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A group representing major US airlines has backed a proposal by public health officials to implement a global testing programme requiring negative tests before most international air passengers return to the United States, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Airlines for America, which represents American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and other major carriers, also urged the Trump administration in a letter to vice president Mike Pence “to move ahead with recommendations to rescind current entry restrictions on travellers from Europe, the United Kingdom and Brazil as soon as possible ... concurrently with the testing program.”
In November, Reuters reported that the White House was considering rescinding restrictions that ban most non-US citizens from travelling to the United States from the 26 members of the Schengen area that allow travel across open borders in Europe, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Brazil.
“We believe a well-planned program focused on increasing testing of travellers to the United States will further these objectives in a much more effective way than the blanket travel restrictions currently in place,” the airlines’ letter said.
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The Covid catastrophe in the Los Angeles region has continued to push the healthcare system to the brink, with officials warning that the surge from the holidays and New Year’s Eve gatherings will further exacerbate the crisis in the coming weeks.
New Covid infections in LA county have been accelerating at by far the highest rate since the start of the pandemic. Over the weekend, officials announced that more than 800,000 people in the county have contracted Covid in 2020, with half of those cases occurring in December. LA mayor Eric Garcetti noted on Sunday that one person is now contracting Covid every six seconds, with one death every ten minutes.
Labour’s deputy leader takes aim – not for the first time – at Serco, one of the companies which runs the test-and-trace scheme, as England enters its third lockdown.
In December, the National Audit Office found the government had spent £22bn on a test-and-trace programme that had repeatedly failed to meet targets for delivering test results and contacting infected people.
Use the third lockdown to do something you should have done in the first lockdown, and then still couldn't get round to during the second lockdown.
— Angela Rayner 😷 (@AngelaRayner) January 4, 2021
Like sacking Serco and delivering an effective track and trace system that actually works.
Ministers are understood to be considering toughening border controls to require international arrivals to have a negative test before travelling to Britain, according to PA news agency. Hauliers would be exempt.
The report follows calls for testing, screening and border controls by London mayor Sadiq Khan following the prime minister’s announcement of a third national lockdown.
We need to drive down cases here with the lockdown and stop new ones being imported with testing, screening and border controls at airports and ports.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) January 4, 2021
Government must act on this urgently. https://t.co/hF0r2IqvXb
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Online teaching extended for Northern Ireland schools
Remote learning for pupils in Northern Ireland will be extended, the First Minister has said amid soaring coronavirus infections
Speaking on Monday night, Arlene Foster said ministers had “reflected on the seriousness of the situation here” before coming to the decision. The Executive is to reconvene on Tuesday to confirm details of the proposal, but it is believed it could extend beyond January.
Foster said: “I think it’s fair to say that we will have to engage in more remote learning at schools. We want to look at the finer details of that in and around vulnerable children and special needs children.
“One of the learning points from the first lockdown was the fact that a lot of special needs children need to have the ability to go to their place of schooling so they can deal with medical procedures and issues like that.”
The most recent plan was for primary pupils to be taught remotely for the week from 4 to 8 January, while for secondary school Years 8 to 11 remote learning is due to last for the entire month.
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The relaxation of the lockdown in some areas over Christmas and the new highly contagious variant made renewed national measures inevitable, Sage member Professor Calum Semple has said.
The University of Liverpool academic told Sky News: “We’re only now seeing the start of the price we have to pay for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day mixing.
“With that and the new variant it was inevitable we were going to have to hit a hard lockdown at this stage.”
People living in care homes will not be able to receive close-contact indoor visits during England’s third lockdown, in what has been called a “terrible blow” for residents.
However – as has been the case for care homes in tier 4 areas up until now – visits involving screens, pods and through windows will be able to go ahead, according to cabinet office guidance.
Care homes in areas with lower transmission rates have been able to use rapid result coronavirus tests to help them enable close-contact visits.
Vic Rayner, executive director of the National Care Forum, which represents not-for-profit providers, said: “The move away from close-contact visits is a terrible blow for residents across the country.
“However it is very important and positive that visiting remains firmly on the agenda and homes across the country will be working hard with loved ones to ensure wherever possible visits can continue.
“When we emerge from this lockdown it is imperative that we put care home residents’ needs at the top of our priority list and ensure meaningful visits can resume.”
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From the Guardian’s deputy political editor on England’s third lockdown:
Latest lockdown is set to last at least seven weeks. Measures will be reviewed in half term week - 15 Feb for most - and any changes will be from Feb 22.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) January 4, 2021
NHS doctors have compared hospitals to war zones as hospitalisations hit record levels in England and the alert level is raised to five – the highest possible.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, said that there was clear need for a major intervention to curb the virus, particularly the new variant, because “the NHS in on the brink”.
He said: “Hospitals are stretched to breaking point, with doctors reporting unbearable workloads as they take on more Covid-19 admissions alongside the growing backlog of people who need other, non-Covid care.
“Doctors are desperate, with some even comparing their working environment to a warzone as wards overflow, waiting lists grow, and ambulances queue outside hospitals because there are now so many people with Covid-19.
This has resulted in the NHS facing a “perfect storm of immense workload and staff burnout” while more cases are expected due to socialising over Christmas.
Dr Nagpaul called for the vaccination of healthcare workers to be significantly hastened “so they can continue to provide the care so vitally needed by so many”.
Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga has said he is considering declaring a state of emergency in the greater Tokyo area over a “very severe” third wave of coronavirus infections.
Speaking at a regular new year press conference Suga also said he hoped vaccinations would begin in Japan in late February, adding that he would be among the first to receive one.
He urged people to avoid non-essential outings, and said the government would introduce legislation to penalise businesses that flout requests to shorten hours or close, as well as provide incentives to those who abide by such calls.
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New York detects first case of new variant
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has said his state has found its first case of the more contagious strain of the coronavirus first detected in the UK, Reuters reports, raising concerns about threats to hospital capacity should it spread rapidly in the state.
Cuomo said that a man in his 60s living in a town north of Albany has the new strain. The man, who is recovering, had not travelled recently, suggesting community spread is taking place.
New York has carried out 5,000 tests for the new strain – and so far has only found the one case. Cuomo says it could be a “game changer” if the new strain increases hospitalisations and forces regions to close down.
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Hello, I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus developments from around the world for the next few hours.
We’re closing the UK blog following Boris Johnson’s announcement that England will enter a third lockdown, but will continue to report any major UK lines as they come.
In Northern Ireland, Stormont ministers are expected to reconvene on Tuesday as Arlene Foster warns the country faces a “dire” situation.
The closure of schools has been under discussion.
England enters third national lockdown
England will enter its toughest nationwide lockdown since March, with schools closed and people allowed to leave home once a day for exercise for at least six weeks, prime minister Boris Johnson has announced as the numbers of people in hospital reach new highs.
All pupils will switch to remote learning until the February half-term, the prime minister said in an address to the nation, and GCSE and A-level exams are unlikely to go ahead as planned. All non-essential shops will be told to close.
Under the third national lockdown, people in England will be ordered to stay at home until at least 15 February and advised only to leave once a day for exercise. MPs are expected to vote the tough new measures into law from Wednesday, though businesses will be advised to close from Monday night.
Across the country, people must now only leave home for work – and only if it is impossible to work from home – and for essential food and medicine. Exercise with one other person from a different household is permitted but the advice is to stay local and limit activity to once a day.
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Summary
Here’s a summary of the most recent developments:
- BioNTech and Pfizer warned they had no evidence their vaccine would continue to work if the booster shot was given later than tested in trials. They said the “safety and efficacy of the vaccine has not been evaluated on different dosing schedules”.
- The European Medicines Agency said the maximum interval between doses should be respected. It said the second dose should be administered no more than 42 days after the first.
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Brazil confirmed its first two cases of the new variant. A 25-year-old woman and a 34-year-old man were confirmed as having been infected.
- The UK’s four chief medical officers recommended implementing the toughest restrictions. They said the UK alert level should move from level 4 to level 5. The British government had declined to rule out another national lockdown and the British prime minister is due to address the nation within an hour.
- Thailand’s prime minister urged the public to stay home. Authorities confirmed 745 new infections; the country’s worst daily total and the government declared 28 provinces – including Bangkok – high-risk zones.
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Singapore said its police would be allowed to use contact-tracing data for criminal investigations. The technology, deployed as both a phone app and a physical device and made mandatory in some places, is being used by nearly 80% of the 5.7m population.
- The German health ministry considered delaying second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to make scarce supplies go further. According to a document seen by Reuters, the ministry was seeking the view of an independent vaccination commission on whether to delay a second shot beyond the current 42-day maximum.
- German media also reported that country’s lockdown would be extended until 31 January. Bild reported that national and federal authorities had agreed to continue the existing restrictions, which include the closures of schools, most shops, restaurants and bars.
- The UK became the first country to administer the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. NHS England tweeted that Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, had become the first person to be given the jab.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has not yet been able to reach a decision on the approval of Moderna’s vaccine, the Dutch national medicines authority has said.
Its human medicines committee (CHMP) had called an unscheduled meeting Monday afternoon to discuss Moderna’s vaccine, two days ahead of its originally planned meeting on Wednesday.
The Dutch medicines regulator CBG said approval could still follow at the meeting on 6 January. It said it was not clear why a decision was not reached on Monday. The CBG chairman Ton de Boer told reporters:
This is how it goes, of course we had hoped for more, but we knew it could be impossible to answer all questions in detail in one meeting. I hope there will be a decision on Wednesday. But I don’t know.
The agency has set a 12 January deadline for whether to recommend Moderna’s vaccine. It recommended the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on 21 December.
Brazil detects cases of new variant
Brazil has confirmed its first two cases of the new coronavirus variant that has also been seen in the UK, São Paulo state’s health secretariat has said.
One of the people infected was a 25-year-old woman from the city of São Paulo in contact with travellers who had been to Britain, according to the state government. The other patient was another São Paulo resident, a 34-year-old man who had contact with her.
Lebanon has announced a full lockdown for three weeks, including a night curfew, to stem a rise in Covid-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm hospitals in a country already facing financial meltdown.
The caretaker health minister Hamad Hasan said the lockdown would start on Thursday and run until 1 February, with further details on Tuesday on which sectors would be exempt. The lockdown will include a curfew from 6pm to 5am local time.
It has become clear that the pandemic challenge has reached a stage that is seriously threatening Lebanese lives as hospitals are not capable of providing beds.
The country registered 2,870 new infections on Sunday, bringing its total to 189,278 cases and 1,486 deaths since 21 February. The new lockdown comes amid concerns over soaring unemployment, inflation and poverty.
Lebanon is facing a devastating financial crisis that has crashed the currency, paralysed banks, and frozen savers out of their deposits. Medical supplies have dwindled as dollars have grown scarce.
Intensive care units had previously reached critical capacity over the summer as the virus spread after a massive explosion at the docks wrecked swathes of Beirut, killed 200 people and destroyed several hospitals.
Adherence to social distancing and other preventive measures has been lax and there are now fears of a significant rise in cases after the Christmas and New Year holidays. Mahmoud Hassoun, the head of the critical care unit at Rafik Hariri hospital, told Reuters:
It is a big problem. In the next ten days it will be very difficult and we are expecting death rates to increase as infections rise. We are nearly full now and we haven’t even seen the effect of the holiday period yet.
Juventus’ Brazilian defender Alex Sandro has tested positive, the Italian champions have said. The 29-year-old, who played in Sunday’s 4-1 home win over Udinese in Serie A, has gone into isolation.
Juventus Football Club announces that, following the appearance of some mild symptoms, a check was arranged for the player Alex Sandro, which revealed that he is positive with Covid-19.
The club is in contact with the health authorities to define an effective implementation of the protocols required to allow for the training and competition activities of the team.
Juve next visit AC Milan on Wednesday when Andrea Pirlo’s side will aim to reduce the 10-point gap to the league leaders.
New York state will begin fining hospitals that do not administer allotted Covid-19 vaccines within a week of receiving their supplies and will decline to provide them with further doses, the governor Andrew Cuomo has said.
The US federal government has distributed more than 13m vaccine doses to states and territories around the country, but only around 4m have actually been administered, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last updated on Saturday.
New York’s health commissioner Dr Howard Zucker notified hospitals of the potential actions in a letter on Sunday, Cuomo told reporters.
I don’t want the vaccine in a fridge or a freezer, I want it in somebody’s arm. If you’re not performing this function, it does raise questions about the operating efficiency of the hospital.
Brazil’s foreign ministry is leading talks to secure doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine made in India, the country’s government-funded Fiocruz Institute has said. Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters Brazil was making a diplomatic press to secure 2m doses of the vaccine amid concerns about possible export restrictions in India.
Leading UK medical figures call for toughest restrictions
In the UK, the chief medical officers of each of the four constituent nations have recommended a move to the toughest restrictions in the government’s plan.
Prof Chris Whitty and Drs Frank Atherton, Gregor Smith and Michael McBride – the chief medical officers of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – as well as Prof Stephen Powis of NHS England, have said:
Following advice from the Joint Biosecurity Centre and in the light of the most recent data, the four UK Chief Medical Officers and NHS England medical director recommend that the UK alert level should move from level 4 to level 5.
Many parts of the health systems in the four nations are already under immense pressure. There are currently very high rates of community transmission, with substantial numbers of Covid patients in hospitals and in intensive care.
Cases are rising almost everywhere; in much of the country driven by the new more transmissible variant. We are not confident that the NHS can handle a further sustained rise in cases and without further action there is a material risk of the NHS in several areas being overwhelmed over the next 21 days.
Although the NHS is under immense pressure, significant changes have been made so people can still receive lifesaving treatment. It is absolutely critical that people still come forward for emergency care. If you require non-urgent medical attention, please contact your GP or call NHS111.
The prime minister Boris Johnson is due to address the nation at 8pm GMT. You can read about the UK’s epidemic in more detail on our domestic blog:
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The French health ministry has reported 4,022 new infections over the past 24 hours; a figure three times lower than Sunday’s 12,489 but significantly higher than last Monday’s 2,960. The number of people hospitalised for the disease was up for the third day running.
France, which is accelerating its Covid-19 vaccination roll-out after being criticised for a slow start, has now 24,995 patients treated for the virus, a high since 22 December.
France’s cumulative total of cases now stands at 2,659,750, the fifth-highest in the world. The seven-day moving average of new infections stands at 13,872, a 10-day high.
The Covid-19 death toll was up by 378, at 65,415, the seventh-highest in the world, versus a seven-day moving average of 329.
The maximum interval of 42 days between the first and the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine should be respected to obtain full protection, the European Medicines Agency has said.
Evidence of the vaccine efficacy is based on a study where administration of doses was done 19 to 42 days apart, the agency said, noting that full protection comes only seven days after the booster.
Any change to this would require a variation to the marketing authorisation as well as more clinical data to support such a change, otherwise it would be considered as ‘off label use’.
Off-label use entails lower liabilities on vaccine makers.
Moderna will produce at least 600m doses of its vaccine in 2021, up by 100m from its previous forecast, it has said. The company is working to invest and hire in order to deliver up 1bn doses this year, the higher end of its production forecast, it said.
Moderna said it has supplied about 18m to the US government so far as part of a deal for 200m doses. It has also signed a deal with the Canadian government for 40m doses.
No evidence delaying vaccine doses will work – manufacturers
BioNTech and Pfizer have warned that they have no evidence their vaccine will continue to work if the booster shot is given later than tested in trials. They said:
The safety and efficacy of the vaccine has not been evaluated on different dosing schedules as the majority of trial participants received the second dose within the window specified in the study design.
There is no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days.
Several nations have approved or are developing plans to space out doses in order to make stocks go further.
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Spanish doctors and health experts have expressed frustration at the slow start to the country’s campaign to inoculate people, with only a few tens of thousands vaccinated since the EU approved a vaccine two weeks ago.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine cleared EU regulatory hurdles on 21 December and vaccinations began six days later. But the process has been slow and cumbersome, prompting criticism in several member states including Germany and France.
In Spain, the campaign has been partially interrupted by a long new year weekend, with many health sector workers still on holiday and some nursing home residents away visiting relatives. Some regions also complained of delays in receiving the vaccines last week.
Quique Bassat, an epidemiologist and researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Heath, told Reuters:
It has been quite disappointing and worrying. It was the perfect opportunity to give a boost to the fight against the virus and to set an example.
Echoing such frustration, French officials have urged a faster rate of vaccinations, while Germany’s health minister has come under fire over a shortage of vaccines there and the slow inoculation campaign.
With health a regional competence in Spain, there is as yet no national data available on the rollout, and many regions have not published their own data. Spain’s health ministry has declined to comment and referred to a news conference due later on Monday.
Turkey has reported 13,695 new cases in the last 24 hours, health ministry data shows, bringing the total number of cases to 2,255,607. They show 197 deaths over the same period, raising the total toll to 21,685.
Ankara has imposed curfews each weekday evening and full weekend lockdowns for more than a month.
Hundreds of children formed an orderly queue that snaked through Nairobi’s biggest slum Kibera on Monday, waiting to enter classrooms for the first time since March, when the government closed schools after Kenya reported its first Covid-19 case.
The country is the last in East Africa to fully reopen its schools. Children in grades four, eight and 12 returned to class in October so they could prepare for exams postponed amid the pandemic.
The World Health Organization and the UN children’s agency Unicef say prolonged school closures due to the pandemic present many risks for children in poorer countries. Higher rates of teenage pregnancy, poor nutrition, and permanent drop-outs from school are among the dangers.
Most boys and girls wore masks as they stood outside the Olympic primary school’s gates, waiting their turn as school officials took temperatures and squirted hand sanitiser into their palms, Reuters reports. The real danger, however, lurked inside.
Maurice Oduor, a 54-year-old parent, questioned how social distancing can be practised with about 100 students squeeze into each room.
The government has said our children must go, but they are not safe according to how I see it. There are no classrooms built and no desks added here.
Italy, still the worst hit country in Europe by the virus, has announced another 348 deaths due to Covid and 10,800 new infections. This is one more than the figure announced on Sunday.
Coronavirus, il bollettino di oggi 4 gennaio: 10.800 nuovi casi e 348 vittime https://t.co/BqmdDbTbbw
— Repubblica (@repubblica) January 4, 2021
According to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University, updated before the latest announcement, Italy had recorded 75,332 deaths from Covid, the fifth highest in the world. They UK, where new cases have been running at more than 50,000 per day for almost a week, has the sixth highest with 75,137 Covid deaths.
The fate of the Italian government hangs in the balance this week amid a confrontation between the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and his coalition ally and former prime minister, Matteo Renzi over a Covid recovery fund.
Renzi has repeatedly threatened to pull his small Italia Viva party from the ruling majority unless the government changes tack on how to reboot Italy’s fragile economy. Renzi has also called for Conte to relinquish his control over the secret services and for the government to speed up the distribution of Covid-19 vaccinations.
Conte has so far resisted the pressure, saying last week he was ready to confront Renzi in parliament. However, Conte is reportedly organising a meeting between party leaders, either on Monday or Tuesday, to discuss a possible government reshuffle.
The crucial day is 7 January, when Conte will seek support from ministers for the economic recovery plan, which could lead Italia Viva to abandon the coalition and prompt a government crisis.
Read more here:
France’s health minister, Olivier Veran, has said “several thousand” people will be vaccinated on Monday after only just over 500 got the jab in the past week.
“Today, we will have given thousands of vaccine shots across the country,” Veran said after visiting a Paris hospital.
Covid-19: Olivier Véran annonce que "plusieurs milliers de personnes" ont été vaccinées ce lundihttps://t.co/Gm9eWngaVA pic.twitter.com/Q1HiGtASEc
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) January 4, 2021
The French government has come under fire for being too slow with its vaccine rollout in a country that has a strong anti-vaccination movement. It started its inoculation campaign at the end of December, as did many other European countries. But it has only vaccinated hundreds since then, compared with tens of thousands in Germany and more than a million in Britain.
The Greek Orthodox church has announced it will defy government lockdown orders aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus and open places of worship to mark Epiphany on Wednesday.
After an emergency session of the holy synod, its governing body, senior clerics said they would press ahead as planned and celebrate the baptism of Christ on 6 January.
“The synod does not agree with the new government measures regarding the operation of places of worship and insists on what was originally agreed with the state,” the ecclesiastical body said in a statement.
“It asks that the aforementioned decision be absolutely respected by the state without further ado taking into consideration … that all the foreseen hygiene measures were upheld by clerics in thousands of churches across Greece.”
Read more here:
Updated
The Netherlands, the last EU country to begin Covid jabs, has brought forward the start of its planned vaccination programme, Dutch News reports.
Health minister Hugo de Jonge said vaccinations would begin on Wednesday 6 January instead of 8 January as planned.
The move came after Amsterdam’s UMC hospital said it would start vaccinating staff working with coronavirus patients as soon as it received the first batch of 5,000 Pfizer vaccines.
De Jonge informed parliament by letter that the Hart voor Brabant health authority in Veghel would begin on Wednesday. The health minister is expected to come in for criticism from MPs when they debate the cabinet’s vaccination plan on Tuesday.
Last month, De Jonge dismissed calls to bring forward the programme, telling MPs it would be ‘irresponsible’ and other countries were starting earlier for ‘symbolic’ reasons.
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The UK government looks set to impose further restrictions following the announcement that Boris Johnson, the prime minister, will make a TV address this evening, and parliament will be recalled on Wednesday.
Follow our UK coronavirus live blog for the latest:
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Denmark can extend the time gap between the first and second vaccination shots for up to six weeks, the head of the Danish health authorities Dr Søren Brostrøm is quoted as saying by the local newswire Ritzau.
Reuters had reported that the director of the State Serum Institute, which deals with infectious diseases, was closely monitoring how the situation developed in the UK, where a similar step has already been taken. Local media said the health ministry was considering a three to six-week interval.
As of Monday, a total of 46,975 Danes had received the first Pfizer/BioNTech shot; mostly health workers and the elderly.
While a longer interval between shots has not been tested in the companies’ clinical trials, some scientists said it was a sensible plan given the extraordinary circumstances.
Catalonia has announced a tightening of restrictions, banning people from leaving their municipalities, closing gyms and shopping centres, and allowing only essential shops such as pharmacies to open at the weekend.
The new restrictions in Catalonia, which has Spain’s second-highest number of infections and deaths after Madrid, will start on Thursday and last until 17 January. The Catalan health chief Alba Verges said:
We have to stop the transmission and the main way to do so is to reduce all social activity.
She added that financial aid would be given to the sectors most hit by the new restrictions. The new measures will not affect bars and restaurants, which can still have clients eat in for breakfast and lunch and offer take-away food for dinner.
Other regions, such as Andalusia, Murcia or Extremadura, have announced new measures over the past days. Madrid continues to have lighter restrictions than most of the country but has locked down some districts with a higher infection rate.
Spain has been one of the hardest-hit countries, registering more than 50,000 deaths and close to 2m cases.
European regulators discuss Moderna vaccine approval
The European Medicines Agency has held early meetings on Monday to discuss the Moderna vaccine, a spokesperson has said. Its human medicines committee (CHMP) could issue an opinion on approving the vaccine later on Monday. Meetings had been scheduled for Wednesday.
Vietnam’s heath ministry has proposed suspending or limiting incoming flights from at least 34 countries and territories that have detected cases of the new variant first found in the UK, its government has said.
The ministry did not say which countries would be affected by the ban.
The proposal has been submitted to the prime minister and is awaiting approval after Vietnam confirmed its first imported case of the new variant on Saturday. The variant includes a genetic mutation that could result in the virus spreading more easily between people. Due to its emergence, more than 40 countries have applied similar bans.
Vietnam has suspended all inbound international commercial flights since late March but the government has been operating repatriation flights to bring home Vietnamese citizens stuck abroad amid the pandemic.
Some special flights carrying foreign experts and investors have been allowed to fly into Vietnam. All people entering the country have to spend 14 days in quarantine.
With strict quarantine and tracking measures, Vietnam quickly contained the coronavirus, allowing economic activity to rebound faster than in much of Asia. Vietnam has recorded 1,497 infections and 35 deaths.
More than half of the French population do not want the Covid-19 vaccination, a poll has found.
More women than men – 69% versus 46% – say they do not want to be inoculated. Only 32% of those aged 35 to 49 years say they want the vaccine, compared to 58% among the over-65s. Overall, 58% of those polled expressed opposition.
The survey for Le Figaro and FranceInfo was carried out before Christmas but published on Sunday.
The CovidTracker website shows that between 27 December, when the European Union vaccine campaign started and 1 January, France vaccinated only 516 people.
After a week of intense pressure and criticism over the slow start of its vaccination campaign, the French government has announced it will speed things up.
Ministers have been accused of pandering to anti-vaxxers in insisting the inoculation operation is not carried out hastily with patients being given time to reflect before giving their written consent to the Covid-19 vaccine.
Elderly people in nursing and care homes are currently being offered the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine as well as staff with underlying conditions. The government aims to have vaccinated 1m people in this group by the end of January. From January, France hopes the Moderna and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine will have been approved, and intends to inoculate 14m health professionals aged 50 years or older – or those with chronic illnesses.
From the end of January, the focus will move to the general population; starting with people aged over 75, then those over 65, and the setting up of vaccination centres in towns and cities.
A mass vaccination of the wider population is expected to begin by the end of spring beginning with those aged 50-64 and essential workers. The French government is anxious to make it clear that the vaccine is not obligatory.
The pandemic has forced dozens of refuges for people who have migrated into Mexico to close their doors or scale back operations in recent weeks, exposing people to greater peril just as migration from Central America to the United States is on the rise again.
The Reuters news agency spoke to people responsible for more than 40 shelters that had offered refuge to thousands on a route where people without immigration papers often face assaults, robberies and kidnappings – before the pandemic forced them to shut or limit capacity.
The closures are a fresh headache for the people already coping with reductions to the southern routes of a Mexican cargo train known as “La Bestia” (The Beast) that has long helped them get north.
Fewer shelters mean fewer safe places for Central Americans to take cover, even as many walk hundreds more miles than before, more than a dozen told Reuters.
When the main shelter in the northern city of Saltillo, a busy staging post on the road to Texas, shut before Christmas due to an outbreak that killed its founder, dozens of migrants were left to camp on the sidewalk outside.
Alarmed by the prospect of gangsters who often prey on migrants in the city, an important transit point for violent drug gangs, they organised their own night patrol. Michael Castaneda, a 27-year-old Honduran who helped organise the sentry, said:
At night, suspicious cars park nearby or circle the area with two or three men inside. We know the gangs are watching us, and they know we’re watching them.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a summary of the most recent developments
- The UK became the first country to administer the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. NHS England tweeted that Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, had become the first person to be given the jab.
- But the British government declined to rule out another national lockdown. The health secretary Matt Hancock said the country faced a “very difficult situation in terms of the growth of the virus”
- Thailand’s prime minister urged the public to stay home. Authorities confirmed 745 new infections; the country’s worst daily total and the government declared 28 provinces – including Bangkok – high-risk zones.
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Singapore said its police would be allowed to use contact-tracing data for criminal investigations. The technology, deployed as both a phone app and a physical device and made mandatory in some places, is being used by nearly 80% of the 5.7m population.
- The German health ministry considered delaying second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to make scarce supplies go further. According to a document seen by Reuters, the ministry was seeking the view of an independent vaccination commission on whether to delay a second shot beyond the current 42-day maximum.
- German media also reported that country’s lockdown would be extended until 31 January. Bild reported that national and federal authorities had agreed to continue the existing restrictions, which include the closures of schools, most shops, restaurants and bars.
Countries in West Africa are battling a second wave of infections, while the immediate prospects for vaccinations in Africa remain low.
Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin and Togo have all registered significantly high cases over the last month, close to or at record levels. Many have adopted new restrictions to battle rising cases.
Confirmed infections in Africa – now at 2.8m – have remained lower in most countries than in the rest of the world, in part aided by protective measures rapidly introduced by many African governments. In West Africa, response mechanisms in place since the deadly Ebola outbreak in 2014 have played a key role. Yet many health systems in the region remain vulnerable to any significant burden brought on by a second and potentially larger wave of coronavirus infections. Experts have warned that cases in the region could grow as temperatures cool.
In response, many countries have reinstated restrictions. Yet, in Nigeria, tough measures recently announced by the government to shut bars, restaurants and cap attendance at places of worship have been widely ignored by state authorities while enforcement of existing measures are loosely enforced.
In Lagos, the city registering the most infections, many people have grown dismissive of mandatory orders, such as to wear masks in public. Widespread distrust of the government and scepticism that the virus is a genuine risk have been major factors. Campaigns by local authorities to spread awareness of the virus are far less visible than in the early months of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, prospects for mass vaccinations are uncertain. The Covax facility, an international initiative to secure vaccines for all countries, will see African countries beginning to receive vaccines over the next few months and by June this year, yet the African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention have said the continent will not receive nearly enough vaccines from Covax to reach the goal of vaccinating 60% of the population.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine remains one of the most viable for African countries, as it can be easily stored at fridge temperatures. Covax has secured 170m doses but, amid fierce global competition, most countries have not independently secured doses.
Poland’s health ministry has launched an investigation after it was revealed that several celebrities jumped the queue to receive vaccines.
Poland started its programme on 27 December, with healthcare professionals meant to be given the vaccine first. However, it emerged that on 30 December 18 well-known people – including numerous actors and a former prime minister – were given the vaccine at the hospital of Warsaw medical university.
Some of those vaccinated claimed they had been offered the vaccine so they could later take part in in a vaccine-promotion campaign. Most of the actors who received the vaccine were in their 60s and 70s. The 75-year-old former prime minister, Leszek Miller, said the vaccines would have been wasted otherwise.
However, there was anger among healthcare professionals, many of whom have not yet been vaccinated, and heath minister Adam Niedzielski said he was “disgusted” by the scandal. The hospital says it will conduct an investigation this week, as ordered by the health ministry.
Austria has scrapped plans to allow anyone with a negative test to exit lockdown a week early, effectively extending strict measures and keeping restaurants and non-essential shops shut until 24 January, the news agency APA has reported.
The decision came after Austria’s opposition parties blocked a draft law that would have allowed it, the agency cited the health minister, Rudolf Anschober, as saying.
It was not immediately clear whether schools are also to remain closed until 24 January or if they can open as originally planned on 18 January, APA reported.
Updated
Ireland’s hospitals cannot manage the current trajectory of its outbreak and will cancel most non-urgent procedures this week to create as much spare critical care space as possible, its hospitals chief Paul Reid has said. He told the Newstalk radio station:
I think we’ve run out of adjectives to describe how serious this is. The numbers in that trajectory we cannot sustain. We will be taking actions this week to reduce and in most places eliminate non-urgent care across our hospitals. We are literally going back to where we were in March and April.
Until recently, Ireland had one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, leading the government to allow the reopening of most of the economy in December.
The 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 people has more than quadrupled to 470 in the last two weeks. The country’s chief medical officer said last week Ireland now had the “fastest-growing” incidence rate in the European Union.
Hospital admissions are rising by 20% a day, and the number of patients being treated could surpass the first wave peak within a day or two, having reached 744 on Monday. There are 65 patients in intensive care units (ICU).
The head of Ireland’s health service operator said that on that trajectory, the total number in hospitals could hit 2,500 this month with between 250 and 430 in ICU. Public hospitals can surge ICU capacity safely to 375 and the health service is again seeking to take over private hospital ICU beds, Reid said.
He added that the health service will likely report 7,000 daily cases in the coming days; “a frightening scale” versus the 200 or so reported each day a month ago. Daily cases peaked at 936 in the first wave in April, though testing was much lower.
While part of that is due to a backlog after the system came under strain, Reid said the real daily run rate is around 5,500 to 6,000 cases after the positive test rate soared to 30% on Sunday.
One local doctor in Louth, the second hardest-hit county, said 90% of her Covid-19 referrals from 28 December to 31 December returned positive.
By the way, I was referring symptoms as mild as head colds.
— Amy Morgan (@amymorgangp) January 4, 2021
If you think this is ‘not Covid’ & are about to meet up for that walk or go into work..think again. Contact your GP & immediately self isolate.
Updated
Here’s a little more detail on that news from Germany, which has found the second wave more difficult to deal with than the first. A government source has told Reuters:
All but two federal states support (a lockdown extension until) 31 January. However, the formal decision will be made on Tuesday.
The number of confirmed cases has increased by 9,847 to 1,775,513 in a day, the latest data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases shows. The reported death toll has risen by 302 to 34,574. Germany has averaged 140 new infections per 100,000 people over the past seven days.
Like other European Union countries, Germany started vaccinating its population on 27 December, but has been slow in progressing. Only 238,809 people of its population of 83 million had been given a first shot by Sunday, according to the RKI.
Updated
Hello, I’m taking over from Archie Bland and will be with you for the next few hours. If you’d like to draw anything to my attention, your best bet’s probably Twitter, where I’m KevinJRawlinson.
Germany will extend lockdown until 31 January – report
The German newspaper Bild has reported that the country’s government and 16 federal states have agreed to extend the lockdown until 31 January.
Under the current lockdown that has been in place since 16 December, schools, most shops, restaurants and bars are closed.
The chancellor Angela Merkel and the state premiers are scheduled to discuss new measures on Tuesday. The brief initial Bild report did not cite a source.
Updated
In Japan, the Tokyo metropolitan government on Monday asked residents to refrain from non-urgent, non-essential outings after 8pm as the coronavirus infection rate continues to grow.
The municipal government said restaurants would have to close by 8pm from Friday until at least the end of the month.
Earlier on Monday, the prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, said the government was considering declaring a state of emergency in the greater Tokyo region amid a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in and around the capital.
The city reported a record 1,337 cases last Thursday; on Sunday, the number of people with severe symptoms rose to 101, four fewer than the highest total seen in late April.
Tokyo is by far the worst affected of Japan’s 47 prefectures, and, along with three neighbouring prefectures, accounted for more than half the nationwide total on Sunday.
Updated
Germany considers following UK with second dose delay
In Germany, the health ministry is seeking advice on whether to delay administering a second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine from BioNTech and Pfizer to make scarce supplies go further, according to a document seen by Reuters on Monday.
The ministry is seeking the view of an independent vaccination commission on whether to delay a second shot beyond a 42-day maximum now foreseen, after a similar move by Britain, according to the one-page document.
In the UK, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said that initially “vaccinating a greater number of people with a single dose will prevent more deaths and hospitalisations than vaccinating a smaller number with two doses”. You can read Robin McKie’s helpful explainer on that here.
Updated
Singapore will let police access contact-tracing data
Singapore said on Monday its police will be able to use data obtained by its coronavirus contact-tracing technology for criminal investigations, a decision likely to increase privacy concerns around the system.
The technology, deployed as both a phone app and a physical device, is being used by nearly 80% of the 5.7 million population, authorities said after announcing its use would become compulsory in places like shopping malls.
The TraceTogether scheme, one of the most widely used in any country, has raised privacy fears but authorities have said the data is encrypted, stored locally and only tapped by authorities if individuals test positive for Covid-19.
“The Singapore police force is empowered … to obtain any data, including TraceTogether data, for criminal investigations,” the minister of state for home affairs, Desmond Tan, said in response to a question in parliament, Reuters reported.
The privacy statement on the TraceTogether website says: “data will only be used for Covid-19 contact tracing”.
Asked about the TraceTogether privacy statement by an opposition MP, Tan said: “We do not preclude the use of TraceTogether data in circumstances where citizens’ safety and security is or has been affected, and this applies to all other data as well.”
Privacy concerns have been raised about such apps in various countries, including Israel and South Korea.
Updated
Hong Kong has suspended face-to-face school classes until mid-February, with the spread of coronavirus in the Chinese territory remaining “critical”.
Schools have been mostly shut for a year, with many having switched to online learning and lessons by conference call.
Secretary for education Kevin Yeung said all kindergartens and schools would suspend face-to-face teaching until after the lunar year holiday, which ends on 15 February.
Hong Kong has had a resurgence in the number of cases at the end of November, prompting curbs including shutting down dining in restaurants after 6pm and closing gyms and beauty salons. These measures will remain in place for a further two weeks.
Hong Kong has recorded about 9,000 coronavirus cases and 150 deaths.
Updated
Indonesia’s mass vaccination programme is set to start next week, Reuters reported a senior minister saying, pending authorisation from the country’s food and drug agency (BPOM).
Battling one of Asia’s most stubborn coronavirus epidemics, Indonesia has secured more than 329m doses of Covid-19 vaccines, most notably from Pfizer and its partner BioNTech, and AstraZeneca. Those to be used in the first phase are from China’s Sinovac.
Indonesia’s state-owned drugmaker Bio Farma has already dispatched about 714,000 CoronaVac doses to the country’s 32 provinces, it said in a statement on Monday. Indonesia has received 3m doses of Sinovac’s vaccine so far.
Airlangga Hartarto, the country’s chief economic minister, said the mass vaccination programme is scheduled to start next week, pending data from BPOM, which he said draws findings from the clinical trials in Brazil and Turkey.
Updated
Life was hard in the village of Sary-Mogol in Kyrgyzstan, until a new influx of tourists to the nearby mountain resort of Lenin’s Peak brought prosperity a decade ago. Then Covid-19 struck and the visitors stopped coming.
In 2019, more than 1,300 tourists passed through Sary-Mogol. This year, it was fewer than a dozen. And a similar picture has been replicated across the Kyrgyz tourism industry, with revenues predicted to fall by as much as 90%.
You can read Karen Cirillo’s report, and see more of Danil Usmanov’s pictures, here:
France should receive its first deliveries of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine this week, the head of the medical regulator said on Monday.
The government has come under fire for being too slow with its vaccine rollout in a country that has a strong anti-vaccination movement. It started its inoculation campaign at the end of December, as did many other European countries. But it has only vaccinated hundreds since then, compared with tens of thousands in Germany and more than a million in Britain.
“I think that the Moderna vaccine ought to arrive this week,” Dominique Le Guludec, the head of the Haute Autorite de Sante (HAS), told BFM TV, Reuters reported. She added that France wanted more information on the AstraZeneca shot.
The US authorised Moderna’s vaccine on 19 December, Canada did so on 23 December and the EU’s watchdog is expected to approve it this week.
Updated
UK becomes first country to administer Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine
The UK has become the first country to administer the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. NHS England tweeted on Monday that Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, has become the first person to be given the jab, at Oxford University hospital. The dose was administered by chief nurse Sam Foster.
“I am so pleased to be getting the Covid vaccine today and really proud that it is one that was invented in Oxford,” Pinker, a retired maintenance manager who has been having dialysis for kidney disease, said.
'I'm so pleased to be getting the COVID vaccine today and really proud it is one that was invented in Oxford.'
— NHS England and NHS Improvement (@NHSEngland) January 4, 2021
82-year-old Brian Pinker became the first person in the world to receive the new Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine this morning at @OUHospitals. 💉 pic.twitter.com/nhnd3Sx97m
He said he was looking forward to celebrating his 48th wedding anniversary with wife Shirley in February.
“The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant,” he said.
The announcement came with Britain set to begin a mass rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday, with 530,000 doses ready for use. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Monday that 700 vaccination sites were open with the figure expected to pass 1,000 by the end of the week.
Boris Johnson said on Sunday that he expects tens of millions to be vaccinated within the next few months. One million people have been vaccinated in the UK already after the Pfizer jab was approved in early December.
Updated
Russia on Monday reported 23,351 new coronavirus cases over the previous 24 hours, including 3,591 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 3,260,138.
Authorities said 482 people had died, taking Russia’s official death toll to 58,988.
There were 24,150 cases yesterday and 504 deaths. The number of cases continues a slight decline since record highs over Christmas.
Singapore will consider relaxing travel restrictions for people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, the co-head of the government’s virus taskforce said on Monday.
The south-east Asian travel hub has largely banned leisure travel, and has some limited business and official travel agreements with certain countries. Most returning residents have to isolate in designated hotels or at home for up to two weeks.
“There are several ongoing studies on the effectiveness of vaccines in reducing transmission risk, and we are monitoring these very carefully,” Lawrence Wong said in parliament.
“If there is clear evidence that transmission risks can be lowered significantly, we will certainly consider some relaxation to the SHN (stay home notice) regime for vaccinated travellers.”
Updated
This is Archie Bland picking up our live coronavirus coverage, and beginning in Thailand, where senior officials have said that the country will receive its first Covid-19 vaccines in February from China’s Sinovac Biotech and will have the capacity to produce 200m doses a year locally of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Thailand, which is aiming to inoculate at least half of its 70 million population, should take delivery of 200,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine by February, Reuters reported prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha as saying on Monday. It has ordered 2m doses from Sinovac in total.
“I have given the direction on the vaccine and expect that within one to two months we will receive the first lot for medical professionals for about 200,000 doses,” Prayuth said, according to a tweet by his office.
The south-east Asian country reported its largest single-day increase in infections with 745 cases on Monday, with Prayuth urging people to stay home to limit the spread and avoid the need for a strict nationwide lockdown.
A further 800,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine will arrive by March and 1m in April, Supakit Sirilak, the director general of medical science department, said on Sunday.
Thailand in November signed an agreement for 26m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which will be produced by the local firm Siam Bioscience, with its first batch to be ready by May, Supakit said.
Updated
Hancock: 'We don’t rule anything out'
The British government is not ruling out any further measure to try to curb the spread of coronavirus, including a national lockdown, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Monday.
“It is a very difficult situation in terms of the growth of the virus,” Hancock said on Sky News.
Asked whether the government was considering imposing a new national lockdown, he answered: “We don’t rule anything out.”
Updated
UK restaurants and casual dining firms recorded almost 30,000 job losses in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic drove a 163% jump in redundancies.
Data compiled by the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) revealed that 29,684 jobs were lost across fine dining, independent businesses and large multiple casual-dining chains during the year.
It represents a sharp increase from 2019, when 11,280 job losses were reported across the sector, after firms were hit by two national lockdowns, local lockdown restrictions, curfews, changes to service rules and recently strengthened tier measures:
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thanks for following along, and as always, you can say Hi on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
Here is my bit on what it has been like to run the pandemic liveblog for nearly a year – and what LA Confidential has to do with it:
Updated
Thai PM urges people to 'just stay home' as virus cases hit record
Thailand’s prime minister on Monday urged the public to stay home to help contain the country’s biggest coronavirus outbreak yet and avoid a strict lockdown, as authorities confirmed a daily record 745 new infections.
The government has declared 28 provinces, including Bangkok, as high-risk zones and asked people to work from home and avoid gathering or travel beyond their provinces, as infection numbers climb in the wake of outbreak first detected last month at a seafood market near the capital.
Prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said the government was mindful of the potential economic damage from strong containment measures. “We don’t want to lock down the entire country because we know what the problems are, therefore can you all lock down yourselves?” he told reporters.
“This is up to everyone, if we don’t want to get infected just stay home for 14 to 15 days, if you think like this then things will be safe, easier for screening,” Prayuth added.
Updated
Biden inauguration to feature virtual, nationwide parade
President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration will include a “virtual parade across America” consistent with crowd limits during the coronavirus era, organizers announced Sunday, AP reports.
Following the swearing-in ceremony on Inauguration Day on 20 January on the west front of the US Capitol, Biden and his wife, first lady Jill Biden, will join the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, and her husband in participating in a socially distanced Pass in Review on the Capitol’s opposite front side. Those are military traditions where Biden will review the readiness of military troops.
Biden will also receive a traditional presidential escort with representatives from every branch of the military from 15th Street in Washington to the White House. That, the presidential inaugural committee says, will be socially distanced too, while “providing the American people and world with historic images of the president-elect proceeding to the White House without attracting large crowds”.
Workers in recent days began dismantling an inaugural parade reviewing stand in front of the White House as Biden’s transition team continues to prepare for festivities that will be mostly virtual. Accordingly, organisers also said they will hold a virtual parade nationwide to “celebrate America’s heroes, highlight Americans from all walks of life in different states and regions, and reflect on the diversity, heritage, and resilience of the country as we begin a new American era”.
Updated
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- In England, parents face more disruption and uncertainty as local authorities across the country scramble to delay schools reopening in the face of rising coronavirus infection rates and the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, admitted that more could be shut in the coming weeks.
- Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has said the government is considering declaring a state of emergency in the greater Tokyo region amid a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in and around the capital. Suga, whose handling of the pandemic has seen his approval ratings plummet in recent weeks, has come under pressure to take action to address the recent surge in infections.
- Britain will become the first country to roll out the low-cost and easily transportable AstraZeneca and Oxford University Covid vaccine on Monday. Six hospitals in England will administer the first of about 530,000 doses Britain has ready. The programme will be expanded to hundreds of other British sites in coming days and the government hopes it will deliver tens of millions of doses within months.
- Thousands of people were lining up in Beijing to receive a vaccine as China races to inoculate millions before the Chinese new year, which sparks a mass travel season in February. More than 73,000 people in the Chinese capital have received the first dose of the vaccine over the last couple of days, state media reported Sunday, including community workers and bus drivers.
- The US passed 350,000 coronavirus deaths – the highest toll in the world, amid several days of more than 2,500 deaths per day. The US also confirmed nearly 300,000 new cases in 24 hours on 2 January (the most recent available toll), according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
- India authorised two Covid-19 vaccines on Sunday, paving the way for a huge inoculation programme to stem the coronavirus pandemic in the world’s second most populous country. The country’s drugs regulator gave emergency authorization for the vaccine developed by Oxford University and UK-based drugmaker AstraZeneca, and another developed by the Indian company Bharat Biotech.
- New Zealand has further tightened border controls amid mounting anxiety about the new strain of coronavirus driving up infections overseas. Six cases of the new variant of the virus – five in arrivals from the UK and one from South Africa – were recorded in managed isolation facilities in the two weeks leading up to Christmas.
- South Korea expanded a ban on private gatherings larger than four people to the whole country, and extended unprecedented social distancing rules in greater Seoul as the number of daily cases bounced back to more than 1,000 in four days.
- Vietnam has agreed to buy 30m doses of the Covid-19 vaccine made by AstraZeneca Plc, the government said on Monday, adding that authorities are also seeking to purchase vaccines from other sources, including Pfizer Inc.
Updated
As always you can follow me or get in touch directly on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 9,847 to 1,775,513, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Monday.
The reported death toll rose by 302 to 34,574, the tally showed.
Beijing vaccinates thousands in Covid-19 jab drive
Thousands of people were lining up in Beijing to receive a Covid-19 vaccine as China races to innoculate millions before the Chinese New Year mass travel season in February.
More than 73,000 people in the Chinese capital have received the first dose of the vaccine over the last couple of days, state media reported Sunday, including community workers and bus drivers.
Health authorities on New Year’s Eve granted “conditional” approval to a vaccine candidate made by Chinese pharma giant Sinopharm, which the company said had a 79% efficacy rate.
Footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed queues outside local hospitals and community health centres as people waited to read consent forms and have their temperatures taken before getting the jab.
Health officials said gyms and empty factories were among centres being used for the vaccination programme.
China plans to vaccinate millions this winter in the run-up to Lunar New Year in mid-February.
Beijing has already administered around 4.5 million doses of largely unproven emergency vaccines this year - mostly to health workers and other state employees destined for overseas jobs, according to authorities.
But China now plans a gradual rollout for the vaccine starting with key groups considered to have a high risk of exposure to the virus, including port and logistic workers and people planning to return to studies abroad.
AstraZeneca has filed an application for approval in South Korea of the coronavirus vaccine it developed with Oxford University, the country’s drug safety ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The ministry said it would aim to approve the vaccine for emergency use in 40 days. The approval would mark the first in South Korea, which has been grappling to contain its latest wave of infections.
South Korea signed a deal with AstraZeneca in December, with the first shipment expected as early as January.
AstraZeneca vaccine rolled out in Britain on Monday
Britain will become the first country to roll out the low-cost and easily transportable AstraZeneca and Oxford University Covid vaccine on Monday. Six hospitals in England will administer the first of about 530,000 doses Britain has ready.
The programme will be expanded to hundreds of other British sites in coming days and the government hopes it will deliver tens of millions of doses within months.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is cheaper and can be stored at fridge temperature, which makes it easier to transport and use. India approved the vaccine on Sunday for emergency use.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that tougher coronavirus restrictions were likely to be introduced, even with millions of citizens already living under the strictest tier of rules.
Vietnam to buy AstraZeneca vaccine, in talks with other makers
Vietnam has agreed to buy 30 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine made by AstraZeneca Plc, the government said on Monday, adding that authorities are also seeking to purchase vaccines from other sources, including Pfizer Inc.
“We’ve already signed an agreement to guarantee the AstraZeneca vaccine for 15 million people, which is equivalent to 30 million doses,” deputy health minister Truong Quoc Cuong told a government meeting.
Updated
Thailand confirmed 745 new coronavirus infections and one new death on Monday, taking the total number of cases to 8,439 and deaths to 65 since its first case in January.
The majority of the new cases were detected in Samut Sakhon, a province near Bangkok, where the current outbreak started in the middle of December, the government’s Covid-19 taskforce said.
Japan considers state of emergency
Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has said the government is considering declaring a state of emergency in the greater Tokyo region amid a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in and around the capital.
Suga, whose handling of the pandemic has seen his approval ratings plummet in recent weeks, has come under pressure to take action to address the recent surge in infections.
At the weekend, the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, and the governors of nearby Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama prefectures urged the government to declare a localised state of emergency.
Suga’s administration, however, is reluctant to introduce any measures that could harm the world’s third-biggest economy, which has rebounded after the first state of emergency brought many businesses to a standstill due to sharp falls in shopping and spending on travel and entertainment.
South Korea expands ban on social gatherings nationwide
South Korea expanded a ban on private gatherings larger than four people to the whole country, and extended unprecedented social distancing rules in greater Seoul as the number of daily cases bounced back to more than 1,000 in four days, Reuters reports.
South Korea has been experiencing a prolonged surge in infections during the latest wave, which has led to a sharp increase in deaths.
The country reported 1,020 new coronavirus cases as of Sunday midnight, bringing the total to 64,264 infections, with 981 deaths, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
Only 657 cases reported over the weekend. A health official had said that the recent third wave of infections is being contained.
The extended social-distancing rules imposed on Seoul and neighbouring areas include curbs on churches, restaurants, cafes, ski resorts and other venues.
Mexico’s health ministry reported 5,211 new coronavirus cases and 362 additional fatalities on Sunday, bringing its totals to 1,448,755 infections and 127,213 deaths.
The real number of infected people and deaths is likely significantly higher than the official count, the health ministry has said.
Asian factory activity expanded moderately in December thanks to robust demand in regional giant China, business surveys showed on Monday, the latest sign that manufacturers are emerging from the initial damage of the Covid pandemic, Reuters reports.
But Chinese factory growth slowed and tougher coronavirus control measures put in place or being considered across the world clouded the outlook, keeping Asian policymakers under pressure to maintain or ramp up massive stimulus programmes.
China’s Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell in December to 53.0 - its lowest level in three months - but stayed well above the 50-level that separates growth from contraction.
The reading, which was lower than November’s 54.9, fell roughly in line with the official gauge of factory activity that showed activity moderating at a high level.
Robust demand in China helped manufacturing activity rise in neighbouring economies like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, according to the PMI surveys, in a glimmer of hope for Asia’s recovery prospects.
The final au Jibun Bank Japan PMI rose to a seasonally adjusted 50.0 in December from the previous month’s 49.0, ending a record 19-month run of declines as output stabilised for the first time in two years.
The angst-laden ballads of Lewis Capaldi were the biggest soundtrack of pandemic Britain, industry figures for 2020 show, as streaming of music shot up by more than 20% in lockdown.
Streaming accounted for more than 80% of overall music consumption in the UK last year, when people listened to 139bn audio streams, up from 114bn in 2019. CD sales fell by almost a third year on year, although the fringe market in vinyl and even audio cassettes continued to rise.
UK artists led by Capaldi, Harry Styles and Dua Lipa accounted for eight of the top 10 albums. Nearly 200 artists were streamed more than 100m times, with the BPI hailing a new wave of diverse talent fuelling music industry growth, including acts such as Aitch, AJ Tracey, Headie One, J Hus and KSI:
New Zealand tightens border again amid fears over new Covid strain
New Zealand has further tightened border controls amid mounting anxiety about the new strain of coronavirus driving up infections overseas.
Six cases of the new variant of the virus – five in arrivals from the UK and one from South Africa – were recorded in managed isolation facilities in the two weeks leading up to Christmas.
Travellers to New Zealand from the US and UK will now be required to show a negative test for Covid-19 before departure, as well as taking a test on their arrival in quarantine in addition to those on days three and 12. The border remains mostly closed to non-citizens.
The Ministry of Health said in a statement on Sunday that these were “extra precautionary steps [to] provide another layer of protection” against the new strain of coronavirus, recorded in more than 30 countries:
Hello blog readers – Helen Sullivan with you again for what will hopefully not be another almost year of coronavirus blogging.
It is good to be back, though would of course be better if the news weren’t so dire.
But we’ll be here when the pandemic news eventually changes to be mostly good, too.
As always, you can get in touch or follow me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
I’m going to hand over to my inexhaustible colleague Helen Sullivan now. Thanks all for your comments and company. Be well, and look after each other.
As richer countries race to distribute COVID-19 vaccines, Somalia remains the rare place where much of the population hasn’t taken the coronavirus seriously.
Some fear that’s proven to be deadlier than anyone knows.
“Certainly our people don’t use any form of protective measures, neither masks nor social distancing,” Abdirizak Yusuf Hirabeh, the government’s Covid-19 incident manager, said in an interview.
“If you move around the city (of Mogadishu) or countrywide, nobody even talks about it.”
And yet infections are rising, he said.
It is places like Somalia, the Horn of Africa nation torn apart by three decades of conflict, that will be last to see Covid-19 vaccines in any significant quantity.
With part of the country still held by the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group, the risk of the virus becoming endemic in some hard-to-reach areas is strong — a fear for parts of Africa amid the slow arrival of vaccines.
“There is no real or practical investigation into the matter,” said Hirabeh, who is also the director of the Martini hospital in Mogadishu, the largest treating Covid-19 patients, which saw seven new patients the day he spoke.
He acknowledged that neither facilities nor equipment are adequate in Somalia to tackle the virus.
Fewer than 27,000 tests for the virus have been conducted in Somalia, a country of more than 15 million people, one of the lowest rates in the world.
Fewer than 4,800 cases have been confirmed, including at least 130 deaths.
Some worry the virus will sink into the population as yet another poorly diagnosed but deadly fever.
One important protective factor for the Somalian population is its relative youth, said Dr Abdurahman Abdullahi Abdi Bilaal, who works in a clinic in the capital. More than 80% of the country’s population is under age 30.
“The virus is here, absolutely, but the resilience of people is owing to age,” he said.
It’s the lack of post-mortem investigations in the country that is allowing the true extent of the virus to go undetected, he said.
The next challenge in Somalia is not simply obtaining Covid-19 vaccines but also persuading the population to accept them.
That will take time, “just the same as what it took for our people to believe in the polio or measles vaccines,” a concerned Bilaal said.
Hirabeh, in charge of Somalia’s virus response, agreed that “our people have little confidence in the vaccines,” saying that many Somalis hate the needles.
The logistics of any Covid-19 vaccine rollout are another major concern.
Hirabeh said Somalia is expecting the first vaccines in the first quarter of 2021, but he worries that the country has no way to handle a vaccine like the Pfizer one that requires being kept at a temperature of -70 degrees Celsius.
For 45-year-old street beggar Hassan Mohamed Yusuf, fear of a virus outbreak has turned into near-certainty, and grief.
“In the beginning we saw this virus as just another form of the flu,” he said.
Then three of his young children died after having a cough and high fever.
As residents of a makeshift camp for people displaced by conflict or drought, they had no access to coronavirus testing or proper care.
At the same time, Yusuf said, the virus hurt his efforts to find money to treat his family as “we can’t get close enough” to people to beg.
To the US:
The pedestrian pace of Covid-19 vaccinations in the US came under new scrutiny on Sunday, as the pandemic death toll passed 350,000 and experts warned of another surge in infections and deaths arising from gatherings at Christmas and New Year.
Richard Luscombe and Martin Pengelly report.
India authorises two vaccines
A little more on India’s approval of two Covid vaccines for rollout. India has undertaken extraordinary public health initiatives in the past, most notably in its efforts to eradicate polio, which involved the largest public immunisation campaign in history.
My colleague Hannah Ellis-Petersen reports:
India has granted emergency approval to both the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine and the domestically developed Covaxin, signalling the start of one of the largest Covid-19 immunisation drives in the world.
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Japan considers state of emergency
We will watch this as it develops, but Fuji TV has reported Japan is considering declaring a state of emergency for capital Tokyo and three surrounding prefectures as early as this week, as coronavirus cases climb.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is due to hold a news conference to mark the start of 2021 at 11am Tokyo time (2am GMT). We will bring you that news as it emerges.
Tokyo reported 816 new cases on Sunday.
On Thursday, Tokyo logged a record 1,337 new infections, exceeding the 1,000 mark for the first time since the pandemic began. A nationwide record was also set Thursday, with 4,520 new cases.
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In Australia (where your correspondent currently sits), mass testing drives are seeking to restrict outbreaks in the country’s two most populous states New South Wales and Victoria. By global standards, Australia’s outbreaks are small, but there is a concerted push to break these chains of community transmission.
Victoria has reported three new cases of locally acquired Covid-19 infection in the past 24 hours.
NSW reported zero new local cases in the 24 hours to 8pm yesterday, but seven in hotel quarantine. However, in NSW, two new cases have been detected overnight. These will be counted in tomorrow’s figures. Yes, it is confusing.
To follow updates in Australia, see the work of my indefatigable colleague Calla Wahlquist here:
Mainland China reported 33 new Covid-19 cases on 3 January, up from 24 cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Monday.
The National Health Commission said in a statement 20 of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas.
The commission also reported 13 new locally transmitted cases: six in Liaoning province, four in Hebei province, two in Beijing and one in Heilongjiang province.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose to 40 from eight cases a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 87,150, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
This is the air powered costume an employee wore in the Emergency Dept.of Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center Xmas day to spread cheer. Turns out employee unknowingly had covid , now 43 employees have covid .Kaiser investigating if costume blower helped spread the virus. pic.twitter.com/DLLi8z5e2T
— Marianne Favro (@mariannefavro) January 3, 2021
Irene Chavez, senior vice president and area manager of Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center, said in an emailed statement that 43 staffers in the emergency department tested positive between 27 December and 1 January.
“We will ensure that every affected staff member receives the care and support they need,” the statement said.
The hospital is investigating whether an inflatable costume worn by one of the infected staff members may have contributed to the spread of of the virus.
“Any exposure, if it occurred, would have been completely innocent, and quite accidental, as the individual had no Covid symptoms and only sought to lift the spirits of those around them during what is a very stressful time,” the hospital said in the statement.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Ben Doherty and I’ll be bringing you the latest updates from around the world for the next few hours. Correspondence and comments always welcome, you can reach me at ben.doherty@theguardian.com or on twitter @BenDohertyCorro.
The US has passed 350,000 coronavirus deaths – the highest toll in the world, amid several days of more than 2,500 deaths per day. The US also confirmed nearly 300,000 new cases in 24 hours on 2 January (the most recent available toll), according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
Meanwhile India authorised two Covid-19 vaccines on Sunday, paving the way for a huge inoculation program to stem the coronavirus pandemic in the world’s second most populous country.
The country’s drugs regulator gave emergency authorization for the vaccine developed by Oxford University and UK-based drugmaker AstraZeneca, and another developed by the Indian company Bharat Biotech.
Here are the key recent developments:
- Coronavirus deaths in the UK have passed 75,000, with 54,990 new cases reported on Sunday as well as 454 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
- The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has urged Boris Johnson to bring in new national Covid restrictions in England within the next 24 hours, rather than hint that he will do so soon.
- A number of local councils in England have asked the government to allow primary schools to remain shut ahead of the first day of term tomorrow, including Southampton city council and Cumbria county council, both of which have said they support schools in prioritising education for children of key workers and vulnerable children in light of staffing shortages.
- Ireland has reported a further 4,962 cases of Covid-19, taking the total number of cases past 100,000. Sunday’s figure breaks the previous day’s record of 3,394 cases – itself almost double the highest number of cases previously recorded in 24 hours.
- The new variant of the coronavirus, first spotted in the UK, has been detected in Greece, it was reported this evening. Five Greeks and a Briton who tested positive for the virus upon arrival from the UK were found to have been infected with the new strain according to Skai radio.
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France has recorded 12,489 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, up from the 3,466 reported a day earlier, according to the country’s health ministry.
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Kuwait’s civil aviation authority has suspended direct commercial flights to and from the UK, according to a tweet published a few minutes ago.
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Egypt has said it had opened an investigation into the deaths of four Covid-19 patients in an intensive care unit allegedly due to lack of oxygen, which caused a public outcry.
- Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa has approved the import of 2 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, although the jab is not yet approved for use in the country.
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