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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Edna Mohamed (now); Nadeem Badshah, Clea Skopeliti, Alison Rourke (earlier)

UK to ban travel from South Africa over new variant; Canada approves Moderna vaccine - as it happened

Thank you all for following along for tonights latest developments! You can keep up with the Guardian’s coverage of Covid-19 through our coronavirus keyword tag, but that’s it from me, Edna Mohamed.

Updated

Victoria has recorded its 55th straight day without a locally acquired Covid-19 case, reports AAP.

There are currently 10 active cases in the state with 19,229 tests processed in the past 24 hours. But Victoria’s border will remain closed to NSW over Christmas following Sydney’s northern beaches outbreak. On Wednesday, the infection cluster grew to 97 cases.

Summary of some of the key developments

  • Canada becomes the second country to approve the Moderna vaccine for deployment. The Canadian government is also set to extend its ban on incoming commercial and passenger flights from Britain until January 6.
  • The Treasury announces an additional £800m in coronavirus funding to the UK’s devolved nations. The fund will be split into £400m for the Scottish government, £200m for the Welsh government and £200m for the Northern Ireland executive.
  • France has registered 14,929 new Covid cases and 276 more deaths in the last 24 hours, according to French healthcare data.
  • Sinovac Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine is reported to be 50% effective in late-stage trials, according to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo on Wednesday.
  • Peru is set to receive a “significant batch” of vaccines from the Covax alliance during the first quarter in 2021. The Covax global alliance was designed to help secure Covid-19 vaccines to poor and middle-income countries.
  • New York has started requiring international visitors to quarantine on Wednesday to safeguard against the new variant of Covid-19 coming from the UK.
  • Mexico will begin inoculating health workers on Thursday with the arrival of the first vaccines.
  • The first batch of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine will reach Costa Rica on Wednesday night, with inoculations set to begin on Thursday, President Carlos Alvarado told a news conference.
  • Northern Ireland has confirmed a case of the new UK Covid-19 variant. The positive case was found after a genome analysis was conducted on a small number of suspected cases.
  • The current rate of coronavirus infections in South Africa is expected to soon surpass the record set during the first wave of the virus earlier this year, the health ministry warned.
  • Argentina has become the first Latin American country to approve the Russian vaccine, the Sputnik V.
  • The Moderna company have said that it expects its vaccine to be protective against the new variant reported in the UK.
  • The UK government has implemented a travel ban on passengers arriving from South Africa after two cases of another new strain of Covid-19 was found in the UK.
  • The European Union’s transport commissioner, Adina Valean has said that she is pleased stranded trucks are now moving “slowly across the Channel”, as restrictions between France and the UK were lifted.

The European Union’s transport commissioner, Adina Valean has said that she is pleased stranded trucks are now moving “slowly across the Channel”, as restrictions between France and the UK were lifted.

The initial restrictions were imposed after the UK discovered a new variant of the Covid-19 virus, which, reportedly has a faster transmission rate.

After a swathe of England is set to be placed under lockdown-like tier 4 conditions on Boxing day, scientists warn that ministers are acting too slowly to curb the rising infections, Simon Murphy and Josh Halliday report.

The new tier reshuffle will see 42% of England, nearly 24m people in tier 4 and 44% in tier 3. Currently, the Isles of Scilly are the only area that is remaining in tier 1.

One expert has warned that the delay of “critical days” will mean “case numbers are going to be much, much higher” and “much more difficult to bring down”.

On Wednesday, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced that the UK had recorded 744 deaths, the highest since peak figures in April, and 39,237 cases.

UK government to ban travel from South Africa after new variant found

The UK government has implemented a travel ban on passengers arriving from South Africa after two cases of another new strain of Covid-19 was found in the UK, PA reports.

Starting from 9 am on Christmas Eve, visitors arriving in England who have been in or transited through South Africa in the past 10 days will not be permitted entry, and direct flights will be banned, the Department for Transport said.

The new ban excludes cargo and freight without passengers, and does not include British and Irish nationals, visa holders and permanent residents, who will all be able to enter but will be required to self-isolate for 10 days along with their household.

The Moderna company have said on Wednesday that it expects its vaccine to be protective against the new variant reported in the UK.

Currently, there are plans to run tests to confirm the vaccine’s activity against any strain. This comes as the UK government announced stricter lockdowns to huge parts of the country.

In a statement from the Moderna company, they said:

We have already tested sera from animals and humans vaccinated with the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine against a number of previous variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that have emerged since the first outbreak of the pandemic and found our vaccine to remain equally effective.

Based on the data to date, Moderna expects that the vaccine-induced immunity from the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine would be protective against the variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus recently described in the UK.

We will be performing additional tests of the vaccine in the coming weeks to confirm this expectation. We continue to test the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine against new SARS-CoV-2 variants, and our expectation is that the vaccine’s effectiveness will hold against them as well.

Argentina has become the first Latin American country to approve the Russian vaccine, the Sputnik V.

Argentina’s health ministry said on Wednesday that it has given ‘emergency’ authorisation of the Russian vaccine, which is due to arrive on Thursday with 25m doses.

The health minister, Gines Gonzalez Garcia said that the approval for the vaccine was given “in conformity with the recommendations” of Argentina’s drug administration policy.

The Sputnik V previously came under fire from critics after it was registered before it began large-scale clinical trials. Its developers claim it is more than 90% effective.

So far Argentina has recorded over 1.5m coronavirus cases and more than 42,000 deaths.

In South Africa, the current rate of coronavirus infections is expected to soon surpass the record set during the first wave of the virus earlier this year, the health ministry warned.

Positive cases have increased by 14,046, increasing the total infection number to 954,258. The positivity rate is at 26%, double the average rate of infection seen before December when the virus showed signs of decline.

But following the discovery of the new variant, South Africa’s health department said it was likely the cause of the recent surge.

The World Health Organization and local officials have said that the variant discovered in South Africa is different from the one found in Britain, despite both being more transmissible than the previously circulating variants.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health wrote that South Africans would need to “review the current restrictions and consider further measures to ensure that we curb the alarming rate of spread.”

Updated

Northern Ireland has confirmed a case of the new UK Covid-19 variant. The positive case was found after a genome analysis was conducted on a small number of suspected cases, reports PA.

It is understood that health officials believe that the variant has been in circulation at a low level in the nation for several weeks now.

The health minister, Robin Swann, has said: “This is sadly the confirmation we had been expecting.

“As I have stated from the outset of this pandemic, we have to avoid both panic and complacency.”

As part of its Stormont guidance, anyone returning to Northern Ireland for the holiday season should self-isolate on Christmas Day.

Currently, Covid cases remain high in the region, with another 21 deaths and 787 new cases confirmed on Wednesday.

Updated

Northern Ireland finds a positive case of the new UK variant

Northern Ireland’s Department of Health is reporting that they have found one positive case of the new variant.

Updated

The first batch of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine will reach Costa Rica on Wednesday night, with inoculations set to begin on Thursday, President Carlos Alvarado told a news conference.

The shipment is expected to contain 9,750 doses with another shipment coming in next week with an additional 10,725. The health minister, Daniel Salas, said the vaccine’s arrival was “a light in this year of darkness” but warned the pandemic is not over.

Like many national rollouts, Costa Rica will give the vaccine to its essential workers and elderly care facilities first before wider distribution, reports Reuters.

With a population of 5 million, Costa Rica has registered more than 2,000 death due to the coronavirus and 161,942 infections.

Updated

The new South African variant of Covid-19 is likely to be more transmissible and hit young people harder, according to scientists in the country, Jason Burke reports.

While research into the new variant is ongoing, it appears to not have more serious symptoms or require different treatment as the variant the world has been dealing with for the past year.

However, epidemiologists point out that death rates have the potential to rise if the new variant spreads rapidly and overwhelms healthcare systems.

Updated

Mexico will begin inoculating health workers on Thursday with the arrival of the first vaccines.

The foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, told a news conference: “It’s true that we still face a tremendous pandemic, but today is the beginning of the end.”

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that the vaccinations would begin with hospitals in Mexico City and the northern city of Saltillo, speaking before the first Pfizer vaccines were flown into the capital.

Mexico has recorded nearly 1.4m cases and 119,495 deaths from Covid-19, now having the fourth-highest death toll worldwide.

Updated

New York has started requiring international visitors to quarantine on Wednesday to safeguard against the new variant of Covid-19 coming from the UK.

As the city’s next group of essential workers, paramedics and first responders, lined up to get the vaccine, Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters that travellers would receive a city order via certified mail.

All international travellers will have to provide their contact details upon arriving in the city. Those to be found breaking the imposed quarantine orders could be fined $1,000 a day, the mayor said.

“There’s going to be a follow-up, direct home visit or hotel visit from the sheriff’s deputy to confirm that they are following the quarantine,” De Blasio said.

Updated

Peru is set to receive a “significant batch” of vaccines from the Covax alliance during the first quarter in 2021, the interim president, Francisco Sagasti, said on Wednesday.

The Covax global alliance was designed to help secure Covid-19 vaccines to poor and middle-income countries. It hopes to deliver at least 2bn doses by the end of 2021.

Peru has been especially hard-hit by the pandemic after it coincided with the country’s political crisis which saw three presidents all hold office in just two weeks.

As it stands, Peru recorded 1m cases on Tuesday and more than 37,000 deaths. According to Reuters figures, the country’s Covid mortality rate is among the world’s highest.

Updated

Sinovac Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine is reported to be 50% effective in late-stage trials, according to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo on Wednesday. They added that the Chinese company had asked the Brazilian institute who ran the tests to wait up to 15 days before publishing their full results.

The Butantan Institute, who are running the trials in Brazil, and the Sao Paulo government which oversees the institute declined to comment, saying there would be more details at 4 pm local time, reports Reuters.

France has registered 14,929 new Covid cases and 276 more deaths in the last 24 hours, according to French healthcare data. Currently, France has a total of nearly 2.5m confirmed Covid-19 infections and 61,978 deaths since the pandemic began.

Updated

The Irish head of the Covid-19 modelling body has said it is not confident that the restrictions announced this week will bring the R number back below 1.

The health ministry has also reported that the British variant of the virus is likely to have been present in the country since the second week of December.

Updated

Canada has become the second country to approve the Moderna vaccine. This comes two weeks after authorising immunisations with the Pfizer/BioNtech jab.

“Today’s authorisation is a critical step in ensuring additional Covid-19 vaccines are available to all Canadians in all parts of the country,” Health Canada said in a statement.

“The different storage and handling requirements of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine mean that it can be distributed to isolated and remote communities, including the territories.”

The country is also set to extend its ban on incoming commercial and passenger flights from Britain until 6 January, Reuters reports.

Updated

The Treasury has announced an additional £800m in coronavirus funding to the UK’s devolved nations, reports PA.

The fund will be split into £400m for the Scottish government, £200m for the Welsh government and £200m for the Northern Ireland executive.

The chief secretary to the Treasury, Steve Barclay, said: “We’ve already committed unprecedented levels of support to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

“This extra funding will provide the nations with the certainty they need to plan through these difficult months.

“We remain committed to an economic recovery for the whole of the United Kingdom and will continue to work closely with the devolved administrations to support people and businesses.”

The Treasury has said that the fund can be spent on business support or the NHS.

It will take its upfront funding guarantee for the devolved administrations to around £16.8bn, in addition to the money already outlined in the 2020 spring budget.

Updated

Summary of some of the key developments:

  • 39,237 new cases have been recorded in the latest reporting period in the UK, the highest daily rise so far. A further 744 Covid-related deaths have been reported, which is the highest toll since 29 April. It comes as all data on the Oxford vaccine has been submitted to the UK’s medicine regulator for approval.
  • Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said another new strain of Covid-19 had been detected in the UK, originating from travellers from South Africa, with two confirmed cases. Hancock also announced Essex, Norfolk, Sussex, Surrey, Oxfordshire and Hampshire will enter tier 4 restrictions from Boxing Day. Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Swindon, Isle of Wight, New Forest, Northamptonshire, Cheshire and Warrington will go into tier 3, Hancock announced.
  • Italy reported 553 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday against 628 the day before, taking its total toll past 70,000, the health ministry said. The daily tally of new infections increased to 14,522 from 13,318. Italy becomes the fifth nation in the world to surpass 70,000 deaths, with an updated total of 70,395, the highest in Europe. It has also registered some 1.991 million cases to date.
  • Turkey’s coronavirus death toll rose by 259 in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed on Wednesday, bringing the total number of deaths to 18,861.
  • Israel has detected four cases of the new, highly infectious variant of the coronavirus that emerged in the UK, the Israeli health ministry said.
  • The Czech Republic will shut non-essential shops and services and enforce a stricter curfew from Sunday.
  • The African continent will struggle to access vaccine supplies amid the global race for doses, an African Export-Import Bank official warned.
  • Switzerland started its Covid-19 vaccine rollout on Wednesday, with a care home resident in her 90s becoming the first person to receive an approved shot.
  • The evidence suggests the outbreak of this variant started in Kent, Prof Horby said during a session with the science and technology committee regarding the new coronavirus variant.
  • Prof Ferguson said evidence suggests that “almost certainly” this virus has already been introduced to the “great majority if not all” of European countries.
  • China’s biggest airline became the latest company to halt direct flights to and from London after the emergence of a highly infectious new coronavirus variant.
  • Philippine Airlines and Norway also announced extensions to their flight bans.
  • Meanwhile, Bulgaria announced it would resume flights from the UK from 10am on Wednesday.
  • Scuffles broke out between truck drivers stranded outside the English port of Dover, Reuters reports, after France’s ban on entry was lifted on the condition of a negative test.

Updated

Karnataka state in India will impose a night curfew starting today over fears of the new virus variant.

Home to the country’s technology hub, the ban by the southern state will focus on gatherings and non-essential travel from 10pm to 6am and is set to last until January 2.

The new agreement came into place after the national government reported that nine states had found positive cases of coronavirus among travellers coming from the UK.

Karnataka’s chief minister, B.S. Yediyurappa, called on the public to respect the curfew to “prevent the spread of the new Covid strain”.

Currently, India is the world’s second most-infected nation, with more than 10 million cases and over 146,000 deaths.

Updated

Hi, I’m Edna Mohamed, I’ll be taking over the liveblog from my colleague tonight. If you wanted to flag any new coronavirus news you can tweet me or email me here: edna.mohamed.casual@theguardian.com

Turkey records further 259 deaths

Turkey’s coronavirus death toll rose by 259 in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed on Wednesday, bringing the total number of deaths to 18,861.

Turkey also recorded 19,650 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours. Total cases since March, when the first Covid-19 case was identified in Turkey, stood at 2,082,610, the data showed.

The government has imposed full weekend lockdowns and weekday curfews to curb infections.

The first formally approved batch of Covid-19 vaccine to arrive in Latin America was met with ceremonies fitting a VIP on Wednesday: flags, television cameras and cabinet-level dignitaries lined up along the runway.

A DHL flight touched down at Mexico City’s international airport and ground crew unloaded the first batches of ultra-cold vaccines produced by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech.

“Today is the beginning of the end of that pandemic,” said the foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard.

The first vaccines were due to be given to health workers in Mexico City and the northern city of Saltillo, starting on Thursday.

Updated

Irish government ministers are restricting their movements after a cabinet member tested positive for Covid-19.

Agriculture minister Charlie McConalogue received a positive test result on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the minister said he was not displaying symptoms.

McConalogue, who attended a cabinet meeting on Tuesday in Dublin Castle, recently travelled back from Brussels from an EU meeting on fisheries.

As an essential worker he was not required to self-isolate on his return but he did have to undergo a series of Covid tests.

It is understood the minister tested negative before leaving for Brussels and again on his immediate return. His positive test was returned after he undertook a required follow-up test on Tuesday.

A spokesman for the minister said: “He is displaying no symptoms and is in good health. He is now self-isolating.”

Updated

New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, said members of the city Sheriff’s office would start paying home visits to enforce a quarantine order for travellers from the UK in an effort to stop the spread of the new Covid-19 variant.

De Blasio said all international travellers to New York City would start receiving a Department of Health Commissioner’s order to quarantine, delivered via certified mail, and they could face a $1000 fine per day for violating the rules.

The city Sheriff’s office will check ontravellers from the UK at their homes or hotels to ensure compliance, de Blasio said, taking extra precaution out of concern that they could bring a new, highly transmissible variant of the virus to New York.

“We’re going to provide them with that commissioner’s order, but then there’s going to be a follow up, direct home visit or hotel visit from the sheriff’s deputy to confirm that they are following the quarantine,” de Blasio said.

Updated

Israel confirms four cases of new Covid variant

Israel has detected four cases of the new, highly infectious variant of the coronavirus that emerged in the UK, the Israeli health ministry said.

Updated

A summary of the increased restrictions for England:

  • A further 10 million people in England will face stricter restrictions from Boxing Day, following an announcement from the health secretary, Matt Hancock, this afternoon. More than 6 million people, equating to 11% of the population of England, will be added to tier 4. Those living in Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Waverley, Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton will move to the highest tier.
  • While a further 4.3 million people will move into tier 3, including those living in Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset including North Somerset Council, Swindon, the Isle of Wight, New Forest, Northamptonshire, Cheshire and Warrington. Cornwall and Herefordshire will also move up to tier 2.
  • Almost nine in 10 people in England will be under tier 4 or 3 restrictions once the changes come into effect, with 42% of the population in tier 4 and 44% in tier 3. Only the Isles of Scilly now remain in tier 1.

Updated

Italy death toll surpasses 70,000

Italy reported 553 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday against 628 the day before, taking its total toll past 70,000, the health ministry said.
The daily tally of new infections increased to 14,522 from 13,318. Italy becomes the fifth nation in the world to surpass 70,000 deaths, with an updated total of 70,395, the highest in Europe.
It has also registered some 1.991 million cases to date.

The number of swab tests carried out in the past day rose to 175,364 from a previous 166,205, the health ministry said.

Patients in hospital with Covid-19 stood at 24,546 on Wednesday, down by 402 from the day before. There were 216 new admissions to intensive care units, compared with 201 on Tuesday.

Updated

Andrew Proctor, the leader of Norfolk county council, said the impact on hospitals was driving the county’s move from tier 2 to tier 4 restrictions from Boxing Day.

“With our hospitals under increasing pressure and rates of the virus in the county continuing to rise over a number of indicators, the news of tougher restrictions for Norfolk isn’t what we wanted to hear but in those circumstances doesn’t come as too much of a surprise.

“Looking on the brighter side, our case rates are still lower than other areas of the country, particularly the south-east.

“Norfolk has made a collective effort to keep the virus at bay as best we can and it’s essential we continue to do that.

“It’s the impact on our hospitals that’s driving this change and we can’t afford to overwhelm them, preventing our hard-pressed doctors and nurses from treating people and saving lives.”

Updated

UK sees highest daily rise of cases

39,237 new cases have been recorded in the latest reporting period in the UK, the highest daily rise so far.

A further 744 Covid-related deaths have been reported, which is the highest number since 29 April.

Updated

Dr Yvonne Doyle, the medical director at Public Health England, said the rapid rise in cases is hugely worrying.

Every day the number of new infections is reported, which can be overwhelming, we need to remember that each one represents a person who could become seriously unwell with Covid-19. Please follow the rules in your local area which will help to keep your friends and family safe.

None of us will be having a normal Christmas this year but please remember to look out for family and friends who might be alone and struggling.

Updated

Canada’s health regulator has approved Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, making it the second country to give the drug the green light.

The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said Canada should receive as many as 168,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine before the end of December, with deliveries set to begin within 48 hours of approval.

Canada has an agreement with Moderna for 40m doses of the vaccine in 2021.

In a notice sent out on Wednesday morning, Health Canada noted the vaccine was 94.1% effective and safe.

“There were no important safety issues identified and no life-threatening adverse events (AEs) or deaths related to the vaccine,” the notice said.

Because Moderna’s vaccine requires less intensive cold storage, it is seen as an ideal candidate for use in remote indigenous communities and Canada’s sparsely-populated northern territories.

Canada was one of the first countries, alongside Bahrain and the United Kingdom, to approve Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine, which it deployed to healthcare workers and residents in nursing homes.

Updated

Conservative councillor Matthew Hicks, the leader of Suffolk county council, said news the county would be moved from tier 2 to tier 4 restrictions on Boxing Day “comes as no surprise”.

Suffolk’s current rate is 188 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people and two weeks ago it stood at 67 per 100,000 people, the authority said.

“This rise in cases, exacerbated by a more infectious variant, means increased pressure on the National Health Service and its partners, who are in the front line in the fight against Covid-19,” said Hicks.

“We now must use this move into tier 4 status as a springboard from which to redouble our efforts in working together to bring rates down.”

Updated

The Health Service Journal is reporting that NHS England has decided that 17 more acute hospital trusts in England will get their first supplies of the Covid vaccine this week, following discontent that a majority of trusts still had not received any yet, as reported by the Guardian today.

Updated

The government needs to be decisive in the coming days and be prepared to take further action to stop the spread of coronavirus, the group which represents NHS trusts in England has said.

Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said:

It is right to respond to rising infections, hospitalisations and deaths, which are nearly at the level of the height of the first wave of the pandemic in April.

Moving more areas into higher tiers is an important next step and we would call on the government to move as decisively as possible over the coming days should the spread accelerate further.

It is important to remember that there is a long lag between imposing stricter lockdown measures and reducing the demands made on the NHS – which is already stretched to capacity, no matter what the setting.

The emergence of new variants is worrying. It makes containing the spread absolutely critical.

Updated

The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said: “Without more support from the government, jobs will be lost and businesses will close.

Ministers must act quickly and provide the financial help hard-hit industries badly need. They can’t watch from the sidelines as companies go the wall and redundancies mount.

And they must help families too, by boosting sick pay to a real living wage so that people can afford to self-isolate, and increasing universal credit.

Updated

After the announcement that swathes of England are heading for tier 4 measures from Boxing Day, Josh Hardie, the CBI’s deputy director general, said:

Tighter Covid restrictions have already been a huge setback for firms and this will be felt even more by those who have now spent much of the year under them.

The extension of government-backed business loans and the furlough scheme will provide some certainty and respite for those under new tiers. But the government should revisit support in January to ensure businesses across the UK make it through beyond spring. Efforts to speed up mass rapid testing and vaccine rollout will help reopen the economy safely, but it is clear challenges will continue well into next year.

Updated

The leader of Cambridgeshire county council, the Conservative councillor Steve Count, said that moving the county into tier 4 restrictions would not “on its own” drive down rates. He said:

We have all worked hard to keep rates of the virus down in the county and so it is disappointing that infections are now rising quickly once again, but news of the variant can perhaps explain why this is happening.

Moving into tier 4 will have an effect on people’s lives, but on its own it won’t drive down rates.

We need people to do even more to break the chain of infection and stop Covid in its tracks.

I urge you to avoid mixing with others outside of your household or support bubble and to be alert to the signs of Covid.

Updated

That brings to an end a rather sombre Downing Street news conference.

Updated

Hancock says he’s “highly confident we’ll get things back to normal by 2022” due to the speed of the rollout of the vaccine.

On the vaccine, Hancock said the government will be “publishing tomorrow the full data on the vaccination programme so far”.

Dr Hopkins added there is “no evidence” yet that the vaccine will not work against these new Covid-19 strains.

Updated

Hancock says he is confident “we will get through this” by the spring. And people should resist temptation and avoid seeing people whom they don’t need to.

Updated

The deputy leader of Cornwall council said “urgent action” was needed following a steep rise in cases in the county, which will move from tier 1 to tier 2 restrictions on Boxing Day.

Councillor Adam Paynter said:

I know how hard people in Cornwall have worked to stick to the rules, but this steep rise in case numbers demands urgent action.

Moving up a tier will introduce some additional rules aimed at stopping the virus from spreading as freely in our communities.

I can’t stress how important it is that we all stick to these new rules and follow the public health guidance.

We must safeguard the most vulnerable among us and protect our NHS through what is likely to be an incredibly difficult few weeks for all of us.

Updated

Some reaction to the widening of tier 4. The leader of East Sussex county council, the Conservative councillor Keith Glazier, described the increase in Covid-19 cases as “worrying”, as tier 4 restrictions were announced for the area.

After months of low infection rates across East Sussex, Covid-19 cases in every district and borough have more than doubled, and in some cases trebled, over a seven-day period, with more than 400 people now testing positive every day across the county.

This worrying increase is putting considerable pressure on all public services and, while we know the concern stricter restrictions will cause among residents and businesses, action needs to be taken now to slow the spread and ease the burden on the NHS.

We all need to act now as if we carry the virus: keep social contact to an absolute minimum and at the first sign of symptoms, no matter how mild, self-isolate and book a test.

While households currently in tier 2 can continue to form a three-household bubble on Christmas Day, we need to carefully consider who we meet and take every possible precaution to keep ourselves and others safe.

Updated

Hancock stresses there is a “personal responsibility” for the public and them minimising contact over the Christmas period.

In response to a question about whether should be a full national lockdown, Hancock said the new variant is highly concentrated and the stay at home rule aims to quell it.

On the new South African variant, Dr Hopkins says the authorities are learning about its properties all the time but the initial evidence is that it is a new more transmissible mutation.

She added it will be kept under surveillance and is confident the new tiering measures will keep it in check.

Dr Harries said that further new variants are not a surprise.

On schools returning in the new year and if the health secretary is considering rolling out the vaccine for vulnerable teachers, Hancock says the government’s new plan is designed to keep students and teachers safe.

On the vaccine, Dr Harries says the data doesn’t suggest that teachers themselves are at risk.

She acknowledges that teachers who are clinically vulnerable will be anxious and says they will be included in “group six”, meaning they can get the vaccine earlier than others.

Dr Harries said while the number of cases of the old variant is holding steady or tailing off in some areas, there has been a very sharp rise in cases of the new variant.

The number of hospital beds currently occupied by Covid patients across England is nearing April’s peak of about 21,000, Dr Harries said, including in London.

Updated

On suggestions that government has wasted valuable time be delaying tier 4 restrictions in other parts of the country having known about the new variant last Friday, Hancock said the government acted “incredibly fast” in implementing tier 4 in London and surrounding areas and the aim is a proportionate approach.

Dr Harries said cases have continued to go up at a “very rapid pace” in the last week, particularly in London, the south east and east of England, which entered tier four restrictions last weekend, as well as parts of Wales.
She said the rate of change is also stark in areas bordering tier four areas, such as Suffolk, Norfolk and the south-west of England. Dr Harries said areas that are set to go into tier four are following the same case trajectory as areas already in the highest tier of measures due to the new variant.

When asked a question on what is being done to help Britons stranded in other countries, Hancock would not go into specifics but said the government is doing all it can.

The old tiering system is not enough to control the new strain of the virus, the health secretary said.
Hancock said “We know that the three-tiered system worked to control the old variant and is working now in large parts of the country especially in northern England.

“But we also know that Tier 3 is not enough to control the new variant. This is not our hypothesis, it is a fact and we have seen it on the ground.

“We’ve seen case rates rise in some of the places close to where the current Tier 4 restrictions are in places like East Anglia where we are seeing a significant number of the new variant and we’ve seen case rates rise sharply.

“It is therefore necessary to put more of the East and South East of England into Tier 4.

“We’re also taking action in parts of the South West where there are some early signs of the new variant and where cases are rising.”

Hancock announes that community testing will be expanded further with 116 local areas now signing up.
The health secretary added that rapid testing in care homes will be expanded with £149m in extra funding to allow for two rapid tests a week for care home staff.

On testing, Hancock said all those who work in care homes in England will receive two rapid tests a week in addition to their weekly PCR tests.
And the UK has begun vaccinations in care homes. This includes the Chelsea pensioners, he added.

Hancock said the government is quarantining cases and close contacts of cases found in the UK, as well as placing “immediate restrictions” on travel from South Africa.
Anyone who has been to the country within the last two weeks should quarantine as well as those who have been close contacts of individuals who have been to the country. He said the measures are temporary while the new strain is investigated.

We are incredibly grateful to the South African government for their science,” he added.

“This virus is yet more transmissible and appears to have mutated further than the new virus.”

Oxford vaccine being reviewed by medicine regulator

Hancock has announced that all data on the Oxford vaccine has been submitted to the UK’s medicine regulator for approval.

Hancock says the development is “highly concerning” because the new variant is more transmissible and appears to have mutated further.

Hancock said that all travellers from South Africa in the past two weeks must isolate immediately due to the new variant which has been identified.

More areas enter Tier 2

Hancock said Cornwall and Herefordshire will go into Tier 2. from 00.01 on Boxing Day.

More areas of England enter Tier 3

Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Swindon, Isle of Wight, New Forest, Northamptonshire, Cheshire and Warrington will go into Tier 3, Hancock announced.

New coronavirus strain detected

Hancock says another new strain of Covid-19 has been detected in the UK which has originated from South Africa with two confirmed cases.

Updated

More areas will enter Tier 4 from Boxing Day

Hancock has announced Essex, Norfolk, Sussex, Surrey, Oxfordshire and Hampshire will enter Tier 4 restrictions from Boxing Day.

Hancock said in East Anglia there has been a significant number of new variant cases rising.

Hancock added hospital admissions are at their highest level since April and it is “absolutely vital that we act”.

Hancock said yesterday 691 deaths were reported and cases have raised by 57% in the past week.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said due to the more contagious variant “spreading at a dangerous rate” there will be further action he will be announcing.

The health secretary is set to address the nation shortly from Downing Street.

Summary

  • The UK’s R number has risen to between 1.1 and 1.3, according to the latest figures.
  • The Czech Republic will shut non-essential shops and services and enforce a stricter curfew from Sunday.
  • Africa will struggle to access vaccine supplies amid the global race for doses, an African Export Import Bank official warned.
  • Switzerland started its Covid-19 vaccine rollout on Wednesday, with a care home resident in her 90s becoming the first person to receive an approved shot.
  • The evidence suggests the outbreak of this variant started in Kent, Prof Horby said during a session with the science and technology committee regarding the new coronavirus variant.
  • Prof Ferguson said evidence suggests that “almost certainly” this virus has already been introduced to the “great majority if not all” of European countries.
  • China’s biggest airline became the latest company to halt direct flights to and from London after the emergence of a highly infectious new coronavirus variant. Philippine Airlines and Norway also announced extensions to their flight bans.
  • Meanwhile, Bulgaria announced it would resume flights from the UK from 10am on Wednesday.
  • Scuffles broke out between truck drivers stranded outside the English port of Dover, Reuters reports, after France’s ban on entry was lifted on the condition of a negative test.
  • It is “extremely unlikely” that plans allowing for households in lower tiers to meet on Christmas Day will change, UK housing secretary Robert Jenrick told BBC Breakfast this morning.

Updated

Africa needs about $9bn to fund enough Covid-19 vaccines to halt the pandemic on the continent, but a bigger problem is accessing that supply amid the global race for doses, an African Export Import Bank official said on Wednesday.

African nations cannot compete with wealthier governments that have secured huge supplies of inoculations, Hippolyte Fofack, Afreximbank chief economist, told Reuters.

“If the supply of Covid-19 vaccines is left to (the) market, many developing countries will be essentially rationed out of it, Africa included,” he said. “The key constraint is the supply of vaccines. Even if Africa had $100bn, we will not be able to access enough doses.”

He said African countries will need to ask wealthy governments for excess vaccines.

In the UK, MPs are receiving a briefing right now from health minister Nadhim Zahawi on the tiers announcement.

But it’s descended into chaos with dozens of MPs unable to join the meeting due to the 100-person limit. “Utterly ridiculous. Waste of time and energy,” says one unhappy MP.

Czech Republic to lock down from Sunday

The Czech Republic will shut non-essential shops and services and enforce a stricter curfew from Sunday as it seeks to curb another rise in Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations, health minister Jan Blatny said on Wednesday.

The government approved a move to its highest risk level, Blatny said, triggering restrictions that will largely lock down the country of 10.7 million during the holiday season and cancel New Year’s Eve celebrations.

A shopper wearing a protective face mask stands in front of shops at shopping mall during fourth Advent Sunday in Prague, Czech Republic, 20 December 2020.
A shopper wearing a protective face mask stands in front of shops at shopping mall during fourth Advent Sunday in Prague, Czech Republic, 20 December 2020. Photograph: Martin Divíšek/EPA

The announcement came after the daily tally of Covid-19 infections passed 10,000 on Tuesday for the first time since 6 November.

Updated

Around 500 relatives of people who died of Covid-19 in Italy have said they are launching legal action against regional and national authorities, seeking 100m euros in damages over an alleged lack of preparedness and action.

The civil lawsuit, which the plaintiffs said they would present to a Rome court in the next few hours, is against Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Health Minister Roberto Speranza and the governor of the northerly Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana.

The lawsuit is being brought by members of a committee called “Noi Denunceremo” (we will go to court), set up in April to represent the relatives of people who died in Bergamo, one of Lombardy’s worst-affected cities.

“This case is our Christmas gift to those who should have done what they were supposed to do, but didn’t,” the group’s president Luca Fusco said in statement.

The committee said when the outbreak erupted in Lombardy local authorities and the central government failed to take rapid action which could have avoided the need for a national lockdown and the economic damage it has brought.

They also criticised an alleged lack of preparedness, with neither Rome nor the Lombardy region having an updated plan in place to deal with a possible pandemic.

Russia’s health ministry has said it is stopping the recruitment of new volunteers in its main trial of the Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19, the TASS news agency reported.

Earlier on Wednesday, the vaccine’s developers at the Gamaleya Institute said they felt it was no longer ethical to administer a placebo to volunteers now that the vaccine, approved for domestic use back in August, was being rolled out to the public.

The ministry said it had already vaccinated more than 31,000 volunteers as part of the Moscow-based trial, a quarter of whom received placebos.

A further 21 people with Covid-19 have died in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health has said.

There have also been 787 new confirmed cases of the virus in the last 24-hour reporting period.

A further 416 people have died after testing positive for the coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 47,399.

Patients were aged between 32 and 102 years old. All except 15 (aged 37 to 90 years old) had known underlying health conditions.

Date of death ranges from 19 April to 22 December 2020.

Their families have been informed.

The number of deaths of patients with Covid-19 by region are as follows:

  • East of England – 44
  • London - 71
  • Midlands - 82
  • North East & Yorkshire - 59
  • North West - 71
  • South East – 59
  • South West - 30

Updated

Press conference announced for 3pm

Matt Hancock, the health secretary for England, will lead a Downing Street press conference at 3pm.

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries and Dr Susan Hopkins of Public Health England will join him.

“Ministers have met today to assess what further action may be needed to address the rise in cases driven by the new variant,” a health official said.

Updated

R number rises to between 1.1 and 1.3 across UK

The UK’s R number has risen to between 1.1 and 1.3, according to the latest figures.

This is a slight increase from between 1.1 and 1.2 last week, Sage figures show.

The R rate represents the average number of people each person with Covid-19 goes on to infect. When the number is over 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially.

Updated

A group of hauliers at Dover have clashed with police as vehicles began to be moved.

Lorry drivers began to block the carriageway out of the Eastern Docks, with one man lying down underneath the front of a lorry before being moved by officers.

Earlier, police officers began to allow waiting vehicles into the port of Dover’s Eastern Docks to clear traffic from the roundabout at the entrance.

Drivers had not responded to earlier requests to move their vehicles, with one haulier saying it was in protest over fears they would not be tested first.

The transport secretary said the French police were only acting on the agreement to reopen the border from this morning and “severe delays” were continuing.

Grant Shapps said: “Please AVOID Kent while the backlog is cleared. Arriving in the area will delay your journey.”

Updated

Face masks lower the risk of spreading large Covid-linked droplets when speaking or coughing by up to 99.9%, a lab experiment with mechanical mannequins and human subjects has found.

A woman standing 2 metres from a coughing man without a mask will be exposed to 10,000 times more large droplets than if he were wearing one, even if he were then only 50cm away, researchers reported in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

The study focused on particles larger than 170 microns in diameter, which are understood to be the main driver of Sars-CoV-2 transmission.

“There is no more doubt whatsoever that face masks can dramatically reduce the dispersion of potentially virus-laden droplets,” senior author Ignazio Maria Viola, an expert in applied fluid dynamics at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, told AFP.

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, Washington, 55,000 lives could be saved in the United States over the next four months if a policy of universal mask use were adopted.

The WHO updated its Covid-19 guidance earlier this month to recommend masks be worn indoors in the presence of other people if ventilation is inadequate.

Updated

Residents in the Rugby area of Warwickshire have been urged to be extra careful over the Christmas period following a sharp increase in coronavirus cases, including among under-18s.

In the last three weeks there have been 648 cases in Rugby, and rates have increased from 108.32 cases per 100,000 per week on 5 December to 344 per 100,000 today. The biggest rises have been seen in children and adults aged 18-24.

Warwickshire’s director of public health, Dr Shade Agboola, said: “The rise in cases in Rugby is worrying to see as case numbers have previously been quite low.

“The rise in under-18s is also of concern, especially as the Christmas period will see many families with elderly, more vulnerable residents coming together, and this could lead to a rise in cases in those who are at increased risk.

“I know that residents have been working hard to follow the rules of Hands, Face, Space and I would encourage them to continue doing that, but I would also urge people to think carefully about who they visit over Christmas and how they do that.”

Councillor Seb Lowe, the leader of Rugby borough council, said: “We are at a critical point.

“And, with one in three infections in people without symptoms, there could be many more residents who are currently infected and don’t know it.

“Decisions we make now can make a real difference to the course of this pandemic. If we choose to meet up to two other households on Christmas Day as the rules allow, we must do so knowing the risk that we may pass on the virus and that our friends and family may become poorly.”

Updated

Sweden registered 6,609 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, data from its health agency showed.

The increase compared with a high of 9,654 daily cases recorded last week.

Sweden registered 112 new deaths, taking the total to 8,279. The deaths registered have typically occurred over several days and sometimes weeks, and are added into the health agency’s tally, which is updated four times a week.

Sweden’s death rate per capita is several times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours but lower than several European countries that opted for lockdowns.

Authorities have decided to extend a ban on flights from the UK until the new year, the Swedish daily Aftonbladet reported, citing the Scandinavian airline SAS.

Updated

Honduras has said it is temporarily restricting entry of people into the country from the UK and South Africa from Wednesday, citing concerns over a new strain of coronavirus.

National risk management system SINAGER said in a statement that it would curb the entry into Honduras of citizens of the two countries or anyone who had been in them during the last 21 days, noting that the measure was temporary.

Updated

There have been a further 3,013 cases of coronavirus in Wales, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 131,102.

Public Health Wales reported another 51 deaths, taking the total in Wales since the start of the pandemic to 3,200.

New strain of coronavirus not detected in Japan

The infectious coronavirus variant spreading in Britain has not been detected in Japan, members of the Japanese government’s expert panel on coronavirus responses said.

The Japanese government said earlier in the day it will ban the entry of non-Japanese people from the United Kingdom from Thursday.

Russia’s Health Ministry said it was halting the uptake of new volunteers in its main trial of the Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19, the TASS news agency reported.

The ministry said it had already vaccinated more than 31,000 volunteers as part of the Moscow-based trial, a quarter of whom received placebos.

Nicola Sturgeon has said there are “no excuses” for her breach of Scottish government guidance on face coverings as she apologised for her behaviour in advance of first minister’s questions in Holyrood today.

I took my face mask off while briefly attending a funeral purvey last week. I’m sure everyone will have seen in the media this morning a picture of me without it. Regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses. These rule do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else and the rules really matter.”

Sturgeon added: “I am kicking myself very hard, possibly harder than my worst critics...most importantly, I’ll be making sure I do not drop my guard again.”

She then reminded the chamber of the FACTS acronym, which includes ‘F face coverings’, “with an enormous dose of humility”.

It was notable that neither Tories nor Labour – never shy of attacking Sturgeon directly – did not follow this up in their questioning, pushing her on business support under lockdown and the rights of care home residents.

Earlier, the political editor of the Scottish Sun Chris Musson confirmed that the photograph was taken “in a public part of the venue, not the function area where the wake was. The older women [speaking to Sturgeon] in the pic were not at the wake”.

National clinical director Jason Leitch explained on BBC Radio Scotland that Sturgeon’s mask was off because she was leaving the venue, but that she was then called back and didn’t put it back on.

Updated

Coronavirus infections in Switzerland rose by 5,033 in a day as the country began selected vaccinations of elderly people.
The total number of confirmed cases in Switzerland and neighbouring principality Liechtenstein increased to 423,299 and the death toll rose by 98 to 6,431, while 292 new hospitalisations kept pressure on the health care system.

Professor Neil Ferguson told the Commons Science and Technology Committee in the UK that the new strain of coronavirus is “everywhere now”, but said he anticipated the impact of new Tier 4 restrictions and revised strict measures over Christmas elsewhere would have a beneficial impact.

He said: “Schools are now shut, we are in a near-lockdown situation across the country.
“Contact rates are lower over Christmas.

I expect, though I hesitate to make any sort of predictions, we will see a flattening of the curve in the next two weeks. We will see at least a slowing of growth.

“The critical question is what happens in January and the extent we want to make public health measures more uniform across the country if the new variant is everywhere.”

The UK’s home secretary Priti Patel has tweeted the border with France is reopening.

Russia said it would no longer give placebos to volunteers in its large-scale final-stage trials for the Sputnik V shot, the RIA news agency reported.
Alexander Gintsburg, director of Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, developer of the first Russian vaccine against COVID-19, said the Health Ministry had authorised the move. “Everything there has been proven and the pandemic is ongoing, so a placebo is not good at all,” he said. Gamaleya’s experience underscores problems for drugmakers around the world as the pressure of the coronavirus pushes regulators to authorise new vaccines and start administering them faster than they normally would. Russia is also in a unique position because it approved Sputnik V very early, in August, after stage I and II human trials showed that it was safe and produced the antibodies needed for a protective immune response. More than 200,000 people have now been vaccinated in a national rollout. As a result, volunteers in the final, stage III trial, which began in September, have begun quitting to try to get the vaccination. In stage III, the gold standard, a large number of volunteers randomly receive either the vaccine or a control injection of placebo, without knowing which they have been given, and their infection rates are compared after a sufficient number have become infected through natural exposure. If the trial is shrunk or shortened, this reduces the chances that it will pick up any unexpected effects of the drug.

Pfizer Inc will supply the US with 100m additional doses of its Covid-19 vaccine by July next year, the US drugmaker said.

Wednesday’s agreement brings the total number of doses to be delivered to the United States to 200m.

Under the terms of the agreement, Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE will deliver at least 70 million doses by June 30, with the balance of the 100 million doses to be delivered no later than July 31.

The US government already has a deal with Pfizer for 100 million doses of the vaccine, which are being rolled out across the country after the shot won emergency use authorisation earlier this month.

Separately, Merck & Co said it will supply about 60,000-100,000 doses of its Covid-19 treatment to the US government for around $356m.

The agreement will help support advanced development and large-scale manufacturing of Merck’s investigational therapeutic MK-7110 to treat hospitalized patients with severe or critical Covid-19, The US Department of Health and Human Services said.

Updated

In the the Commons science and technology committee hearing in the UK, Nervtag member Prof Wendy Barclay dismissed the suggestion from former prime minister Tony Blair that the first dose of the two-stage Pfizer vaccine should be given to as many people as possible initially.

The current policy sees half as many people get both required doses of the jab.
Prof Barclay said: “I think that the issue with that (Mr Blair’s suggestion) is that the vaccine is on the basis of being given two doses, and the efficacy is on that basis. To change at that point, one would have to see a lot more analysis coming out from perhaps the clinical trial data.”

She agreed with the suggestion of Labour committee member Graham Stringer that any such change to the established vaccine policy was “too risky”.

Updated

The Irish government has said a member of the cabinet had tested positive for Covid-19.

All other ministers will now restrict their movements pending coronavirus tests and results.

A member of cabinet has tested positive for Covid-19,” said a government statement.

“In line with public health advice, all ministers are restricting their movements while awaiting a Covid test and result.”

Updated

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is showing signs of improvement after testing positive for Covid-19 last week, his office said.

Macron, 43, is in quarantine at the presidential retreat of La Lanterne, close to the Palace of Versailles.

Updated

New variant appears to be detected in Hong Kong

A new variant of the coronavirus that is spreading rapidly in Britain appears to have infected two students who returned to Hong Kong from the UK, Hong Kong’s Department of Health said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Virus samples from the two students, who returned to the Asian financial hub in December, appeared to match the British variant of the coronavirus, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, an agency under the Department of Health, told a daily press briefing.

More analysis needed to be done to verify the samples, she said.

Egypt cancels new year's celebrations

Egypt has cancelled all New Year’s celebrations in order to stem rising coronavirus cases in the country, AFP reports the prime minister, Mostafa Madbouli, as saying.

“There will be no New Year’s celebrations or gatherings as part of the precautionary measures taken to confront the coronavirus,” the premier said in a statement released after a cabinet meeting.

Egypt’s daily novel coronavirus caseload has been increasing steadily in recent weeks, and the Arab world’s most populous country has officially recorded more than 127,000 cases, including over 7,100 deaths.

While the official recovery rate remains high, limited testing of the general population has stoked fears that cases are going undetected.

On Monday, Mohammed al-Nady, a member of Egypt’s national coronavirus crisis committee, told prominent talk show host Lamees al-Hadidi that “infections, in reality, are at least 10 times higher than what is officially announced, and that’s being kind”.

The health and population minister, Hala Zayed, told Wednesday’s cabinet meeting that 364 hospitals nationwide, with a capacity of 5,000 “care beds” and equipped with 2,400 respirators, would be ready to receive critically ill Covid-19 patients when needed, according to the statement.

Updated

There is no evidence that long Covid is related to a variant, Prof Barclay says, adding that it is most likely due to a difference in the host response that an individual mounts.

Asked about whether we would have needed a tier 4 if we’d “cancelled Christmas” in November, Prof Horby points to the variant’s transmission over lockdown while saying modelling would need to be done to know.

Greek authorities say Christmas this year will not only be like no other but in many ways will resemble a wholesale security operation as police crack down on citizens violating coronavirus restrictions.

“As many as 5,000 police in Athens alone will be out patrolling especially when the curfew kicks in at 10 PM,” police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos told the Guardian. “No one in the force will be at their desk, they’ll be all out on the streets.”

Syndagma Square in central Athens lit up with Christmas decorations
Syndagma Square in central Athens lit up with Christmas decorations Photograph: Helena Smith

People caught outside when they should be inside, between 10 PM to 5 AM, will be fined 300 euro.

“And there will be 300 euro penalties for anyone caught not wearing a mask,” he added. “Happy holidays!”

The crackdown will include police using drones and even “knocking on the doors of private homes” if they learn of gatherings being larger.

The country has been under strict lockdown since November 7th as public health officials struggle to contain a second wave of the pandemic. Athens’ civil protection ministry has relaxed the restrictions by allowing nine people – from two families – to gather on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day and on 6 January when Greek Orthodox celebrate the Holy Epiphany.

Greek mobile police units patrol central Athens
Greek mobile police units patrol central Athens Photograph: Helena Smith

Greece’s public health organisation, EODY, has confirmed 132,430 coronavirus cases to date. Some 4,340 people have died in the country as a result of Covid-19. On Tuesday EODY announced a further 853 new cases and 83 deaths saying 491 patients remained in intensive care.

The health system, especially in the north of the country, has come under unprecedented pressure on account of the disease with epidemiologists sounding the alarm as the holiday season approaches.

A man has been arrested after disturbances in Dover and the nearby Manston lorry park, PA reports.

The man is being held for obstructing a highway in Dover, Kent Police said.

A spokesman added: “Officers on the ground at both locations are working with partner agencies to make sure those hoping to travel to the continent adhere to the latest government travel requirements regarding Covid testing.”

Some lorry drivers clashed with police early on Wednesday in Dover as they continued to be held up because of the impact of the now-lifted French travel ban.

Neil Ferguson: variant already in 'great majority if not all' European countries

Prof Ferguson says evidence from Denmark (a country with a relatively low infection rate) suggests that “almost certainly” this virus has already been introduced to the “great majority if not all” of European countries.

Updated

Q: The UK sequences 45% of the sequencing done globally, so we will discover more variants – are we being penalised for being more rigorous on the sequencing?

Prof Horby says countries that are more extensive and transparent expose themselves to important information being made available to others, but this is a “global public good” which is in “our interest”. He says European colleagues have said they need to replicate the UK’s genomic surveillance.

Updated

There is no evidence that the new variant is evolving any faster than the previous variants, Prof Ferguson says, and no variant in geographic links to the speed of mutation.

He says the new variant looks like a “point source” spreading out from the location but “we cannot completely rule out that it was an importation” from another part of the world.

Updated

Increased infectiousness poses a challenge for maintaining infection control, Prof Ferguson says. If children are found to be more infectious, it will pose a challenge to control measures, including what will be done with schools.

Asked about the possibility of children being more susceptible to the new variant, Prof Ferguson says comparisons with the non-variant show a statistically significant proportion of cases in under-15s.

“Beyond that we know nothing,” he says, adding there could be a number of hypotheses as to why that is the case. He emphasises that while it is a significant shift, it’s “not a huge shift”.

He says outcomes will be examined carefully, with comparisons made between hospitalisation rates (which are rare for children) and overall mortality rates.

Updated

Switzerland start Covid-19 vaccine rollout

Switzerland started its Covid-19 vaccine rollout on Wednesday, with a care home resident in her 90s becoming the first person to receive an approved shot, AFP reports.

The woman, who lives in the Lucerne region in central Switzerland, was given the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine just four days after it was approved by national regulators.

“I am very satisfied that we have now been able to start vaccinations in the canton of Lucerne,” the region’s health services chief Guido Graf said in a statement.

“These vaccinations are an important element in the fight against the coronavirus.”

Future variants may escape the vaccine, Prof Horby says. It is important to have processes in place to quickly create vaccine variants.

Of the seven mutations, there are three that haven’t been observed together before, that combined add up to a “biologically plausible mechanism” for enhanced entry and replication for the virus, Prof Barclay says.

Asked about the impact of the mutation on the vaccine’s efficacy, Prof Barclay starts by saying we don’t have the data yet.

However, she says while efficacy could be reduced, it is “highly unlikely” that the entire vaccine response will be rendered useless by this variant.

Prof Horby says there’s not been “any egging up” of the new variant’s transmissibility in response to speculation that the government did so to justify its last-minute changing of the Christmas rules.

The analysis suggests the virus is behaving biologically differently, he says.

Updated

Serbia will begin vaccinating people against Covid-19 on Thursday, the country’s president, Aleksandar Vučić,said on Wednesday.

Officials said Serbia has received nearly 5,000 doses of the vaccine, which is already in use in the United States and Britain.

Meanwhile European Union countries plan to roll out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on 27 December.

“Vaccination starts tomorrow in Serbia,” Vucic told the press, adding that the first jabs would go to the elderly in retirement homes. “It is important to protect these people... more than 80% of the people who have died from this terrible virus are the elderly and they are most at risk,” he said.

Updated

Q: Could rapid transmission be due to lower adherence to lockdown measures?

Prof Horby says they are increasingly confident that the virus behaves differently.

Q: How do we know the variant is more transmissible?

Prof Horby says the virus is spreading faster than others that are occuring at the same time in the same place.

We’re confident it’s spreading faster, but the “underlying mechanism” isn’t clear, he says. This could be because it replicates faster, giving higher viral loads. It could also be due to a shorter time frame between exposure and illness, or due to a longer duration of infectiveness.

There are a number of biological explanations but “all lead” to the same picture of higher transmissibility, Prof Horby adds.

Updated

Back to the committee meeting.

Asked about any link between the new variant and the coronavirus vaccine, Prof Horby has said the variant was first identified on 21 September – before the vaccine rollout – adding that the mutations are “probably not consistent” with a vaccine related emergence.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia will run a joint repatriation service for their citizens to leave Britain on 28 December, the Lithuanian foreign affairs minister said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

The three Baltic states were among dozens of countries to suspend flights from Britain or shut their borders due to concern over the more transmissible variant that has sent cases soaring in the United Kingdom.

The three countries will divide the 150 places on the flight equally between their citizens, giving priority to those with health emergencies or urgent family reasons such as funerals, the minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, told reporters in Vilnius.

“It’s a humanitarian mission,” the minister said.

The passengers will be required to purchase tickets and provide negative coronavirus tests from the previous 48 hours, or face a 10 days self-isolation after returning, he said.

Updated

A £7.5 million funding package is being made available to help tackle loneliness in England over the winter period, the government has announced, as more people face Christmas alone because of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Saturday, the government imposed stricter tier 4 restrictions on a third of England’s population while plans for five-day Christmas bubbles of up to three households were scaled back to only permit mixing on Christmas day. Earlier this month, before the new restrictions were introduced, a poll for the Observer found that twice the number of people as normal were already expecting to spend Christmas alone.

The government said the cash, announced on Wednesday, will go to sectors that help bring people and communities together, including the arts, libraries, charities and radio.

Lady Barran, minister for civil society, said: “We are coming to the end of one of the toughest years we have ever had to face and I know that the next few months will be a worry for many people who have felt particularly isolated or lonely during the pandemic.

“We still have some difficult times to overcome and it is important that we continue to provide support to those most at risk of isolation and loneliness over the next few months.”

Updated

We don’t know yet about the severity of disease, the age distribution of cases or whether there’s any immune escape (via antibodies or vaccination), Prof Horby adds.

The evidence suggests the outbreak of this variant started in Kent, Prof Horby says.

Preliminary data also suggests that the viral loads were higher in patients with this virus compared to others, though he says this data “remains uncertain”.

The correlation between the rate of increase in cases and this virus suggests that this variant was spreading faster than others.

Since this review of data on 18 December, other groups have reached the same conclusion on the variant’s biological advantage, Prof Horby says.

Updated

Prof Horby says all viruses mutate and we’ve seen many different variants to Covid-19 with no material change.

However, this variant became of interest because of a large increase in cases in Kent despite the lockdown. The variant was unusual because there were many mutations to it.

Nervtag heard about it on 11 December, while PHE learned about it on 8 December. At this point, the data was observational – it was unclear whether the rise in cases was causally related at this point.

The UK’s science and technology committee is holding an evidence session with the the chair of the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group (Nervtag) Prof Peter Horby, and Nervtag members Prof Wendy Barclay and Professor Neil Ferguson.

The session will discuss the evidence regarding the new coronavirus variant.

Updated

Passengers flying into India’s biggest airports on Wednesday complained of long waits, confusion and a lack of social distancing as authorities sought to impose restrictions on UK arrivals.

People arriving from Britain before the ban came into force on Wednesday were being tested, including Kamini Saraswat, whose plane landed in New Delhi just before midnight.

Despite pre-booking a test, her turn came nine hours after arrival and she told Reuters she was still stuck at the airport waiting for the result.

“There is no clear communication,” said Saraswat, 28. “There is no social distancing.”

Cellphone footage taken by Saraswat, shared with Reuters, showed long lines of passengers and crowds packed together around desks to get themselves tested.

Updated

The AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine could be approved by UK regulators “shortly after” Christmas, according to a medical scientist.

Professor Sir John Bell, Oxford University’s regius professor of medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he expects approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) “pretty shortly”.

He said: “They got data quite a long time ago but that was the first set of data. They receive multiple sets of data. So we are getting to be about prime time now, I would expect some news pretty shortly.

“I doubt we’ll make Christmas now, but just after Christmas I would expect. I have no concerns whatsoever that the data looks better than ever.”

Approval of the Oxford vaccine would be a major boost to efforts to control Covid-19 because it is easier to distribute than the Pfizer/BioNTech jab currently being used in the UK.

The government has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, with around 40 million available by the end of March.

Updated

China's largest airline suspends flights from London

China’s biggest airline has become the latest company to halt direct flights to and from London after the emergence of a highly infectious new coronavirus variant.

China Southern Airlines will suspend travel from 24 December to 7 January, state radio reported on Wednesday. The airline, which is the country’s largest by passenger numbers, has been operating a weekly flight between its hub Guangzhou and London.

Updated

Bulgaria is set to resume flights from the UK from 10am on Wednesday, the government has announced.

The Balkan country is one of more than 40 nations that suspended travel from the UK amid a new coronavirus strain spreading across the country, closing its borders on Sunday.

Travellers coming from the UK will be tested for the coronavirus and will have to observe a 10-day quarantine after arrival, the government said.

Updated

Companies face a “black Christmas” due to delays at the French border, the head of of a food and drink body in Scotland has said.

David Thomson, chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation Scotland, told the BBC: “For those people who export fresh and perishable goods, particularly seafood and salmon in Scotland, it’s been an absolutely disastrous few days and it will lead to a black Christmas for those businesses.

“The deal will be far too late for many people who are delivering perishable goods to the continent. It’s too late now to get to customers before Christmas.”

However, Thomson said he is not concerned in the short term about food shortages, telling the the BBC: “I’m not concerned in the short term - Christmas dinner is safe, we’ve managed to get to that point.”

Some vegetables that have to be imported may see delays, he said, adding: “But, hopefully, the unpacking of the ban will mean that there isn’t too much of that.”

Updated

The change in Taipei was subtle but apparent. Within hours of authorities announcing Taiwan’s first community transmission of Covid-19 since April, more people were wearing masks in more places, and hand sanitiser dispensers appeared in doorways, positioned so people would have to step around them to avoid the hint.

Until Tuesday Taiwan had gone 253 days without a local case of the virus. The circumstances around the new case have sparked fear and anger.

Helen Davidson reports from Taipei:

The mayor of the city of Nancy in eastern France has called for stricter restrictions to be imposed locally from 28 December to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

The epidemic has reached a critical point locally, Mathieu Klein told France’s BFM TV. The eastern region was the centre of the outbreak during France’s first Covid-19 wave.

France ended its lockdown on 15 December, with restrictions such as an 8pm curfew remaining in place.

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon is “furious with herself” after she breached coronavirus rules by taking off her face mask at a funeral wake, Scotland’s national clinical director, Jason Leitch, has said.

The first minister had been attending the funeral of a senior Scottish government civil servant who died of Covid-19.

Appearing on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, he said: “I think the first minister knows this matters, I think she’s as furious with herself as some might be with her.

“We had a brief conversation last night and she’s absolutely mad at this little lapse in concentration. It’s so easily done, we live in a completely different world from a year ago, don’t we?”

He said Sturgeon was “just about out the door and was called back”. He added: “Her mask was off because she was leaving, and then (she went) back in and (had) a little lapse – didn’t put it back on.

“It just reinforces again to all of us the nature of these instructions and this virus, and she is as mad with herself as everybody else.”

Updated

Norway has also extended its suspension of flights from the UK by at least three days due to the new variant, the Norwegian health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

A decision on whether to further extend the ban into the new year will be made on 26 December, the ministry said.

The country had initially halted all direct passenger flights from the UK with immediate effect on Monday, in a measure that was valid for 48 hours before being reviewed.

Updated

Philippine Airlines has announced it is extending its flight suspension to and from London from Thursday to the end of February as the UK battles a new coronavirus variant.

In a statement, the airline said it supports all measures that seek to curb any potential increase in Covid-19 cases during the holiday season and beyond.

Philippine Airlines operates a Manila-London-Manila service once a week.

The Philippines is one of more than 40 countries who have restricted entry from the UK because of a new variant of coronavirus that has taken hold.

Updated

Malaysia is in talks to buy 6.4 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine and aiming to increase its purchases from Pfizer-BioNTech, as the government accounts for risks surrounding candidates’ regulation.

The south-east Asian nation is spending about $500m to buy enough vaccines to inoculate 26.5 million people, or 82.8% of its population.

It has already bought vaccines from Pfizer and Britain’s AstraZeneca and expects to secure more from Chinese and Russian manufacturers, as well as from its participation in the global Covax facility, supported by the WHO.

The government had increased its vaccine supply targets to take into account risks that some vaccines may not be approved by regulators or if manufacturers failed to deliver, science, technology and innovation minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, told reporters.

“We want to have a little bit more of a buffer,” he said.

Updated

Scuffles have broken out between truck drivers stranded outside the English port of Dover, Reuters reports, after France’s ban on entry was lifted on the condition of a negative test.

Thousands of drivers, many from across Europe, have been stuck for days in southern England. Many will miss Christmas with their families.

There are about 4,000 trucks in the backlog, the housing secretary Robert Jenrick has said.

Police hold back drivers trying to enter the Port of Dover in Kent after French authorities announced that the coronavirus ban was lifted and journeys from the UK will be allowed to resume, but that those seeking to travel must have a negative test result.
Police hold back drivers trying to enter the Port of Dover in Kent after French authorities announced that the coronavirus ban was lifted and journeys from the UK will be allowed to resume, but that those seeking to travel must have a negative test result. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA
A man is restrained by a police officer at the Port of Dover on December 23, 2020 in Dover, United Kingdom.
A man is restrained by a police officer at the Port of Dover on December 23, 2020 in Dover, United Kingdom. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Updated

The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, has suggested more areas of England will be placed under tier 4 coronavirus restrictions as soon as Boxing Day to combat the “very worrying” hyper-infectious variant of Covid-19.

Jenrick said the government’s Covid-O operations committee would meet on Wednesday morning and that a decision on further action would be announced “as soon as we can”.

Trucks are parked on the M20 motorway as part of Operation Stack, whilst the Port of Dover remains closed, in southern England near the Channel Tunnel and Dover, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2020.
Trucks are parked on the M20 motorway as part of Operation Stack, whilst the Port of Dover remains closed, in southern England near the Channel Tunnel and Dover, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2020. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP
A vehicle passes through the Port of Dover in Kent after French authorities announced that journeys from the UK will be allowed to resume after the coronavirus ban was lifted, but those seeking to travel must have a negative test result.
A vehicle passes through the Port of Dover in Kent after French authorities announced that journeys from the UK will be allowed to resume after the coronavirus ban was lifted, but those seeking to travel must have a negative test result. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA
A driver shows a police officer his phone displaying a negative COVID-19 test result at the Port of Dover on December 23, 2020 in Dover, United Kingdom.
A driver shows a police officer his phone displaying a negative COVID-19 test result at the Port of Dover on December 23, 2020 in Dover, United Kingdom. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Russia has reported 27,250 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, including 5,652 in Moscow, brining the national total to 2,933,753.

Authorities said 549 people had died overnight, taking the official death toll to 52,461.

The Czech Republic has reported 10,821 new cases of the coronavirus – the country’s first daily figure over 10,000 since 6 November.

The government is due to decide later on Wednesday whether to move the country to the fifth, strictest level of anti-coronavirus measures due to rising numbers of infections and hospitalisations.

It is “extremely unlikely” that plans allowing for households in lower tiers to meet on Christmas Day will change, UK housing secretary Robert Jenrick told BBC Breakfast as he was asked about reports that more areas face tier 4 restrictions soon.

“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, so I think it’s extremely unlikely that anything will change there,” Jenrick said.

He said there is no “immediate plan” to widen coronavirus restrictions on Boxing Day, but that the government would be meeting today to review the situation and “make a judgment”.

“The tier system was designed before we knew the full ferocity of the new variant so we do have to make sure that it’s sufficiently robust,” Jenrick said.

He refused to be drawn on a date as he was asked if a tier 4 extension was likely before 30 December, but described the new strain as a “game-changer”.

Updated

Taiwan’s president has urged people to remain calm after the country’s first locally transmitted coronavirus cases since 12 April was confirmed on Tuesday.

The government has said all of the person’s contacts have tested negative so far.

The country has kept the pandemic well under control thanks to early and effective prevention methods and widespread mask-wearing, with all new cases for more than the last 250 days being among travellers arriving on the island.

But the government has been jolted by Tuesday’s announcement of the domestic infection, a woman who is a friend of a New Zealand pilot who was confirmed to have been infected earlier this week.

President Tsai Ing-wen called on people to remain calm, follow official health guidance and not spread fake news.

“This case has a confirmed source of infection,” she told reporters. “Please don’t panic excessively.”

Health minister Chen Shih-chung, speaking at a separate news conference, said 170 contacts of the woman had been tested, with results coming back negative, while three others are awaiting test results.

Updated

Appearing on Sky News Breakfast, UK housing secretary Robert Jenrick said France was “relatively unusual” on the border issue, with about 4,000 lorries banked up in Britain waiting to cross the Channel last night.

Jenrick said he hopes to see lorries crossing again today to Calais and asked people not to go to Kent to prevent more traffic building up.

The minister added that the new coronavirus variant is prevalent in “most regions of the country” and “it may be necessary to take further action”.

Updated

Providing medical care to Covid-19 patients and other patients in Japan is becoming difficult, economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said on Wednesday, as daily infections rose to record highs this month.

“I understand frontline medical workers, who have been working desperately, are exhausted. I am getting reports that it is getting difficult to juggle responses to the coronavirus and offering regular medical care,” Nishimura said.

Hello, I’ll be running the blog for the next few hours. If you have any suggestions for coverage, you can reach me by email or Twitter DM – I might not always have time to reply but will read everything. Thanks in advance.

Here's a summary of today's top points so far:

  • British travellers have been allowed to return to France after the travel ban on the French side, because of the new Covid variant in England, was eased. The first ferry arrived in France at 0330 local time. About 4,000 lorries were banked up in Britain waiting to cross. Rail, air and sea crossings resume from Wednesday, with everyone required to show proof of a negative Covid test taken within the previous 72 hours.
  • Singapore has banned travellers from the UK arriving or transiting through the country from midnight on Wednesday. Singapore’s ministry of health said passengers who had been in the UK in the last 14 days would not be allowed entry until further notice, a move that will affect travellers using it as a stopping off point on the way to countries such as Australia.
  • The Philippines has announced that it will suspend all flights to the UK from 24 December, according to a presidential spokesperson.
  • Donald Trump has suggested he may not sign the bipartisan $900bn pandemic relief package that Congress passed on Monday night. Trump complained in a video that the bill delivered too much money to foreign countries and not enough to Americans. The bill has enough votes to override a veto should Trump decide to take that step.
  • Dr Deborah Birx, who headed the White House coronavirus taskforce, says she is planning to retire, but is willing to first help president-elect Joe Biden’s team with its coronavirus response as needed. Birx, who is 64, became the face of the US pandemic response in the early part of the year, along with Dr Anthony Fauci. In April, she famously sat awkwardly and refused to meet Trump’s gaze when he suggested injecting bleach may be a method of combatting the coronavirus.
  • In the US, 1.6m new cases of Covid were reported in the week to 20 December, the World Health Organization has said, the highest number of new cases for any single country. That weekly US increase was a rise of 14%. Dr Anthony Fauci, meanwhile, had his Covid jab and said he hoped it would encourage millions of other Americans to do the same.
  • Peru surpassed 1m confirmed cases of the coronavirus, health officials said on Tuesday, as concerns about a potential second wave of infections began to grow in the hard-hit Andean nation.
  • In Scotland, the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has warned has warned she may have to introduce full lockdown measures across the country in the coming days to contain the faster-spreading Covid variant, which has already led to Wales bringing forward a countrywide lockdown from last Sunday and Northern Ireland announcing a six-week lockdown from Boxing Day.
  • South Korea reported 1,092 new coronavirus cases as of midnight on Tuesday, the second highest since the start of the pandemic, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Wednesday.

Updated

If you’re just catching up with the news that France has reopened its border with the UK, you can up to speed with our story below … including:

  • Passengers from the UK disembarked from ferries in the port of Calais early on Wednesday after Britain and France agreed a deal to ease a travel ban imposed over the discovery of a new coronavirus variant.
  • The Cotes des Flandres ferry – the first ship to leave Dover after the restrictions were lifted – arrived at about 3.30am local time, followed shortly afterwards by P&O’s Spirit of France.
  • A handful of passenger vehicles disembarked but port management told AFP traffic was not expected to pick up until late Wednesday morning. Eurotunnel said freight services between the UK and France would resume at 7am UK time.

Updated

A look at the UK front pages shows there’s plenty of concern over tier 4 restrictions being extended. Both the Mail and the Telegraph think it will happen from Boxing Day. Both papers reserve large swathes of their front pages pictures of the British lorries held up by the French ban on travel from the UK, which has now eased.

The Times reports the negative Covid test requirement to enter France.

The Sun describes the new variant of Covid as a “kick in the baubles” over the top of a picture of the thousands of stuck lorries.

“Chaos” is how several other papers describe the freight pile up on the south coast of England, including the i and the Mirror.

The Express lays the blame for the problem squarely on the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

Updated

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 24,740 to 1,554,920, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday. The reported death toll rose by 962 to 27,968, the tally showed.

India has recorded 23,950 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, taking its total cases to 10.1m, the health ministry said on Wednesday. Fewer than 300,000 of those 10.1m cases are currently infected with the coronavirus, the health ministry said.

Daily cases have been dipping steadily in India since hitting a peak in September, although the country still has the second-highest infections in the world, after the United States.

A total of 146,444 people have died of Covid-19 in the country, with 333 of those deaths coming in the last 24 hours, the ministry said.

UK ferry passengers disembark in Calais after Britain-France deal

Passengers from the UK disembarked from ferries in the port of Calais early Wednesday, AFP reports, following Britain and France’s deal easing the travel ban imposed over the discovery of a new coronavirus variant.

The “Cotes des Flandres” ferry – the first ship to leave Dover after the restrictions were lifted – arrived at around 3.30 am (0230 GMT), followed shortly afterwards by P&O’s “Spirit of France”.

A handful of passenger vehicles disembarked from the two ships but port management told AFP traffic was not expected to pick up until late Wednesday morning.

The UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, announced late Tuesday Britain and France had agreed to a deal that “will see the French border reopen to those travelling for urgent reasons, provided they have a certified negative Covid test”.

However, he urged lorry drivers not to head towards Channel ports hoping to be able to board ferries or trains.

Singapore bans entry from UK, including transit

The new Covid variant in the UK is causing problems well beyond European countries imposing restrictions on entry from Britain.

Singapore has banned entry from the UK from Wednesday night, which has significant implications for anyone who has flights booked through that destination as a stopping point to another country, like Australia.

Australia’s high commission in London said flights through Hong Kong had also been affected, according to the ABC.

Singapore’s ministry of health said passengers with recent travel to the United Kingdom would not be allowed entry into Singapore from 11.59pm on Wednesday 23 December until further notice.

The ministry of health website said:

“All long-term pass holders and short-term visitors with recent travel history to the UK within the last 14 days will not be allowed entry into Singapore, or transit through Singapore. This will also apply to all those who had obtained prior approval for entry into Singapore.”

Re returning citizens and permanent residents...

“Returning SCs and PRs will be required to undergo a COVID-19 PCR test upon arrival in Singapore, at the start of their 14-day SHN.”

The first shipment of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine arrives in Singapore December 21, 2020.
The first shipment of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine arrives in Singapore December 21, 2020. Photograph: Ministry of Communications/Reuters

Updated

Austria’s ski lifts may be operating but as the country struggles to control coronavirus infections, the sector expects a subdued season – and migrant workers who depend on it face an uncertain winter.

AFP reports that in a normal year they would be part of one of Europe’s largest seasonal labour migrations.

In western Austria’s Tyrol province alone, more than 31,000 foreign workers are needed when its 80 ski resorts are in full swing, according to one estimate.

But events in Ischgl, the village that became one of Europe’s first major coronavirus clusters, explain why many of those workers are now unemployed.

Around 6,000 tourists claim to have carried the virus home from there.

AFP interviewed workers from Germany, Italy, Croatia and Slovakia, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared risking future employment.

In a rare moment of unity, Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi has agreed with Donald Trump’s call for $2,000 stimulus cheques to be sent out.

Peru surpassed 1 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus, health officials said on Tuesday, as concerns about a potential second wave of infections began to grow in the hard-hit Andean nation.

The country has also recorded 37,218 deaths, according to a daily briefing on the pandemic.

Reuters reports that the daily tally of new cases in Peru has fallen sharply in recent months, from a peak of 10,000 cases per day at the end of August to around 1,000 new infections on Monday.

Pedestrians wearing face masks amid the walk in the Mesa Redonda Market, a popular spot for Christmas shopping in Lima, Peru.
Pedestrians wearing face masks amid the walk in the Mesa Redonda Market, a popular spot for Christmas shopping in Lima, Peru. Photograph: Martín Mejía/AP

But many in Peru fear that the country’s ailing healthcare system and over-crowded hospitals would struggle to revive amid another spike in cases. That concern has prompted authorities to implement restrictions around the year-end holidays to ward off a second outbreak.

“Right now we are not experiencing a second wave, but we are taking these measures to be,” the health minister, Pilar Mazzetti, said on Tuesday.

More now on Donald Trump’s threat not to sign the coronavirus relief bill in the US because he thinks it should be amended to include bigger stimulus payouts.

Trump said he wants Congress to increase the amount in the stimulus checks to $2,000 for individuals or $4,000 for couples, instead of the “ridiculously low” $600 for individuals currently in the bill.

Trump also complained about money in the legislation for foreign countries, the Smithsonian Institution and fish breeding, among other spending.

President Trump wants changes made to the Covid stimulus package that was passed by Congress this week.
President Trump wants changes made to the Covid stimulus package that was passed by Congress this week. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

“I’m also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation, and to send me a suitable bill, or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package. And maybe that administration will be me,” he said.

However, despite the president’s position, the stimulus bill has a veto-proof majority, so even if he does not sign it, it will still go into effect.

You can read our full story below:

Updated

In Scotland, the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has warned has warned she may have to introduce full lockdown measures across the country in the coming days to contain the faster-spreading Covid variant, which has already led to Wales bringing forward a countrywide lockdown from last Sunday and Northern Ireland announcing a six-week lockdown from Boxing Day.

It came as the British Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said it seemed “inevitable” that further national restrictions would be needed, adding that if scientists called for such measures in England he would back the government in bringing them in.

Ministers are reportedly preparing to announce the extension of tier 4 in England – the new, quasi-lockdown category of restrictions – to new areas, possibly from Boxing Day.

Tier 4 already covers London and adjoining counties in the south-east, but it could be extended to other areas where cases are rising sharply. Ministers have also reportedly been considering moving some tier 2 areas into tier 3, and even the possibility of a third England-wide lockdown in the new year.

You can read our full story below

South Korea reports second highest daily toll

South Korea reported 1,092 new coronavirus cases as of Tuesday midnight, the second highest since the start of the pandemic, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Wednesday.

The recent surge in cases has confounded efforts to contain the virus, prompting the authorities to shut down all ski resorts and winter tourist spots in a bid to stop the spread during the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Covid testing in front of the Seoul city hall, South Korea.
Covid testing in front of the Seoul city hall, South Korea. Photograph: Sanghwan Jung/REX/Shutterstock

Philippines to suspend flights to UK

The Philippines has announced that it will suspend all flights to the UK from 24 December, according to a presidential spokesperson. The Philippines joins a list of more than 40 countries who have restricted entry from the UK because of a new variant of coronavirus that has taken hold. Initially reported largely in London and the south-east of the country, scientists now say the variant has been reported across the UK.

The latest genetic surveillance suggests the new variant spread rapidly from Kent and London in late September and has reached the south-west, the Midlands and the north of England, although London, the south-east and eastern England remain by far the most affected regions.

You can read latest story below on the variant below.

As countries imposed bans on the UK, thousands have been stranded ahead of Christmas. You can read some of their stories below.

Updated

Dr Deborah Birx to retire

In another major departure in the US, Dr Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus response, says she is planning to retire, but is willing to first help President-elect Joe Biden’s team with its coronavirus response as needed.

Birx, in an interview with the news site Newsy, did not give a specific timetable on her plans: “I will be helpful in any role that people think I can be helpful in, and then I will retire,” Birx told the news outlet.

AP reports that Birx and White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dr Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington in March. Birx was brought into President Donald Trump’s orbit to help fight the coronavirus, she had a sterling reputation as a globally recognised AIDS researcher and a rare Obama administration holdover.
Dr Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington in March. Birx was brought into President Donald Trump’s orbit to help fight the coronavirus, she had a sterling reputation as a globally recognised AIDS researcher and a rare Obama administration holdover. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

Birx’s comments came just days after AP reported that she had travelled out of state for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was urging Americans to not to travel.

Birx acknowledged in a statement on Sunday that she went to her Delaware property and was accompanied by family members. She insisted the purpose of the roughly 50-hour visit was to deal with the winterisation of the property before a potential sale — something she says she previously hadn’t had time to do because of her busy schedule.

Birx, who is 64, became the face of the US pandemic response in the early part of the year, along with Dr Anthony Fauci. A public servant since the Reagan administration, Birx served as a U.S. Army physician and a globally recognised AIDS researcher. She was pulled away from her ambassadorial post as the US global AIDS coordinator to help the task force in late February.

She has faced criticism from public health experts and Democratic lawmakers for not speaking out forcefully against President Donald Trump when he contradicted advice from medical advisers and scientists about how to fight the virus.

In April she famously sat awkwardly and refused to meet Trump’s gaze when he suggested injecting bleach may be a method of combatting the coronavirus.

Still in the US, and President Trump has said he wants Congress to amend the coronavirus relief bill (passed yesterday!) to raise the amount of stimulus checks and eliminate wasteful spending, among other issues.

“The bill they are now planning to send back to my desk is much different than anticipated,” Trump said in a video posted on Twitter. “It really is a disgrace.”

Congress passed the $900bn pandemic relief package on Tuesday, finally delivering long-sought cash to businesses and individuals as well as resources to vaccinate a nation confronting a frightening surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths.

The 5,593-page legislation, the longest bill in memory and probably ever, came together on Sunday after months of battling, posturing and post-election negotiating that reined in a number of Democratic demands as the end of the congressional session approached. President-elect Joe Biden was eager for a deal to deliver long-awaited help to suffering people and a boost to the economy, even though it was less than half the size that Democrats wanted in the fall.

You can read our full story on the bill below.

In the United States, 1.6m new cases of Covid were reported in the week to 20 December, the World Health Organization has said, the highest number of new cases for any single country. That weekly US increase was a rise of 14%.

The WHO’s weekly update came as California recorded a half-million coronavirus cases in the past two weeks, overwhelming emergency rooms across the state. You can read our full story on that here.

Joe Biden meanwhile said his administration will put forward another Covid-19 relief package next year, including a new round of stimulus payments.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Biden said a $900bn relief package passed by Congress this week was a “first step” but the government will have to do more.

“Here is the simple truth: Our darkest days in the battle against Covid are ahead of us, not behind us,” he said.

Joe Biden speaks in Wilmington, Delaware, on 22 December.
Joe Biden speaks in Wilmington, Delaware, on 22 December. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Dr Anthony Fauci, meanwhile, had his Covid jab and said he hoped it would encourage millions of other Americans to do the same. He said the shot should be “a symbol to the rest of the country that I feel extreme confidence of the safety and efficacy of this vaccine”.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, received his first dose of the new Moderna vaccine.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, received his first dose of the new Moderna vaccine. Photograph: Reuters

Updated

France reopens border to UK, with restrictions

A mass Covid-19 testing programme for British truck drivers is to get under way to relieve congestion at British ports following an agreement to reopen the border between France and the UK.

The UK Department for Transport made the announcement late on Tuesday, hours after Paris said passengers from Britain could enter France following a 48-hour blockade aimed at stopping the spread of a new coronavirus variant that left thousands of HGVs stranded outside UK ports before Christmas.

Drivers of freight lorries and heavy goods vehicles are illuminated by the lights inside their cabs as they are parked at a truck stop off the M20 leading to Dover, near Folkestone in Kent, south east England on 22 December.
Drivers of freight lorries and heavy goods vehicles are illuminated by the lights inside their cabs as they are parked at a truck stop off the M20 leading to Dover, near Folkestone in Kent, south east England on 22 December. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Rail, air and sea services would resume from Wednesday morning, the DfT said, with all people travelling from the UK into France required to show proof of a negative test taken within the previous 72 hours.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said lateral flow tests, which take about 30 minutes, could be used to test those eligible to cross the French border, but urged hauliers not to travel to Kent until the testing programme was operational.

You can read our full story below:

Updated

China reports 15 new cases

China reported 15 new Covid cases on 22 December, the same as a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Wednesday.

The National Health Commission, in a statement, said 14 of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. The commission also reported one local transmission in Liaoning province.

The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, fell to 14 from 17 cases a day earlier.

The total number of confirmed cases in China now stands at 86,882, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.

Sydney learns Christmas coronavirus restrictions

We are crossing live to Australia where the premiere of New South Wales is giving an update on how Christmas will run for greater Sydney, after a serious outbreak on the northern beaches of the city.

Gladys Berejiklian says the current restrictions for greater Sydney will stay the same over Christmas – which is that you can only have 10 visitors to your home. However, premier Gladys Berejiklian says there is one “small tweak”, which is children under 12 are not counted. That applies for December 24, 25, 26 and 27.

“Can I stress, you cannot have different groups of 10 people during the day. It’s one group of 10 and you have to stick that group of 10, plus kids under 12.”

“But come 27 December for Greater Sydney, we go back to just 10 per household full stop,” Berejiklian says.

“Every other restriction remains in place but for that addition over the Christmas period,” she says.

Sydney recorded eight new coronavirus cases on Wednesday.

Updated

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, with me, Alison Rourke.

The World Health Organization says weekly cases of coronavirus to 20 December were the highest since the start of the pandemic. New cases rose by 6%, or by 4.6m, the WHO said in its weekly epidemiological update. New deaths rose by 4% or around 79,000 in the same period. Europe accounted for the highest number of new deaths or over 36,000 which was nearly half of the weekly global total, the WHO said.

Other key developments include:

  • Britain is to begin mass testing truck drivers as France reopens border. A mass Covid-19 testing programme for lorry drivers is to get under way to alleviate congestion at British ports following an agreement to reopen the border between France and the UK. The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said lateral flow tests, which take about 30 minutes, could be used to test those able to cross the French border.
  • Relatives of Italian Covid victims to file lawsuit against leading politicians. Relatives of coronavirus victims in Italy are taking legal action against the prime minister, health minister and the president of the Lombardy region for alleged criminal negligence over their handling of the pandemic.
  • Biden will seek new Covid-19 relief package next year and says “darkest days” are ahead. US president-elect Joe Biden said his administration will put forward another Covid-19 relief package next year, including a new round of stimulus payments. “Here is the simple truth: our darkest days in the battle against Covid are ahead of us, not behind us,” he said.
  • South Africa struggles to contain second Covid wave with new variant. South Africa is struggling to contain a second wave of Covid-19 infections which appears to be driven by a new and more infectious variant of the disease, similar to that in the UK.
  • NHS leaders raise concerns over pace of Covid vaccine rollout. NHS leaders in England have raised concerns about the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine, with more than half of hospital trusts and two-thirds of GPs yet to receive supplies amid growing alarm over the new fast-spreading variant.
  • Covid could shorten US life expectancy by up to three years, experts say. The US could see a decline of two to three years in life expectancy in 2020 due to the coronavirus, the steepest drop since the second world war and with Covid-19 poised to become the third-leading cause of death in America.
  • California records half a million Covid cases in two weeks. The state could be facing a once-unthinkable scenario of nearly 100,000 hospitalisations within a month, overwhelming emergency rooms across the state.
  • Weekly Covid-19 cases hit record fuelled by Americas. Weekly Covid-19 cases rose by the highest amount since the pandemic began, the World Health Organization said, with the Americas accounting for half of them.
  • Nicola Sturgeon apologises for breaching Covid rules. Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has apologised after she breached Covid rules by taking off her face mask at a funeral wake.
  • AstraZeneca says its vaccine should be effective against new coronavirus variant. British drugmaker AstraZeneca told Reuters its Covid-19 vaccine should be effective against the new coronavirus variant, adding studies were underway to fully probe the impact of the mutation.
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