues,” prime minister Violeta Bermúdez said.
Officials called on people to find creative ways to meet virtually during the holidays.
“We fear that we must avoid unnecessary trips during Christmas and New Years when we can connect by electronic means. The best gift we can give our loved ones in these circumstances is to take care of ourselves,” interim president Francisco Sagasti said.
Brazil sees record daily Covid-19 infections as cases top 7 million
Brazil registered over 70,000 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, a daily record, as a second wave of infections spreads across the South American country.
The new numbers reported by the health ministry took Brazil’s total cases to more than 7 million.
Brazil has the second-deadliest Covid-19 outbreak behind only the US, with over 180,000 deaths from the virus.
Wednesday’s record came without even the daily numbers from Sao Paulo state, the nation’s most populous, which has been the centre of the outbreak.
In a statement, the Sao Paulo state government said it had been unable to upload the data because of technical issues.
Wednesday was also the first time in three months that Brazil registered more than 900 deaths on consecutive days.
Updated
The Peruvian health minister said China’s Sinopharm could resume a trial for its coronavirus vaccine in the hard-hit Andean nation, days after authorities suspended the tests to better understand why a volunteer had fallen ill.
Health authorities announced over the weekend that the Sinopharm trial would be temporarily halted as a safety measure after a volunteer experienced decreased strength in his legs, among other symptoms.
“We have had several meetings with Sinopharm and … the suspension has been lifted today (Wednesday),” health minister Pilar Mazzetti said.
Sinopharm, which is conducting its trials in Peru with 12,000 volunteers, was about to complete the first stage of the trials in the next few days, and had plans to administer a second dose of its vaccine in the coming weeks.
Peru’s government said on Tuesday that negotiations with Sinopharm to buy Covid-19 vaccines were “well advanced”.
Health officials in Peru had reported 987,675 cases of coronavirus as of Tuesday, and 36,817 deaths.
Updated
Former Swiss president Flavio Cotti, who also served as the country’s foreign and interior minister, has died at the age of 81 reportedly from coronavirus.
“It is with great sadness that I have learned of the death of Flavio Cotti,” current Swiss foreign minister Ignazio Cassis said on Twitter. “His political spirit will always be present in the foreign ministry.
According to the regional daily in Switzerland’s Italian-speaking Ticino region, which was the first to report Cotti’s death, he died on Wednesday afternoon in a Locarno hospital “following complications due to the coronavirus”.
Cotti, who was a trained lawyer, rose up through the ranks of the Christian Democratic Party in Ticino, before spending 12 years in the national government in Bern, from 1987 to 1999.
He served as both minister of foreign affairs and of the interior, and twice served as president, in the Swiss system that sees all government ministers hold the presidency on a one-year rotating basis.
He was known for having worked to move Switzerland closer to international organisations, and lobbied for his country to join the UN, something it finally did three years after he left office.
He also worked for Geneva to remain host of the UN’s European headquarters, and helped ensure that the World Trade Organization, founded in 1995, was based in the city.
Updated
More than two dozen members of the US Congress have called on federal prison and health officials for details about how inmates will be vaccinated for Covid-19, questioning whether the most vulnerable prisoners will have priority access.
In a letter to Federal Bureau of Prisons director Michael Carvajal and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Dr Robert Redfield, 26 lawmakers, led by Democratic representative Bobby Scott, expressed concerns about the prison system’s existing plan for vaccine distribution.
“We are deeply concerned that the current plan places the most vulnerable incarcerated individuals ... behind incarcerated individuals in minimum security facilities” the Congress members’ letter said. It said that under present plans, prisoners “who are in open bay housing” would get the virus before prisoners under tighter incarceration.
“Covid-19 is spreading four times faster in prisons than the general public,” the letter said, adding “the virus is moving through the prison population three times faster than it did on commercial cruise ships at the start of the pandemic”.
The pandemic has already killed more than 300,000 people across the US and infection rates have hit record highs with the return of cold weather, even as the first, limited round of vaccinations began this week.
Prisoners and prison employees are at high risk of transmitting the virus due to close conditions.
The letter asks for details on how prison authorities and public health officials are collaborating to ensure that Covid-19 vaccines are expeditiously administered to prisoners and requests details for when prison staff, prisoners in high-risk infection categories and then all individuals now held in federal prisons will get vaccinations.
Updated
The US agency that enforces workplace discrimination laws has said employers who choose to require workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 must be prepared to exempt employees with disabilities and religious objections.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued the guidance on its website after the US Food and Drug Administration cleared the way for a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech.
Many employers have said they are considering mandatory vaccines amid a nationwide surge in Covid-19 cases that could lead to some businesses being shut down or limiting their operations.
The EEOC said companies that choose not to have vaccines administered at the workplace can require employees to provide proof that they received a vaccination without violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
But the law only permits employers to ask workers why they have refused to be vaccinated if the information is “job related and consistent with business necessity,” the agency said.
Workers who refuse to be vaccinated because of medical conditions or religious beliefs cannot be excluded from the workplace, the EEOC said, unless an employer finds there is no way to provide a reasonable accommodation.
Working from home, wearing a mask or being reassigned to a more secluded work area could all qualify as reasonable accommodations, depending on the circumstances.
US hospitals have been slow to embrace Covid-19 antibody drugs from Eli Lilly and Regeneron that have been authorised to reduce the risk of hospitalisation, US officials said.
Demand for the therapies, which are given as a one-time intravenous infusion, has been “disappointing,” and hospitals should be using them more, Operation Warp Speed chief advisor Dr Moncef Slaoui said. The government programme is distributing and allocating the drugs.
Health systems say they have been slow to ramp up use of the antibody drugs due to extra levels of complexity during the pandemic - including requirements for quick diagnosis times and the need to isolate infectious patients.
The US Department of Health and Human Services has so far delivered over 250,000 doses of Lilly’s bamlanivimab and Regeneron’s antibody combination of casirivimab and imdevimab to states and territories.
Both treatments have US emergency use authorisation for non-hospitalised Covid-19 patients at risk of becoming severely ill due to age or underlying health conditions.
The drugs are monoclonal antibodies, known as MAbs in medical shorthand, manufactured copies of proteins produced by the body to fight coronavirus infection.
The Regeneron cocktail was among the medicines used to treat US president Donald Trump when he contracted Covid-19.
Despite emergency use authorisations for both antibody drugs, the National Institutes of Health and the Infectious Diseases Society of America recommend against their routine use, saying the benefits are uncertain.
France will receive around 1.16m Covid-19 vaccine doses by year end, prime minister Jean Castex said, adding another 2.3m will arrive in the next two months.
The delivery of some 3.5m doses will inoculate around 1.7 million people, with priority given to the elderly, the vulnerable and carers.
Covid vaccines are administered in two doses over several weeks.
The government will “be much more transparent in this phase of the epidemic’s management,” the premier pledged after authorities came under fire over the distribution of tests and masks earlier in the year.
“We should not miss this turn in the road” to inoculate people, he said.
Giving a breakdown, Castex said France will receive around 1.16m doses by the end of the year, another 677,000 doses around 5-6 January, and around 1.6m doses in February.
France has ordered a total of around 200m doses, which would be enough to inoculate 100 million people. The country has a population of just under 70 million.
Updated
An Alaskan health worker had a serious allergic reaction after getting Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine, but is now stable, public health authorities said.
The adverse reaction in the person, minutes after taking the Pfizer shot on Tuesday, was similar to two cases reported last week in Britain.
Britain’s medical regulator has said anyone with a history of anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reactions to a medicine or food, should not get the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
But the US Food and Drug Administration has said most Americans with allergies should be safe to receive the vaccine. It said only people who have previously had severe allergic reactions to vaccines or ingredients in this particular vaccine should avoid getting the shot.
The Alaskan patient did not have a history of allergic reactions, Lindy Jones, the director of the emergency department in the capital Juneau where the patient was treated, told reporters.
The symptoms in the middle-aged patient resolved after being administered with allergy treatment epinephrine, Jones said.
The patient was still in Juneau’s Bartlett regional hospital being monitored on Wednesday.
Pfizer said the vaccine comes with a clear warning that appropriate medical treatment and supervision should always be readily available in case of anaphylaxis, but it would update the labelling language for the vaccine if needed.
Administration of the vaccine began Monday in the US, following emergency-use authorisation last week. Early doses have been set aside for healthcare workers and nursing home residents
Former FDA chief scientist Jesse Goodman called the allergic reaction concerning but said more information must be known in order to better understand the risks.
“What we need to know is what the denominator is - how many doses have been given? Is this going to be something that’s going to be seen at a higher incidence with this vaccine than with others?” Goodman said. “We’re going to have to find out those things to inform whether that changes recommendations or how this is used.”
Updated
Amazon has asked the US government to prioritise essential workers including its warehouse, grocery store and data centre staff for receipt of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The request underscores how the second-biggest US private employer, with 800,000 workers in the US, views a vaccine as important to keeping its staff safe and its facilities open.
The US National Retail Federation made a similar request on the industry’s behalf Wednesday as well.
Administration of the vaccine began on Monday in the US, following emergency-use authorisation last week. Early doses have been set aside for healthcare workers and nursing home residents.
Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, said the company supports giving the vaccine to healthcare professionals and that essential workers should come next, in line with a government vaccine playbook from October. His letter was addressed to the head of an advisory panel at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called ACIP.
“We request that ACIP continue to prioritise these essential workers who cannot work from home, like those working at Amazon fulfilment centres, AWS data centres and Whole Foods Market stores, to receive the Covid-19 vaccine at the earliest appropriate time,” he wrote. Amazon owns the grocery chain Whole Foods and operates the cloud computing business AWS.
The letter was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal [paywall].
Updated
Germany aims to roll out BioNTech/Pfizer Covid vaccine on 27 December
Germany will roll out the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine against the coronavirus on 27 December with priority given to seniors in care homes, the Berlin city government said.
The announcement came as Germany registered its highest daily death toll from Covid-19 and as it entered a strict lockdown in an attempt to bring down soaring infections.
Along with other members of the EU, Germany has decided to wait for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to approve the vaccine. It is expected to make an announcement on 21 December.
A senior EU official said on Wednesday the bloc could give its final approval for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on 23 December.
“The federal states will start vaccination against the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 on 27 December,” the local government that runs the German capital said in a statement after a conference between health minister Jens Spahn and health officials from Germany’s 16 states.
Spahn has expressed frustration at the lack of approval of a vaccine partly developed in Germany even as countries such as Britain and the US are rolling it out.
The number of registered Covid-19 deaths jumped by a record 952 on Wednesday. The previous record was 598 last Friday.
However, Wednesday’s figures are not entirely comparable to previous days because they were inflated by a technical problem in one state, said the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases, which collates the data.
Fears the pandemic is spiralling out of control prompted chancellor Angela Merkel and state governors to announce on Sunday a tough lockdown from 16 December until at least 10 January.
Shops and schools will stay shut in a pre-Christmas tightening of restrictions following a partial lockdown in November, which closed bars and restaurants but failed to contain a second wave of the pandemic.
Germany was more successful than many countries in keeping the coronavirus under control in the first wave in the spring but the situation looks different now.
The Robert Koch Institute put the number of confirmed cases at 1,379,238, an increase of 27,728. The total death toll in Germany is 23,427. The seven-day incidence of cases ticked up to 180 per 100,000 people from 174 on Tuesday.
• This entry was amended on 18 December 2020 to clarify that Germany has decided to wait for the EMA to approve the vaccine, rather than being obliged to do so as an earlier version indicated.
Updated
Twitter bans harmful false claims about Covid-19 vaccinations
Twitter has said users will be required to remove new tweets that advance harmful false or misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccinations, in an expansion of its rules on coronavirus misinformation.
The social media company said in a blog post that users could be required to remove tweets with false claims that suggest vaccines are “used to intentionally cause harm to or control populations, including statements about vaccines that invoke a deliberate conspiracy”.
The policy, announced the same week the first Americans received Covid-19 vaccinations as part of a mass immunisation campaign, will also apply to false claims that vaccinations are unnecessary because Covid-19 is not real or serious.
It will also apply to false claims that have been widely debunked about adverse effects of receiving such vaccines.
Conspiracy theories and misinformation about the coronavirus and its possible vaccines have proliferated on social media platforms during the pandemic.
Twitter said that starting early next year, it may also label or place a warning on tweets that advance “unsubstantiated rumours, disputed claims, as well as incomplete or out-of-context information” about the vaccines.
A Twitter spokeswoman said the company would determine with public health partners which vaccine misinformation was harmful enough to warrant removal.
Facebook and Google have both in recent weeks announced bans on false claims about the vaccine that go against information from public health experts.
Updated
Health authorities in Spain are worried about an uptick in coronavirus cases following a string of recent bank holidays and the relaxing of measures by some regions, health minister Salvador Illa said.
“The situation is doubly preoccupying: we’re seeing (cases) increase, without having even reached Christmas, and without having fully registered the effects of the bank holidays,” Illa said at a press conference.
Covid-19 incidence in Spain crept up to 201 cases per 100,000 inhabitants on Wednesday, after staying below that mark for the past seven days, while health authorities recorded 11,078 new cases and 195 deaths in the past 24 hours.
Spain will now allow regions to tighten anti-coronavirus measures as part of its Christmas plan, meaning gatherings could be limited to six people, curfews could be lengthened, and travel between regions banned.
Health emergency coordinator Fernando Simón will on Thursday present an analysis of the impact which several bank holiday weekends, and a loosening of measures in some regions, have had on the epidemiological situation.
France reports biggest daily jump in Covid-19 cases since 21 November
France has reported 17,615 new confirmed Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, sharply up from the 11,532 on Tuesday and 14,595 a week ago.
The increase was the highest since 21 November, and comes just a day after authorities replaced a nationwide lockdown with a curfew, after easing lockdown measures in early December.
The health ministry also reported 289 new coronavirus deaths in hospitals in the past 24 hours, from 307 on Tuesday.
The number of people in intensive care with the coronavirus infection fell again by 31 to 2,850, but the number of people in hospital with it rose by 75 to 25,315.
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the liveblog for the next few hours. As always, feel free to send across any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
Ambulances had to queue outside all 11 of Northern Ireland’s hospitals on Wednesday because emergency departments were at full capacity.
At one point 17 ambulances lined up outside Antrim Area hospital, engines running to keep crew and patients warm. Doctors treated patients in the vehicles. A chronically overstretched health system had snapped because of failure to contain the pandemic. Similar scenes unfolded in Wales.
Read more here:
Netanyahu to get vaccine this week
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will become one of the first world leaders to get vaccinated when he gets the jab on Saturday.
In a statement he said:
I am speaking from quarantine. On Friday, I will leave quarantine and on Saturday evening I will go get vaccinated. I have asked to be the first person to get vaccinated in order to serve as an example and to persuade you that you can and should be vaccinated. By the end of January, we will have many millions of vaccines here. I have worked very hard to bring them to you and I ask you – use them!
A professional team has also determined the order of preference for the vaccines. They have determined: Medical and MDA staff will receive first. Then the elderly and their carers in assisted living. Then the population over 60 and after them those with dangerous pre-existing diseases during the coronavirus period. After them – the rest of the population.
PM Netanyahu: I asked to be the first person to get vaccinated, to serve as an example and to persuade you that you can and should be vaccinated. By the end of January we will have millions of vaccines.
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) December 16, 2020
I worked very hard to bring them to you - use them! https://t.co/oE3sFbXUy6
Prime Minister @netanyahu: 'Saturday night, I will get the vaccine for the coronavirus. I worked hard to brings the vaccines, and I ask you to please use them.' pic.twitter.com/gX8bFp2Gxt
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) December 16, 2020
Updated
UK death toll rises by 612
The UK government said a further 612 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, bringing the UK total to 65,520.
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 81,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
The government said that, as of 9am on Wednesday, there had been a further 25,161 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK. It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 1,913,277.
United Kingdom Daily Coronavirus (COVID-19) Report · Wednesday 16th December.
— UK COVID-19 (@UKCovid19Stats) December 16, 2020
25,161 new cases (people positive) reported, giving a total of 1,913,277.
612 new deaths reported, giving a total of 65,520. pic.twitter.com/T1tmVFjbn1
Updated
Danish PM confirms Christmas lockdown
Denmark will impose a hard lockdown over Christmas and the New Year to limit the spread the virus, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has confirmed.
Shopping malls will close starting tomorrow and other stores, with the exception of supermarkets and food shops, will close from 25 December. Students still in school will be sent home as of Monday.
“Our healthcare system is under pressure,” Frederiksen said. “We have to act now.”
Danish authorities expect the coming months to be the worst of the pandemic, she said.
Denmark reported a record 3,692 new coronavirus infections during the past 24 hours on Wednesday.
A record of 54 people have been hospitalised with Covid in Denmark in the last 24 hours, bringing to 493 the number of people currently in hospital.
Unicef has launched a domestic emergency response in the UK for the first time in its more than 70-year history to help feed children hit by the Covid-19 crisis.
The UN agency, which is responsible for providing humanitarian aid to children worldwide, said the coronavirus pandemic was the most urgent crisis affecting children since the second world war.
A YouGov poll in May commissioned by the charity Food Foundation found 2.4 million children (17%) were living in food insecure households. By October, an extra 900,000 children had been registered for free school meals.
Unicef has pledged a grant of £25,000 to the community project School Food Matters, which will use the money to supply 18,000 nutritious breakfasts to 25 schools over the two-week Christmas holidays and February half-term, feeding vulnerable children and families in Southwark, south London, who have been severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Read more here:
Summary
Here’s a roundup of the latest developments:
- Officials in Italy and France have said they expect to begin vaccinations before the end of the year. The French prime minister, Jean Castex, announced that 200m doses have been ordered. The EU has suggested approval for the Pfizer vaccine could be given on 23 December. The president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said suggested vaccinations across Europe would “start at the same day”.
- The global scheme to deliver vaccines to poorer countries faces a “very high” risk of failure, potentially leaving billions of people with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024, internal documents have revealed. The risk of failure of the Covax project is higher because the scheme was set up so quickly, operating in “uncharted territory”, one internal report says.
- Germany has announced a record 952 new coronavirus-related deaths, as shops, schools and nurseries across the country closed for an emergency Christmas lockdown. Germany’s disease control agency has recorded more than 400 deaths for 11 days in a row.
- Infections in the Netherlands have increased by a record 11,214 cases. Shopping malls are expected to be closed in Denmark from Thursday.
- An adviser to Italy’s health ministry has called for coronavirus restrictions to be drastically tightened to avoid a “national tragedy” after the national statistics bureau said deaths this year would be the highest since the second world war. “We are in a war situation, people don’t realise it but the last time we had this many deaths, bombs were dropping on our cities during the war,” said public health professor Walter Ricciardi.
- The World Health Organization in Europe has urged families to wear face masks during this year’s Christmas gatherings. In a statement it said that while some “fragile progress” had been made, “Covid-19 transmission across the European region remains widespread and intense.”
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Japan’s capital Tokyo has reported its highest one-day case total of the pandemic so far, with 678 infections. The figure is higher than last week Saturday’s record of 621 cases.
-
A World Health Organization research mission to China is expected to arrive in Wuhan next month to investigate how the novel coronavirus jumped from animals to humans, and whether it emerged earlier or in a different place than originally thought.
- India recorded 26,355 new coronavirus cases, data from the health ministry showed on Wednesday, making it the third straight day that daily infections in the country have stayed below 30,000. India has recorded 9.93m infections so far, the second highest in the world after the United States, but daily numbers have dipped steadily since hitting a peak of about 97,000 in mid-September.
- Swedish PM says officials misjudged power of Covid resurgence. Health officials in Sweden, which opted not to respond to the first wave of Covid-19 with a national lockdown, misjudged the power of the virus’s resurgence, the country’s prime minister has said, as an independent commission criticised the country’s strategy.
Updated
Turkey’s daily coronavirus death toll hit a record 240 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total so far to 17,121, health ministry data has shown.
#Sondakika Türkiye’de son 24 saatte 29.718 koronavirüs vakası tespit edildi, 240 kişi hayatını kaybetti pic.twitter.com/HEWPRHAwCK
— İhlas Haber Ajansı (@ihacomtr) December 16, 2020
Turkey also recorded 29,718 new coronavirus cases, including asymptomatic ones, in the last 24 hours.
The country has reported 1.928 million cases since the beginning of the pandemic in March, the data showed.
The government has imposed weekday curfews and full weekend lockdowns to curb the surge in infections.
Denmark’s government will order shopping malls to close starting tomorrow and other shops to close starting next week to prevent the further spread of the virus, according to the news site Ekstra Bladet.
Supermarkets and other food retail shops would remain open, it said.
The government has scheduled a news conference at 1700 GMT on Wednesday to announce new lockdown measures.
Statsministeriet indkalder til pressemøde i Spejlsalen om COVID-19 kl. 18.00 #dkpol pic.twitter.com/20HKPjZYGE
— Statsministeriet (@Statsmin) December 16, 2020
Updated
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has gone in to quarantine after coming into contact with a person who tested positive for the virus, AP reports.
The state department said Pompeo had tested negative for the virus but was being monitored by medical professionals. It said it would not identify the infected person with whom Pompeo came into contact for privacy reasons.
The announcement comes as Pompeo and the department have been criticised for hosting holiday parties amid the coronavirus pandemic. In a statement it said:
Secretary Pompeo has been identified as having come into contact with someone who tested positive for Covid. The Secretary has been tested and is negative. In accordance with CDC guidelines, he will be in quarantine. He is being closely monitored by the Department’s medical team.
Updated
Italy has reported 680 coronavirus-related deaths a day after announcing 846 deaths. The health ministry also announced that infections have increased by 17,572 in the last 24 hours.
#Coronavirus, 17.572 positivi, 680 vittime. I dati di oggi#ANSAhttps://t.co/C05eqinrce
— Agenzia ANSA (@Agenzia_Ansa) December 16, 2020
Italy has now seen 66,537 fatalities, surpassing the UK as the European country worst hit by the virus.
It has also registered 1.888 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid stood at 26,897 on Wednesday, down by 445 from the day before.
There were 191 new admissions to intensive care units, compared with 199 on Tuesday.
The number of intensive care patients decreased by 77 to 2,926, reflecting those who died or were discharged after recovery.
France set to begin vaccination this year
France’s prime minister, Jean Castex, has announced that start of vaccinations will begin from the last week of December “if conditions are met”.
He also told the French parliament that “France has pre-ordered nearly 200 million doses”.
Jean Castex: "La France a précommandé près de 200 millions de doses permettant de vacciner 100 millions de personnes" pic.twitter.com/yG8E8YyshM
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) December 16, 2020
Covid-19 : Jean Castex espère un début de campagne vaccinale dès la fin décembre en France https://t.co/fGoG94oV22
— Le Monde (@lemondefr) December 16, 2020
Updated
Here’s a Guardian write-up of those documents suggesting poorer countries may not get the Covid vaccine until 2024.
Updated
The European Union could give final approval for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on 23 December, a senior commission official has said, Reuters reports.
Under EU rules, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommends the approval of new medicines and vaccines, but the final decision to allow them on to the market is made by the EU executive, the commission, after consultation with EU governments.
The EMA said on Tuesday it could issue a recommendation on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on 21 December.
Commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas said:
If this is the case, the European Commission is ready to provide the formal authorisation placing it in the market in supersonic, fast procedures. We can do it in two days.
The EMA usually takes at least seven months to issue a recommendation on vaccines after it receives full data from manufacturers, while the commission can take as long as two months to authorise a vaccine after EMA approval.
The approval would be a conditional authorisation, meaning the vaccine would continue to be strictly monitored for efficacy and possible side-effects.
Updated
In the US, Republicans and Democrats have found common ground on a $908bn Covid relief package.
Our US live blog has more:
Record daily cases rise in the Netherlands
The number of coronavirus infections in the Netherlands has increased by a record 11,214 cases, according to new data from National Institute for Public Health (RIVM).
The steep increase came just a day after a tough, 5-week lockdown was imposed in the Netherlands, where more than 10,000 people have died during the pandemic.
Het afgelopen etmaal zijn 11.214 nieuwe coronabesmettingen vastgesteld door het RIVM. Dat is een nieuw dagrecord. Op 30 oktober meldde het RIVM 11.083 geregistreerde positieve tests. https://t.co/SBAC7ZlJld
— Het Parool (@parool) December 16, 2020
Update: A Dutch reader has been in touch to point out that Wednesday’s record figure includes backdated data after reporting problems on Tuesday.
Updated
Italy expects to begin vaccinations between Christmas and New Year’s Day, Reuters reports citing a government source.
On Tuesday, Germany, France, Italy and five other European states announced they would coordinate the start of their vaccinations.
The campaign will begin before the end of 2020 so long as the European Medicines Agency gives its green light to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at a meeting scheduled for 21 December.
Medical staff in Poland could start getting vaccinated as soon as this month, the Polish prime minister’s top aide Michał Dworczyk has said.
Minister @michaldworczyk w #KPRM: Zakończyliśmy weryfikację po 1. etapie rejestracji punktów szczepień. Mamy dobra informację, bo już ponad 80% gmin w Polsce posiada zarejestrowane punkty medyczne, które będą realizować szczepienia przeciw COVID-19.
— Kancelaria Premiera (@PremierRP) December 16, 2020
Updated
Boris Johnson has said there is “unanimous agreement” between the four UK nations over unified rules for Christmas gatherings even as the Welsh and Scottish government announced different guidance for the festive period.
Wales issued advice recommending a limit of two rather than three households when families form a Christmas bubble. Scotland advised that a bubble – again, ideally of no more than two households – should not meet up for more than one day and avoid staying overnight together.
Following warnings from scientists and MPs over a likely surge in coronavirus infections amid an easing of UK rules at Christmas to allow up to three households to gather indoors, talks were held on Wednesday morning.
After the call between devolved leaders from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, Johnson told the Commons that all parties had agreed to keep the same rules in place.
Read more here:
Sweden, whose soft-touch pandemic response has placed it in the global spotlight, has registered 7,556 new coronavirus cases, Health Agency statistics showed, Reuters reports.
The increase compared with a high of 7,935 new cases recorded last week.
Sweden registered 135 new deaths, taking the total to 7,802.
Sweden’s death rate per capita is several times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours, but lower than several European countries that opted for lockdowns.
JUST NU: 135 nya coronadödsfall rapporteras – totalt har 7 802 dött med viruset i Sverige sedan pandemins börjanhttps://t.co/SPJLmEmuPt pic.twitter.com/ccOPb9ThFo
— Aftonbladet (@Aftonbladet) December 16, 2020
Summary
Here’s a roundup of the latest developments:
- The global scheme to deliver vaccines to poorer countries faces a “very high” risk of failure, potentially leaving billions of people with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024, internal documents have revealed. The risk of failure of the Covax project is higher because the scheme was set up so quickly, operating in “uncharted territory”, one internal report says.
- Germany has announced a record 952 new coronavirus-related deaths, as shops, schools and nurseries across the country closed for an emergency Christmas lockdown. Germany’s disease control agency has recorded more than 400 deaths for 11 days in a row.
- An adviser to Italy’s health ministry has called for coronavirus restrictions to be drastically tightened to avoid a “national tragedy” after the national statistics bureau said deaths this year would be the highest since the second world war. “We are in a war situation, people don’t realise it but the last time we had this many deaths, bombs were dropping on our cities during the war,” said public health professor Walter Ricciardi.
- The World Health Organization in Europe has urged families to wear face masks during this year’s Christmas gatherings. In a statement it said that while some “fragile progress” had been made, “Covid-19 transmission across the European region remains widespread and intense.”
- The European Union’s 27 member countries want to start vaccinations on “the same day” as pressure mounts on the bloc to catch up with the United States and Britain. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen said: “Let’s start as soon as possible with the vaccination together, as 27, with a start at the same day.
- Japan’s capital Tokyo has reported its highest one-day case total of the pandemic so far, with 678 infections. The figure is higher than last week Saturday’s record of 621 cases.
-
A World Health Organization research mission to China is expected to arrive in Wuhan next month to investigate how the novel coronavirus jumped from animals to humans, and whether it emerged earlier or in a different place than originally thought.
- India recorded 26,355 new coronavirus cases, data from the health ministry showed on Wednesday, making it the third straight day that daily infections in the country have stayed below 30,000. India has recorded 9.93m infections so far, the second highest in the world after the United States, but daily numbers have dipped steadily since hitting a peak of about 97,000 in mid-September.
- Swedish PM says officials misjudged power of Covid resurgence. Health officials in Sweden, which opted not to respond to the first wave of Covid-19 with a national lockdown, misjudged the power of the virus’s resurgence, the country’s prime minister has said, as an independent commission criticised the country’s strategy.
Updated
The European Union’s 27 member countries want to start vaccinations on “the same day” as pressure mounts on the bloc to catch up with the United States and Britain, AFP reports.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen told European deputies:
To get to the end of the pandemic, we will need up to 70 percent of the population vaccinated.
This is a huge task, a big task. So let’s start as soon as possible with the vaccination together, as 27, with a start at the same day.
To end the pandemic, we need up to 70% of the population vaccinated.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 16, 2020
This is a huge task. So let's start rapidly with the vaccination together, as 27, on the same day.
As we have been united through the pandemic, we will get out of it together & united. pic.twitter.com/bpFpkjUuGR
Germany has recorded a record 952 new coronavirus-related deaths, as shops, schools and nurseries across the country closed for an emergency Christmas lockdown.
After experiencing relatively low numbers of infections and fatalities compared with other European countries in the spring, Germany’s disease control agency has recorded more than 400 deaths for 11 days in a row.
Wednesday’s figure of 952 deaths was artificially inflated by the fact that Saxony, one of the federal states most affected by the second wave, also supplied numbers its health authorities had failed to report for Monday.
Read more here:
Fresh lockdown measures are to be imposed in Wales beginning on Christmas Eve, the first minister, Mark Drakeford has announced.
All non-essential shops, plus leisure and fitness centres and close-contact services, will shut at the end of trading on Thursday 24 December.
Hospitality premises, including pubs and restaurants, will close from 6pm on Christmas Day.
Read more here:
No vaccines for poorer countries until 2024, documents claim
The global scheme to deliver vaccines to poorer countries faces a “very high” risk of failure, leaving potentially billions of people with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024, internal documents seen by Reuters have revealed.
The World Health Organization’s Covax programme is the main global scheme to vaccinate people in poor and middle income countries around the world against the coronavirus. It aims to deliver at least 2bn vaccine doses by the end of 2021 to cover 20% of the most vulnerable people in 91 poor and middle-income countries, mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
But in internal documents reviewed by Reuters, the scheme’s promoters say the programme is struggling from a lack of funds, supply risks and complex contractual arrangements which could make it impossible to achieve its goals.
“The risk of a failure to establish a successful Covax Facility is very high,” says an internal report to the board of Gavi, an alliance of governments, drug companies, charities and international organisations that arranges global vaccination campaigns. Gavi co-leads Covax alongside the WHO.
The report and other documents prepared by Gavi are currently being discussed at Gavi’s board meetings.
The failure of the facility could leave people in poor nations without any access vaccines until 2024, one of the documents says.
The risk of failure is higher because the scheme was set up so quickly, operating in “uncharted territory”, the report says.
It says:
Current risk exposure is deemed outside of risk appetite until there is full clarity on the size of risks and possibilities to mitigate them. It therefore requires intensive mitigation efforts to bring the risk within risk appetite.
Gavi hired Citigroup last month to provide advice on how to mitigate financial risks.
In one November memo included in the documents submitted to the Gavi board, Citi advisers said the biggest risk to the programme was from clauses in supply contracts that allow countries not to buy vaccines booked through Covax.
A potential mismatch between vaccine supply and demand “is not a commercial risk efficiently mitigated by the market or the MDBs,” the Citi advisers wrote, referring to multilateral development banks such as the World Bank.
“Therefore it must either be mitigated through contract negotiation or through a Gavi risk absorption layer that is carefully managed by a management and governance structure.”
Updated
Saudi Arabia received its first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines on Wednesday morning and will begin distributing the shots in the next three days, the health minister has announced.
Tawfiq al-Rabiah asked citizens and residents to register to receive the vaccine and reiterated that the vaccine would be free to all in the country.
He did not specify how many shots had been received nor which vaccine it was. Last week, Saudi health authorities registered the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for import and use in the country.
#UPDATE: #SaudiArabia’s first batch of #coronavirus vaccine to arrive today and to be distributed within the next 3 days: health minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah https://t.co/t74qqQ8wdk pic.twitter.com/lMjUyZp9PS
— Arab News (@arabnews) December 16, 2020
Updated
Tom Cruise has been recorded screaming obscenities at crew members on his current film Mission: Impossible 7 after apparent breaches of on-set social distancing guidelines.
The Sun published an audio recording of Cruise shouting and swearing at film crew on the project, of which he is one of the producers, threatening instant dismissal of anyone found to be contravening distancing rules.
On the recording Cruise can be heard shouting: “I don’t ever want to see it again, ever! And if you don’t do it, you’re fired, if I see you do it again, you’re fucking gone. And if anyone in this crew does it – that’s it, and you too and you too … don’t you ever fucking do it again.”
Read more here:
Updated
The World Health Organization in Europe has urged families to wear face masks during this year’s Christmas gatherings, AFP reports.
The UN health organisation said in a statement that while some “fragile progress” had been made, “Covid-19 transmission across the European region remains widespread and intense”.
“There is a high risk of further resurgence in the first weeks and months of 2021, and we will need to work together if we are to succeed in preventing it,” WHO Europe said.
It urged the public “not (to) underestimate the importance of your decisions” and take extra precautions as many prepare to gather for the holidays.
If possible, the WHO said celebrations should be held outdoors and “participants should wear masks and maintain physical distancing”.
For indoor festivities, the WHO said limiting the number of guests and ensuring good ventilation were key to reducing the risk of infection.
“It may feel awkward to wear masks and practise physical distancing when around friends and family, but doing so contributes significantly to ensuring that everyone remains safe and healthy,” the health agency said.
The WHO’s European Region comprises 53 countries and includes Russia and several countries in Central Asia, a region that has registered more than 22 million cases of the new coronavirus and close to 500,000 deaths.
Updated
The head of Portugal’s vaccination taskforce has said that the distribution of the coronavirus jabs will start as soon as they arrive in the country, which could happen by the end of the year, Reuters reports.
“It would be intolerable to have vaccines in Portugal and not be use them immediately,” Francisco Ramos told a parliamentary committee, adding there would be three main distribution points across the country, including in the Azores and Madeira islands.
Ramos said the super cold storage units needed for the shots would be set up at the three distribution points but not at the 1,200 health centres where the jabs will be given to the population.
Updated
Almost 138,000 people across the UK have been vaccinated against Covid-19 since the rollout began last week, the government has announced.
Nadhim Zahawi, the minister overseeing the deployment, said the figures were “a really good start to the vaccination programme”.
A really good start to the vaccination program. It’s been 7 days and we have done: England:108,000 Wales: 7,897 Northern Ireland: 4,000. Scotland:18,000 U.K Total 137,897. That number will increase as we have operationalised hundreds of PCN (primary care networks)
— Nadhim Zahawi (@nadhimzahawi) December 16, 2020
It began last Tuesday, 8 December, when 70 hospital hubs began immunising over-80s, care home workers and some NHS staff.
Read more here:
That’s all from me, Caroline Davies. Handing over to my colleague Matt Weaver now. Thank you for your time.
In Wales, Cardiff’s vaccination programme will be put on hold until Thursday afternoon after nine staff working at its vaccination centre tested positive for the virus.
Cardiff and Vale University health board (CVUHB) said other staff were being tested to manage the outbreak and the pause in the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine rollout was to manage capacity at the site.
On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the board said it had still not identified any additional risk to anyone who has been vaccinated at the centre in the Splott area of the city last week.
Updated
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has said there is a “clear case” to relax Covid restrictions across a large part of the region as the government reviews the rules across England on Wednesday.
About 34 million people – 60% of England’s population – are expected to face winter under tier 3, the toughest regulations, with pubs and restaurants forced to close until the new year.
After a rushed-forward decision on Monday to place London and parts of the south-east in tier 3 amid rapidly rising infections, ministers will set the rules for the rest of England on Wednesday with an announcement expected on Thursday.
Burnham said Greater Manchester’s overall infection rate was “significantly below” England’s average – 150 cases per 100,000 people compared with about 180 for England – and that it was lower than London and Liverpool’s case rate when those cities were placed in tier 2.
“I accept that the national mood has changed since those decisions were taken and I can also understand if the government were wanting to err on the side of caution,” he said.
“Some of our boroughs are above the national average or close to it, so we could understand if a cautious decision was taken in respect of those but there is a clear case for Greater Manchester, a large part of Greater Manchester, to be placed in tier 2.”
Read more here:
So far almost 140,000 people in the UK have been vaccinated against Covid-19 in the first week of rollout of the shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the minister in charge of deployment of the vaccine said on Wednesday.
“A really good start to the vaccination programme. It’s been seven days and we have done: England: 108,000, Wales: 7,897, Northern Ireland: 4,000, Scotland: 18,000. UK total 137,897,” Nadhim Zahawi said in a tweet.
A really good start to the vaccination program. It’s been 7 days and we have done: England:108,000 Wales: 7,897 Northern Ireland: 4,000. Scotland:18,000 U.K Total 137,897. That number will increase as we have operationalised hundreds of PCN (primary care networks)
— Nadhim Zahawi (@nadhimzahawi) December 16, 2020
Updated
Despite proximity to China, fatalities in Thailand from Covid-19 stand at 60, while Cambodia has officially recorded zero.
Read Rebecca Ratcliffe’s report on how Thailand and Cambodia have managed to keep Covid cases so low.
Updated
Around 186,000 people in private households in England in the week beginning November 22 were living with Covid-19 symptoms that had persisted for between five and 12 weeks, according to new estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The findings also suggest that around one in five people who have tested positive for Covid-19 exhibit symptoms for a period of five weeks or longer, while around one in 10 exhibit symptoms for 12 weeks or more.
All estimates are based on data and responses collected as part of the ONS Covid-19 infection survey.
The figures do not include people staying in hospitals, care homes or other institutional settings.
Updated
Covid chaos: a handy timeline of the UK’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
The UK government plans to publish data on the number of people who have had Covid-19 vaccines as early as next week.
PA Media agency said it understands that agreement is being sought with the devolved nations to ensure any data presented is consistent across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
It comes after government officials would not be drawn on how many doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are due to arrive in the UK and on what schedule.
It had been hoped that 10m doses would be in the country by the end of 2020, but this has now dropped to five million doses.
To date, 800,000 doses of the jab are known to be in the country so far.
Overall, the UK has already ordered 40m doses of the jab – enough to vaccinate 20 million people.
Communities secretary Robert Jenrick told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday that vaccine uptake data would be published shortly. “We are verifying the data and ensuring that it is in the right place before putting that into the public domain, but you won’t have to wait very long for regular reporting to happen,” he said.
Updated
Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga has drawn criticism for joining year-end get-togethers after begging the public to avoid parties as the country grapples with record numbers of coronavirus cases, Reuters reports.
Suga, who became prime minister in September, warned the public to shun big gatherings, but has attended several over the past week, attracting criticism on social media and from politicians, including from allies in his coalition.
“While asking people for self-restraint, they’re eating high-end steaks and living it up,” opposition member of parliament Jun Azumi told reporters, referring to a Monday dinner at a top Tokyo steak house that Suga attended. “Public support can collapse,” Azumi said.
One of those who attended the dinner, 76-year-old actor Ryotaro Sugi, told reporters outside the restaurant it was a “year-end party” and they had discussed baseball.
Suga has not explained the steak dinner, one of several gatherings he joined recently, but government spokesman Katsunobu Kato said the government took seriously criticism that Suga’s activities had “caused misunderstanding” among the public.
“It is important to make individual decisions based on a balance between the purposes of group meals and infection control measures,” Kato told a regular news conference.
There was veiled criticism from the ruling party’s junior partner, Komeito. “The prime minister’s schedule sends a message to the people, so I’d like to see due consideration,” said Komeito party leader Natsuo Yamaguchi.
Updated
An adviser to Italy’s health ministry has called for coronavirus restrictions to be drastically tightened to avoid a “national tragedy” after the national statistics bureau ISTAT said deaths this year would be the highest since the second world war.
“We are in a war situation, people don’t realise it but the last time we had this many deaths, bombs were dropping on our cities during the war,” public health professor Walter Ricciardi told the television channel la7 on Tuesday evening.
Ricciardi, the adviser to the health minister, Roberto Speranza, said the government, which is considering tightening restrictions over the Christmas and new year holidays, should lock down the main cities completely.
In an interview with Wednesday’s daily La Stampa, he said Rome had been “constantly late” in responding to the second, autumn wave of the virus.
Italy reported 846 Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday, taking the official total to 65,857, the fifth highest in the world.
Updated
Indonesia will provide free coronavirus vaccines to its citizens when it starts its inoculation programme, President Joko Widodo said on Wednesday, adding he would get the first shot to reassure people on safety.
It received its first shipment of vaccines, 1.2m doses from China’s Sinovac Biotech in early December, but is awaiting emergency use authorisation from its food and drug agency. Another 1.8m doses are expected to be delivered in January.
Indonesia has now recorded more than 629,000 confirmed infections and 19,000 deaths, the highest caseload and death toll in south-east Asia.
The country, which has a population of 270 million, is looking to secure 246.6m vaccine doses and has also been in negotiations with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and global vaccine programme Covax.
Updated
In Russia, St Petersburg is running dangerously low on hospital beds for Covid-19 patients, the city authorities said, as deliveries of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine began on Wednesday across the country.
Biotech group Biocad, licenced to produce Sputnik V, said it was supplying the shot nationwide to help fulfil a large-scale inoculation plan.
In comments to local television late on Tuesday, deputy St. Petersburg governor Oleg Ergashev said just 4% of beds allocated to patients infected with the coronavirus were vacant, Reuters reports.
“We understand that additional capacities need to be deployed,” he said.
The Kremlin has resisted imposing a national lockdown, saying targeted measures to contain coronavirus were enough, though it warned last week that St Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city and President Vladimir Putin’s hometown, was close to crossing a “red line”.
Russia has reported around 2.7m Covid-19 infections and nearly 48,000 deaths.
Updated
Boris Johnson expected to keep easing of Christmas rules in England
UK prime minister Boris Johnson is expected to urge people in England to think carefully before visiting relatives over Christmas, but is not expected at this stage to tighten the legal framework.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland decide their own rules, though there will be further discussions between all four nations today to see if there can be consensus.
Communities secretary Robert Jenrick said that “Easter can be the new Christmas”, suggesting some people may want to put off large family gatherings until the spring.
“This is a virus that thrives on social interaction, so bringing more people together, even over this short period of time, is not cost-free. It will have consequences in terms of increasing the rate. It will rise,” he told Sky News.
Prof Graham Medley, professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the spread of the virus under the proposed Christmas mixing plans was “really uncertain”.
The Sage member told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that while mixing posed a risk, the closure of schools and workplaces could mitigate this.
He said: “There are two things happening over the period: one is that most workplaces and schools are closed, so that will result in reduced contact.
“On the other hand, if we all mix together and have a normal Christmas then we know that in a normal year most respiratory diseases and hospital admissions increase after Christmas anyway in a non-Covid year, so there’s clearly a risk, but it really very much depends on what people do.
“It’s very hard to predict and say ‘oh yes, this is going to be a disaster’ or ‘nothing is going to happen’ because it really does depend on what people decide to do.”
Updated
The UK competition regulator has launched an investigation into the failure of airlines to offer cash refunds to travellers who have been unable to take their flights because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said its move follows reports that airlines may have breached consumers’ rights by not offering cash refunds in cases where travel restrictions meant people could not legally take the flight.
The CMA cited the example of consumers being unable to travel for non-essential purposes in the UK or abroad during the second lockdown in England in November. The regulator said it was aware of cases where flights were not cancelled and customers were not offered refunds even though they could not lawfully travel. Instead, many were offered the option to rebook or receive a voucher.
The CMA said airlines may be under severe financial pressure but that does not mean that consumers should be “left unfairly out of pocket”.
Read more here:
In the UK, the government is resisting demands to change the relaxation of rules over Christmas that will allow families to meet up over five days.
The message is for people to take personal responsibility and assess the risk before travelling to visit relatives, especially elderly and vulnerable loved ones.
Communities secretary Robert Jenrick today said government would not be changing the “legal framework” which allows people from up to three households to form “bubbles” over the holiday period.
“We all need to use our own personal judgment thinking about our own families whether we have particularly elderly or clinically vulnerable relatives who might be round the Christmas table, and also looking at the fact that the rates of the virus are rising in many parts of the country,” he told Sky News.
“Thinking of some of the examples we can see internationally like Thanksgiving, for example, where lots of people coming together did have consequences after the event.
“I would just urge people to use their personal judgment and to think carefully whether this is the right thing for their family.”
The leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, has demanded an urgent review of Christmas Covid rules.
Updated
Germany entered a strict lockdown on Wednesday in an effort to get soaring coronavirus cases under control as the number of registered deaths from Covid-19 jumped by 952, the highest daily increase yet.
Fears that the pandemic is spiralling out of control in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, prompted Chancellor Angela Merkel and the 16 state governors to announce on Sunday a tough lockdown until 10 January at the earliest.
Shops and schools will stay shut from Wednesday in a pre-Christmas tightening of restrictions following a partial lockdown in November, which closed bars and restaurants but failed to contain a second wave of the pandemic, Reuters reports.
The Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases put the number of confirmed cases at 1,379,238, an increase of 27,728. The total death toll in Germany is at 23,427. The previous highest daily increase in deaths was 598 on Friday.
Merkel told lawmakers on Tuesday she was worried by the trend and warned them that January and February would be very tough months.
Germans are waiting for regulatory approval for a vaccine partly developed in Germany even as other countries, including Britain and the United States, are rolling it out.
The health minister, Jens Spahn, has said Germany should start giving coronavirus shots 24 to 72 hours after the vaccine by BioNTech and Pfizer gets EU approval and could begin as soon as Christmas. European authorities are expected to approve the vaccine next week.
Updated
Hi. Caroline Davies here. I will be taking over the blog for the next few hours. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan and over to you, Caroline Davies.
Tokyo confirms record new cases
In Japan, the city of Tokyo today reported its highest one-day case total of the pandemic so far, with 678 infections.
The figure is higher than last week Saturday’s record of 621 cases.
Two new cases confirmed in Sydney
In Australia, Channel 10 news reports that two new local coronavirus cases have been confirmed – hours after the first locally transmitted case in two weeks was reported:
#BREAKING: Two new cases of #COVID19 have been diagnosed in Sydney's Northern Beaches. No links have been identified to other known cases.
— 10 News First Sydney (@10NewsFirstSyd) December 16, 2020
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- London on Wednesday moved into the highest level of coronavirus restrictions in an effort to control rising infection rates, dealing another blow to hospitality venues before Christmas. The British capital’s move into “tier 3” means theatres, pubs, restaurants will have to close, although takeaway food outlets can still operate.
- Donald Trump will ‘absolutely’ encourage Americans to take vaccine, says press secretary. The US president will “absolutely” encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines its best, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, has said.
- Nearly one in four people may not get Covid-19 vaccines until at least 2022 because rich countries with less than 15% of the global population have reserved 51% of the doses of the most promising vaccines, researchers said. Low- and middle-income countries – home to more than 85% of the world’s population – would have to share the remainder, said researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US.
- A World Health Organization research mission to China is expected to arrive in Wuhan next month to investigate how the novel coronavirus jumped from animals to humans, and whether it emerged earlier or in a different place than originally thought.
- India recorded 26,355 new coronavirus cases, data from the health ministry showed on Wednesday, making it the third straight day that daily infections in the country have stayed below 30,000. India has recorded 9.93m infections so far, the second highest in the world after the United States, but daily numbers have dipped steadily since hitting a peak of about 97,000 in mid-September.
- A rapid, over-the-counter Covid-19 test developed by Australian firm Ellume has been given emergency approval in the US. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Brisbane-based company’s 20-minute Covid-19 Home Test on Tuesday as the US battles the virus that has infected 16.5 million people and killed more than 300,000 people in the country.
- South Korea reports record 1,078 new cases. South Korea has reported 1,078 new coronavirus cases, bringing the national total to 45,442. The death toll has risen by 12, bringing the total to 612.The new case total is the highest since the start of the pandemic. There were only three critical care beds left in the greater Seoul area with a nearly 26 million population, officials said.
- Swedish PM says officials misjudged power of Covid resurgence. Health officials in Sweden, which opted not to respond to the first wave of Covid-19 with a national lockdown, misjudged the power of the virus’s resurgence, the country’s prime minister has said, as independent commission criticised the country’s strategy.
- New Zealand’s economy shows faster recovery than expected. The country is expected to bounce back sooner from the impact of Covid-19 than previously thought, but large deficits and rising debt levels will have a lasting effect on the economy, the government said on Wednesday. The country’s treasury department predicted the budget deficit for the 2020/21 fiscal year to be NZ$21.58bn, NZ$10.1bn smaller than forecasts made in September.
- New community case confirmed in Sydney, Australia. A new case of community transmission has been confirmed in Sydney, Australia, breaking a 12-day streak of no community cases.The case is a 45-year-old man who felt ill on Saturday and was tested yesterday.The man drives a van that carries international air crews.
Updated
California is distributing 5,000 body bags mostly to the hard-hit Los Angeles and San Diego areas and has 60 refrigerated trailers standing by as makeshift morgues in anticipation of a surge of coronavirus deaths.
The precautions come from hospitalizations that now are double the summertime peak seen earlier in the pandemic, and which threaten to soon overwhelm the state’s already taxed hospital system.
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, said Tuesday that the number of average daily deaths has quadrupled from a month ago. The surge is forcing an urgent scramble for more staff and space, a crush that might not abate for two months despite the arrival of the first doses of vaccines this week.
The number of average daily deaths now stands at 163, while positive cases have surged to more than 32,500 each day. Of those new cases, an anticipated 12% will wind up in the hospital and 12% of those hospitalized will crowd already stretched intensive care units:
The rightwing thinktank LibertyWorks has launched a federal court challenge to Australia’s travel ban, arguing that the health minister, Greg Hunt, has no power to stop citizens from leaving the country.
The case is the first major challenge to Australia’s strict external border restrictions, which were introduced in March to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
The case will not seek to overturn the cap on the number of arrivals to Australia –which human rights bodies have warned may breach international law.
The national cabinet agreed to a ban on Australians leaving Australia, subject to limited exceptions, in an attempt to limit the number of citizens exposed to coronavirus overseas seeking to return home:
New Zealand’s response to the virus has been among the most successful in the world, together with actions taken by China, Taiwan and Thailand early on in the pandemic.
The country of 5 million has counted just 25 deaths and managed to stamp out the spread of Covid-19, allowing people to return to workplaces, schools and packed sports stadiums without restrictions.
AP has spoken to New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern.
When the virus began hitting Europe early in the year, Ardern said, the only two options countries were considering were herd immunity or flattening the curve. She opted for the latter.
“Originally, that’s where we started, because there just simply wasn’t really much of a view that elimination was possible”.
But her thinking quickly changed.
“I remember my chief science adviser bringing me a graph that showed me what flattening the curve would look like for New Zealand. And where our hospital and health capacity was. And the curve wasn’t sitting under that line. So we knew that flattening the curve wasn’t sufficient for us.”
A strong response to the coronavirus pandemic, surging exports and healthy public spending have helped Vietnam buck a global recession in 2020 and fast-track its recovery, with analysts predicting it will likely enjoy one of the highest growth rates in the world, AFP reports.
But the pain is not over for some sectors with containment measures and border disruptions hammering the country’s tourism industry, and leaving the once-booming aviation sector limping.
While many countries have suffered from high infection and mortality rates, Vietnam has recorded fewer than 1,500 coronavirus cases and 35 deaths thanks to mass quarantines, expansive contact-tracing and strict controls on movement, allowing factories to largely stay open and people to swiftly get back to work.
While many Western countries were imploring citizens to stay home mid-year, Vietnamese people were able to flock to scenic beaches as the government tried to give the domestic tourism industry a much-needed shot in the arm.
There were grave fears for Vietnam’s export-reliant economy as demand for clothing, footwear and smartphones slumped in some of its biggest markets including the European Union, Japan and South Korea.
Shipments to China grew more than 15% on-year in the first nine months, according to the Vietnam General Customs Administration.
Demand for many of the items made in Vietnam - such as home electronics, office furniture, computers and televisions - soared during the pandemic as people were forced to stay home during lockdowns.
That has meant that while it will fall short of its target of 6.8 percent growth this year, the economy is expected to expand 2.4%, which the International Monetary Fund said would be among the best in the world.
The Fund has forecast a global contraction of 4.4%.
WHO research team expected to travel to Wuhan to investigate coronavirus origin
A World Health Organization research mission to China is expected to arrive in Wuhan next month to investigate how the novel coronavirus jumped from animals to humans, and whether it emerged earlier or in a different place than originally thought.
Fabian Leendertz, a biologist at Germany’s Robert Koch Institute and a member of the WHO’s 10-person mission team, told the Associated Press they will be working with Chinese scientists for four to five weeks.
Most scientists think the virus Sars-Cov-2 began in animals in China, most likely bats, before jumping to humans. Cases were first discovered in the city of Wuhan in late December 2019, linked to a seafood market. More than 73.4 million people have since been diagnosed with the virus, and 1.63 million have died:
For many Spaniards looking to make a similar move to the countryside during the pandemic, a lack of good internet access often stands in the way, AFP reports.
Just over one in four Spaniards - some 13 million people - do not have decent internet access, according to Spanish trade union UGT.
This digital divide is the legacy of years of a lack of investment in Spain’s depopulated interior, which has been emptied out by the flight of young people to cities since the 1950s in search of better job opportunities. Some parts of Spain have just two people per square kilometre - the same density as in Siberia.
The problem is not unique to Spain.
Two thirds of school-age children worldwide have no internet at home, according to a UN report published earlier this month, even as pandemic-induced school closures have made online access vital to getting educated.
The Spanish government has promised an ambitious European Union-funded programme to provide “adequate” internet connectivity to 100 percent of Spain’s population by 2025 as part of its efforts to revive the countryside.
Spain, one of the main beneficiaries of the EU’s 750-billion-euro ($912-billion) coronavirus recovery package, has a “historic opportunity” to “re-populate interior regions” which have long been neglected, said Gema Roman of consultancy firm Atrevia.
To attract more people to the countryside, the government must build more schools and hospitals in rural areas and encourage companies to use a mix of telework and working from the office, she added.
India marks third straight day with infections under 30,000
India recorded 26,355 new coronavirus cases, data from the health ministry showed on Wednesday, making it the third straight day that daily infections in the country have stayed below 30,000.
India has recorded 9.93 million infections so far, the second highest in the world after the United States, but daily numbers have dipped steadily since hitting a peak of around 97,000 in mid-September.
The average number of Covid-19 deaths reported each day in India has been decreasing for 10 days straight, according to a Reuters tally.
On Wednesday, the health ministry said deaths rose by 360, with the total fatalities now at 144,069.
Hi, Helen Sullivan back with you now.
they put the NBA on ESPN theme over the vaccine’s entrance, I really love the internet sometimes pic.twitter.com/QxIWvP5BQr
— Moh (@LessIsMoh) December 15, 2020
Queues of ambulances have formed outside several hospitals in Northern Ireland as pressure continued to mount on the region’s health service.
The scenes unfolded as first minister, Arlene Foster, participated in a call with other UK political leaders to review the planned relaxation of restrictions on household gatherings over Christmas.
No decisions were taken, with Stormont ministers set to convene to discuss the situation on Thursday amid intensifying calls from medics to rethink the relaxations and introduce fresh measures to curb the spread of the virus:
Ask not for whom the bell tolls...
With overall costs for vaccinating the UK population at £12bn, the public accounts committee has flagged ‘highly unusual’ arrangements.
Vaccinating the population against Covid-19 will cost up to £12bn, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has disclosed, amid details of tensions between health bodies over the rollout.
The National Audit Office said the government would spend up to £11.7bn on purchasing and manufacturing Covid-19 jabs for the UK before deploying them in England.
A little more on the new community transmission case in Sydney. The positive case was detected in van driver transporting international airline crew to and from Sydney airport. Matilda Boseley and Melissa Davey report.
It’s been described as “very un-Australian” - one of the fiercest, but most flexible, criticisms you can make in this part of the world.
Australian department of foreign affairs and trade officials are being allowed to skip government-mandated hotel quarantine when returning from abroad, instead spending two weeks at home.
Mexico’s health ministry on Tuesday reported 11,228 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 801 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 1,267,202 cases and 115,099 deaths.
The government says the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Hospitals across Mexico are approaching capacity across the country, but the shortage of Covid-19 beds is particularly acute in Mexico City.
Only three unoccupied critical care beds left in Seoul, a city of 26 million people
South Korea’s highest priority is securing more hospital beds to handle a record surge in coronavirus cases and blunt a corresponding spike in deaths, the country’s prime minister said on Wednesday.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 1,078 new coronavirus cases as of midnight Tuesday, the highest since the start of the pandemic.
The latest number came three days after the daily tally topped 1,000 for the first time since South Korea confirmed its first coronavirus infection in January.
The KDCA also reported 12 more deaths, the second day of double-digit deaths after a record 13 the day before in a country that had kept overall cases and deaths relatively low through aggressive tracing and testing.
The number of severe cases has more than doubled over the past two weeks to hit a record high of 226 on Wednesday.
There were only three critical care beds left in the greater Seoul area with a nearly 26 million population, officials said.
“The top priority is securing more hospital beds,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told a government meeting, according to a transcript.
“Full administrative power should be mobilised so that no patient would wait for more than a day before being assigned to her bed.”
He said the government is making all-out efforts to implement current social distancing rules in an effort to avoid having to impose the highest level of restrictions, which would effectively be the country’s first lockdown.
COVID-19 is still with us during the holidays and we can’t let up on doing everything we can to prevent it from spreading. Protect yourself and those around you—keep wearing masks and continue practicing social distancing.
— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) December 16, 2020
Workers at the busiest US seaport are plucking containers of toys off ships and out of massive stacks of cargo swamping docks at the Southern California trade gateway to get holiday gifts under trees in time for Christmas, Reuters reports.
“We’ve never had this much cargo,” Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said on Tuesday, when the port announced that imports spiked 25% during the month of November.
With so much cargo flooding in ahead of Christmas, “we’re essentially in a triage situation,” said Seroka, who worked with a handful of toy makers to expedite toy shipments.
Imports to the Port of Los Angeles have been booming for more than five months as US businesses rebuild depleted inventories of everything from appliances to bicycles; stockpile personal protective equipment and other sought-after goods in a worsening pandemic; and prepare for the winter holiday selling season.
The surge in volume has created congestion that makes it harder for trucks and trains to quickly whisk containers away from the busiest gateway by volume for US trade with China. That then slows down inbound ships.
Greek lawmakers on Tuesday approved a 2021 budget built around weaker forecasts for a rebound from the coronavirus pandemic, which also includes cash for buying new fighter jets from France.
Latest projections see the Greek economy slumping 10.5% this year, worse than the 8.2 percent predicted in October.
Meanwhile the 2021 rebound should see 4.8% expansion, down from a previous forecast of 7.5%.
After weathering the first wave of the pandemic better than most European countries, Greece in early November resorted to a nationwide lockdown that has weighed on activity and is now expected to last until 7 January.
The economy had returned to growth in the third quarter, following a 14% quarter-on-quarter slump in April-June that was the worst in at least 25 years.
Greece faces “unprecedented circumstances, with uncertain facts and the end of the crisis unknown,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told lawmakers before the vote.
But as inoculations get under way around the world, with the European Union expected to soon follow suit, he added that “the vaccine is the boundary between the end of the pandemic and the preface of the post-covid era, and the budget is adapted to these conditions”.
In the UK, vaccinating the population against Covid-19 will cost up to £12bn, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has disclosed, amid details of tensions between health bodies over the rollout.
The National Audit Office said the government would spend up to £11.7bn on purchasing and manufacturing Covid-19 jabs for the UK before deploying them in England.
A report released on Wednesday reveals officials from Public Health England complained that they had been cut out of key decisions despite having previous experience of vaccine delivery programmes:
Rapid Covid-19 home test developed in Australia approved for emergency use in US
A rapid, over-the-counter Covid-19 test developed by Australian firm Ellume has been given emergency approval in the United States.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Brisbane-based company’s 20-minute Covid-19 Home Test on Tuesday as the US battles the virus that has infected 16.5 million people and killed more than 300,000 people in the country.
The agency approved a prescription coronavirus test last month, but an over-the-counter product will make it easier to ramp up testing.
The Ellume Covid-19 Home Test uses a special nasal swab connected to a smartphone app, which sends the results back to users via bluetooth in as little at 15-20 minutes.
To use the app users must enter a postcode and their date of birth, which can be shared with health authorities to monitor outbreaks and conduct contact tracing.
The FDA says Ellume’s test correctly identified 96% of positive samples and 100% of negative samples in patients with symptoms.
In asymptomatic patients, the test identified 91% of positive samples and 96% of negative samples:
London moves to Tier 3 restrictions
London on Wednesday moved into the highest level of coronavirus restrictions in an effort to control rising infection rates, dealing another blow to hospitality venues before Christmas, AFP reports.
The British capital’s move into “Tier 3” means theatres, pubs, restaurants will have to close, although takeaway food outlets can still operate.
People cannot now socialise with anyone not from their household or support bubble, but can meet in groups of up to six in public places outside.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned on Monday that London had seen a “sharp rise” in daily cases and hospital admissions.
“This action is absolutely essential, not just to keep people safe but because we have seen early action can prevent more damage and longer-term problems later,” he told parliament.
Cases were doubling every seven days in some areas, he said, sounding a more downbeat note after hopes of a breakthrough were raised last week with the start of a vaccination programme.
Concerns have also been raised about higher rates of infection among secondary school children aged 11-18, leading to increased testing in the worst-hit areas in and around London.
England only emerged from a four-week lockdown earlier this month, and the government introduced a targeted regional system of tiers to try to cut infection rates.
London had been placed in “Tier 2”, which means non-essential shops and services can open, but it currently has one of the highest infection rates in the country.
Under Tier 3, essential shops and hairdressers can still stay open, as can schools but not indoor entertainment venues.
New Zealand economy shows faster recovery than expected
New Zealand is expected to bounce back sooner from the impact of Covid-19 than previously thought, but large deficits and rising debt levels will have a lasting effect on the economy, the government said on Wednesday.
The country’s Treasury department predicted the budget deficit for the 2020/21 fiscal year to be NZ$21.58 billion, NZ$10.1 billion smaller than forecasts made in September.
The GDP is expected to bounce back from its sharpest contraction on record in the second quarter to grow 10.5% in the September quarter, followed by further growth of 2.2% in the December quarter, according to the treasury’s half-year economic and fiscal update.
But by June 2024, nominal GDP will remain a cumulative NZ$67 billion below the 2019 half year update forecast, it said.
Net core Crown debt was forecast to peak at 52.6% of GDP in 2022/23.
“Despite improvements in the outlook, the COVID-19 shock is expected to have lasting economic impacts, and the fiscal position remains challenging,” Treasury said in its summary.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson said the government’s quick response to the pandemic contributed to the better than expected economic recovery, but warned that challenges remain.
“Of course the pandemic is not the only risk....ongoing trade and geopolitical tensions, in particular tensions between China and the United States, have the capacity to affect growth and lead to higher levels of volatility,” Robertson said in a statement.
Mainland China reported 12 new Covid-19 cases on Dec. 15, down from 17 cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Wednesday.
The National Health Commission, in a statement, said all of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose to nine from eight a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 86,770, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
South Korea reports record 1,078 new cases
South Korea has reported 1,078 new coronavirus cases, bringing the national total to 45,442. The death toll has risen by 12, bringing the total to 612.
The new case total is the highest since the start of the pandemic.
Updated
The case in Sydney was likely connected to US air crew. The New South Wales government has an “inclination” to say that international air crews coming into New South Wales will most likely be asked to quarantine like any other travellers.
“They would be in a quarantine environment but not for fourteen days,” the state health minister, Brad Hazzard, says.
New community case confirmed in Sydney, Australia
A new case of community transmission has been confirmed in Sydney, Australia, breaking a 12-day streak of no community cases.
The case is a 45-year-old man who felt ill on Saturday and was tested yesterday.
The man drives a van that carries international air crews.
Swedish PM says officials misjudged power of Covid resurgence
Health officials in Sweden, which opted not to respond to the first wave of Covid-19 with a national lockdown, misjudged the power of the virus’s resurgence, the country’s prime minister has said, as independent commission criticised the country’s strategy.
“I think that most people in the profession didn’t see such a wave in front of them; they talked about different clusters,” the prime minister, Stefan Löfven, told the Swedish Aftonbladet newspaper on Tuesday.
Sweden has stood out among European and other nations for the way it has handled the pandemic, not mandating lockdowns like other nations but relying on citizens’ sense of civic duty.
But the country of just over 10 million people has seen 341,029 confirmed infections and 7,667 virus-related deaths, a death toll much higher than in neighbours Norway, Finland and Denmark.
Over the summer, Sweden’s left-leaning minority government had said a commission would be appointed once the crisis was over but came under pressure to act sooner.
The commission said in its report that the strategy to protect the nation’s elderly partly failed, and its head stressed that the current and the previous governments would bear the “ultimate responsibility” for the situation:
One in four people globally may not get Covid-19 vaccines until 2022
Nearly one in four people may not get Covid-19 vaccines until at least 2022 because rich countries with less than 15% of the global population have reserved 51% of the doses of the most promising vaccines, researchers said.
Low- and middle-income countries - home to more than 85% of the world’s population - would have to share the remainder, said researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US.
An effective response to the pandemic requires high-income countries “to share in an equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines across the world”, they wrote.
“The uncertainty over global access to Covid-19 vaccines traces not only to ongoing clinical testing, but also from the failure of governments and vaccine manufacturers to be more transparent and accountable over these arrangements,” they added.
As of 15 November, high-income nations had pre-ordered nearly 7.5bn doses of vaccines from 13 manufacturers, the paper said.
This included Japan, Australia and Canada who collectively have more than 1bn doses but accounted for less than 1% of current Covid-19 cases, it said.
Even if leading manufacturers’ vaccines reach their projected maximum production capacity, nearly 25% of the world’s population may not get the vaccines for another year or more, according to the paper.
Donald Trump will ‘absolutely’ encourage Americans to take vaccine, says press secretary
The US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely” encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best, the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said.
But the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines, she told reporters at a White House briefing.
McEnany said some career national security staff would have access to vaccines to ensure a continuity of government, along with a “very small group” of senior administration officials for the purpose of instilling public confidence.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments for the next few hours.
As always, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely” encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best, the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said.
But the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines, she told reporters at a White House briefing.
Nearly one in four people may not get Covid-19 vaccines until at least 2022 because rich countries with less than 15% of the global population have reserved 51% of the doses of the most promising vaccines, researchers said.
Here are the other key developments:
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EU countries could begin inoculations as soon as this year, the head of the European commission said. This followed the decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to bring forward its possible approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by eight days to 21 December.
- The US Food and Drug Administration raised no new concerns over data on Moderna vaccine in documents made public on Tuesday. It prepared the way for US authorisation of a second, easier-to-handle vaccine.
- Germany, France, Italy and five other European states will coordinate the start of their Covid-19 vaccination campaigns, the countries’ health ministers said. The countries will promote “the coordination of the launch of the vaccination campaigns” and will rapidly share information on how it is proceeding, the statement said, along with other commitments on areas such as transparency.
- Turkey has recorded 235 more deaths – its highest one-day tally since the pandemic began – bringing its total death toll to 16,881. According to the health ministry, Turkey also recorded 32,102 new cases, including asymptomatic ones, in the last 24 hours. For four months, Ankara only reported daily symptomatic cases but has reported all cases since 25 November.
- The US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely” encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best. The White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines.
- Germany had reportedly been pressuring EU authorities to speed up the approval of a vaccine. The chancellor Angela Merkel’s office and Germany’s health ministry want the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to bring forward the approval date for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to 23 December from 29 December, the German newspaper Bild said, citing unnamed sources.
