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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Calla Wahlquist (now), NiNicola SlawsonLucy Campbell, Damien Gayle, Lisa Cox, Elias Visontay and Josh Taylor (earlier)

Global cases pass 75m mark; Boris Johnson announces new tier 4 and tightens Christmas rules - as it happened

What happened today

Thank you for following our live coverage on what has been a fairly depressing day. You can follow our ongoing rolling coverage of the coronavirus crisis here.

This is how things currently stand.

CDC issues allergen advice for Covid-19 vaccine

The US centres for disease control and prevention (CDC) says it is monitoring reports of allergic reactions to the Covid-19 vaccine. The FDA is investigating five reported allergic reactions that occurred in people who received the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine in the US this week.

A vial of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine.
A vial of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine. Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters

More from Reuters:

Anyone who had a severe reaction to a Covid-19 vaccine should not get the second dose, the CDC said, defining severe as needing the medication epinephrine or treatment in a hospital.

People who have had a severe allergic reaction to any ingredient in a Covid-19 vaccine should avoid the vaccine formulation containing the ingredient, agency said. Two vaccines have been approved in the United States under emergency use authorisations.

Individuals with histories of severe allergic reaction to vaccines should consult their doctors about the Covid-19 shot. The CDC said people with severe allergies to food, pets, latex or environmental conditions as well as people with allergies to oral medication or a family history of severe allergic reactions could still get vaccinated.

The US food and drug administration (FDA) is investigating about five allergic reactions that happened after people were administered Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE’s Covid vaccine in the US this week.

On Friday, the FDA said that the Moderna Inc vaccine, which received emergency use authorisation, should not be given to individuals with a known history of a severe allergic reaction to any components of the shot.

Britain’s medical regulator has said that anyone with a history of anaphylaxis or severe allergic reactions to a medicine or food should not be given the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.

Updated

Alert for Avalon's Anytime Fitness pushed back to 23 November

NSW health authorities added to the list of Covid-19 hotspots in Sydney overnight. Worryingly, the alert for Anytime Fitness in Avalon has been pushed back to 23 November. The origin case for the North Sydney outbreak has yet to be identified but it had been linked through genomic testing to a case in hotel quarantine on 1 December.

The latest advice includes:

  • Anyone who attended Anytime Fitness on Avalon Pde in Avalon on or after Tuesday 8 December should get tested immediately and self-isolate for 14-days after they were last at the gym.
  • Anyone who was at the gym between 23 November and 7 December should get tested and self-isolate until they get a negative result.
  • Anyone who dined-in at Oceana Traders Seafood Merchants restaurant in Avalon Beach from 14 to 17 December must get tested immediately and self-isolate for 14 days after they were lats at the venue, and anyone who got take away from the restaurant on those dates should get tested and isolate until they get a negative result.
  • Anyone who was at Nomad restaurant in Surry Hills for more than an hour between 12.45pm and 2pm on 16 December; at Cafe Toscano in Forster from 6pm to 7.45pm on 16 December; or at the Strawberry Hills hotel in Surry Hills between 3.30pm and 6pm on 16 December has been told to get tested immediately and self-isolate until 30 December.
  • Anyone who was at the above restaurants on the listed times for less than an hour should monitor themselves for symptoms.
  • Anyone who was at the Avalon RSL on 14 December from 6pm to 8pm; at the Sands in Narrabeen on 15 December from 6pm to 8pm; Salon for Hair in Turramurra from 9.30am to 3.30pm on 17 December; the Rose of Australia in Erskineville from 7pm to 8.45pm on 15 December; Sydney Trapeze School in St Peters from 10am to 12pm on 15 December should get tested and isolate for 14 days regardless of a result.

The full list is here. It is extensive – there are 26 alerts for exposure events that require people to immediately self-isolate and get tested, and 45 exposure sites requiring people to monitor for symptoms. Nineteen public transport routes have also been affected.

Updated

Swiss authorities have approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine with immunisation to start just after Christmas, AFP has said.

Switzerland has been recording more than 4,000 new cases and 100 deaths every day. Six thousand people have died in the country since the pandemic began.

The Swissmedic regulatory authority said:

After a meticulous review of the available information, Swissmedic concluded that the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech is safe and that its benefit outweighs the risks.

Priority will be given to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, a cohort that makes up just under a quarter of Switzerland’s population of 8.6m.

The announcement came a day after the Swiss government said bars and restaurants would once again be closed across the country from Tuesday for at least a month.

The number of infections is very high and is continuing to rise. Hospitals and healthcare workers have been under extreme pressure for weeks and the festive period increases the risk of an even more rapid rise in cases.

Hello, it’s Calla Wahlquist from the Guardian Australia team. Thank you to Nicola Slawson for taking us through the past few hours.

In Australia, we are standing by for NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian to stand up at 11am, just over an hour away, and give an update on the Sydney outbreak. The police commissioner is also attending the press conference — usually a sign that restrictions are being announced.

Five police officers have been injured and 29 people arrested following anti-lockdown protests in central London.

Hundreds of people joined marches down Oxford and Regent Street on Saturday, and were dispersed several times by police.

There were several clashes between officers and unmasked demonstrators, who chanted “we demand freedom”.

Some good news in Australia’s southern state of Victoria, where residents have been anxious about being sent back into lockdown after spending more than three months under lockdown in winter.

The state has recorded its 51st day in a row with no new locally acquired cases. Two international travellers tested positive in hotel quarantine.

Some 9,771 tests were conducted.

Updated

Brazil has now registered 37,730 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total to 7,200,708 cases.

Deaths in the country have risen by 555 to 186,205.

More than 75 million people have been infected by coronavirus as of today

More than 75.06 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 1,679,707 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

The Duchess of Cornwall has urged the public to phone those who may be isolated over Christmas to bring them some “festive cheer”.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph’s Stella Magazine this weekend, Camilla said many people would be “facing a gap at the Christmas table” this year.

The duchess wrote:

If you know of an older isolated person to whom you could bring a bit of festive cheer, please pick up your telephone and make the call – you really will make a huge difference.

Updated

Scores of people have chosen to leave London and Harriet Clugston said that people on board the trains had attempted to secure space for themselves, but that there was not enough room to do so.

“As expected, train is crammed,” she wrote on Twitter.

“Announcement on Tannoy says social distancing ‘will not be possible’ due to volume and to get off if you are not comfortable with that.

“People have tried to secure social distance by placing on seats but being asked to remove them by other passengers as the train is so full.”

Another woman, who did not wish to be named, said she and her partner had made the “split-second decision” to take their young son to her parents’ home on the coast.

“We just made the decision to leave based on the fact that my parents said come, and we couldn’t bear the thought of no fresh air and a toddler going rogue round a small flat for the foreseeable,” she told the PA new agency.

“We also really just felt we wanted to get the baby somewhere a bit safer with a garden, though we know a lot of people won’t have that luxury.

She added: “The grandparents are just desperately happy they’ll see their grandson. We obviously worry about taking something down to them, but they seem happy to take the risk.”

Izzy, 22, from Bristol, said that she wanted “the security of being home for Christmas” and that her parents had come to collect her before the restrictions came into effect.

“I have a slight nervousness that they might block the roads or something stopping me going home,” she said.

“I’m moving out of my flat so I need my dad to come and get me and he feels more comfortable doing it before tier 4 kicks in.”

Updated

Sydney to Hobart yacht race cancelled

The Sydney to Hobart yacht race has been cancelled for the first time in its history, with organisers admitting border restrictions forced by Sydney’s coronavirus outbreak made it impossible to stage.

“We are bitterly disappointed to cancel the race this year especially considering the plans and preparations we had put in place to have a Covid safe race,” said CYCA commodore Noel Cornish, announcing the cancellation on Saturday night, less than six days out from the scheduled Boxing Day start.

“We were so well prepared to run the race ... This is the first time in 76 years that the race will not be conducted.

“The primary consideration for the club continues to be the safety of competitors, members and staff along with the health and welfare of the people of NSW and Tasmania.”

The final blow to the race was struck when Tasmania’s premier Peter Gutwein announced in the afternoon that all people arriving from Sydney would have to undergo 14 days of quarantine.

He confirmed no exceptions would be made for the Sydney to Hobart race.

Updated

Sydney's northern beaches in lockdown, more cases to be announced Sunday

In Australia, Sydney’s northern beaches community is in lockdown, with the rest of the city on standby in case infection spread leads to broader restrictions.

The NSW premier has flagged a possible return to tighter measures in the state capital.

“To put everybody on notice, we will be considering today after consulting obviously with the relevant people, whether this time tomorrow we do revert back to some restrictions in greater Sydney,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Saturday.

“That is a possibility.”

The northern beaches cluster grew by 23 cases to 40 infections on Saturday, which prompted other states to strengthen their borders against Sydney travellers.

More cases were diagnosed after the 8pm cutoff on Saturday and will be announced on Sunday, with the premier indicating the outbreak will grow by the same number or more cases.

Northern beaches residents are under stay-at-home orders last imposed back in March at the height of the Covid-19 crisis. The lockdown lasts until Wednesday.

“We’re hoping that will give us sufficient time to get on top of the virus, so that we can then ease up for Christmas and the new year,” she said.

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant has said only three of all cases diagnosed so far are not linked to the Avalon Bowlo or Avalon RSL, the two venues at the centre of the cluster.

NSW Health has asked hundreds of gym-goers on Sydney’s northern beaches to get tested and isolate immediately.

Authorities issued a public health alert on Saturday evening, saying hundreds of people who attended Anytime Fitness on Avalon Parade on or after 8 December are now considered “close contacts” and should get tested immediately and isolate for 14 days after their most recent visit to the gym.

The fitness centre joins a lengthy list of venues visited by confirmed cases published by authorities on Friday afternoon. Meanwhile Tasmania’s premier announced on Saturday his health officials had raised greater Sydney to “medium risk” level.

All travellers to Tasmania from Sydney – not just from the northern beaches – will be required to quarantine for two weeks.

Queensland reimposed a border permit system from 1am Sunday and Victoria flagged the possibility of following Tasmania, if the virus spreads.

Updated

Passengers faced packed train carriages out of London as many attempted to flee the capital following the announcement of tougher coronavirus restrictions, PA Media is reporting.

Travellers were told that social distancing “will not be possible” due to the volume of people on board, and those who felt “uncomfortable” should not stay on the train, according to one train passenger.

Footage online showed large crowds at St Pancras station waiting to board trains to Leeds.

It comes after Boris Johnson made the shock announcement that large parts of eastern and south-east England, including London, would be placed under tier 4 restrictions.

Tier 4 – which is the highest possible level in England – effectively returns residents to the rules in place during the national lockdown.

Johnson told a Downing Street press conference at 4pm on Saturday that the rules would come into effect at midnight.

By 7pm on Saturday evening, there were no trains available online from several London stations including Paddington, King’s Cross and Euston.

Updated

In a joint statement, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, who chairs the Church of England’s Covid Recovery Group, have urged people to be “exceptionally careful” and said clergy and others who are shielding should feel “no compulsion” to attend public worship.

The statement said:

The news of fresh restrictions in many areas will be a bitter blow. For many people, it will mean spending Christmas Day alone.

We know that public worship – both in person and through remote means – has brought comfort, hope and inspiration to so many.

So we are grateful that, even in tier 4, church buildings can be open this Christmas. But I urge everyone to take precautions and, especially for those in tier 4, to be exceptionally careful.

Even though attending public worship is permitted, many people may feel it is currently better they do not do so. Clergy and others who are shielding should certainly feel no compulsion.

Updated

What does tier 4 mean?

Under tier 4 restrictions, non-essential shops, hairdressers and leisure and entertainment venues will close, with a new “stay at home” message introduced.

People who need to travel for education or childcare will be exempt and exercise will be unlimited. Where people cannot work from home, they are still able to travel to work.

Under the measures, households will not be allowed to mix, but one person will be allowed to meet with one other person outside in a public space. Support bubbles and those meeting for childcare will be exempt.

Those who are deemed clinically extremely vulnerable should not go to work and should limit time outside of their homes.

Tier 4 residents must not stay overnight away from home and cannot travel abroad. People in all tiers are advised to stay local, and “think carefully” about whether they need to travel abroad.

Read more about the tiers in this explainer by my colleague Molly Blackall, here:

Updated

Here’s more from the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, who said he was “really frustrated” following the announcement that Christmas would be cancelled for many families across the UK.

The infection rates are going up very, very fast and so something has to be done, and we support the steps the government has put in place but millions of families are going to be heartbroken by this news – having their Christmas plans ripped up.

I’m really frustrated because I raised this with the prime minister on Wednesday and he dismissed that and went on to tell people to have a merry little Christmas – only three days later to rip up their plans.

I think the British public is entitled to more decisive leadership than that.

Updated

Good evening everyone.

This is Nicola Slawson and I’m taking over the liveblog from Lucy for the evening. Get in touch if you think I’m missing anything. My email is nicola.slawson@theguardian.com.

The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has lambasted Boris Johnson’s government for making last-minute changes to coronavirus restrictions around Christmas, adding that stricter rules should have been in place earlier.

New tier 4 restrictions were announced across England, Wales and Scotland on Saturday amid a surge in coronavirus cases and concerns about a new strain of coronavirus.

Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon told the briefing that the vast majority of identified cases of the new strain are in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, adding:

In Scotland, but for this new strain I wouldn’t be standing here right now. This is about this new strain and the risk we know it poses if we don’t do something.

She underlined that the travel ban will be law: while enforcement decisions are for Police Scotland to make, she wants the public to think carefully about whether journeys are necessary.

Sturgeon said she recognises how difficult the phased return to school will be for working parents, and added that her government will be setting out further information on the impact on nurseries over the next few days.

Updated

Benjamin Netanyahu has become the first person in Israel to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, as the country begins it inoculation rollout on Saturday night.

The prime minister had previously said he wanted to set an example for other Israelis by taking the Pfizer vaccine first.

“What’s important to me is that the people of Israel get vaccinated. I believe in this vaccine. I want the people of Israel to get vaccinated and so I will be first,” he said earlier this month.

Israel, a country of 9 million people, has made deals with Pfizer to provide several million doses, as well as separate agreements with Moderna Inc and AstraZeneca Plc.

Daily infection rates in Israel have risen close to 3,000 per day, and the government is considering renewed restrictions to avert a possible third national shutdown.

Authorities had previously debated imposing nighttime curfews, while schools and many shops could also be closed.

Benjamin Netanyahu and the health minister Yuli Edelstein were injected with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine live on TV at the Sheba Medical Center, the country’s largest hospital, in Ramat Gan near the coastal city of Tel Aviv.
Benjamin Netanyahu and the health minister Yuli Edelstein were injected with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine live on TV at the Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s largest hospital, in Ramat Gan near the coastal city of Tel Aviv. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Summary

Here is a recap of the main developments from the last few hours from the UK:

  • From midnight tonight, London, the south-east and the east of England will enter tier 4 - the toughest level of restrictions, similar to the last national lockdown in November. The changes affect areas including, Kent, Essex, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and all 32 London boroughs - some 17.7 million people. People will be advised not to travel into or out of tier 4 areas. In tier 4, a stay-at-home order will be issued to residents (apart from those who have to travel for work or education), social mixing will be restricted to the meeting of one other person in an open public space, all non-essential retail and businesses will have to close (including, hairdressers, nail bars and indoor entertainment venues). Boris Johnson said the measures would be reviewed every two weeks.
  • The relaxation of rules for Christmas has been scrapped for much of south-east England and cut to just Christmas Day for the rest of England. The planned relaxation of rules over five days for Christmas has been cancelled completely for the areas going into tier 4, where households are longer permitted to mix at all (apart from support bubbles). For the rest of England in tiers 1-3, the gathering of up to three households can only take place on Christmas Day. The announcement followed days of serious concern from scientists and medics over the relaxation of restrictions amid rising infection rates and hospitalisations and the fast-spreading new strain of the virus, particularly in the south-east of England.
  • The new variant, spreading most rapidly across London, the south-east and the east of England, is up to 70% more transmissible than the original virus. At present, the new strain is not thought to be any more dangerous or lethal than the original virus, and it is believed that the vaccine should be adequate for it. Rising alarm over the dramatic spread of the new variant was a significant motivating factor behind the above restrictions announced today for England, Wales and Scotland and the festive period.
  • Scotland announced a strict travel ban with the rest of the UK, festive bubbles will only be allowed on Christmas Day and level 4 restrictions from Boxing Day. The first minister Nicola Sturgeon made the announcement after an emergency cabinet meeting where information about the impact of the new strain of the virus suggested that this was “probably the most serious and dangerous juncture” since the beginning of the pandemic. Sturgeon emphasised that it remained essential to act on a preventative basis. The five-day Christmas window for indoor mixing will be reduced to Christmas Day itself alone, and near-lockdown level 4 restrictions will come into force for all of mainland Scotland from Boxing Day morning for three weeks, with non-essential shops and hospitality closing. To be reviewed after three weeks, Sturgeon’s measures are the toughest of those announced across the UK today.
  • Wales will be placed under lockdown from midnight tonight with all festive relaxation plans limited to Christmas Day only. The decision announced by the first minister, Mark Drakeford, followed urgent talks over the new strain of coronavirus that is spreading rapidly in London and the south-east of England. Drakeford said the pattern of transmission linked to the new variant, is “remarkably consistent with the rapid acceleration of transmission in Wales” in recent weeks and required an “immediate response”. There had been plans for Wales to go into lockdown from 28 December, but the changes brought this forward to 00.01 on Sunday 20 December. The whole of Wales will enter the highest level of lockdown - level 4 - with all but essential shops shut from the end of trading today, and the public told to “stay home”, the planned relaxation of rules from 23 to 28 December has been scrapped and festive bubbles are now limited to Christmas Day only.

Updated

There is no immediate plan to change the Christmas Covid-19 restrictions in Northern Ireland, despite rules being tightened in other parts of the UK, PA Media understands.

Sources said meetings between the executive and the UK government had been ongoing all day. The first minister Arlene Foster, the deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill, the health minister Robin Swann and the chief medical officer Michael McBride held discussions on the issue on Saturday.

The new strain of Covid-19 may leave the NHS struggling to provide its usual range of care, especially in the new tier 4 areas, hospital bosses said after Boris Johnson’s announcement.

In a gloomy assessment of the situation facing the health service Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said:

The NHS was already facing its most challenging winter on record before the discovery of a more virulent strain of Covid-19 and even with these latest measures, we are still likely to see increased transmission of the disease and a deteriorating situation facing other frontline NHS services, despite the best efforts of a stretched health and care workforce.

NHS leaders are worried that the tide is against them and the government will need to level with the public about the services the NHS will be able to provide in the areas moving into tier four and nationally should the situation deteriorate further.

The Confederation represents all sorts of care providers in England, such as hospitals, GP networks, ambulance service and mental health providers. Mortimer added:

New Christmas restrictions is the present no one wanted but the NHS needs.

He urged the public to do everything they can over the festive period to follow the rules to protect the NHS.

The government is right to level with the public about how challenging the situation in the coming days and weeks will be and it’s critical this chilling but clear message is maintained throughout the Christmas season.

The virus has redoubled its efforts and so must we with a new heightened vigilance and social contact kept to an absolute minimum even when and where permissible.

NHS Providers, which speaks for England’s 240 health service trusts, also backed Johnson’s action. Chris Hopson, its chief executive, said:

Trust leaders have consistently called for the restrictions to be as tough as needed to cut infection rates. It is therefore right that the government has acted quickly to avert significant extra deaths and levels of harm.

Trust leaders, who are seeing rapidly rising levels of Covid-19 patients and hospital admissions, will obviously hope that these measures will rapidly slow down virus spread and the number of cases. But that will depend on everyone following the rules meticulously.

This was a tough but necessary decision.

Scotland announces travel ban with rest of UK and curbs to Christmas mixing

There will be a strict travel ban between Scotland and the rest of the UK throughout the festive period, and the five day Christmas window for indoor mixing will be reduced to one day, Christmas Day itself, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

Near-lockdown level 4 restrictions will come into force for all of mainland Scotland from Boxing Day morning for three weeks, with non-essential shops and hospitality closing.

Sturgeon also announced a staggered return to school for pupils, with schools online only until 18 January, other than for the children of key workers who can return on 11 January.

Speaking to the media and the public after an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday afternoon, Scotland’s first minister emphasised that – while the situation is not currently as severe as that in England and Wales – it remained essential to act on a preventative basis.

Sturgeon said that information she had discussed at cabinet about the impact of the new strain of the virus suggested that this was “probably the most serious and dangerous juncture” since the beginning of the pandemic. Seventeen cases of the new variant have now been identified across Scotland but she said this was likely to be an understatement of its true prevalence.

Sturgeon, who has taken a consistently more cautious approach to Christmas guidance, said the new restrictions were designed to prevent more of the new strain entering Scotland and to reduce the risk of it spreading further in Scotland.

The festive bubble remains at a limit of 8 people from 3 households, with a strong recommendation to keep it as small as possible.

She urged people not to meet indoors with other households over Christmas if they can possibly avoid it. Travel within Scotland will be allowed on Christmas Day only, and she would be asking Police Scotland to consider how to enforce the cross-border travel ban.

Sturgeon said:

Standing here saying this makes me want to cry because I know how harsh it sounds...but this virus is unfair.

She said that she understood that people would look at Scotland’s case numbers and query whether these immediate tightening of restrictions was necessary.

This new strain is transmitting so quickly that it will very soon overwhelm us.

Updated

The Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford has said the new strain of coronavirus was “genuinely part of the explanation” for a rapid surge in cases across Wales.

He told BBC Wales:

We know as of today there are hundreds of people in all parts of Wales who are now suffering from this variation, and those people will be more infectious to other people.

And other people are more likely to catch the virus because of the way the virus has changed.

I think when you look at those numbers which are so similar to the numbers in London and the south-east, it is genuinely part of the explanation.

Back to Johnson’s press conference.

Q. Three days ago you knew about the new strain and rising infections, and still you said it was ‘too late’ to cancel Christmas - how do you expect people to follow the rules if they keep changing?

Johnson says their understanding of the velocity of transmission of the new variant changed.

Q. Are you going to put additional support in place for businesses that have to close now?

Johnson points to the loan scheme and the extended furlough scheme (until April).

Updated

Wales lockdown brought forward to midnight tonight with curtailed Christmas

The first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has announced lockdown restrictions will come into force across Wales from midnight tonight, with festive relaxation plans cancelled except for Christmas Day.

The decision followed urgent talks over the new strain of coronavirus that is spreading rapidly in parts of the country. Drakeford said the pattern of transmission in London and the south-east of England, linked to the new variant, is “remarkably consistent with the rapid acceleration of transmission in Wales” in recent weeks.

In a statement, the first minister said the latest evidence suggested that the new strain is present “throughout Wales” and said this required an “immediate response”.

The Welsh government’s cabinet met this afternoon to discuss the “worrying new development in the pandemic”, as well as advice from senior medical and scientific advisers, including the impact on NHS Wales.

Drakeford said:

The situation is incredibly serious. I cannot overstate this. We have therefore reached the difficult decision to bring forward the alert level 4 restrictions for Wales, in line with the action being taken in London and the south-east of England. These new restrictions will come into effect from midnight tonight instead of during the Christmas period.

The planned relaxation of rules from 23 to 28 December has been scrapped and festival bubbles are now limited to Christmas Day only.

The first minister said:

Unfortunately, we must also look again at the arrangements for Christmas - we cannot expose people to the risk of this new, more virulent strain of coronavirus.

We will therefore change the current rules, which allow two households to come together to form a Christmas bubble over a five-day period, so that they will apply on Christmas Day only.

Throughout the alert level 4 period, a single person household will be able to join with one other household.

Drakeford added:

While we all want to avoid further disruption to businesses and plans for Christmas, our overriding duty is to protect lives here in Wales. We know that 2021 will be a different and a better year. Our economy will recover. Christmas will come again.

There had been plans for Wales to go into lockdown from 28 December, but the changes mean this has been brought forward and will begin at 00.01 on Sunday 20 December.

The whole of Wales will enter the highest level of lockdown - level 4 - with all but essential shops shut from the end of trading today, and the public told to “stay home”.

Updated

Q. As you knew about the new variant as far back as November, was it reckless to promise five days of Christmas against scientific advice?

Johnson says they’ve always tried to follow scientific advice.

The science has changed, in terms of what we’ve learned about its transmissibility, so we couldn’t ignore that and had to take these extra steps, he adds.

Q. What does ‘keeping it short’ over Christmas Day mean?

Whitty says to the extent you possibly can - keep it small, keep it short and keep it local, and remember that the vulnerable are vulnerable.

Minimise the amount of contact, keep it at a distance and the shortest period you can.

Vallance adds you must assume that you might be infectious and that’s how you have to behave.

Johnson adds one in three infections are still being transmitted asymptomatically and people need to remember this.

Q. Should police be stopping people from travelling outside tier 4 and knocking on doors of households breaking the rules on Christmas Day?

Johnson says he’s sure the bulk people will continue to take this seriously.

Q. Is this an admission that the tier system has failed and are we essentially back in a lockdown until March?

Johnson didn’t answer this.

Q. Why has Britain got this new variant so bad, do other countries have it, and how did Britain get it?

Vallance says lots of mutations of the virus have occurred around the world.

It may be in other countries as well and it may have started here but we can’t be sure, he says, which is why the sequencing is so important.

Q. What hope can you give those now spending Christmas alone and to people considering breaking the rules?

Johnson says people should not break the rules.

He says he hopes lonely and elderly people will be able to spend Christmas with their support bubbles.

Q. How long realistically do you think people will have to stay in tier 4?

Johnson says the measures will be reviewed every two weeks.

Q. Is the new strain impervious to social distancing? Is the 2-metre rule and face coverings enough to protect people?

Whitty says the more we break unnecessary household links, the more this and every other respiratory virus goes down.

We will have to do that much more with the same tools, he says.

Updated

Q. Is this the worst moment of the pandemic because of the new strain?

Whitty says this is one of many terrible moments in this pandemic. He says he considers this to not be the worst moment.

We have medical countermeasures – the vaccine being rolled out and medical treatments which lower mortality – so there is a prospect in the medium-long term future, he says.

We must slow this down as much as possible – its doubling time is 7 in some areas – so it won’t spread out across the country and we can get the vaccine out to protect the most vulnerable, he says.

Vallance adds we know what to do to slow it down – reduce contacts, do the basics (face, hands, space) – and keep a lid on it.

Q. Why didn’t you take action when the rates were rising in Kent during tier 3?

Q. What confidence do you have that the new measures will suppress the virus when the last lockdown did not suppress it in Kent?

Johnson says they were puzzled during November as to why tier 3 was not delivering the results in Kent that it was delivering in the north-west.

The data on transmissibility explained it, he says, so today he has responded to the change in the science.

Updated

Q. Did you leave it too late when changing Christmas plans?

Johnson says he bitterly regrets the necessary changes.

The facts changed, he says, particularly with the speed of transmission of the new variant, so the method of defence changed.

Q. Have Porton Down completed their assessment of the new variant?

Vallance says they will get more data out as soon as possible.

Q. Should people try to leave the south-east before midnight tonight?

Whitty says please do not do this.

If you look at the south-east, the east and London, there has been a really dramatic increase in the number of cases, he says.

In the south-east, 43% of cases are now the new variant, he says. In the east, it is 59% and in London it is 62%, he says.

Numbers have gone up very quickly in the last few weeks, they are much lower in other parts of the country, he says.

The rates of people in hospital in those areas – 36% in the east, 34% in London and 28% in the south-east – are much higher.

Other places are managing to keep hospital admissions down in areas such as the north-east, he says.

A low rate of this variant is held in place by the tiers, he says.

A high rate is not held sufficiently by the tiers and it’s going up rapidly, he says.

If someone was to go unwittingly with the new variant to a low-prevalence area where it currently is not a problem, that would be a significant risk to the area they go to, he says.

Updated

Q. Could you provide the number of people who have had the vaccine in the daily update figures?

Johnson says the figure today is 350,000 have so far had their first dose and people will be regularly updated.

Q. Why are shielders still expected to work in tier 3?

Johnson says he hopes those who are shielding are not being asked to work.

Whitty says shielding patterns are being looked at again.

In the first wave, shielding was useful but also proved actively harmful in isolating people too much, so this is being looked at, he adds.

There is no evidence at the moment to suggest the new variant causes more severe disease, Vallance says.

Nothing has been seen so far to suggest it alters the immune response and the vaccine response should be adequate for this virus, he adds.

Transmission is the big change with this strain, he says, meaning we need to stick to reducing our contact and reducing its ability to spread.

Studies suggest the new variant has a substantial increase in transmissibility, Vallance says.

It is thought to have first occurred in mid-September in London or Kent, he says.

By mid-November, about 28% or so of cases in London and the south-east, and slightly lower in the east of England, were due to the new variant – a rapid growth, he says.

By the 9 December, this was much higher, he says.

In London, more than 60% of new cases were the new variant, he says, meaning it not only moves fast but is becoming the dominant variant in terms of transmission.

Updated

The new variant contains 23 different changes, many associated with changes in the protein the virus makes, Vallance says.

It has variance in areas with how the virus binds to cells and enters cells, he says, which caused concern in terms of how the virus looks.

There are three questions, he says:

  • Does the new variant transmit more readily?
  • Does it alter the course of the disease?
  • Does it alter the way the immune system responds to it?

Over the last two weeks, the UK’s overall case-rates have increased by more than 50%, he says.

In the south-east and east of England, and London, hospital admissions are rising sharply, he says.

In the areas moving into tier 4, the case-rate is higher than in England as a whole and is increasing dramatically, he says.

Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, is speaking now.

Infections have risen again in recent weeks, he says.

The November lockdown brought the numbers down but they are now rising again, he says.

Relaxation for Christmas mixing scrapped in tier 4 areas and curtailed for rest of England

We must look again at Christmas, he says.

Given the early evidence on the new variant of the virus, the potential risk means we cannot continue with Christmas as planned, he says.

Those in tier 4 areas should not mix with anyone outside their household at Christmas, though support bubbles will remain in place.

Across the rest of the country, up to three households can meet but this will be limited to Christmas Day only, rather than the five days previously set out.

There will be no relaxation on the 31 December, so people must not break the rules for new year’s, he says.

Updated

The new variant is concentrated in tier 4 areas, he says, but is nonetheless present around the country.

Everyone in all tiers must stay local, he says.

Carefully consider whether you need to travel abroad, Johnson says, and follow the rules in your tier.

Those in tier 4 will not be permitted to travel abroad, apart from limited exceptions such as for work purposes.

Updated

Tier 4 restrictions announced for London and south-east from Sunday to 30 December

New restrictions will come in for the parts of London, the south-east and the east of England which are currently in tier 3, he says.

These areas will enter tier 4, broadly equivalent to the national restrictions brought in during November.

In tier 4:

  • Residents must stay at home, apart from limited exemptions
  • Non-essential retail, indoor gyms and leisure facilities and personal care services must close
  • People must work from home if they can, unless this is not possible eg manufacturing and construction sectors
  • People should not enter or leave tier 4 areas
  • Tier 4 residents must not stay overnight away from home
  • You can only meet one person from another household in an outdoor public space
  • Communal worship can continue to take place

The measures take effect from tomorrow morning (Sunday 20 December).

All tier will continue to be regularly reviewed, with the next formal review on 30 December, he says.

Updated

There is also no suggestion the vaccine would be less effective against the new variant, he adds.

Updated

New coronavirus strain could be up to 70% more transmissible

Boris Johnson is speaking now.

Yesterday afternoon he was brief on the latest data on the virus spreading more rapidly in London and the south-east than would be expected given the restrictions in place.

This is down to the new variant spreading rapidly in these areas, he says. It doesn’t seem to be more dangerous but does seem to spread more easily and could increase the R by 0.4 or more and up to 70% more transmissible than the orginal disease, he says.

It is spreading very fast, he says.

Updated

Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is to also hold an urgent press conference this afternoon to update the public on “preventative action” that may need to be taken in response to the new strain of coronavirus.

She tweeted earlier this afternoon:

Updated

Boris Johnson's press conference

The UK prime minister Boris Johnson is about to hold a Downing Street press conference with the chief medical officer for England, Chris Whitty, and the UK’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance.

It follows an emergency cabinet meeting held earlier this afternoon amid an alarming rise in Covid-19 cases, a new strain of coronavirus spreading rapidly, particularly in the south-east of England, and serious concern over the planned relaxation of the rules for Christmas.

As my colleague Molly Blackall reports, tier 4 restrictions are expected to be announced for London and south-east England. We will get further details on what tier 4 - the highest level of restrictions - will mean in practice during the briefing, but there are early questions over whether it could see a level of closure of non-essential services and social mixing comparable to the original lockdown in March.

Distribution of the Moderna vaccine will begin to more than 3,800 sites across the United States this weekend, after it was approved on Friday by the medicines regulator, the Food and Drug Administration.

Workers in Bloomington, Indiana, will fill and package vials with the mRNA vaccine before handing them on to be shipped from sites including Louisville, Kentucky and Memphis, Tennessee. Those locations are close to air hubs for United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx Corp.

The Moderna vaccine is the second approved for use in the US, after regulators earlier approved the Pfizer/BioNTech jab. Pfizer organised its own distribution system but the US government’s Operation Warp Speed, led by a US army general, is in charge for Moderna.

Texas and Arkansas officials told Reuters they expect Moderna to be the primary vaccine for rural areas, which often lack the ultra cold storage equipment to store full trays of Pfizer’s vials. Once the plastic on a Pfizer 975-dose tray is opened, recipients have 120 hours to use the vaccine.

Doses of vaccine must travel with security guards, including US marshals, and will be stored in locked refrigerators.

US officials have said they expect to have 40m doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines by the end of the year - enough to inoculate 20 million people.

Both vaccines were claimed by their makers to be about 95% effective at preventing illness in pivotal clinical trials with no serious safety issues.

Updated

NHS England reports 339 more coronavirus deaths

A further 339 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, NHS England said on Saturday.

Patients were aged between 44 and 100. All except 13, aged between 64 and 95, had known underlying health conditions. The deaths were between 5 November and 18 December.

Eighteen other deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.

The total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 46,122. The figure is lower than the number of deaths reported by the Office for National Statistics, which includes all deaths in which Covid-19 was mentioned on a death certificate.

Updated

Health authorities in Thailand reported 516 new cases of coronavirus on Saturday, by far the biggest one-day jump in a country that had previously brought the epidemic largely under control, according to Reuters.

The new cases were reported in Samut Sakhon province, where an outbreak has been reported linked to a shrimp market.

Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, director general of the disease control department, told a news conference the new cases were found through testing among migrant workers and there were more cases at hospitals.

Most were asymptomatic, he said.

A medical worker performs a nose swab on a migrant worker at the seafood market in Samut Sakhon province, in Thailand, thought to be at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak.
A medical worker performs a nose swab on a migrant worker at the seafood market in Samut Sakhon province, in Thailand, thought to be at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak. Photograph: Reuters

Updated

'Tier 4' lockdown measures expected in SE England

Boris Johnson is expected to introduce tier 4 restrictions for London and the south-east of England in his press conference this afternoon, with the planned relaxation of regulations over Christmas scaled back for the rest of the country, writes Molly Blackall.

Tier 4 restrictions may spell an end to Christmas plans, with those living under the new top tier thought to be prevented from meeting other households over the holiday.

There are also suggestions that just two households will now be able to meet in the rest of England, rather than the planned three.

The prime minister will be joined by the chief medical officer for England, Chris Whitty, and the UK’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, for a press conference at 4pm on Saturday, following an emergency meeting with cabinet ministers at 1pm.

It comes as cases of coronavirus surge, and concerns grow over a new strain of coronavirus which is spreading rapidly across the south-east of England.

Updated

Here’s more details on what the UK government is expected to announce at 4pm, from the Times deputy political editor.

People in Italy will only be allowed to leave their homes once a day to visit friends or relatives over the Christmas and new year period, and travel between regions is to be banned, according to AFP.

The entire country is to be classified a “red zone” between 21 December and 6 January. Starting from 24 December, bars and restaurants will also be closed.

People queue outside a Gucci store on Via Condotti in Rome, Italy.
People queue outside a Gucci store on Via Condotti in Rome, Italy. Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

Giuseppe Conte, the prime minister, said: “Our experts fear that the infection curve will increase during the Christmas period.”

However, the rules will be relaxed on 28, 29 and 30 December, as well as on 4 January, when shops will be able to remain open until 9pm and people will be allowed to move about freely.

Updated

Police make arrests at London anti lockdown protest

Police are attempting to disperse anti-lockdown protesters who have gathered outside parliament in London.

The Metropolitan police said protesters were gathering in Parliament Square in significant numbers on Saturday afternoon. According to the force, organisers have not submitted a risk assessment for the demonstration.

“This protest is not exempt from the ‘rule of 6’ and should not be happening,” the force said on Twitter.

Demonstrators during an anti-lockdown protest in Parliament Square central London.
Demonstrators during an anti-lockdown protest in Parliament Square central London. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA

The Met said it was attempting to engage with protesters to persuade them from leaving the area, but would move to enforcement of people did not comply.

Pictures from the scene showed a number of arrests had already been made. Andreas Michli, the owner of a gym in Wood Green that refused to shut its door during the second national lockdown, was among those arrested.

“I’m going to keep doing this until we’re free,” he said as he was led to a police van.

A protester is arrested before being taken away by police officers on Whitehall.
A protester is arrested before being taken away by police officers on Whitehall. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon has announced she will hold a cabinet meeting this afternoon to discuss the new virus strain, adding that preventative action may be needed to stop it taking hold.

Italy will be placed under new restrictions over the Christmas and new year periods, according to a government decree published on Saturday.

Under the new measures, already announced by the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, late Friday and coming into effect from Monday until 6 January, the whole of country will be classified as “red zone” – the highest level of restrictions – between Christmas Eve, and 27 December and then again between 31 December and 3 January and 5-6 January.

People will be allowed to leave their homes only once per day to visit friends or relatives, and travel between regions will be banned. Bars and restaurants will be closed from 24 December.

On 28, 29 and 30 December, and 4 January Italy will be in “orange zone” lockdown, meaning people can leave their homes but must stay within their towns and all shops can reopen apart from bars and restaurants.

Updated

Coming off the telephone meeting, Arlene Foster has described the news about the variant as “very concerning”.

Prof Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, said the UK has informed the World Health Organization that the new coronavirus strain can spread more rapidly.

“As announced on Monday, the UK has identified a new variant of Covid-19 through Public Health England’s genomic surveillance,” he said in a statement.

“As a result of the rapid spread of the new variant, preliminary modelling data and rapidly rising incidence rates in the south-east, the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group (Nervtag) now consider that the new strain can spread more quickly.

“We have alerted the WHO and are continuing to analyse the available data to improve our understanding.

“There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments, although urgent work is under way to confirm this. Given this latest development, it is now more vital than ever that the public continue to take action in their area to reduce transmission.”

Updated

PM to hold press briefing today

Boris Johnson will hold a press conference later today amid rising cases in England and a new coronavirus strain spreading rapidly across the south-east.

The government’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and the chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, will also appear.

Updated

At least nine coronavirus patients have died after an oxygen tank explosion triggered a fire at a hospital in south-eastern Turkey, according to Agence France-Presse.

The blaze in an intensive care ward of the hospital in Gaziantep broke out when a tank on an artificial respirator exploded.

“We are profoundly saddened by this tragedy,” the Turkish health minister, Fahrettin Koca, said.

Updated

The UK shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, has called on Boris Johnson to address the nation and lay out his plan to stem the spread of coronavirus.

Ashworth said: “It has been apparent for some days that the virus is again out of control in parts of the country. The government’s tiered system has failed to stem its spread.

“This is an incredibly serious moment and people are worried. The prime minister has refused to take action to limit the virus’ spread over Christmas. All he has offered so far is confusion and indecision.”

Updated

UK cabinet ministers are set to hold talks at 1pm today as Covid infections continue to rise in England with only days to go until the easing of restrictions for Christmas.

It comes after Boris Johnson held an emergency meeting on Friday evening to discuss how to tackle the spread of a new strain of Covid.

The new coronavirus variant is spreading rapidly in the south-east of England, prompting fears that the country could be forced into a third national lockdown in the new year.

Updated

Hello, I’ll be running the blog for an hour while Damien takes lunch. You can reach me by Twitter DM if you think there’s something I’ve missed. Thanks!

In Greece epidemiologists are predicting that public health restrictions will be in place for months yet, writes Helena Smith, the Guardian’s Athens correspondent.

Speaking this morning on TV, the infectious disease expert Prof Charalambos Gogos described the progress made in curbing the second wave of the pandemic as “timid.” With the prospect of people gathering over the festive period, health experts were especially concerned, he said.

Gogos, who sits on the scientific committee that advises Greece’s centre-right government on how best to handle the pandemic, told Open News:

In general, people should not be gathering. In closed spaces it’s a problem. In an enclosed space even one person who is positive and wearing a mask will transmit it.

Sacrifices have to continue and in reality we are calculating [restrictions continuing] for the next one to two months. There has been small but timid progress but there are tens of thousands of active cases.

Under the circumstances, it was unclear if most schools would reopen as planned on 7 January, he added.

Athens, which as of this week has been decked out in Christmas decorations.
Athens, which as of this week has been decked out in Christmas decorations. Photograph: Helena Smith/The Guardian

Greece has been under lockdown since 7 November, with restrictions on movement repeatedly prolonged.

A 5am to 9pm curfew was extended to 10pm last week, with hairdressers and bookshops allowed to reopen but all other retail stores and restaurants ordered to remain closed. In the run-up to Christmas, customers have, however, been allowed to collect merchandise bought online or by phone under a new system dubbed “clickaway” – much to the fury of linguistic professors who claim the pandemic is also destroying the Greek language. Since its introduction, turnover for retails has increased by 20%, according to Saturday’s Kathimerini newspaper.

A man waits outside a store to pick up merchandise under a new ‘clickaway’ system introduced to prevent crowding in shops.
A man waits outside a store to pick up merchandise under a new ‘clickaway’ system introduced to prevent crowding in shops. Photograph: Helena Smith/The Guardian

By Friday, Greece’s public health organisation had announced a total of 129,584 confirmed coronavirus cases and 4,044 fatalities as a result of Covid-19. Hospitals in the north of the country have been under particular pressure because of the surge. Experts have described the number of patients in intensive care units as remaining “stubbornly high” at 527.

Updated

Shop closures and traffic restrictions in Iran will begin earlier on Saturday as Iranians prepare for the Shab-e Yalda winter festival, according to Reuters.

“Let’s not gather, so we don’t become fewer,” the president, Hassan Rouhani, said in televised remarks on Saturday, urging Iranians not to hold extended family gatherings.

This year, the ancient winter solstice celebration falls on Sunday night. Families traditionally celebrate until the early hours of the morning, reciting poems, singing and eating nuts, dried fruits, watermelon, pomegranates and persimmon.

Pomegranates are eaten to symbolise the cycle of life, watermelon represents health while dried fruits and nuts, or ajeel, symbolise prosperity and wealth.

Shops were ordered to close two hours earlier, from 6pm on Saturday and Sunday, the deputy health minister, Alireza Raisi, announced on state television. A traffic curfew was brought forward an hour to 8pm until 4am.

The health ministry said on Saturday that 175 people had died over the previous 24 hours, the lowest daily death toll since 19 September. It said to date a total of 53,448 people had died from the coronavirus and 1,152,072 had been infected.

Updated

Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust, the multi billion-pound healthcare charitable foundation, has called the new strain of coronavirus found in the UK “worrying and a real cause for concern and extra caution”.

Warning that “we must keep doing all we can to stay safe”, Farrar described the prospect of families and friends mixing over Christmas “a huge concern”, adding that there was “no time for complacency”.

As a result of the mutation, Farrar speculated, the pandemic could be entering a “less predictable phase”.

The Wellcome Trust is a charitable healthcare foundation worth nearly £30bn, founded in 1936 by Henry Wellcome, who made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry.

Updated

Austria expects to pay out an extra nearly €1bn (£906m) to support businesses hit by the country’s latest lockdown, the finance minister, Gernot Blümel, said on Saturday, according to Reuters.

Austria will go into its third lockdown after Christmas, lifting it earlier for people who get tested, the government said on Friday. The new lockdown comes 11 days after a second lockdown ended.

Blümel said companies in November and December had made more than 120,000 requests, worth €2.2bn, in compensation for revenue lost as a result of the clampdown, of which about €1.8bn had already been paid.

The scheme will be extended until the end of the year at a cost of up to €300m in direct aid. The government is also working on a package for companies indirectly hit.

“In sum we expect costs of nearly €1bn,” he told a news conference.

The new lockdown will start on 26 December, with shops, restaurants, theatres, museums and schools closed until the week of 18 January.

Austria is also introducing a quarantine requirement over the holiday season for almost all of Europe that appears to at least partly aim at deterring visits by skiers from neighbouring countries.

Updated

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has been authorised for use in Switzerland following a two-month rolling review, a day after Swiss authorities imposed a new lockdown that will close bars and restaurants across the country.

Switzerland, population 8.6 million, is currently reporting more than 4,000 new cases and 100 deaths a day, as health authorities struggle to contain a second wave of pandemic that has dwarfed the first that swept the country in spring.

The Swissmedic regulatory authority said Saturday:

After a meticulous review of the available information, Swissmedic concluded that the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech is safe and that its benefit outweighs the risks.

Raimund Bruhin, the agency’s director, added:

The safety of patients is an essential prerequisite, especially where the authorisation of vaccines is concerned.

Thanks to the rolling procedure and our flexibly organised teams, we nevertheless managed to reach a decision quickly - while also fully satisfying the three most important requirements of safety, efficacy and quality.

Updated

Western Australia to reimpose 'hard' border with New South Wales

From Australian Associated Press:

Western Australia is reinstating its hard border with New South Wales amid concerns the Sydney northern beaches outbreak is growing.

Premier Mark McGowan said WA’s “low risk” rating for the eastern state had been upgraded to “medium risk”, meaning that it would reinstate the same strict measures seen earlier in the year.

“This has been a difficult decision to make especially given the time of year,” McGowan said on Saturday. “I understand this will be devastating news for people looking to meet family for Christmas in NSW.”

But he said the alternative, if the virus came into WA and caused a shutdown there over Christmas, would be worse.

“That’s what we’re trying to avoid here,” he said.

Public health messaging is displayed on temporary signage at Dee Why beach on Sydney’s northern beaches, where there has been a Covid outbreak.
Public health messaging is displayed on temporary signage at Dee Why beach on Sydney’s northern beaches, where there has been a Covid outbreak. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/EPA

McGowan said WA’s revised border measures had come following an Australian health protection principal committee meeting, where health chief across the country had received the latest advice.

The only people from NSW able to fly into WA after midnight on Saturday will be those with special exemptions.

McGowan had a strong message for NSW contact tracers chasing down infections: “They need to get it under control.”

Read the full story here:

Updated

It seems that the flouting of coronavirus rules by senior politicians and other prominent figures in the media and public life is not a purely British disease.

The president of Chile was on Friday handed a fine of about £2,600 for posing for a bare-faced selfie on the beach with a fan. Masks are mandatory in all public places in Chile, on the pain of sanctions potentially including a spell in jail.

Pinera turned himself in shortly after the selfie surfaced on social media in early December, according to Reuters.

The president said he had been walking alone along the beach near his home in Cachagua, a Chilean seaside town, when a woman recognised him and asked for a photo together.

The selfie shows the president and the woman standing very near to one another on a sunny day, neither wearing masks.

Chile has reported 581,135 cases of the virus since the outbreak began in March, and 16,051 deaths from the disease.

Updated

The Sydney to Hobart yacht race appears likely to be cancelled or postponed for the first time in 75 years after Tasmania imposed a 14-day quarantine on all arrivals from Sydney.

Race organisers were on Saturday morning still doggedly pushing ahead with plans for the Boxing Day start despite the serious implications of the outbreak of Covid-19 in Sydney’s northern beaches suburbs.

About 150 sailors registered for the event – a third of the fleet’s crew – are locked down in that hotspot area and not allowed to travel to Tasmania. However, the escalation of health orders in Tasmania later in the day, quarantining all arrivals from Sydney, heaped further pressure on the race.

On Saturday evening the Tasmanian premier, Peter Gutwein, said the future of the 2020 race remained with organisers but conceded it would be hard to go ahead with it now, with no quarantine exception to be made for race entrants.

Updated

The UK’s medicines regulator has responded to a claim in a national newspaper that it is poised to approve a coronavirus vaccine developed at Oxford university, saying its review is “ongoing”.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) comments followed reports the vaccine could be approved before the new year, with the Daily Telegraph reporting senior Whitehall sources believe the MHRA will authorise it on 28 or 29 December.

An MHRA spokeswoman said:

Our rolling review of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine is ongoing.

Our process for approving vaccines is designed to make sure that any Covid-19 vaccine authorised meets the expected high standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.

Any vaccine must undergo robust clinical trials in line with international standards, with oversight provided by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and no vaccine would be authorised for supply in the UK unless the expected standards of safety, quality and efficacy are met.

Health officials in the Philippines have reported 1,491 new confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number in the country to 458,044.

So far 421,086 patients infected with the virus have recovered, with a further 436 recoveries announced on Saturday. Thirty-six more people died from Covid-19, raising the country’s total death toll from the virus to 8,911.

With excitement growing in the largely Catholic country ahead of Christmas, the health undersecretary, Maria Rosario Vergeire, warned that infections could reach 4,000 a day if people continue to attend parties and shop in crowded malls.

“We are seeing right now cities in Metro Manila with numbers shifting to moderate risks compared to the numbers recorded last week,” she was quoted as saying by Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency.

Updated

Singapore reports no new local transmission of coronavirus today.

With parts of the UK said to be facing a new, more transmissible strain of coronavirus, as millions of people look forward to Christmas, the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said the government faces a “finely-balanced judgment” on whether to tighten the coronavirus rules.

Hunt, who now chairs the Commons health and social care committee, said that if ministers did not want to change the law they should consider strengthening the guidance on social-distancing, the PA news agency reports. He was quoted as telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

It is a very difficult, finely-balanced judgment. The biggest worry is what happens indoor in family gatherings and that’s where the risks do increase.

They have to respond to what is happening on the ground. I think they can be clearer about what is and isn’t advisable because it would be an enormous tragedy if we had a spike in deaths at the end of January/February because we took our foot off the pedal this close to having a vaccine.

Hunt said it was on a “knife-edge” whether a third national lockdown would be needed after Christmas.

Looking at the numbers it is difficult to judge at the moment because in the north-east and the north-west although infection levels are going up they are still much lower than they have been, and the second strain of the virus doesn’t seem to have spread as much in the north as it has in the south. I would say at the moment it is on a knife-edge.

Updated

Canada’s health regulator said it expects to complete its review of the Moderna mRNA coronavirus vaccine in the coming weeks, according to Reuters.

“There is still information and data to be provided by Moderna for review,” the regulator said in a statement, published after the US Food and Drug Administration approved its emergency use on Friday.

Health Canada said it could not provide a definite timeline for the vaccine approval but expected the process to be completed in the coming weeks.

Canada on Tuesday also announced an agreement to receive early deliveries of the Moderna vaccine amid a surge of cases that are forcing new health restrictions across the country.

Last week Canada’s health ministry had approved Pfizer Inc’s vaccine , developed with Germany’s BioNTech.

It has also received applications for other experimental vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

Updated

Most of the UK national papers are leading with some variation of impending third coronavirus lockdown today, and the apparently futile attempts by the government to find a way to forestall it.

A corner-stone of the UK government’s plans to try to get the pandemic back under control after the planned Christmas blowout is the testing of all secondary school children, a plan now in disarray after unions told members not to work on the scheme over the holidays, write Richard Adams, Heather Stewart and Ben Quinn.

A statement by the four main teaching unions and the National Governance Association advised staff to delay preparations until the start of term on 4 or 5 January and refuse to work on the scheme over the Christmas break.

“It is our view that due to the chaotic and rushed nature of this announcement, the lack of proper guidance and an absence of appropriate support, the government’s plan in its current form will be inoperable for most schools and colleges,” the statement said.

“Schools and colleges simply do not have the staffing capacity to carry this out themselves. As such, most will not be in a position to carry this out in a safe and effective manner.”

The Royal Statistical Society said it had “major concerns” that the government’s plans may be unsafe because the tests were “imperfect and must be used with great care”, and it called on ministers to “review them with urgency”.

The Times reports on another testing fiasco. According to its lead story, the prime minister’s plan to post millions of testing kits to UK homes every week, thereby avoiding the need for a lockdown, is being blocked by the medicines regulator.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) reportedly says the tests are not accurate enough when carried out by people at home.

The Telegraph reports that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be approved days after Christmas, with a drive to inject it into millions of people due to begin from the start of January.

Senior Whitehall sources believe the Medicines and Healthcare product Regulatory Agency will authorise the vaccines on 28 or 29 December, after final data are provided to the regulator on Monday.

Football stadiums and locations nationwide will then open from the first week of January to allow mass vaccinations on a scale not seen before in the UK.

Updated

Good morning, this is Damien Gayle taking over the live blog from London, with thanks to Lisa Cox for all her global news coverage so far today.

As usual on a Saturday, I’ll be mixing up UK and global coronavirus-related news on here. If you have any comments, tips or suggestions then let me know, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter DM to @damiengayle.

What has happened so far today, Saturday 19 December

I’ll be handing over to my colleague, Damien Gayle, who will continue our global coverage from London. Thanks for following with us today.

In case you’ve missed anything so far, here is what happened:

  • The total number of coronavirus cases in India surged past 10m on Saturday, the second highest in the world.
  • Millions of people in England have woken to tougher coronavirus restrictions as parts of the south-east move into Tier 3. There are now 38 million people, or 68% of the country’s population, under the toughest restrictions.
  • Germany reported 31,300 new cases and 702 deaths.
  • Moderna Inc’s coronavirus vaccine on Friday became the second to receive emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration. It is the first regulatory authorisation in the world for the Moderna vaccine.
  • The northern beaches area of Sydney entered a four-day lockdown to midnight on Wednesday as authorities try to contain a Covid-19 outbreak ahead of Christmas.
  • Twenty-three new Covid-19 cases were confirmed in the Australian state of New South Wales, 21 of those so far linked to the new northern beaches outbreak. The state’s premier, Gladys Berejiklian, warned further restrictions for the rest of Sydney were possible on Sunday if the outbreak appeared more widespread.
  • The Australian states of Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania imposed new travel rules for people arriving in their states from New South Wales and urged their residents not to travel there.

Updated

Millions of people in England will be waking up to harsher coronavirus restrictions on Saturday as parts of the south-east head into Tier 3. The change means 38 million people, or 68% of the population of England, are now under the toughest restrictions.

Here, the PA news agency looks at the situation across the UK:

England

The first rejigging of the new tier system came into force at midnight on Saturday, with more areas under the toughest measures closing pubs, restaurants and cinemas.

Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Peterborough, the whole of Hertfordshire, Surrey with the exception of Waverley, Hastings and Rother on the Kent border of East Sussex, and Portsmouth, Gosport and Havant in Hampshire were moved to the toughest level of restrictions.

Bristol and North Somerset shifted from from Tier 3 to Tier 2, and Herefordshire went down into Tier 1.

Under Tier 3 conditions pubs and restaurants can only offer takeaway or delivery services and indoor entertainment venues are shut.

Tier 2 allows people to meet in groups of up to six outdoors and hospitality venues to serve drinks with substantial meals only. Under Tier 1 – the medium alert level – the “rule of six” is in place indoors and outdoors and hospitality venues can offer table service until 10pm.

Wales

Wales will go into its third lockdown from 28 December, and the entire country is currently under alert level 3 on a four-level system.

Under current rules, people cannot mix socially with people outside their household or bubble, bars and restaurants are prevented from selling alcohol and entertainment venues are shut.

All non-essential retail will close on the evening of Christmas Eve and all hospitality from 6pm on Christmas Day, but further restrictions for household mixing will only come in after the five days of relaxed measures at Christmas.

Scotland

Scotland currently has a five-tier system, with Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and East Lothian moving into Level 3 on Friday, the level where most of the country’s cities and major towns sit.

Under Level 3 restrictions, alcohol cannot be served in pubs, restaurants and cafes, and all leisure and entertainment premises must close.

As far as restrictions after Christmas go, the Scottish government has said “every possible option remains on the table”.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland will enter a six-week lockdown from 26 December, with Stormont executive ministers agreeing to close non-essential retail and contact services, as well as restricting the hospitality sector to takeaway only.

No sporting events will be permitted in the first week of the measures, with an overarching message to the public to stay at home.

Currently, two households can form a bubble, restaurants and pubs which serve food can open but must close by 11pm and all shops can open so long as social distancing is enforced.

Updated

via AP

China will soon begin coronavirus vaccinations for workers in health care, transport and border control, a senior official said Saturday.

Vice Minister of the National Health Commission Zeng Yixin gave few specifics but said the government was prioritizing those most at risk of catching the virus.

Workers in logistics and in markets selling fresh meat and seafood would also be placed higher on the list of those receiving vaccines, along with the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions.

China says it has largely contained the spread of the virus domestically, announcing just three new cases of local infection on Saturday, two of them in the capital Beijing and one in the northeastern province of Liaoning.

Vaccines produced by Chinese companies are pending approval in Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil, as manufacturers continue testing the vaccines in more than a dozen countries including Russia, Egypt and Mexico.

Bahrain became the second country in the world to approve a Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccine, joining the United Arab Emirates.

The UAE last week announced the vaccine was 86% effective, marking the first public release of information on the efficacy of the shot.

Chinese companies have yet to provide information about the results of their phase 3 trials. One of the top firms, Sinopharm, did not respond to multiple messages for comment on its prior efficacy announcement.

Chinese companies have previously released phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trial data for their vaccines through peer-reviewed academic journals.

We have updated our list of coronavirus hotspots in NSW with all of the locations linked to the new outbreak so far.

You can also check the official location alerts published by NSW Health here.

Updated

Via Reuters:

Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Washington were working through the weekend to complete a $900bn coronavirus aid bill for American individuals and businesses struggling from the economic fallout of pandemic lockdowns.

It would be the largest relief package since this spring, when Congress approved more than $4tn in aid. The Covid-19 pandemic has killed 311,000 Americans, by far the most in the world, and put millions out of work.

Economists say growth will likely remain sluggish until vaccines are widely available in mid-2021.

The Senate is to convene at 11am (16.00 GMT) on Saturday. Representative Steny Hoyer, the second-most senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, said on Friday any vote on a package would not come before Sunday afternoon.

Republicans and Democrats say they are close to a deal, but significant differences remain.

Republicans are pushing to rein in Federal Reserve lending programs for midsize businesses and municipal bond issuers that were intended to ease the pandemic’s sting, saying those programs were meant to be temporary.

But Democrats say the move is an attempt to tie the hands of President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office on 20 January.

The parties also disagree over how much to give to arts venues closed by Covid-19 restrictions, and how much emergency aid should go to local governments for supplies like personal protective equipment for schools.

But many issues have been settled. The legislation is expected to include one-off $600 checks for most Americans, enhanced unemployment benefits of $300 a week, help for states distributing coronavirus vaccines and more assistance for small businesses.

Updated

Via Reuters:

A fire in a private hospital’s Covid-19 intensive care unit has killed eight people, the governor’s office in the southeastern Turkish province of Gaziantep said on Saturday.

The fire was caused by the explosion of an oxygen ventilator, the office said in a statement, adding that 11 other patients receiving treatment in the unit were transferred to nearby hospitals.

Updated

Now Queensland health authorities have issued their official statement about travel rules for people arriving from NSW, clarifying what we learned from their press conference earlier today.

From 1am Sunday 20 December, anyone entering Queensland from New South Wales will need to have a border pass declaration.

The online system will be live by 8pm tonight.

Anyone travelling from the northern beaches must go into hotel quarantine for 14 days.

The state’s health minister, Yvette D’Ath, said anyone entering Queensland from greater Sydney or the Central Coast should get tested on entry to the state and self-quarantine until they receive their result.

“We’re adding additional measures to keep Queenslanders safe and we’re encouraging anyone in Queensland who has Covid symptoms, whether they’ve been travelling or not, to get tested,” she said.

The government is also urging Queenslanders to reconsider any travel to NSW.

“New South Wales is doing a great job and we hope this cluster is contained to the Northern Beaches area, but if we start to see spread into Sydney and surrounds, we will not hesitate to implement extra hotspots,” she said.

“We hope not to have to do that, but my message to Queenslanders is, now is not the time to be in Sydney.”

Over the past week, traces of the virus have been detected in wastewater on the Gold Coast, North Cairns, Townsville and Cleveland.

Updated

If you’re interested in knowing a bit more about what’s happening with the Sydney to Hobart race, have a read of this story by AAP.

Crisis meetings on Friday were held with the Tasmanian government and the organisers of the race, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA).

A definitive decision on whether the race would go ahead was expected on Saturday morning, but the CYCA is remaining tight-lipped as they work through possible scenarios.

Victoria’s health service says officials are contacting all airline passengers who travelled from NSW and arrived into Victoria after 11 December.

Any passengers who have travelled from the Northern Beaches and other NSW exposure sites from 11 December will be required to get tested and self-quarantine for 14 days from the date they were last in a red zone.

Six people from the community have been moved into Covid-19 accommodation, including two unaccompanied minors who entered Victoria from a red zone in New South Wales and their carer who was isolating in Victoria after yesterday’s announcement.

The program has also accepted a Victorian healthcare worker and two community members who are close contacts of cases in the Northern Beaches cluster and are not able to isolate safely in their own homes.

The Victorian government has issued a statement clarifying its travel restrictions:

A permit system is now in force for all New South Wales residents travelling to Victoria, residents from other states travelling through NSW and Victorians visiting NSW and returning home.

Anyone trying to enter Victoria from the Northern Beaches and other NSW exposure sites (red zone) will not be permitted to enter. If passengers do arrive from a red zone, they will be transferred to hotel quarantine where they will be required to remain for 14 days.

Anyone from NSW travelling from Greater Sydney (orange zone) is encouraged to get tested on arrival and self-quarantine until they receive a negative result.

Those travelling from regional NSW (green zone) will be asked to monitor for symptoms.

All travellers will be asked to carry their permit with them when flying and flights will be met by public health officials at Tullamarine Airport and Albury, Mildura, Bendigo and Avalon regional airports.

Further details on permits and how to apply can be found here.

Updated

I will now hand over to my colleague Lisa Cox who will take you through the next little while.

Lisa wrote this article earlier on the risk of greater Sydney going into lockdown.

New South Wales health authorities have released new venues of concern visited by Covid-19 cases linked to the northern beaches cluster.

Anyone who has attended Sunset Diner, 41 Old Barrenjoey Road, Avalon Beach on Friday 11 December between 6.30-8pm is considered a close contact and should get tested and isolate for 14 days even if they receive a negative result:

Anyone who attended the Café Relish, 8/1 N Avalon Road, Avalon Beach on Thursday 17 December between 10.30am-11.30am is considered a casual contact and should get tested immediately and isolate until they receive a negative result:

People who visited the following venues at the below times should get tested immediately and self-isolate until NSW Health provides further information:

  • Fitness First Mona Vale, Pittwater Place Shopping Centre, 10 Park Street Mona Vale: Sunday 13 December, 2-4pm and Monday 14 December, 10.30am-12.30am and Wednesday 16 December, 8.30-10pm
  • 4 Pines, Newport, 313 Barrenjoey Road, Newport: Tuesday 15 December, 6-10pm

Updated

'Very challenging' for Sydney to Hobart to proceed as Tasmanian restrictions increase to greater Sydney

Tasmanian premier Peter Gutwein has announced that all of greater Sydney is now considered medium-risk, as the northern beaches cluster continues to grow.

Arrivals from greater Sydney will need to quarantine for 14 days, either at a home or a government run hotel at the traveller’s expense.

Only returning Tasmanian residents will be allowed to enter if they have visited the northern beaches.

Gutwein also commented on the risk of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race being cancelled as a result of the cluster. It is understood a significant number of yacht crew involved in the race live on Sydney’s northern beaches.

Gutwein acknowledged the new restrictions he announced on Saturday make it “very difficult for that race to continue”.

“It’s clear that these conditions would make it very challenging for the race to proceed,” he said, but added “ultimately it’s a decision for the event organisers” to make.

Updated

The ABC are reporting that former Australian men’s cricket captain Ian Chappell has been forced to leave his commentary duties with the broadcaster at Adelaide Oval - on day three of the Australia India first test - and go into self-isolation.

It is understood the 77-year-old, who lives on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, was responding to South Australian health advice related to Sydney’s growing cluster.

The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has released a statement clarifying the details of the snap lockdown to contain Sydney’s growing northern beaches cluster – which grew to 38 Covid-19 cases on Friday.

The public health order, which lawyers raced to finalise over the past few hours, will come into effect from 5pm on Saturday, and last until midnight on Wednesday.

As previously foreshadowed, residents of the Northern Beaches Council area must stay home unless it is for one of four essential reasons, which are:

• Shopping for food or other goods and services

• Medical care or compassionate needs

• Exercise

• Work or education, where you cannot work from home

Berejiklian also reiterated that broader restrictions across greater Sydney are being considered, to be announced as early as tomorrow.

Updated

I will now hand over to my colleague Elias Visontay to take you through the next little while.

India reaches 10m cases

AFP reports India surged past 10m coronavirus cases on Saturday, official data showed, the second highest in the world although new infection rates appear to have fallen sharply in recent weeks.

Total cases were 10m, up just over 25,000 in 24 hours, with 9.6m recoveries and 145,136 deaths, according to the health ministry.

Germany reports 31,300 new cases and 702 deaths

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 31,300 to 1,471,238, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday.

Reuters reported the death toll rose by 702 to 25,640.

Passers-by walk along the near-empty Neue Wall upscale shopping mall in Hamburg, northern Germany, a few days after the start of a nation-wide partial lockdown to curb the spread of Covid.
Passersby walk along the near-empty Neuer Wall upscale shopping mall in Hamburg, northern Germany, a few days after the start of a nation-wide partial lockdown to curb the spread of Covid. Photograph: Axel Heimken/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Sydney to Hobart organisers are pushing ahead with plans for the historical race despite growing concerns about the outbreak of Covid-19 on the northern beaches.

AAP reports:

NSW Health announced a further 23 cases on Saturday morning, prompting the state government to enforce a lock down in the area from 5pm until midnight Wednesday.

It has cast further doubt on the 2020 Sydney to Hobart race with around 150 sailors registered for the event residing in the northern beaches.

Already the Tasmanian government has shut borders to anyone who lives on Sydney’s northern beaches or visited the hotspot since December 11, and reiterated no exemptions would be made for the Sydney to Hobart fleet.

That decision is likely to affect up to a third of the fleet with the event due to start on Boxing Day.

Crisis meetings on Friday were held with the Tasmanian government and the organisers of the race, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA).

A definitive decision on whether the race would go ahead was expected on Saturday morning, but the CYCA is remaining tight-lipped as they work through possible scenarios.

Should the race be cancelled it will be for the first time in its 75-year history.

Yachts on the water

Updated

Cook says the 13 new cases in NSW was “pleasing” in that it wasn’t an escalation as had been seen in Victoria at the start of the second wave.

“That’s not an explosion.”

But he says it will be monitored, and if there is an explosion or spread outside of the northern beaches, then WA will take action.

Cook says of the people who arrived from NSW between 11 and 17 December, around 92 were in the northern beaches prior to arriving. A total of 24 have since returned home, and 68 are in isolation.

A total of 26 of those have tested negative, with results still waiting on the rest.

WA will not make further changes to the border at this point. Cook says WA will monitor the situation closely.

Western Australia’s health minister, Roger Cook, confirms one new Covid-19 in the state – a male in his 30s who is a returned traveller in hotel quarantine.

Updated

Several of Sydney FC’s A-League squad will not be able to go home after leaving hotel quarantine this afternoon due to the Covid-19 outbreak on the city’s northern beaches, AAP reports.

The Sky Blues squad have been together for five weeks having flown to Qatar to compete in the AFC Champions League in mid-November.

Head Coach Steve Corica and players Calem Nieuwenhof, Harry Van der Saag, Patrick Wood and Levi Kaye, who all live on the peninsula, will spend the next few days in city hotels or with family members in others suburbs.

The decision will keep them out of the Covid-19 hotspot and allow them to train and potentially travel inter-state depending on developments.

“I’m not going home, I’m going into the city,” said Corica.

“We won’t see our families for another four days until Thursday morning to keep out of the danger zone and until we know what’s going on.

“We want to make sure the season goes ahead so we are taking precautions.

“We’ve been safe this whole time having had plenty of Covid tests which we’ve all passed.

“It’s going to be tough but it’s what we have to do.”

Sydney FC’s remaining squad members will return to their homes when their 14-day quarantine ends at 4pm Saturday.

Updated

Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young says she wants every airline crew member to get tested every seven days, no matter where they are in the world. She says many already do this.

International crew that do not have a home in Queensland will be required to quarantine in a government-run hotel rather than the usual hotels used for international crew. This will start in the next few days, she says.

Australia is too reliant on air travel for moving not only people but freight to cause too much disruption to those services, she says.

Updated

LATAM Airlines, one of South America’s biggest carriers, has confirmed it is working with New South Wales authorities after one of its crews breached quarantine requirements earlier this month.

The aircrew had arrived in Australia from South America and was required to self isolate either for 14 days or until its next flight. But police allege the crew instead left its Mascot accommodation on 5 December, visiting several venues.

Thirteen crew members have been fined $1,000 each for breaching public health orders.

In a pre-prepared statement to the Guardian, the airline said its staff tested negative to the virus on 6 December. It did not offer any immediate apology, but said it was working with local authorities.

“LATAM Airlines Group advises that all crew members tested negative for Covid-19 on December 6th,” the airline said.

“The airline is cooperating with NSW Health to ensure all measures protecting public health are followed.”

The incident has prompted a crackdown on aircrew quarantine in NSW. From Tuesday, aircrews will be required to stay at two designated hotels near the airport, where they will be monitored by police and health authorities.

Updated

Queensland’s chief health officer, Jeannette Young, says, like the other states, they are monitoring the situation in New South Wales over the coming days, but she hopes that they can maintain the level of openness between Queensland and NSW that has been in place this month.

There won’t be barriers at the border, but police will do random audits.

Queensland police have already processed 3,640 people at the airport, 174 people who have identified coming from the northern beaches have gone into self quarantine, one person who has gone into hotel quarantine and 11 other people like close contacts with positive cases from the northern beaches who have been contacted, asked to get tested and gone into self-quarantine.

Updated

Here’s my colleague Elias Visontay’s full report on the new rules for the northern beaches of Sydney.

People from NSW to need border pass for Qld

Queensland health authorities say anyone coming from the northern beaches from Sydney will need to apply for an exemption, and if they’re granted an exemption, they will need to go into hotel quarantine. That includes Queenslanders returning home.

All people travelling from NSW from 1am tomorrow will need a border pass declaration.

People from the central coast or greater Sydney will be asked to get tested on arrival in Queensland, and isolate until the result comes back.

Updated

Again, really?

Hong Kong authorities are searching for a Covid-19 positive patient who escaped one of the city’s largest hospitals while undergoing treatment, according to health officials.

Reuters reports the 63-year old man, identified as patient 7379, was admitted to the isolation ward of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on December 14 after it was confirmed he had Covid-19.

However, the man escaped the hospital ward via a stairwell on Friday and could not be recaptured. A statement from the hospital said the patient escaped wearing a jacket over hospital clothes.

“Staff spotted that the man was making his way to run away for the ward – staff chased him but the efforts were in vain,* said a hospital spokesman.

It is the first known case of an escape from hospital of a Covid-19 patient. Hong Kong has recorded 7,970 Covid-19 cases, according to a government website.

Two patients, aged 84 and 85, died in the past two days, a hospital authority statement issued on Friday said.

The first known escape of a patient with Covid has occurred in Hong Kong after a man fled a hospital ward via a stairwell.
The first known escape of a patient with Covid has occurred in Hong Kong after a man fled a hospital ward via a stairwell. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Victoria’s health minister, Martin Foley, was asked about Sydneysiders coming down for the Boxing Day cricket test.

He said if they’re from the northern beaches they should stay home.

“When this is all over, we look forward to you coming to Melbourne and enjoying the cultural and sporting capital of the country, but at the moment please don’t come. It’s not in your interests and in particular it’s not in Victoria’s interests.

If you come from the red zones you will spend your Christmas in quarantine and if you think you’re coming to the Boxing Day Test, you will spend your period in quarantine hotels. That’s not a risk that is worth taking and should the situation spread beyond the identified areas, we will have more to say about that at the time.

So I’m looking forward to the 30,000 cap at the [MCG] applying pretty well and I’m pretty sure that the cricket ground won’t have any trouble in selling 30,000 tickets for the Boxing Day.”

He says people from Sydney should not travel if they have a choice not to.

We know that’s disruptive. We know that’s tough. We know that’s not the message that so many families want to hear. But it’s in your interests and in Victoria’s interests. I know it’s a tough message, particularly at this time of the year, but please don’t come.

Just an FYI, the Westfield Bondi and Cronulla Mall exposure sites have been downgraded, so people just have to watch for symptoms, and get tested if you get them. Not get tested and isolate immediate, which was the previous advice.

Updated

Foley is asked whether Victoria should be moving faster to call all of greater Sydney a “red zone” which would mean anyone from Sydney would not be able to travel into Victoria.

He says the recommendation at the moment is still to keep the restrictions on the hot spot areas mostly concentrated around the northern beaches.

But they are monitoring closely the next 24 hours and if there is evidence Covid-19 has spread more broadly across Sydney “then that will see, without hesitation, the advice, if it is made by the public health teams, to treat greater Sydney as a red zone”.

“Then we will act and that will mean that anyone coming from greater Sydney will be spending their Christmas in Melbourne or in Victoria in hotel quarantining.”

Updated

Foley is asked about reports that some passengers arriving in Victoria are not being asked for proof of where they are from.

“All the advice I have got is that the system is working pretty well. All the flights are being met by authorised officers or DHHS staff all in full PPE and they are all being provided the material around their obligations and their requirement to provide their permits and that is how this particular family were identified,” he says.

Updated

Foley is asked how two unaccompanied minors who had been in the northern beaches were able to board a flight to Melbourne.

“That is a good question. We are working with Melbourne Airport and the airline so as to establish how that happened,” he says.

“That clearly speaks to some issues at the Sydney end of things. We are going to follow that one through to make sure that doesn’t occur again.

“However, I was pleased that our authorised officers and our systems at this end of the system worked and that we were able to identify those unaccompanied minors and their carer so quickly and get them – issue them detention orders and get them straight into hotel quarantining.”

Updated

Foley says the state has been contacting people who travelled into Victoria after December 11 but before the permit system was introduced.

He said that system had identified 300 people yesterday who had been in the northern beaches.

“They are subject to both visits by authorised officers and check-ins by phone to make sure that that group are self-isolating and protecting themselves and Victoria’s hard won status of 50 days COVID-free,” he says.

Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, says further cases are expected to be confirmed in NSW and Victoria is monitoring those numbers.

“If there is transmission in the greater Sydney area, we need to reflect on that and, as the minister has indicated, what that might mean for a permit scheme or prohibition of people coming from greater Sydney,” he says.

“But at the moment, it is strongly concentrated in the northern beaches area in Sydney, that is a good thing in terms of managing transmission but in recent days people have moved about a great deal and that means – that may well mean there are settings outside of that area where other individuals have been exposed.”

Updated

Foley says one frontline worker and one community member have moved into emergency accommodation because they could not safely isolate at home.

The frontline worker is a Victorian healthcare worker who is a close contact of the northern beaches cluster and was not able to safely isolate at their own home.

The community member recently arrived in Melbourne from Sydney and they are also a close contact of a northern beach cluster, positive case.

Victorian health minister says travel from greater Sydney will be forbidden if Covid 'seeded' there

Foley says some 52,000 permits have been issued to travellers since midnight.

He warns that if there is evidence Covid-19 has seeded beyond the northern beaches and across Sydney, all of greater Sydney will be declared a “red zone” and travel from greater Sydney into Victoria will not be permitted.

Foley says two unaccompanied minors arrived in Victoria this morning from the red zone and have gone into hotel quarantine with their carer who is self-isolating.

“My message to anyone in the red zones of Sydney is if you come to Melbourne, you will be spending your Christmas in hotel quarantining. That is not a position we want anyone to be in,” he says.

Updated

Foley is now reiterating the rules for travellers from NSW.

There is now a permit in force for anyone travelling from NSW into Victoria.

Anyone who has been in the northern beaches or other exposed sites is not permitted to enter. If they do, they will be transferred to hotel quarantine for 14 days.

Victoria’s health minister, Martin Foley, is speaking.

He starts by saying the state has recorded its 50th day of zero community transmission of Covid-19.

“As we have seen in recent outbreaks in Sydney, this pandemic is far from over and still has a long way to go,” he says.

“This pandemic isn’t over until all Australians have been vaccinated and that is a long way away.”

Foley says the state has recorded two new cases in hotel quarantine, one is a teenage girl and the other a woman in her 30s.

One of those cases was a member of an international flight crew who was in hotel quarantine at the time of her diagnosis.

One local close contact, who transported the crew from the airport to their hotel, has been identified and that person is now required to quarantine for 14 days.

Via AAP:

Pandemic-weary Melburnians are fleeing the city in droves as a result of successive lockdowns, new research has found.

Coronavirus has shattered usual growth trends and international and domestic migration, Australia’s first Population Statement confirms.

In 2020-21 the national will grow at its slowest rate since World War One, the report issued by the federal government’s Centre for Population says.

With overseas migration effectively on hold, internal migration will be the main driver of changes to population distribution.

The number of people moving interstate is expected to fall 12% in 2020-21 to the lowest rate on record.

Victoria is forecast to be exempt from that trend, with an estimated 12,000 expected to leave Melbourne in both 2020-21 and 2021-22.

That is 10 times more people migrating from the city than in the previous year, minister for population Alan Tudge says.

“The research also shows an extraordinary reversal in migration patterns is expected in Melbourne and Victoria as a result of the extended lockdown,” he said in a statement.

“For the first time in over a decade, there is now evidence that people are leaving Victoria and Melbourne in particular.”

The Population Statement notes the greater social and economic impacts felt by the state due to its second outbreak and resulting lockdown will drive the trend.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released in November showed Victoria had an overall loss of people to other states in the three months to June for the first time since 2008. It was the state’s biggest quarterly loss since 1996.

However Melbourne is still set to overtake Sydney as the country’s largest city in 2026-27.

Ten times more people are expected to leave Melbourne than last year, Alan Tudge says. But the city is still expected to overtake Sydney as Australia’s largest city by 2026-2027.
Coronavirus has shattered population trends, with 10 times more people expected to leave Melbourne than last year. But the city is still expected to overtake Sydney as Australia’s largest city by 2026-2027. Photograph: Chris Putnam/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Kelly says commonwealth staff have been assisting NSW health workers, including in the state’s emergency operations centre and with aged care matters.

One aged care home in Bayview, where there have been two cases, is getting extra assistance, he says, and private testing arrangements are being put in place to limit the spread of the virus.

Kelly says so far, almost all of the newly confirmed cases of Covid-19 in NSW are linked to at least one of these venues: the Avalon RSL, the Avalon Bowling Club, and Anytime Fitness in Avalon.

He says it will be a decision for the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, as to whether the state moves to tougher restrictions across greater Sydney on Sunday.

“We have been working on the hypothesis, or they (NSW) have been with our assistance, that this cluster has come from a passenger that arrived into Australia on 1st December from the US and the molecular genomic testing of the virus suggests that is where it probably started,” Kelly says.

Updated

The acting chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, has been speaking.

He says his “heart goes out” to people in the northern beaches.

“I would give a shout out to the community there in the northern beaches. You were turning up in huge numbers to get tested, that is what we need right now to find out how this virus has spread,” he says.

He thanks hospitality venues that have voluntarily shut down.

He calls for people to get themselves tested and to download the CovidSafe app.

Kelly says he has been speaking to the NSW chief health officer, Kerry Chant, several times a day.

“I will go to a meeting straight after this so we can discuss this matter with all states and territories who are all making their own decisions in relation to their border arrangements,” he says.

Acting chief medical officer Paul Kelly gives a ‘shout out’ to the northern beaches community for the big numbers turning up for testing.
Acting chief medical officer Paul Kelly gives a ‘shout out’ to the northern beaches community for the big numbers turning up for testing. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Updated

For those who have been trying to follow the numbers this morning, here is the official table from NSW Health.

  • The total number of cases linked to the Avalon cluster is 38. Fifteen of those cases are linked to the Avalon RSL, 23 are linked to the Avalon Bowling Club and several of those cases attended both venues.
  • Three more locally acquired cases are under investigation.
  • There have been 32 cases linked to overseas travel in the past seven days. Seven of those were diagnosed in the 24 hours up to 8pm on Friday.

Updated

NSW Health releases new list of coronavirus hotspot locations

There have been some more locations of concern released by NSW Health:

Anyone who travelled on the following bus routes is considered a close contact and must get tested and isolate for 14 days regardless of the result:

  • Route B1-1, 14 December, Departing Warriewood BLine, Pittwater Rd 6.55am, arriving Wynyard Station, York Street Stand M, 7.50am
  • Route B1-2, 14 December, Departing Wynyard Station Stand B 5.45pm, arriving Warriewood BLine, Pittwater Road, 6.40pm
  • Route B1-1, 15 December, Departing Warriewood BLine, Pittwater Road 6.35am, arriving Wynyard Station Stand M, 7.35am
  • Route B1-2, 15 December, Departing Wynyard Station Stand B 5.25pm, arriving Warriewood BLine, Pittwater Road, 6.20pm
  • Route B1-1, 16 December 2020, Departing Warriewood BLine, Pittwater Rd, arriving Wynyard Station Stand M, 7.35am
  • Route B1-2, 16 December 2020, Departing Wynyard Station Stand B 4.45pm, arriving Warriewood BLine, Pittwater Road, 5.30pm

Anyone who attended the following venue at the below times, is considered a casual contact and should get tested immediately and isolate until they receive a negative result:

  • Nick Scali at SuperCentre, 4/6 Niangala Close, Belrose, 16 December, 10am -5.30pm

A known case of Covid-19 attended Anytime Fitness on Avalon Parade in Avalon over several days while infectious. A number of people who attended this gym will be identified as close contacts and will be required to isolate for 14 days.

These days were:

  • Saturday 12 December
  • Friday 11 December
  • Tuesday 8 December
  • Monday 7 December
  • Sunday 6 December

NSW Health has updated advice for people who have visited the following shopping malls. People are considered casual contacts, and should monitor for symptoms, and isolate and get tested if symptoms develop:

  • Cronulla Mall, 15 December, 8-9pm and 16 December 11am-noon
  • Westfield Bondi Junction, 15 December, 1-2.30pm

Updated

Mainland China recorded 17 new Covid-19 cases on 18 December, up from 12 a day earlier, the country’s health authority said on Saturday.

The National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin that 14 of the new cases were imported. Among the three local transmissions, two were in the capital Beijing and one was in the northeastern province of Liaoning.

Another 16 asymptomatic cases were also reported on 18 December, up from 11 on the previous day. China does not include asymptomatic patients in its total confirmed case list.

Mainland China has now reported an accumulated total of 86,806 coronavirus cases, with 4,634 deaths.

People walk at a Christmas market in a shopping mall following an outbreak of the coronavirus in Beijing.
People browse at a Christmas market in a shopping mall following an outbreak of the coronavirus in Beijing. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

Updated

NSW MP Rob Stokes has issued a statement supporting the band Nothing Too Serious, one of whose members was one of the early diagnosed Covid-19 cases on the northern beaches.

On Thursday, the health minister, Brad Hazzard, had named the band and said they had performed at a range of venues across Sydney.

The band itself has shared Stokes’s post, from their official page, in a show of approval.

“The band members are not the cause of the Covid-19 outbreak,” Stokes wrote. “They are victims of the virus, just like the rest of us.

“So please, let’s recognise that the band has done nothing wrong, and that any suggestions to the contrary are simply untrue.”

Updated

US FDA approves Moderna Covid-19 vaccine

Moderna Inc’s coronavirus vaccine on Friday became the second to receive emergency use authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration, Reuters reports.

The FDA announced the authorization the day after the agency’s panel of outside experts endorsed its use.

The decision marks the first regulatory authorization in the world for Moderna’s vaccine and validation of its messenger RNA technology. It came less than a year after the first COVID-19 case was identified in the United States.

The biotech company has worked with the US government to prepare for the distribution of 5.9 million shots as early as this weekend.

The FDA decision is based on results from a late-stage study of 30,000 volunteers that found the vaccine was nearly 95% effective at preventing illness from Covid-19 with no serious safety concerns.

“With the availability of two vaccines now for the prevention of Covid-19, the FDA has taken another crucial step in the fight against this global pandemic that is causing vast numbers of hospitalizations and deaths in the United States each day,* FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, MD, said in a statement.

Moderna has deals with the U.S. government to provide 20 million doses this year and a total of 200 million doses by the end of June 2021.

South Korea reports 1,053 new cases

Via Reuters:

South Korea reported 1,053 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

The daily numbers were above 1,000 for the fourth straight day for the first time since the start of the pandemic, the KDCA data showed.

If the NSW case numbers were confusing, it was because yesterday they provided the most up-to-date data they had, but now they have gone back to once a day reporting, so only 13 of the 23 today we hadn’t heard about before now.

From tomorrow, it will just be the one number.

Updated

NSW health minister Brad Hazzard ends the press conference by pointing out that this outbreak was always a risk when restrictions are eased while we still have people coming into Australia from overseas.

Our ports are a risk, we need to have crews coming in, we need to have people coming back from overseas, Aussies, but creates risks and it is managing the risk.

If we have large gatherings of people together, and that was where we have got to in terms of, that is what we were trying to ensure the community could have more freedom, but we now have to realise again, yet again, as has occurred in other parts of the world, that this virus is extremely dangerous, and it knows how to get in through the points that we only learn about after it starts.

Updated

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian urges her counterparts in other states and territories to be “measured” in their border restrictions. She would have done the same thing in terms of declaring the northern beaches a hotspot, but says they should be measured given the bulk of NSW and greater Sydney is unaffected.

“We ask all state leaders to consider that in their decision-making and consider that even the type of Christmas period it is, and we just ask people to be measured in their response,” she says.

Gladys Berejiklian asks Sydney residents to 'abandon non-essential activity'

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian says any new restrictions imposed on greater Sydney would NOT be as strong as what is being imposed on the northern beaches, but she implores people in Sydney not to go out unless they have to.

“Please, please, do not go out tonight or the next few days unless you really have to. Please don’t leave your home unless you have to,” she says.

“If we need to, we may very well revert back to what we had previous to the last couple of weeks where restrictions were eased from four square metres to two square metres.

“So they are the things we will be considering and looking out and consulting with the relevant people today but it will be based on health advice.”

Updated

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian says she expects a similar number of cases tomorrow, if not more, and that is why the restrictions have been brought in.

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant says the two cases where the source has yet to be determined both live in Avalon. They are not yet linked directly with the Avalon Bowlo and RSL.

“Both live in Avalon and it may turn out that there are subsequent links to people that have been at the RSL, as you can imagine, we are dealing with large numbers and we need to cross-reference it.”

Updated

NSW health minister Brad Hazzard says at the moment it is still a very localised outbreak.

“Every case seems to have some connection, some more tenuous than others, but some very direct, to the Avalon RSL and the Avalon Bowlo.”

But he says it is wise for people in the greater Sydney area to restrict their movements as much as possible for the next few days. He said he knows it is disappointing for people planning for Christmas.

“I was going to be heading off on Christmas morning but I am not doing that now. Events have been cancelled. We are going through this together.”

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant says there were 12,374 tests recorded to 8pm last night, and the cases are predominantly linked to the Avalon Bowlo and the RSL.

Sewerage surveillance from 16 December shows fragments of the virus, she says, which indicates the virus was only recently introduced into the community because there was none found on 10 December.

Updated

Restrictions brought in for northern beaches

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian announces that people in the northern beaches from 5pm today will only be able to leave home if it is for essential purposes such as for work, for compassionate grounds, for exercise or to go shopping.

The rules will be in place until midnight Wednesday.

For the rest of Sydney, the premier asks for people to abandon non-essential activity, but flags more restrictions could be brought in, depending on the advice provided today.

Thirteen new locally acquired cases for NSW

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian reports 13 more community cases discovered since the last update, for 23 in total testing positive.

A total of 21 are connected to the Avalon cluster and two are under investigation.

There were seven new cases in hotel quarantine.

Updated

Alert for Anytime Fitness Avalon customers

Hundreds of gym goers on Sydney’s northern beaches have been asked to get tested and isolate immediately, as NSW Health races to contain a cluster numbering 28 cases, AAP reports.

Authorities issued a public health alert on Saturday morning, calling several hundred people who attended an Avalon gym to take urgent action.

A known case attended Anytime Fitness on Avalon Parade on 6, 7, 8, 11 and 12 December while infectious.

Investigations are underway and authorities are in the process of tracking down close contacts but are asking anyone who attended the gym on those days to get tested immediately and isolate until further advice.

NSW Health has put out testing clinic information while we wait for the case numbers press conference (half an hour to go).

Reuters reports the British government is making a concerted effort to persuade the Trump administration to lift or soften travel restrictions that bar most people in the United Kingdom from travelling to the United States, sources briefed on the matter said.

In an email to Reuters, a spokeswoman for the UK Department for Transport said “restarting transatlantic flights is of critical importance to the economic recovery of the UK and the US, the airline industry and for British nationals, most of whom cannot enter the US. British officials continue to pursue the resolution to this issue.”

The proposal to lift the travel restrictions won the backing of White House coronavirus task-force members, public health and other federal agencies, Reuters reported in November.

One hurdle to lifting the restrictions is the high number of coronavirus infections in Europe. The United States last week extended travel restrictions on Mexico and Canadian land border crossings through at least 21 January.

The US restrictions barring most visitors from Europe have been in place since mid-March to address the coronavirus pandemic, barring entry of most non-US residents who have been in those countries in the previous 14 days.

Nearly all of Europe still bans most US travellers from visiting, while Britain allows American visits but requires two-weeks quarantine upon arrival.

Updated

Cars outside a Covid-19 pop-up testing location at Pittwater Park
Cars outside a Covid-19 pop-up testing location at Pittwater Park. Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images
A passenger on the Manly ferry in Sydney, Australia
A passenger on the Manly ferry in Sydney, Australia. Photograph: Mark Evans/Getty Images

Updated

One in every five state and federal prisoners in the United States has tested positive for the coronavirus, a rate more than four times as high as the general population.

In some states, more than half of prisoners have been infected, according to data collected by The Associated Press and The Marshall Project.

The head of the Food and Drug Administration said late Thursday that his agency will move to quickly authorise the second Covid-19 vaccine to fight the pandemic.

The comments came hours after the shot won the key endorsement of a government advisory panel.

US health officials are seeing an astonishing lack of demand for Covid-19 medicines that may help keep infected people out of the hospital, drugs they rushed out to states over the past few weeks as deaths set new records.

If you are planning on travelling from New South Wales to Victoria, here’s where you can apply for a permit.

The Saturday Telegraph is reporting the new number of cases in NSW is a “worrying” rise, but are all connected to the northern beaches outbreak. So read into that what you will.

We will know more in a little over an hour.

Updated

Here’s the run down on the travel restrictions currently in place for New South Wales, via AAP:

  • Western Australia – Anyone who enters WA from NSW must self-isolate for 14 days. Those already in WA must self-quarantine for 14 days, starting from the date they were last on the northern beaches.
  • South Australia – Anyone in SA who has recently arrived from NSW should follow NSW Health advice by self-isolating for 14 days and getting tested if they have visited any of the venues on NSW’s health alert list.
  • Northern Territory – Anyone who enters NT from Sydney’s Northern Beaches Council area will need to undergo 14 days of supervised quarantine.
  • Queensland – Anyone who enters Queensland and has been on Sydney’s northern beaches since 11 December must get tested and self-isolate for 14 days since their last visit to the region. From Saturday, all people who have been on the northern beaches and want to enter Queensland will be forced into hotel quarantine.
  • ACT – Anyone who enters the ACT and has been on Sydney’s northern beaches since 11 December must get tested and self-isolate.
  • Victoria – Anyone who enters Victoria from Sydney’s northern beaches must get tested and go into mandatory hotel quarantine for 14 days. People from greater Sydney are encouraged to get tested and isolate until results come back.
  • Tasmania – Anyone who has visited the Northern Beaches Council area since 11 December, as well as the Kirribilli Club, Penrith RSL and Gannons Park in Peakhurst at various times between December 11 and December 14, is barred from entering Tasmania.

Updated

Just a reminder we are expecting the update on the latest case numbers for New South Wales at 11am.

We can expect the other states to respond after that, depending on what happens.

Updated

Welcome to the Guardian’s global coronavirus live blog. I am Josh Taylor, and I will be bringing you the latest as it comes through.

Here’s where we stand as of Saturday morning, Australian time:

  • The UK government said a further 489 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Friday, bringing the total to 66,541. 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 82,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
  • US vice-president Mike Pence was given Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, the highest-ranking US official to have received it so far. Pence was given the first shot on live television and said the vaccine was a “medical miracle” and that he “didn’t feel a thing”.
  • The Christmas plans of many Australians could be thrown into chaos today with an outbreak in the northern beaches of Sydney reaching 28 and threatening to bring in restrictions on people travelling from Sydney to other states.
  • Italy has announced new lockdowns over Christmas. Bars, restaurants and non-essential shops are to close nationwide from December 24th-27th and December 31st-January 3rd, the country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has announced.
  • Austria will go into lockdown for a third time after Christmas, the government confirmed, just 11 days after the country’s second lockdown ended. Non-essential shops that reopened last week will close, reopening the week of 18 January along with restaurants, schools, museums and theatres, the government said in a statement. Austria will let ski lifts open despite the lockdown being introduced on 26 December.
  • France’s coronavirus death toll has surpassed 60,000. The health ministry reported 610 new deaths, pushing the total to 60,229, Reuters reports. There were 264 new deaths in hospitals, compared to 258 on Thursday, and a three-day batch of 346 deaths reported in retirement homes.
  • Turkey’s daily coronavirus death toll hit a record high of 246 in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed, bringing the total number of deaths to 17,610. Turkey also recorded 26,410 new coronavirus cases, including asymptomatic ones, in the last 24 hours.
  • Sweden’s government on Friday introduced the toughest measures yet to help stave off a second wave of the pandemic, including recommending masks on public transport and closing non-essential public workplaces, Reuters reports. Sweden registered a record 9,654 new coronavirus cases on Friday. The increase compared with a previous high of 8,881 daily cases recorded on Thursday.Sweden registered 100 new deaths, taking the total to 7,993.

Updated

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