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London should be placed under the tightest tier 3 coronavirus restrictions in the next 48 hours, a leading public health expert has warned, as data reveals cases are on the rise across much of the capital.
The Guardian’s science correspondent Nicola Davis has the story:
Brazil registers highest daily death toll in almost a month
Brazil reported another 51,088 confirmed coronavirus infection in the past 24 hours and a further 842 fatalities from Covid-19, its health ministry said on Tuesday, marking the highest daily death tally since 14 November.
The country has now registered 6,674,999 cases since the pandemic began, while its official death toll has risen to 178,159, according to ministry data. Brazil has the world’s third highest case count and second highest death toll.
The US president Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday said he is feeling better after contracting Covid-19 and expects to leave the hospital on Wednesday.
The 76-year-old former New York City mayor, who is spearheading Trump’s flagging effort to overturn the president’s election loss to Joe Biden, said he began to feel unusually tired on Friday.
By Sunday, when his diagnosis was announced, Giuliani said he was showing other “mild symptoms” but that currently he has no fever and only a small cough.
“I think they are going to let me out tomorrow morning,” Giuliani said in an interview with WABC Radio in New York. He was at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, two sources familiar with the situation said on Sunday.
Giuliani plans to attend a virtual hearing this week with Georgia lawmakers, another source familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Tuesday.
With Trump’s legal effort so far failing to convince any court of the president’s claim that widespread fraud cost him the election, Giuliani has been meeting with state officials in a long-shot bid to persuade them to overturn the election results.
State and federal officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence of fraud on any significant scale.
In Georgia, state lawmakers are due to hold a virtual meeting on Thursday to discuss election issues, following a hearing last week in which Giuliani urged the state’s lawmakers to intervene to overturn Biden’s victory in the state. Giuliani made similar pleas last week in Michigan and Arizona.
After news broke on Sunday of Giuliani’s test result, the Arizona state legislature said it would close both chambers this week out of caution “for recent cases and concerns relating to Covid-19.” Giuliani met with about a dozen Republican lawmakers there last week.
In his radio interview, Giuliani said he had tested negative just before his trip to the three states.
He also confirmed that Jenna Ellis, an attorney with whom he has worked side-by-side on Trump’s legal challenges, also had contracted the coronavirus.
Female leaders who have stood out for their handling of the coronavirus earned honours in the annual Forbes list of the world’s 100 most powerful women, which highlighted women’s roles in battling the global pandemic.
Women from prime ministers to corporate executives earned spots in the list for their achievements helping mitigate and control the deadly contagious virus, which has infected more than 67 million people and caused 1.54 million deaths, Forbes said.
New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern, Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen, Finland’s prime minister Sanna Marin, the European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde and Tokyo’s governor Yuriko Koike were particularly effective, it said.
“Where they differ in age, nationality and job description, they are united in the ways they have been using their platforms to address the unique challenges of 2020,” Forbes said on its website.
It quoted the Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg, also on the list, who said recently that “countries where human rights are respected and where women are able to reach top positions in society are also the countries that are the best-equipped to handle crises by Covid-19.”
New Zealand eliminated coronavirus infections with a strict lockdown, reporting just over 2,000 cases of the virus and 25 deaths.
Taiwan kept the pandemic under control after instituting strict restrictions and largely closing its borders in January, long before western countries, limiting cases of the virus to just over 700 and seven deaths, it said.
Of the 17 newcomers to the Forbes list, Carol Tomé, the chief executive of United Parcel Service, where delivery volumes skyrocketed during lockdowns, and Linda Rendle, the chief executive of Clorox, which boosted production of cleaning goods, were noted for their work.
At CVS Health, Karen Lynch, who becomes chief executive in February, took over the pharmacy giant’s Covid-19 response and extensive network of testing sites. In 2021, she will be responsible for overseeing vaccine distribution at the company’s nearly 10,000 US locations.
Stacey Cunningham, the first woman to head the New York Stock Exchange, made the “swift” decision to shut down in-person trading as the virus was spreading in March, it said.
The German chancellor Angela Merkel for a tenth consecutive year headed up the group of 100 women that also included leaders in entertainment, technology, philanthropy and finance from 30 countries.
Other honourees included the US vice president-elect Kamala Harris and the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II.
Martin Kenyon, 91, was outside Guy’s Hospital in London after getting the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine when he was chanced upon by CNN correspondent Cyril Vanier. Asked how it felt to be one of the first people in the world to receive the jab, Kenyon said:
I don’t think I feel much at all, except that I hope that I’m not going to have the bloody bug now.
During the interview, which went viral after being shared by CNN’s Omar Jimenez on Twitter, Kenyon added that he intended to hug his family for Christmas. “I’m going home to tell them now. Nobody knows. You’re the first to know,” he told Vanier.
New confirmed coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours in France rose to 13,713 on Tuesday, up from 3,411 on Monday and 8,083 last Tuesday, health ministry data showed.
On the 11th day after the government eased a nationwide lockdown, the number of people in intensive care however fell by 110 to 3,088, bringing it closer to a 2,500-3,000 government threshold that is one of the conditions for further lockdown easing.
The French president Emmanuel Macron said last month that daily new infections need to fall to around 5,000 and the number of people in ICU to below 3,000 in order to lift the lockdown on 15 December. The number of cases now stands at 2.31 million.
The ministry also reported that the number of people in hospital with the virus fell by 451 to 25,914, after reporting an increase the past two days.
It also reported 831 new coronavirus deaths, including a four-day batch of 454 deaths in retirement homes and 377 deaths in hospitals. On Monday, it reported 366 deaths in hospitals.
Summary
- Coronavirus surge in US. Deaths from Covid-19 in the US have soared to more than 2,200 a day on average, matching the frightening peak reached last April.Cases per day have eclipsed 200,000 on average for the first time on record, with the crisis all but certain to get worse because of the fallout from Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
- UK reports 616 more Covid-linked deaths and 12,282 more cases. The UK government said a further 616 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Tuesday, bringing the UK total to 62,033.As of 9am on Monday, there had been a further 12,282 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 1,750,241.
- Germany moving towards stricter measures. Germany inched towards stricter measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, as an eastern region said it would close schools and most businesses and the health minister warned a partial lockdown had not stopped the disease.Europe’s biggest economy is struggling to squash new infections in a second wave of Covid-19 that is both proving far more difficult to tame than the first one and extracting a heavier human toll as daily deaths hit record highs.
- Dutch coronavirus cases rise for first week since October. The number of new coronavirus cases in the Netherlands has resumed rising after falling for weeks, the country’s health authority has said.There were 43,103 new cases registered in the week ended 8 December, the National Institute for Health said in its weekly update, up from 33,949 in the week ended 1 December.
Canada is confident there will be no disruption of Covid-19 vaccine supplies even if the United States blocks their export because vaccines are manufactured in several countries, a minister said.
This comes ahead of an expected US executive order meant to ensure Americans’ priority access to the shots.
President Donald Trump’s executive order is intended to ensure priority access for Covid-19 vaccines procured by the US government, ahead of other nations, senior administration officials said on Monday.
Asked about the impact of any executive order on those deliveries at a media briefing, a Canadian minister said Canada’s purchases are not tied to any one manufacturing site, and noted that Pfizer Inc is manufacturing in Europe as well as the United States.
“We’re very confident that Pfizer and other vaccine makers that are contractually obligated to deliver vaccine doses to Canada will be able to meet those obligations,” said Dominic LeBlanc, minister of intergovernmental affairs.
Mexico plans to begin vaccinating its people against Covid-19 at the end of the third week of December, starting with health workers, the government announced Tuesday.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the vaccines will be “universal and free” — and also voluntary — and he hopes the full population will be vaccinated by the end of 2021.
Officials said that starting in February, those over 60 will receive vaccinations, followed by those over 50 in April and over 40 in May. They urged people with risk factors to get vaccinated first.
The 67-year-old president himself said he would get vaccinated in February, along with his age group.
The government already has contracted for 34.4 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and it said earlier that 250,000 of those are expected to arrive around 17 December.
The armed forces will distribute them to vaccination sites, initially in Mexico City and the northern border state of Coahuila.
Mexico has reported 1.18 million confirmed infections with the new coronavirus and at least 110,074 deaths from Covid-19, though both are acknowledged to be undercounts.
Updated
Sam Foster, the chief nursing officer at Oxford’s acute hospital trust, administered the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at the city’s Churchill hospital this morning.
“I have been proud to play my part in delivering the first vaccinations on this historic day in our battle against the pandemic”, she said.
Foster and a number of nurses who are experienced in vaccination together injected the vaccine into the shoulder of scores of people over 80, most of whom are outpatients, some care workers and also some NHS staff classed as high-risk because they have underlying health issues -- the first three priority groups to get the jabs.
All the nurses involved are also “peer vaccinators” -- staff who usually administer the winter flu jab to colleagues in their area of care in a bid to encourage take-up.
“As such they are not just skilled at administering vaccines but also at dealing with people’s anxieties and sensitivities”, a hospital source explained.
Because the trust has only “limited supplies currently” of the vaccine, people from Oxfordshire, West Berkshire and Buckinghamshire wanting to be immunised should not ring their GP or the hospital and should instead wait for the NHS to contact them, Foster stressed.
“This is a hugely significant moment in our pandemic response and offers hope at what has been a incredibly difficult year for us all”, said Dr Bruno Holtof (corr), the chief executive of Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Churchill.
“The strict approval process it has gone through means that the approved vaccine, and any other vaccines approved in the future, will not only be safe but will be our best defence against the virus”, Holtof added.
The trust chose the Churchill rather than its main hospital, the John Radcliffe Infirmary, as the location for its rollout of the vaccine because it is quieter than the JRI and has been kept Covid-free during the pandemic, because it is mainly a specialist cancer hospital.
Staff have administered the jabs at what an official described as a carefully chosen “discreet part of the site” while people being immunised have reached there without going through the main hospital, again to promote social distancing.
Everyone who receives their first dose is automatically booked in at the time for their second one three weeks later.
Meanwhile, in Bristol, five staff from care home operators Brunelcare became some of the first social care staff in the country to have the vaccine.
“The vaccine was quick and painless, and I’d encourage anyone who has the opportunity to get the vaccine to take it”, said Lesley Hobbs, the manager of the charity’s Deerhurst care home.
She and her fellow workers were immunised at the city’s Southmead hospital; 85 other colleagues are also booked in to have their first dose this week.
Oona Goldsworthy, Brunelcare’s chief executive, hailed the vaccine as “the lifeline we’ve been waiting for in social care”. But, she added: “It is just the first step. We now await details of how and when the vaccine will be made available to our residents in our care homes”.
Switzerland plans to ban all public events apart from church services and legislative meetings and further limit private gatherings after 12 December as infections swell.
It is starting talks with the nation’s 26 cantons over the proposals, as it prepares for the new restrictions.
The announcement came as the Federal Office of Public Health reported 92 more deaths, taking the death toll in Switzerland and neighbouring Liechtenstein to 5,116. The number of cases rose by 4,262 cases to 358,568, it said.
The government also plans to order restaurants, shops and markets to close at 7pm through 20 January in an effort to restrict the spread of the virus. It also aims to restrict the number of people who could meet in households to five.
“The number of new infections is high and is rising again, beds in intensive care units are stretched,” the government said. “The increasingly cold temperatures and bad weather may have accelerated the infection rate.”
After getting feedback from the cantons, the Swiss government plans to meet again on Friday, ahead of a decision on the new measures due to start at the weekend.
“The numbers are increasing exponentially - too quickly and too strongly. We want reduce contact and the number of infections,” Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga said.
“If we don’t act quickly enough, the worst of the pandemic is still to come,” she added. “Then, even more drastic measures will be needed.”
Coronavirus surge in US
Deaths from Covid-19 in the US have soared to more than 2,200 a day on average, matching the frightening peak reached last April.
Cases per day have eclipsed 200,000 on average for the first time on record, with the crisis all but certain to get worse because of the fallout from Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
Virtually every state is reporting surges just as a vaccine appears days away from getting the go-ahead in the U.S.
“The epidemic in the U.S. is punishing. It’s widespread. It’s quite frankly shocking to see one to two persons a minute die in the U.S. — a country with a wonderful, strong health system, amazing technological capacities,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization’s chief of emergencies.
The virus is blamed for more than 280,000 deaths and almost 15 million confirmed infections in the United States.
Thousands of people defied public gathering restrictions to descend on a small village in central Sri Lanka for a syrup that a self-styled holy man claimed could prevent and treat coronavirus.
The country has been experiencing a surge in cases since October, with the number of infections increased more than eight-fold since then to over 28,500 and 142 dead.
Carpenter Dhammika Bandara claimed on national television last week that a so-called cure had been revealed to him by a god.
But doctors in the island nation said there was no scientific basis for the syrup. There is no known cure for Covid-19.
Photographs of Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi published in local newspapers drinking the concoction helped spread Bandara’s claim.
Reporters said some 12,000 people travelled to his small village some 85 kilometres (52 miles) northeast of capital Colombo, where he announced that he would be giving away some free samples.
“I am saying with sincerity that this preparation will not only cure Covid-19, but after you take this once, you will never contract the virus,” he told the crowd, without offering any evidence.
Footage showed police officers unable to enforce social distancing measures in the crowds. No-one was arrested or fined.
Sri Lankan courts can slap fines on people for not wearing masks in public as part of the government’s measures in combating the pandemic.
In previous months, there was an attempt to use traditional medicine as a cure for Covid-19 linked fevers in Sri Lanka. But Ayurveda doctors said testing was needed before the treatment could be prescribed.
Iceland will relax some measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus after seeing a slight fall in new infections.
Public pools and cinemas will be allowed to open at reduced capacity, while shops may allow in up to 100 people, depending on the size of the shop, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
Iceland has an infection incidence of 46.1 per 100,000 on a two-week average. Only 28 people have died with the virus in Iceland, out of 5,506 infections in total.
“It is therefore clear that we have managed to control the pandemic to a reasonable extent at the moment” Iceland’s chief epidemiologist said, calling the situation “delicate”.
A limit on public gatherings of 10 people will continue to be in effect, with some exceptions, the government said.
The easing measures will take effect on 10 December and remain in force until 12 January.
UK reports 616 more Covid-linked deaths and 12,282 more cases
The UK government said a further 616 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Tuesday, bringing the UK total to 62,033.
As of 9am on Monday, there had been a further 12,282 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 1,750,241.
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 78,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
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A European Union delegation visited Gaza on Tuesday pledging to help the blockaded Palestinian enclave access coronavirus vaccines, as the epidemic there continues to escalate.
EU representative to the Palestinian Territories Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff, who led the delegation of roughly 20 people, said the bloc would work with the United Nations “to facilitate (vaccination) to those most in need.”
“It’s a very complicated issue, but... the moment these vaccines become available, we will try our utmost,” he said.
Gaza, ruled by the Islamist group Hamas since 2007, is under a tight Israeli-enforced blockade, one factor that has led to weak health infrastructure in the Palestinian enclave.
Israel says the blockade is necessary to contain Hamas.
Hamas acted fast in March to forestall the virus, only allowing entry to a limited number of people, who were then required to isolate for three weeks in quarantine centres.
In mid-August, Gaza had recorded only around 100 Covid-19 cases, but the past two weeks have seen a rapid deterioration in containment.
On Monday, Hamas said it had received 20,000 test kits from the World Health Organization, after warning it could no longer perform testing due to a shortage.
Facing a surge in cases, Hamas has also announced a lockdown on weekends lasting from December 11 to the end of the month. It also closed schools, universities, kindergartens and mosques.
Gaza has now registered nearly 25,600 coronavirus infections, including around 150 deaths.
Israel’s government has meanwhile announced the procurement of millions of doses of vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna, but has not yet commented on whether its procurement would cater for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank or Gaza.
Updated
Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said he understood concerns around the speed at which pharmaceutical companies have produced Covid-19 vaccines, but insisted that no corners had been cut.
As Britain became the first Western country to start a mass coronavirus vaccine campaign, using the new Pfizer-BioNTech jab, Bourla said people should feel confident that it is safe and effective.
“We didn’t cut any corners,” he told a virtual media briefing hosted by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA).
The vaccine, based on new technology, has been tested “in the exact same way as we are testing any vaccine that is circulating out there,” Bourla assured.
In fact, he added, “this vaccine actually was tested, because of the scrutiny, with even higher standards in terms of how we do things.”
The Pfizer-BioNTech jab is one of several vaccine candidates approaching approval in a number of countries, bringing hope for an end to the pandemic that has killed more than 1.5 million people worldwide and ravaged economies.
Bourla said he understood the concerns around the speed at which the vaccines had been developed.
“Always there are people who are sceptical about vaccines, but I have to say they are wrong,” he said.
“I can imagine that in this case, because the products, the vaccines or the medicines are developed very fast that it is even worse because it has been severely politicised, particularly in the US.
“That makes people confused. They don’t know who to believe and what to believe, because the discussion was happening on political rather than on scientific terms.”
Russia’s second city Saint Petersburg registered a record number of virus deaths as authorities warned of an imminent lockdown and shuttered restaurants for the New Year’s holidays.
Saint Petersburg - one of Russia’s most popular tourist destinations - is struggling with a major health crisis, with hospitals overwhelmed with coronavirus patients but residents flouting social distancing and other measures.
Saint Petersburg, Russia’s worst-hit city after Moscow, recorded 3,734 new cases and 86 new coronavirus deaths, a record since the start of the pandemic.
By comparison, Moscow, the outbreak’s epicentre, registered 5,232 new cases and 71 new fatalities.
On Monday, Saint Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov warned that the city was close to a formal lockdown as local hospitals were nearing full capacity.
“A time has come for Saint Petersburg when very little separates us from a full lockdown,” Beglov said.
He added that the approaching New Year’s holidays should not become a “marathon of spreading coronavirus”.
Last week, Saint Petersburg authorities announced new virus restrictions, including the closure of bars and restaurants from December 30 until January 3.
The decision prompted an outcry from local businesses with over 100 bars and restaurants announcing that they will not obey the orders in the absence of any tangible government support.
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Germany moving towards stricter measures
Germany inched towards stricter measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, as an eastern region said it would close schools and most businesses and the health minister warned a partial lockdown had not stopped the disease.
Europe’s biggest economy is struggling to squash new infections in a second wave of Covid-19 that is both proving far more difficult to tame than the first one and extracting a heavier human toll as daily deaths hit record highs.
The governor of the eastern state of Saxony, which has the highest seven-day incidence rate per 100,000 residents anywhere in Germany, said schools and non-essential businesses will be shut from 14 December as hospitals struggle to take in patients. Saxony governor, Michael Kretschmer, said:
The situation in hospitals is not only tense, it is extremely dangerous at many locations, partly because a large number of beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients.
The federal health minister, Jens Spahn, said existing measures such as closing gyms, restaurants, hotels and leisure venues, as well as limits on the number of people in shops and at private gatherings, were not enough to reverse the tide. He told the public broadcaster Phoenix:
A short and comprehensive approach to really make a difference is probably more successful.
If we don’t get there within the next one or two weeks until Christmas, we have to discuss it,” he added, referring to stricter measures that may well be similar to those approved in Saxony.
Updated
Switzerland has increased its confirmed order for Moderna Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine doses to 7.5mfrom 4.5m, the US company said.
The vaccine, mRNA-1273, is currently under review in the country, and Moderna said it could ship it as soon as regulatory approval is granted.
The company has submitted applications seeking emergency use authorization in the United States and the European Union after full results from a late-stage study showed the vaccine was 94.1% effective with no serious safety concerns.
Vaccine doses to be supplied to the country will be sourced from Moderna’s European production capacity with its partner Swiss contract drug manufacturer Lonza and Rovi of Spain for fill-finish services.
Moderna, whose vaccine requires two doses per person, has said it remains on track to produce between 500 million and 1 billion doses annually by 2021.
Updated
Japan’s government has approved more than $700 billion in fresh stimulus to fund projects from anti-coronavirus measures to green tech, the country’s third such package this financial year.
The Covid-19 pandemic has wrought global economic carnage and countries across the world have announced massive cash injections.
Japan’s latest package, worth 73.6 trillion yen ($708 billion), includes loan schemes and actual government spending of around 40 trillion yen.
It is the first stimulus spending, the prime minister Yoshihide Suga has announced since taking office in September, and comes as Japan faces a spike in Covid-19 infections, with record numbers of new cases reported in recent weeks.
“We drew up (the stimulus package) to pave the way for new growth, to protect people’s livelihoods as well as maintaining employment and keeping businesses going,” Suga said.
Updated
Dutch coronavirus cases rise for first week since October
The number of new coronavirus cases in the Netherlands has resumed rising after falling for weeks, the country’s health authority has said.
There were 43,103 new cases registered in the week ended 8 December, the National Institute for Health said in its weekly update, up from 33,949 in the week ended 1 December.
Updated
A national train tour by Prince William and his wife, Kate, has received a frosty welcome from leaders in Wales and Scotland, with one Welsh official saying he would rather “no one was having unnecessary visits” during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived in the Welsh capital of Cardiff on Tuesday for the final day of their three-day royal train tour, meant to spread Christmas cheer and thank medical staff and other frontline employees for their hard, dangerous work during the pandemic.
But the Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, said he was not “particularly bothered or interested” when asked on BBC radio if he thought the couple should travel to Wales when the region has been recording high Covid-19 infections.
Gething said on Monday that Wales was the only part of the UK where infections were not falling at the end of November, and warned that further restrictions might be needed. Asked if it was the right moment for the royal couple to visit, Gething said:
I’d rather that no one was having unnecessary visits. And people always have divisive views about the monarchy, but their visit isn’t an excuse for people to say that they are confused about what they are being asked to do.
On Monday, the Scottish leader, Nicola Sturgeon, suggested that William and Kate travelled to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh despite their office being made aware of coronavirus restrictions for those wanting to cross the border.
Royal officials have said the visits were planned in consultation with the Scottish and Welsh governments, and that William and Kate were allowed to travel across the border because they were working.
Wales and Scotland have their own devolved governments and different sets of coronavirus restrictions from England even though they are all part of the UK.
Welsh and Scottish officials have discouraged people from the rest of the UK from travelling to their regions without a reasonable excuse in an attempt to reduce the virus’s spread.
Britain has Europe’s deadliest outbreak, at more than 61,000 reported dead.
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Milan’s La Scala opera house staged a three-hour televised medley of arias and ballet on Monday after the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the traditional season opener for the first time since the second world war.
Masked members of the choir and orchestra performed the national anthem in an empty auditorium that in other years would be packed with Italy’s political, business and show business elite for one of the highlights of Milan’s cultural calendar.
Organisers called the show “A riveder le stelle” (“to see the stars again”) in reference to the final phrase in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, signalling hope that the pandemic which has brought Europe’s economy to its knees will soon be overcome.
The conductor, Riccardo Chailly, said:
This was an extraordinary experience but I hope not to repeat it.
Italy shut its theatres and concert halls in October to contain a resurgence of the pandemic after the summer and the restrictions are due to stay in place until at least after the Christmas holiday season.
Some performances were live and others prerecorded. They included the star dancer Roberto Bolle, who performed a ballet solo surrounded only by light beams.
Organisers also took viewers to normally off-limits rehearsal and backstage areas of La Scala, the 242-year-old theatre at the heart of Milan’s musical life.
With the Lombardy region around Milan among the worst affected areas in Europe and still recording thousands of new coronavirus infections every day, it is still unclear how La Scala will stage its planned new season.
In October dozens of La Scala singers and musicians tested positive for the virus, forcing all members of the chorus into quarantine along with members of the orchestra.
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Switzerland and Italy will halt all cross-border rail service from Thursday because train personnel do not have capacity to carry out Covid-19 safety checks ordered by the Italian government, the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) has said.
The move, in place indefinitely, affects dozens of daily routes, including long-distance trains between Milan and Frankfurt, Germany, as well as regional trains that connect the two countries, where many workers travel daily across the border from northern Italy to Switzerland.
Switzerland and neighbouring Italy, Germany and France had reduced train service in November, but rising cases during the second wave of infections that prompted the Italian government’s new requirements mean train service will be stopped much like it was during the pandemic’s first wave.
Italy did not explicitly forbid train travel abroad, but its requirements – including for passengers’ temperatures to be measured – exceed the capacity of train personnel, an SBB spokeswoman told Reuters, leading to the decision to shutter the Swiss-Italian routes. SBB said:
Swiss Federal Railways trains will travel only to the country’s border to Italy.
Italy, France and Germany have also introduced new requirements meant to prevent skiers from travelling over the holidays to Switzerland and Austria, where resorts are due to be open for limited, locals-only skiing.
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India’s government regulator could grant a license to some developers of Covid-19 vaccines in the next few weeks, the country’s top health official said on Tuesday.
Six vaccines, including Astra Zeneca’s Covidshield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, are in trial stages, the federal health secretary, Rajesh Bhushan, said.
Bhushan said Bharat Biotech had sought emergency-use authorisation from India’s drug regulator for its Covid-19 vaccine. Pfizer and Astra Zeneca have already applied for emergency-use authorisation in India.
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This has just been sent in by a reader. Switzerland goes against the flow for the skiing season. Now outrage at these scenes...
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Health officials and experts are still baffled by a mysterious illness that has left more than 500 people hospitalised and one person dead in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
The illness was first detected Saturday evening in Eluru, an ancient city famous for its hand-woven products. People started convulsing without any warning, said Geeta Prasadini, the director of public health.
Since then, symptoms ranging from nausea and anxiety to loss of consciousness have been reported in 546 patients admitted to hospitals. Many have recovered and returned home, while 148 are still being treated, said Dasari Nagarjuna, a government spokesperson.
Teams of experts have arrived at the city from India’s top scientific institutes. Different theories have been suggested and are being tested. The most recent hypothesis is contamination of food by pesticides.
“But nobody knows,” Prasadini admitted.
What is confounding experts is that there does not seem to be any common link among the hundreds of people who have fallen sick. All of the patients have tested negative for Covid-19 and other viral diseases such as dengue, chikungunya or herpes. They are not related to each other and do not all live in the same area. They’re from different age groups, including about 70 children, but very few are elderly.
Initially, contaminated water was suspected. But the chief minister’s office confirmed that people who do not use the municipal water supply have also fallen ill, and that initial tests of water samples did not reveal any harmful chemicals.
A 45-year-old man with the single name Sridhar was hospitalised with symptoms resembling epilepsy and died on Sunday evening, doctors said. Prasadini said his autopsy did not shed any light on the cause of death.
The hypothesis currently being tested is that people ate vegetables tainted with pesticides made of organic compounds containing phosphorus. But this is an assumption based on the fact that such pesticides are commonly used in the area and not on any evidence, Prasadini said.
She said that experts were testing to see if pesticides had contaminated fish ponds or spilled over to vegetables.
Opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu demanded on Twitter an “impartial, full-fledged inquiry into the incident.”
Andhra Pradesh state is among those worst hit by Covid-19, with more than 800,000 detected cases. The health system in the state, like the rest of India, has been frayed by the virus.
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Israel will receive a first shipment of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccines on Thursday and will administer them to the elderly and other high-risk populations, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech last month agreed to provide Israel with 8m doses of the vaccine, which Britain on Tuesday became the first country to administer.
The intelligence minister, Eli Cohen, confirmed media reports that a first batch would be flown to Tel Aviv from Chicago on Thursday.
Those doses would be given to at-risk populations, mainly those over 60-years-old, Cohen said in an interview with Army Radio. He gave no start date for the innoculations or details of the size of the batch.
The public broadcaster Kan said it would contain 110,000 doses.
Israel, with a population of 9 million, has reported 347,497 coronavirus cases and 2,925 deaths.
Red wine mulled with cinnamon sticks, star aniseed, orange and plenty of sugar is a staple of the German Christmas season.
And while cities across the country have this year agreed to forego hosting Christmas markets on their town squares due to the pandemic, Germans seem less willing to give up on the seasonal mug of steaming Glühwein.
German authorities on Tuesday expressed their growing concern about pop-up stalls selling mulled wine in takeaway cups and “Glühwein street-walkers” gathering in city centres in spite of social distancing restrictions.
The health minister, Jens Spahn, told the broadcaster RTL it was irresponsible to have crowds of people congregating around pop-up stalls while hospitals around Germany were voicing concerns about rising infections.
Health expert Karl Lauterbach, of the Social Democratic party (SPD) complained that ’mulled wine booths are undermining social distancing restrictions’. There would be plenty of time to indulge in the sweetly sick drink after people had been vaccinated, he said.
Some cities, including Lüneburg, Leipzig and Hamburg, have already taken steps to sell the outdoor sale of alcoholic beverages.
Updated
Four lions at Barcelona zoo have tested positive for Covid-19, veterinary authorities said on Tuesday, in only the second known case in which large felines have contracted coronavirus.
Three females – named Zala, Nima and Run Run – and Kiumbe, a male, were tested after keepers noticed they showed slight symptoms of coronavirus.
Two staff at the zoo also tested positive for coronavirus, the authorities said, after the outbreak was first detected last month. Authorities are investigating how the lions became infected.
Keepers carried out PCR tests on the lions in the same way as humans are tested as the animals are accustomed to contact with the zoo staff.
The veterinary service of Barcelona contacted colleagues at the Bronx Zoo in New York, where four tigers and three lions tested positive for Covid-19 in April. It is the only other zoo where large felines are known to have contracted coronavirus. All of them recovered.
“The zoo has contacted and collaborated with international experts such as the veterinary service of the Bronx zoo, the only one that has documented cases of Sars-CoV-2 infection in felines,” the Barcelona zoo said in a statement.
The lions were given veterinary care for their mild clinical condition – similar to a very mild flu condition – through anti-inflammatory treatment and close monitoring, and the animals responded well.
The four-year-old male and the females, who are all 16 years old, have had no contact with other animals at the zoo, which is open to visitors.
Updated
Morning, I will be taking you through todays global coronavirus updates. Please do send across your stories and tips to nazia.parveen@theguardian.com or follow me on Twitter to DM me.
Germany may need tougher Covid-19 curbs before Christmas, according to its health minister.
Reuters reports:
The health minister, Jens Spahn, told the public broadcaster Phoenix:
A short and comprehensive approach to really make a difference is probably more successful. If we don’t get there within the next one or two weeks until Christmas, we have to discuss it.
Spahn did not rule out lockdown measures that would affect retailers, the TV station added.
Germany introduced a partial lockdown in early November and banned in-door dining in restaurants. Shops and schools remain open.
Political leaders believe the restrictions prevented further exponential growth of new infections, but numbers have plateaued. Germany reported 487 deaths on a single day last week, the highest number since the start of the pandemic.
Updated
Denmark is reinstating tighter restrictions on 38 towns and cities including Copenhagen and Aarhus.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Monday announced a significant tightening of Covid-19 restrictions in 38 municipalities across Denmark, including the country's three largest cities. The restrictions will stay in place until 2021.https://t.co/rIYVmMsgT8
— The Local Denmark (@TheLocalDenmark) December 7, 2020
From today restaurants, bars, cafes, gyms, sports centres and swimming pools will be closed in the restricted areas.
In Italy Pope Francis has made an unannounced, pre-dawn visit to a Rome landmark to pray after he was forced to cancel the traditional public ceremony because Covid-19.
From Reuters:
Popes traditionally go to Rome’s Spanish Steps area on the afternoon of 8 December, the Roman Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception, to place a wreath of flowers at the base of a 12-metre column bearing a statue of the Madonna.
The event, usually attended by thousands of people lining the streets and considered the start of the Rome Christmas season, was cancelled this year to avoid gatherings that could cause contagion.
Francis went at 7am and placed a basket of white roses at the base of the statue in the rain. During the 15-minute visit he prayed for the city and for all people around the world affected by Covid-19, a Vatican statement said.
Television footage showed the pope wearing a white mask and holding his own umbrella as he prayed.
He then went to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he said Mass before returning to the Vatican.
It was the first of a series of Christmas season papal events being curtailed because of the pandemic.
Only a limited number of people will be allowed into St Peter’s Basilica for papal Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Masses, which will be broadcast on television and streamed online.
Access to his “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the city and the world”) blessing and message will also be restricted.
In October, the pope’s weekly general audiences were moved back indoors without public participation after a period when a limited number of people were allowed to take part.
Italy has had 60,606 Covid fatalities since its outbreak emerged in February, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain. It has registered 1.74 million cases to date.
Updated
Poland has bought over 60m doses of Covid-19 vaccines from six producers, the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has said.
He wrote in a Facebook post:
We are secured – and now is the time for a great challenge, which is the implementation of the National Covid-19 vaccination programme.
Updated
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said people should not be afraid of getting vaccinated, and that people objecting to having the jab are “totally wrong”.
Speaking at the vaccination centre at Guy’s hospital in London on Tuesday, he said:
To all those who are scared [of getting vaccinated] – don’t be [...] You have seen people take the vaccine this morning in large numbers. There’s nothing to be nervous about.
What I would say is that there are those obviously who feel that a vaccine is something they object to politically or for ideological reasons.
I think they are totally wrong. It’s safe, it’s the right thing to do, it’s good for you and it’s good for the whole country.
It’s going to take a while. I urge people to contain their impatience.
Johnson said it was “very, very exciting” to meet some of the first people to be vaccinated against coronavirus.
The prime minister said it was moving to talk to Lyn Wheeler, who was the first to receive the vaccine at Guy’s hospital.
She is 81 and it is really very moving to hear her say she is doing it for Britain, which is exactly right – she is protecting herself but also helping to protect the entire country.
Johnson warned that it would take time to vaccinate everyone:
It will gradually make a huge, huge difference, but I stress ‘gradually’ because we are not there yet, we have not defeated this virus yet.
We can’t afford to relax now and so my message would be: it’s amazing to see the vaccine coming out.
Updated
Indonesia’s state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma has said that interim data on trials it was conducting on vaccines produced by the Chinese company Sinovac showed up to 97% efficacy.
From Reuters:
Iwan Setiawan, a spokesman for Bio Farma, said it did not provide data on how many participants got infected during the trial that involved 1,600 people. He said:
Our clinical trial team found, within one month, that the interim data shows up to 97% for its efficacy.
Iwan said Bio Farma would wait for full results and it expected Indonesia’s food and drug agency to issue emergency use authorisation in late January before mass vaccination could start.
Updated
O brave new world, That has such people in ‘t! (if you think you have a more apt quote from the Bard, let me know!)
Second patient to get the COVID jab at University Hospital Coventry - would you believe it....William Shakespeare from Warwickshire pic.twitter.com/y0LzxgbJ9w
— Hugh Pym (@BBCHughPym) December 8, 2020
Sister Joanna Sloan is the first person in Northern Ireland to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine as part of the mass vaccination programme.
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) December 8, 2020
From outside the hospital #BBCBreakfast's Chris Page tells us morehttps://t.co/bTvchTc6xZ pic.twitter.com/WhBErdFhYF
Hong Kong to impose fresh virus restrictions
Hong Kong is set to impose new virus restrictions to battle a fourth wave of coronavirus – evening dining at restaurants will be banned, fitness centres closed and people urged to work at home as the government tries to reduce the number of people on the streets
Hong Kong to impose new virus restrictions to battle fourth wave.
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) December 8, 2020
Evening dining at restaurants will be banned, fitness centres closed and people urged to work at home as the government tries to reduce the number of people on the streetshttps://t.co/KybwXkmU31 pic.twitter.com/dC1YpdrTPD
AFP reports:
Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the rules aim to reduce the “number of people on the streets”, echoing moves taken by authorities when cases spiked earlier this year.
Dining out will be banned after 6 pm, beauty and massage parlours will be forced to close, and civil servants would be asked to work from home, she said.
Hong Kong’s strict social distancing measures have largely helped keep infections to under 7,000 in the city of 7.5 million, with 112 deaths.
But daily recorded cases have risen again to more than 100 on several occasions in recent weeks, the highest level since July.
Speaking ahead of a weekly meeting with policy advisers, Lam said “the strictness of social distancing measures must at least return to the level” of the outbreak’s peak in the city in July and August.
Updated
The department of health in the Philippines reported 1,400 additional cases of Covid-19 today bringing the total number of cases in the country to 408,790.
1,400 NEW COVID-19 CASES
— The Philippine Star (@PhilippineStar) December 8, 2020
BREAKING: The Department of Health reported 1,400 additional cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, December 8, 2020, bringing the total number of cases in the Philippines to 408,790. #COVID19PH pic.twitter.com/YljPWtJa8M
Updated
Russia reports 26,097 new coronavirus cases and 562 deaths in the past 24 hours.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the start of a COVID vaccination programme on Tuesday and thanked health workers, scientists and people who had volunteered for testing.
Today the first vaccinations in the UK against COVID-19 begin. Thank you to our NHS, to all of the scientists who worked so hard to develop this vaccine, to all the volunteers - and to everyone who has been following the rules to protect others. We will beat this together. https://t.co/poOYG1vHQe
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) December 8, 2020
The UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, has told BBC Good Morning Scotland the next doses of the vaccine will arrive next week. He said:
The next scheduled arrival will be next week and the numbers depend on how quickly Pfizer can manufacture it.
It is being manufactured in Belgium and obviously right across the UK. The job is to be able to get the vaccinations done as quickly as the manufacturer can create it, so we’ve been all working together really closely, the UK government, which has been buying the vaccine and getting it delivered into the country, and then the NHS in the four nations of the UK.
Asked how quickly the vaccine can arrive and in what sort of numbers, he replied:
We’ve got a broad schedule, there will be several million for the UK as a whole, so several hundred thousand for Scotland over the remainder of this month.
We’ve got that as a broad delivery schedule but obviously the manufacturing process itself is complicated, so we’ve got to get the stuff in the country and then once it’s in the country we can be confident that we’re able to deliver it, and I’m sure the NHS across Scotland and across the whole of the UK is up to the challenge.
Hancock told Sky News he hoped care home residents would start being vaccinated before Christmas, but he could only do that “as fast as is safe”.
Hancock also said vaccine cards being issued to patients were “standard NHS reminder cards” for the follow-up appointment for the second dose, adding:
We are not proposing to have a sort of immunity certificate that allows you to do different things.
The first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, said she “got a lump in her throat” watching a video of the first Covid-19 vaccination being administered.
Got a bit of a lump in the throat watching this. Feels like such a milestone moment after a tough year for everyone.
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) December 8, 2020
The first vaccines in Scotland will be administered today too. https://t.co/KKaEhf19Jo
Updated
NHS nurse Mrs Parsons said it was a “huge honour” to be the first in the country to deliver the vaccine to a patient.
She said:
It’s a huge honour to be the first person in the country to deliver a Covid-19 jab to a patient, I’m just glad that I’m able to play a part in this historic day.
The last few months have been tough for all of us working in the NHS, but now it feels like there is light at the end of the tunnel.
The NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme will see patients aged 80 and above who are already attending hospital as an outpatient, and those who are being discharged home after a hospital stay, among the first to receive the jab.
Care home providers are also being asked by the Department of Health and Social Care to begin booking staff in to vaccination clinics.
GPs are also expected to be able to begin vaccinating care home residents.
Any appointments not used for these groups will be used for healthcare workers who are at highest risk of serious illness from Covid-19.
The chief executive of NHS England, Sir Simon Stevens, praised all those involved in delivering the new vaccine programme. He said:
Less than a year after the first case of this new disease was diagnosed, the NHS has now delivered the first clinically approved Covid-19 vaccination – that is a remarkable achievement.
A heartfelt thank you goes to everyone who has made this a reality – the scientists and doctors who worked tirelessly, and the volunteers who selflessly took part in the trials. They have achieved in months what normally takes years.
My colleagues across the health service are rightly proud of this historic moment as we lead in deploying the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
I also want to thank Margaret, our first patient to receive the vaccine on the NHS.
Updated
90-year-old Briton becomes first person in world to receive Pfizer Covid-19 jab following approval
UK grandmother Margaret Keenan, 90, has become the first patient in the world to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 jab following its clinical approval as the NHS launched its biggest ever vaccine campaign.
Coventry woman, 90, first patient to receive Covid vaccine in NHS campaign https://t.co/e0opnh3sBi
— Alexandra Topping (@LexyTopping) December 8, 2020
Keenan, who is from Coventry and will be 91 next week, said:
I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against Covid-19, it’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year.
The retired jewellery shop assistant, who was given the jab by nurse May Parsons at her local hospital, added:
I can’t thank May and the NHS staff enough who have looked after me tremendously, and my advice to anyone offered the vaccine is to take it – if I can have it at 90 then you can have it too.
Keenan said she has been self-isolating for most of this year and was planning on having a very small family “bubble” Christmas to keep safe.
Originally from Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, she has lived in Coventry for more than 60 years.
She will receive a booster jab in 21 days to ensure she has the best chance of being protected against the virus.
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. I hope to be live-blogging humanity’s acceptance into the Galactic Federation soon:
This cannot be right – I for one am SO ready:
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) December 8, 2020
Former Israeli space security chief says aliens exist, humanity not readyhttps://t.co/xvX4ly5uWW
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- The UK is set to administer the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Tuesday, with the NHS giving top priority to people over the age of 80, frontline healthcare workers, and care home staff and residents.
- Hong Kong to impose new virus restrictions. Hong Kong will ban evening dining at restaurants and close fitness centres, the city’s leader said Tuesday, as part of new measures aimed at stemming a fourth wave of coronavirus infections. Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the rules aim to reduce the “number of people on the streets”, echoing moves taken by authorities when cases spiked earlier this year.
- The World Health Organization said on Monday that persuading people on the merits of a Covid-19 vaccine would be far more effective than trying to make the jabs mandatory. The WHO said it would be down to individual countries as to how they want to conduct their vaccination campaigns against the coronavirus pandemic.
- South Korea ordered vaccines for 44 million people. According to Yonhap, South Korea has secured 64m doses for 44 million people (three of the vaccines need two shots). Vaccines for 34 million will come directly from the drugmakers and 10 million via the WHO. The vaccines ordered are sufficient to cover 88% of the population.
-
The US president, Donald Trump, will sign an executive order on Tuesday to ensure that priority access for Covid-19 vaccines is given to the American people for doses procured by the US government, before assisting other nations, senior administration officials said on Monday.
- Armed police raid home of Florida scientist fired over Covid-19 data. Rebekah Jones, the Florida data scientist embroiled in a dispute with the state’s Republican governor over the handling of coronavirus figures, had her home raided on Monday by armed police who confiscated her computers.
- India reports lowest daily rise in coronavirus cases since 10 July. India reported 26,567 new coronavirus infections, data from the health ministry showed on Tuesday, the lowest daily increase since 10 July. Daily cases have been falling in India since hitting a peak in September. The country has 9.7m cases, second-highest caseload in the world after the United States. Deaths rose by 385, the health ministry said, with the total now at 140,958.
Updated
Indian authorities are investigating if organochlorines used as pesticides or in mosquito control caused the death of one person and hospitalisation of more than 400 in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in the past few days, a health official said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
The unknown illness has infected more than 300 children, with most of them suffering from dizziness, fainting spells, headache and vomiting. They have tested negative for Covid-19.
The federal lawmaker GVL Narasimha Rao, who is from the state, said on Twitter he had spoken with government medical experts and that the “most likely cause is poisonous organochlorine substances”.
“It is one of the possibilities,” said Geeta Prasadini, a public health director in Andhra Pradesh state, adding they were awaiting test reports to ascertain the cause.
She said no new serious cases had come to light in the past 24 hours. A 45-year-old man died over the weekend.
Organochlorines are banned or restricted in many countries after research linked them to cancer and other potential health risks. However, some of the pollutants remain in the environment for years and build up in animal and human body fat.
It was not immediately clear how extensively the chemicals are used in India, though it is found in DDT applied for mosquito control.
Exposure to organochlorine pesticides over a short period may produce convulsions, headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, tremors, confusion, muscle weakness, slurred speech, salivation and sweating, US health authorities say.
Updated
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 14,054 to 1,197,709, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Tuesday.
The reported death toll rose by 423 to 19,342, the tally showed.
A surge in Covid-19 infections and the prospect of another economic downturn could sorely test the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s reluctant acceptance of much higher interest rates and the need for greater austerity, Reuters reports.
Already, record Covid-19 infections and deaths have led to new curfews and shorter business hours, hitting Turkey’s large hospitality sector and many others struggling with double-digit inflation, and raising fears of a winter recession.
Erdoğan is also facing serious geopolitical headwinds, with the European Union and the United States both weighing economic sanctions, respectively over a gas drilling dispute and Turkey’s purchase of Russian missile defences.
“It remains to be seen if the government will really stick to the recent tightening in economic policy if growth decelerates markedly,” said Yesenn El-Radhi, senior sovereign analyst at Capital Intelligence Ratings.
Last month, Erdoğan’s newly installed central bank governor jacked up the policy rate by 475 points to 15%, cheering foreign investors. The currency rallied but more tightening is expected, given the Turkish lira is still down 24% this year versus the dollar.
The new finance minister, Lütfi Elvan, has promised fiscal policies that support macroeconomic and price stability.
The government has aggressively reined in credit growth to below 10% from 50% in the summer. A burst of state-driven cheap credit had triggered a sharp rebound in the third quarter but the pivot towards what Erdogan calls a new economic era with “bitter pills” could now lead to a technical recession on a sequential basis through the first quarter of 2021.
Updated
Podcast: getting Covid-19 public health messaging right
The alarming pattern of second waves of Covid-19 infection across the world, and the promise of vaccines on the horizon, has once again brought public health messaging into focus. So what has the pandemic taught us about what makes a successful programme? The Guardian’s health editor, Sarah Boseley, speaks to Prof Linda Bauld about how best to encourage people to change their behaviour in order to mitigate the spread of disease:
And speaking of Christmas – from Santa bubbles to drive-through decorations and Nativity scenes made of pizza, the socially distanced year is giving us a masked Christmas like no other. In the below gallery, Guardian picture editors look at Christmas around the world in a year upended by the coronavirus pandemic:
Updated
It’s unseasonably quiet at Harlan Tsai’s factory, which has been churning out Christmas trees, wreaths and snow angels for more than three decades.
Reuters:
Normally, about 30 employees at the Lien Teng Enterprise factory in Taichung, central Taiwan, would be making more than 10,000 trees. But this year, clients have slashed orders in anticipation of a huge slide in demand because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the factory has had to cut back staff to fewer than 10.
“We have lost half or more of our exports to Europe and the Americas,” said Tsai, known in Taiwan as the “Christmas King”.
The lack of overseas orders has prompted the company to look domestically. While few Taiwanese celebrate Christmas, the firm supplies decorations to shopping malls and major landmarks. With the island relatively unscathed by the virus, Tsai said demand had been quite stable.
At a wholesale shop selling products from Lien Teng Enterprise last week, a steady stream of customers perused the offerings of festive baubles and fake pines in every imaginable hue.
“We cannot travel overseas, so we came here today to check out if there are wholesale products in Taiwan,” said Wu Ming Teng, a Christmas product retailer.
Updated
India reports lowest daily rise in coronavirus cases since 10 July
India reported 26,567 new coronavirus infections, data from the health ministry showed on Tuesday, the lowest daily increase since July 10, according to a Reuters tally.
Daily cases have been falling in India since hitting a peak in September. The country has 9.7 million cases, second-highest caseload in the world after the United States.
Deaths rose by 385, the health ministry said, with the total now at 140,958.
Hong Kong to impose new virus restrictions
Hong Kong will ban evening dining at restaurants and close fitness centres, the city’s leader said Tuesday, as part of new measures aimed at stemming a fourth wave of coronavirus infections, AFP reports.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the rules aim to reduce the “number of people on the streets”, echoing moves taken by authorities when cases spiked earlier this year.
Dining out will be banned after 6pm, beauty and massage parlours will be forced to close, and civil servants would be asked to work from home, she said.
Hong Kong’s strict social distancing measures have largely helped keep infections to under 7,000 in the city of 7.5 million, with 112 deaths.
But daily recorded cases have risen again to more than 100 on several occasions in recent weeks, the highest level since July.
Speaking ahead of a weekly meeting with policy advisers, Lam said “the strictness of social distancing measures must at least return to the level” of the outbreak’s peak in the city in July and August.
Schools, bars and nightclubs have already been ordered to close.
Lam did not say when the measures would come into effect, but added that the city’s health minister, Sophia Chan, would announce further details later on Tuesday.
Last week Hong Kong reimposed social distancing measures at some of their strictest levels since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Restrictions on public gatherings were tightened with a maximum of two people allowed to meet, down from four.
Authorities have also launched a hotline for residents to report social distancing breaches.
Updated
A study that found US school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic cut the life expectancy of each child in primary school by an average of three months contains “critically flawed assumptions” and “clear mistakes in study design”, according to a rebuttal led by an Australian epidemiologist.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on 12 November, was widely shared on social media including by scientists, doctors and policymakers and was covered in dozens of news stories.
The researchers calculated the years of life lost that might be attributable to school closures, and compared that to the years of life lost attributed to the first months of the pandemic:
Armed police raid home of Florida scientist fired over Covid-19 data
Rebekah Jones, the Florida data scientist embroiled in a dispute with the state’s Republican governor over the handling of coronavirus figures, had her home raided on Monday by armed police who confiscated her computers.
In a stream of posts on Twitter, Jones posted a video of the raid that showed state police carrying handguns escorting her out of her Tallahassee home. She can be heard saying: “He just pointed a gun at my children,” with her husband and two children apparently upstairs at the time.
Jones claimed in her tweets that the raid was the work of Ron DeSantis, the governor with whom she has clashed repeatedly since she was fired by the state’s department of health in May in a row over Covid-19 data. She compared the incident to sending “the gestapo”, adding: “This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly. This is what happens to people who speak truth to power.”
The Florida department of law enforcement confirmed they had entered Jones’s house on a search warrant. But in a statement the department said the action was related to a recent computer hack of the health department website, in which emergency response coordinators were sent an unauthorised message:
Here is our story on the Trump administration passing up a chance last summer to buy millions of additional doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, a decision that could delay the delivery of a second batch of doses until the manufacturer fulfils other international contracts.
The revelation, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed to the Associated Press on Monday, came a day before Donald Trump aimed to take credit for the speedy development of forthcoming vaccines at a White House summit.
Pfizer’s vaccine, one of the leading Covid-19 vaccine contenders, is expected to be approved by a panel of Food and Drug Administration scientists as soon as this week, with delivery of 100m doses – enough for 50 million Americans – expected in coming months:
Hello! Helen Sullivan, back with you again.
Besides aliens being real, what did I miss?
This cannot be right – I for one am SO ready:
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) December 8, 2020
Former Israeli space security chief says aliens exist, humanity not readyhttps://t.co/xvX4ly5uWW
Trump to sign executive order ensuring priority vaccine access for Americans
America First... from Reuters:
US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to ensure that priority access for Covid-19 vaccines procured by the US government is given to the American people before assisting other nations, senior administration officials said on Monday.
The Trump administration is confident it will have enough vaccine to inoculate everyone who wants a vaccine by the end of the second quarter of 2021, one official said, disputing a New York Times story that the government declined when Pfizer Inc offered in late summer to sell more vaccine doses to the United States.
Trump, who has faced sharp criticism for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, is eager to take credit for the speedy development and distribution of a vaccine.
One official said the executive order would lead to the formulation of guidelines for US government agencies to help other countries procure the vaccine once demand in the United States was met.
It was unclear why an executive order was needed to ensure that the vaccines would be distributed domestically first, though the order appeared to be designed in part to underscore Trump’s “America First” philosophy ahead of the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden.
The White House is holding a summit on Tuesday to explain plans for vaccine distribution through Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which has been organising the effort. Trump and other officials will speak.
Vaccine developers Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc will not attend.
A White House official said the companies were not coming because they had active applications pending before the US Food and Drug Administration. A senior FDA official, Dr Peter Marks, is scheduled to address the Tuesday event.
Representatives from Democratic President-elect Biden’s transition team were not invited to the summit. Trump, a Republican who lost the 3 November election to Biden, has refused to concede.
Updated
Breaking news from Hong Kong:
BREAKING: Carrie Lam announces ban on dine-in service at restaurants after 6pm; more civil servants to work from home; gyms, beauty parlours, gyms to close. Details to be confirmed later
— RTHK English News (@rthk_enews) December 8, 2020
South Korea orders vaccines for 44 million people
South Korea has signed a deal to buy Covid-19 vaccines for 44 million people, Yonhap news agency has reported, signing deals with four companies: Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.
South Korea reported 594 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday as the government prepared to outline its plans to secure enough vaccine candidates to potentially vaccinate millions of people next year. The elderly, frontline healthcare workers and first responders will be the first vaccinated.
According to Yonhap, South Korea has secured 64 million doses for 44 million people (three of the vaccines need two shots). Vaccines for 34 million will come directly from the drugmakers and 10 million via the WHO. The vaccines ordered are sufficient to cover 88% of the population.
Unlike South Korea’s previous two waves of infections, which were largely focused around a handful of facilities or events, the new wave is being driven by smaller, harder-to-trace clusters in and around the densely populated capital city of Seoul.
Vice health minister Kang Do-tae said the government had been unable to trace the origin of 26% of all cases, and the positivity rate spiked nearly fourfold within a month to about 4%.
“If social distancing is not implemented properly, outbreaks in the greater Seoul area would lead to greater transmissions nationwide,” Kang told a meeting of health officials according to a transcript from the health ministry.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on Monday for expanded coronavirus testing and more thorough tracing as infections continued to rise despite the imposition of increasingly restrictive social distancing measures.
Health authorities predicted daily cases would hover between 550 and 750 this week, and possibly spike to as much as 900 next week.
If such predictions are accurate, Kang said the country’s health system may collapse.
“There could be a dangerous situation where it becomes difficult not only to treat Covid-19 patients but also to provide essential medical services,” he said.
South Korea has now reported a total of 38,755 cases, with 552 deaths.
Updated
China reported 12 new Covid-19 cases on 7 December, down from 15 cases a day earlier, the national health authority said on Tuesday.
The National Health Commission said in a statement 10 of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, fell to five from six cases a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 86,646, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
Mexico’s health ministry on Monday reported 6,399 new cases of coronavirus infection and an additional 357 fatalities, bringing the country’s totals to 1,182,249 cases and 110,074 deaths.
The government says the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
A little more on Rudy Giuliani being diagnosed with Covid-19.
President Donald Trump says the 76-year-old former New York city mayor is “doing well”, is not running a temperature, and is even up to presidential phone calls. No word on what the phone call was about. Giuliani remains in Georgetown University hospital.
An 87-year-old retired race relations expert from Newcastle will help make medical history when he does his “duty” and becomes one of the first people in the western world to have a Covid vaccine.
“I’m so pleased we are hopefully coming towards the end of this pandemic and I am delighted to be doing my bit by having the vaccine”, said Hari Shukla ahead of receiving his jab. “I feel it is my duty to do so and do whatever I can to help.”
Shukla and his wife Ranjan, 83, will have the first of their two injections of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary on Tuesday morning, a week after Britain became the first country in the western world to approve a coronavirus vaccine:
As countries begin deploying vaccines in the coming weeks and months, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged them to prioritise those most in need.
“These are not easy decisions,” he said, setting out the WHO guidelines.
AFP: Tedros said health workers at high risk of infection were a top priority, plus people at the highest risk of serious disease or death due to their age - thereby easing the pressure on health systems.
He said they should later be followed by people with a higher risk of severe disease due to underlying conditions, and marginalised groups at higher risk.
The WHO’s ACT-Accelerator mechanism, pooling risk and reward among countries rich and poor, is a global attempt to speed up the development of Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments, and purchase and distribute them evenly regardless of wealth.
However, the scheme needs $4.3 billion urgently, with a further $23.9 billion required in 2021.
“What we need now globally is not to enter the land of empty promises in terms of supporting the ACT-Accelerator,” said Ryan, urging wealthy donors to stump up.
“The means to do this allocation fairly and equitably is there. But what’s not in place is the financing to make that happen in 2021.
“There’s too much of a gap between the rhetoric and the reality.”
WHO against mandatory Covid-19 vaccines
The World Health Organization said Monday that persuading people on the merits of a Covid-19 vaccine would be far more effective than trying to make the jabs mandatory, AFP reports.
The WHO said it would be down to individual countries as to how they want to conduct their vaccination campaigns against the coronavirus pandemic.
But the UN health agency insisted making it mandatory to get immunised against the disease would be the wrong road to take, adding there were examples in the past of mandating vaccines use only to see it backfire with greater opposition to them.
“I don’t think that mandates are the direction to go in here, especially for these vaccines,” Kate O’Brien, director of the WHO’s immunisation department, told a virtual news conference.
“It is a much better position to actually encourage and facilitate the vaccination without those kinds of requirements.
“I don’t think we envision any countries creating a mandate for vaccination.”
O’Brien said there may be certain hospital professions in which being vaccinated might be required or highly recommended for staff and patient safety.
But WHO experts admitted there was a battle to be fought to convince the general public to take the vaccines as they become available.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest updates from around the world.
You can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan to ask me what I would like for Christmas.
Britain is set to administer the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Tuesday, with the NHS giving top priority to people over the age of 80, frontline healthcare workers and care home staff and residents.
Meanwhile theWorld Health Organization said Monday that persuading people on the merits of a Covid-19 vaccine would be far more effective than trying to make the jabs mandatory.
The WHO said it would be down to individual countries as to how they want to conduct their vaccination campaigns against the coronavirus pandemic.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- France unlikely to end lockdown as planned on 15 December. The French health ministry’s top official, Jérôme Salomon, has backed up the bleak assessment attributed to the health minister, Olivier Véran, earlier, who said the country was unlikely to meet the conditions required for ending its national lockdown on 15 December.
- Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who tested positive for Covid-19, is doing well in the hospital and does not have a fever, the US president said. “Rudy’s doing well,” Trump told reporters. “No temperature, and he actually called me earlier this morning.”
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada will get up to 249,000 doses of the vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech before the end of December.
- Italy’s interior minister, Luciana Lamorgese, discovered during a cabinet meeting on Monday that she had coronavirus, prompting her to leave the gathering hastily. political sources told Reuters. Citing a source in her office, the news agency reported that Lamorgese was asymptomatic and tested positive after undergoing a routine swab before the meeting.
- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said the government will offer Covid-19 vaccines to all Brazilians, without cost or obligation, once health regulator Anvisa gives it scientific and legal approval.In a post on his Twitter account, Bolsonaro also said the economy ministry has pledged there will be no shortage of resources for everyone who wants a vaccine to get one.
