We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:
European countries were on Tuesday given a clear timeframe for the start of their vaccination programmes after the EU’s medicines regulator said it would decide by 29 December whether to grant emergency approval for the first Covid-19 jabs, AFP reports.
France plans to prioritise the most fragile and exposed groups in early 2021, followed by a second campaign for the rest of the population between April and June, the president Emmanuel Macron announced.
Germany has already said it is hoping to launch its immunisation drive in the first quarter of 2021 and is preparing vaccination centres across the country.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it would hold an extraordinary meeting on 29 December “at the latest” to consider emergency approval for a vaccine developed by Germany’s BioNTech and US giant Pfizer.
Hopes that shots could be ready for use by the end of this year received a boost when US firm Moderna said it was filing Monday for emergency authorisation of its vaccine in the United States and Europe.
The EMA said it would hold a separate meeting to assess that request by 12 January at the latest.
Large-scale trial data released last month showed that both vaccines were safe and around 95 percent effective against Covid-19.
European Commission spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker told reporters that once the EMA gave regulatory permission, formal authorisation from Brussels would follow “very quickly”, probably “in a matter of days”.
Brazil will give priority to the elderly, health workers and indigenous people for vaccination against Covid-19, the health ministry said on Tuesday, unveiling a four-stage preliminary plan for national immunisation. The ministry said in a statement that a final plan would depend on the vaccines that become available.
ESwatini’s prime minister Ambrose Dlamini, who tested positive for Covid-19 two weeks ago, has been transferred to a hospital in neighbouring South Africa for further treatment, the tiny absolute monarchy’s government said on Tuesday.
The country’s deputy prime minister, Themba Masuku, said in a statement Dlamini was moved to “guide and fast track his recovery”.
The southern African nation of around 1.2 million people has so far recorded 6,419 positive cases, with 122 confirmed deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
Updated
New Covid-19 infections in France stayed below 10,000 for the third day in a row on Tuesday, a sequence unseen since mid-September, and the number of people hospitalised resumed a downward trend.
The government has loosened its second national coronavirus lockdown, put in place on 30 October, by allowing all shops to reopen at the weekend.
The French president Emmanuel Macron said last week the lockdown could be lifted on 15 December if by then the number of new cases per day fell to 5,000 and the number of patients in intensive care declined to between 2,500 and 3,000.
Earlier in the day, Macron said that France should be in a position to embark on a broader Covid-19 vaccination campaign between April and June next year, after initially targeting a smaller group of people.
Health authorities reported 8,083 new cases over the past 24 hours on Tuesday, versus 4,005 on Monday and 9,784 on Sunday.
The seven-day moving average of daily new infections fell below 11,000 for the first time since 2 October, at 10,965, four times lower than the all-time high of 54,440 reached on 7 November.
The cumulative number of Covid-19 cases now totals 2,230,571, the fifth-highest in the world.
After increasing by 90 between Sunday and Monday, the number of people hospitalised for the disease fell by 619 to 27,639, below 28,000 for the first time since 4 November. The number of patients in ICUs declined by 146 to 3,605.
The number of people in France who have died from Covid-19 rose by 775 to 53,506, versus a rise of 406 on Monday. But the seven-day moving average of daily additional deaths stood at 467, below 500 for the first time in more than three weeks.
UK government wins vote on new tier restrictions for England
Prime minister Boris Johnson suffers biggest Commons revolt since election as MPs back new Covid tiers by 291 to 78. Follow on the UK blog
Updated
Summary
Here’s a quick recap of all the latest coronavirus developments across the globe from the last few hours:
-
BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna file for EU approval of Covid-19 vaccine. Germany’s BioNTech and its US partner, Pfizer, have applied for EU regulatory approval for their Covid-19 vaccine, raising hopes that the first jabs could be administered in December. If approved, the vaccine could potentially be rolled out “in Europe before the end of 2020”, the companies said in a statement. US biotech company Moderna said it had also sought regulatory approval for its Covid-19 shot in both the US and Europe.
- Belgian police arrest 25 men including MEP as ‘sex party’ breaks curfew. A Hungarian MEP in Viktor Orbán’s rightwing party, spotted fleeing along a gutter to escape police raiding a “sex party” above a Brussels bar, has apologised for breaching Belgium’s lockdown rules. József Szájer was one of about 20 people, mainly men and including at least two EU diplomats, who attended a party held near the Grand Place on Friday evening.
- Lewis Hamilton tests positive for Covid-19 and will miss F1 Sakhir GP. The driver is “devastated” to miss Sunday’s Sakhir Grand Prix after contracting coronavirus. Hamilton tested positive the day after winning the Bahrain GP and is in isolation. His participation in the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi remains in the balance.
- Lastminute.com to pay £7m in refunds for cancelled holidays. The flight and hotel booking site has agreed to pay £7m in refunds to more than 9,000 customers whose holidays were cancelled because of coronavirus. After an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, lastminute.com has given undertakings that it will pay refunds as soon as possible, and by 31 January at the latest.
- Turkey’s coronavirus death toll hits record for ninth consecutive day. Turkey’s daily Covid-19 death toll hit a record high for a ninth consecutive day on Tuesday, with 190 fatalities in the last 24 hours, as Turks braced for new restrictive measures to curb the spread of the pandemic.
- Concerns in Ireland as shopping sprees follow Covid lockdown. Ireland emerged from maximum Covid-19 restrictions on Tuesday, prompting pre-dawn shopping sprees and appeals to the public to stay vigilant against infection.
- Austria set to bow to pressure on Covid risk with ski holiday ban. Austria’s government appears to have bowed to pressure from Germany, France and Italy and will ban skiing holidays over the Christmas break in an attempt to control the coronavirus pandemic. The decision, expected to be officially announced on Wednesday, follows heated disagreements between Berlin and Vienna.
That’s all from me, Jessica Murray, my colleague Lucy Campbell will be taking over shortly.
Securing a coronavirus vaccine for all European countries will be a top priority for Portugal when it takes over the presidency of the EU next January, Portuguese prime minister António Costa has said.
“We must guarantee we have a vaccine available which is effective in stopping Covid and which permits us to reach on the same day all countries of Europe,” Costa said at a news conference with the European council president, Charles Michel.
Updated
US president-elect Joe Biden said any coronavirus relief legislation passed before he takes office in January is “just a start”.
Biden said his team is working on a relief package his administration will roll out after he takes office.
A longtime museum director dubbed the grande dame of the Russian art world has died at 98, prompting an outpouring of grief and admiration for the woman who brought the Mona Lisa to Moscow and returned masterpieces hidden for decades from the Soviet public to her museum’s exhibition halls.
Irina Antonova, whose work at the Pushkin Museum began under Joseph Stalin and ended under Vladimir Putin, died on Monday evening of complications from the coronavirus. Her death was confirmed by the press service of the museum, where she served as director for 52 years from 1961 to 2013.
Belgian police arrest 25 men including MEP as 'sex party' breaks curfew
A Hungarian MEP in Viktor Orbán’s rightwing party, spotted fleeing along a gutter to escape police raiding a “sex party” above a Brussels bar, has apologised for breaching Belgium’s lockdown rules.
József Szájer, a senior member of the Fidesz party who helped write Hungary’s constitution in 2011, was one of about 20 people, mainly men and including at least two EU diplomats, who attended a party held near the Grand Place in the Belgian capital’s historical centre on Friday evening.
The MEP had attempted to escape the scene by climbing out of a window from the first floor apartment before being spotted by a passerby “fleeing along the gutter”, according to Sarah Durant, a spokeswoman for the Brussels region’s deputy public prosecutor.
“The man’s hands were bloody,” Durant said. “It is possible that he may have been injured while fleeing. Narcotics were found in his backpack. The man was unable to produce any identity documents. He was escorted to his place of residence, where he identified himself as SJ (1961) by means of a diplomatic passport.” It was reported he tried to claim diplomatic immunity.
In a statement, Szájer, 59, who resigned on Sunday without mentioning his brush with the law, apologised for his “irresponsible” behaviour but denied carrying drugs.
France will take measures to stop skiers from sidestepping local virus restrictions and hitting the slopes in other countries during the Christmas holidays, the president, Emmanuel Macron, has said.
Downhill skiing is effectively banned in France for the season to help contain the spread of Covid-19 after the government said last week that ski lifts would remain closed until January, even though resorts could otherwise operate.
Slopes are open in neighbouring Switzerland, tempting French winter sports lovers to cross the border from 15 December, when the current partial lockdown is lifted.
“If there are countries that keep their resorts open, there will be controls to dissuade the French,” Macron told a news conference. This was to avoid “creating a situation in which there is an imbalance with stations in France”, he said.
Switzerland – not an EU member, though it has strong ties to the bloc – has ignored calls to fall into line, much to the frustration of French officials.
“In Switzerland, we can go skiing, with protection plans in place,” Swiss health minister Alain Berset said last week.
France’s ski resorts have been up in arms over the ban, saying the weeks around Christmas and New Year are crucial for their survival since they account for up to a quarter of their annual revenues.
France’s winter sport sector says it generates some €11bn ($13bn) in revenues a year and employs 120,000 people during the season.
Updated
Queen Elizabeth II, who has spent much of the coronavirus outbreak in self-isolation because of her age, will forego her traditional family Christmas, the royal household said.
The 94-year-old monarch and her husband Prince Philip normally spend the festive season at her Sandringham estate in eastern England with other members of the family.
“Having considered all the appropriate advice, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have decided that this year they will spend Christmas quietly in Windsor,” the royal household said, referring to a castle west of London.
The Queen postponed public engagements and moved from her official residence in the British capital to Windsor on 19 March as the coronavirus outbreak took hold.
Britain has seen more than 59,000 deaths from nearly 1.6m cases. Prince Philip, who turned 99 on 10 June, has been in poor health in recent years and spent four nights in hospital last December for an unspecified pre-existing condition.
Their eldest son Prince Charles and his son Prince William have both isolated after showing mild Covid symptoms.
The Queen made a rare televised address to the nation in early April calling on Britons to summon the “Blitz spirit” of the second world war to get through the months-long lockdown. Her weekly meeting with the prime minister, Boris Johnson, has been conducted by telephone.
She was seen at a scaled-back, socially distanced Trooping the Colour parade in the grounds of Windsor on 13 June – the first time it has been staged at the castle since 1895.
Also at Windsor in July, she knighted Captain Tom Moore, a 100-year-old second world war veteran who raised millions of pounds for health charities in a sponsored walk of his garden.
Her first public appearance outside one of her homes – where she has a reduced household staff known as HMS Bubble – was on 16 October, when she visited the Porton Down research laboratory with grandson William.
Updated
Pakistan has approved $150m in funding to buy Covid-19 vaccines, initially to cover the most vulnerable 5% of the population, the de facto health minister said.
The initial phase of vaccinations would focus on providing free shots for frontline health workers and people above the age of 65, Faisal Sultan said, adding the go-ahead for funding the programme had been given at a cabinet meeting chaired by the prime minister, Imran Khan.
A panel of experts was compiling a list of recommendations on how to procure the vaccine, Sultan, the prime minister’s special adviser on health, said.
“We will see whether we need to tap more than one source, including some western manufacturers or some Chinese, so we will move forward with all these options,” he said.
In making a choice, consideration would be given to the vaccine’s efficacy, level of protection and safety, Sultan said, as well as “cold chain” storage requirements and Pakistan’s ability to acquire stocks.
An initial conversation has already been opened with several companies, he added.
Pakistan has launched phase III clinical trials for CanSino Biologics’ Covid-19 vaccine candidate, led by the government-run National Institute of Health (NIH) and pharmaceutical company AJM - the local representative of CanSino.
The South Asian nation of 220 million people closed schools to curb new infections and a rise in the number Covid-19 patients at hospitals in late November.
Pakistan’s government reported 67 deaths, the highest single day toll in months, and 2,458 new cases on Tuesday, with 2,165 patients in hospitals in a critical condition. Overall there have been 400,482 cases recorded in the country so far and 8,091 deaths.
Updated
Covid-19 patients who received cancer treatments that suppress their immune system may remain contagious and able to spread the coronavirus for two months or more, according to a study published on Tuesday.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends that when patients have compromised immune systems, healthcare workers follow extra precautions such as wearing respirators instead of face masks and isolate patients for up to 20 days after symptoms appear.
In the new study, researchers analysed sputum and swab samples from 20 immunosuppressed cancer patients infected with the coronavirus. They found three were contagious for more than three weeks after their symptoms began, including one who remained contagious for 61 days.
The three patients had received either a stem-cell transplant or therapy with genetically engineered immune cells called CAR T-cells within the previous six months. Two of the three had developed severe Covid-19. None of them had antibodies to the virus.
Current public health recommendations for Covid-19 patients with weak immune systems are based on limited data and may need to be revised, the researchers said in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“We know from several studies that if you’re ... healthy, you are no longer infectious after the first week of illness. But there is very little we know about immunocompromised patients,” said Mini Kamboj, one of the study’s authors from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “Is that 20 days enough or do we need to exercise precautions for longer than that?”
While only a small proportion of cancer patients with Covid-19 are likely to remain contagious for prolonged periods, “it’s a residual risk that we need to address,” Kamboj said. “We need to keep an open mind about how (much) longer immunocompromised patients could pose an infection risk to others.”
The US government has invited vaccine manufacturers, drug distributors and government officials to a Covid-19 Vaccine Summit next week, Stat News reported.
The meeting, which is scheduled for 8 December, will feature president Donald Trump, vice president Mike Pence and private sector executives, the report said.
The meeting would take place days ahead of reviews of vaccine candidates from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech by two separate panels of outside experts to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Industry officials familiar with the plans for the summit interpreted it as an opportunity for the White House to pressure the FDA to quickly issue emergency use authorisations for the two vaccines candidates, the Stat report said.
Invitees include Pfizer, Moderna and drug distributors, pharmacies, and logistics companies including McKesson, Walgreens, CVS Health, United Parcel Service , and FedEx, the report said.
Updated
Italy reported 785 coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday, up from 672 on Monday, and 19,350 new infections, compared with 16,377 the day before.
Italy has seen 56,361 Covid-19 fatalities, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain’s. It has also registered 1.62 million cases to date.
There were 182,100 swabs carried out in the past day, up from a previous 130,524.
The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 stood at 32,811 on Tuesday, down 376 on the day before. The number in intensive care decreased by 81 and now stands at 3,663.
When Italy’s second wave of the epidemic was accelerating fast in the first half of November, hospital admissions were rising by around 1,000 per day, while intensive care occupancy was increasing by about 100 per day.
The British government will make a one-off payment of £1,000 ($1,335) to pubs that cannot open due to coronavirus restrictions, but industry leaders said it will not be enough to save many establishments, a treasured part of the national heritage.
Nearly 60% of England will be under Tier 2 restrictions when a national lockdown lifts on Wednesday, meaning pubs can only serve alcohol with a substantial meal, effectively keeping those that do not serve food in lockdown.
Prime minister Boris Johnson announced that pubs in England that do not serve food would receive the payment in December in recognition of the hit they will take in what is usually their busiest month.
Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour party, described the £1,000 payment as “the definition of small beer”. Hospitality sector leaders were also critical.
“It’s outrageous you can have a pint in a theatre, concert hall, cinema or sports ground without a substantial meal, but not the pub. It is a slap in the face of pubs and brewers,” said Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association.
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, said the system would make nine out of 10 hospitality businesses unviable by the new year.
“A one-off payment of £1,000 for pubs forced to close does not even count as a token gesture,” she said.
The rules have sparked confusion over what constitutes a substantial meal, with attention focused on the status of the Scotch Egg - a hardboiled egg wrapped in meat and breadcrumbs.
After some debate over whether it was a meal, a starter or a bar snack, senior minister Michael Gove said told ITV it was a substantial meal and said “I myself would definitely scoff a couple of Scotch Eggs if I had the chance”.
He had earlier told LBC radio that a “couple of Scotch Eggs is a starter, as far as I’m concerned”.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own rules on coronavirus restrictions. Welsh pubs will not be able to serve alcohol at all from Friday.
Britain has reported 13,430 new Covid-19 cases and 603 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, both up on Monday’s tallies, according to government data.
Turkey's coronavirus death toll hits record for ninth consecutive day
Turkey’s daily Covid-19 death toll hit a record high for a ninth consecutive day on Tuesday, with 190 fatalities in the last 24 hours, as Turks braced for new restrictive measures to curb the spread of the pandemic.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced new measures on Monday to combat the surge in cases and deaths, including introducing a weekday curfew and a full lockdown at weekends.
The number of new coronavirus cases, including asymptomatic ones, recorded over the past 24 hours stood at 30,110. Total deaths rose to 13,936, but historical data on total cases is not available, as Turkey only reported symptomatic cases for four months. It began reporting all cases last Wednesday.
Updated
A bipartisan group of US senators and members of the House of Representatives have proposed a $908bn (£676bn) Covid relief bill that would fund measures through to 31 March, including $228bn in additional pay protection funds for hotels, restaurants and other small businesses.
State and local governments would receive direct aid under the bipartisan bill, the lawmakers said. Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican, said the plan contains $560bn in “repurposed” funding from the Cares Act enacted in March.
US airlines would receive $17bn for four months of payroll support under the proposal, Reuters has reported.
The bill, which does not yet have support of the White House or Congressional leaders, sets aside $45bn for the US transportation sector, including airlines, airports, buses and Amtrak, Reuters adds.
Updated
Serum Institute of India, which has partnered with AstraZeneca to manufacture its Covid-19 vaccine, will continue to test a two full dose regimen of the shot despite it showing a lower success rate than a half and full dose regimen in pivotal trials, a top executive told Reuters.
The British drugmaker has said its Covid-19 vaccine could be up to 90% effective if administered as a half dose followed by a full dose, but some scientists have questioned the robustness of that result because only a few thousand people were given that regimen in late-stage UK trials.
The global trials showed the efficacy rate of the shot was 62% if the full dose was given twice, as it was for most study participants in trials in Britain and Brazil. AstraZeneca has said it is likely to run an additional global trial to evaluate the lower dose regimen.
SII, which is currently running trials in India testing the safety of AstraZeneca’s vaccine as well as the immune response it triggers, has no plans currently to alter them to include the half dose-full dose regimen, according to Dr Suresh Jadhav, an executive director at SII.
“Anything which is beyond 50% is always going to be a plus, plus,” Jadhav said in an interview on Monday, referring to efficacy rates. He added that changing the dose regimen now would delay the trials.
A combination of two different measures could also complicate rapid distribution efforts, according to Jadhav, who has worked on vaccines for more than four decades.
“When it is one common dose it becomes very easy. Whether it is the first dose, or second it is the same vaccine, same dose,” he said.
Over the weekend, SII said it planned to apply for an emergency use licence for the vaccine in India in the next two weeks.
The 62% efficacy rate on AstraZeneca’s broader two full dose trial is above the 50% that US regulators say is the minimum required to consider a drug for emergency authorisation.
SII, based in the western city of Pune, is the world’s top manufacturer of vaccines by volume. Beyond AstraZeneca, it has also partnered with other companies to potentially manufacture their shots, including the US biotech firm Codagenix, its rival Novavax and Austria’s Themis.
But in the global race to develop vaccines to beat the pandemic, AstraZeneca’s vaccine is one of the frontrunners despite having lower efficacy rates than some rivals.
US drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna said their coronavirus vaccines have an efficacy rate of 95% and 94.5% respectively but AstraZeneca’s drug is cheaper and easier to transport because it can be stored for long periods at normal fridge temperatures.
Those advantages are particularly important for many developing countries and, therefore, for SII. As part of a deal outlined in June, AstraZeneca has licensed SII to supply 1bn doses of its vaccine to dozens of low and middle-income nations.
Most of the nations that are part of the Covax initiative, which has been set up to provide Covid-19 vaccines to poorer countries, have indicated they would accept and use a proven vaccine, if it showed more than 50% efficacy, according to Jadhav.
Adar Poonawalla, the CEO of SII, said affordability, scalability and ease of storage and transportation were key factors for India and other emerging economies as they look to decide on large scale purchases of vaccines.
“A vaccine that cannot penetrate and be given in a large population to provide high vaccine coverage you may as well not give it at all,” Poonawalla told Reuters. “If it’s not affordable and logistically transferable, even if it is 110% effective what is the sense?”
Updated
A Hungarian ruling party politician, who resigned as a member of the European parliament on Sunday, said he was present at a house party broken up last Friday by Brussels police for breaching lockdown rules, Reuters reports.
József Szájer, a senior member of prime minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling conservative Fidesz party, said in a statement he had cooperated with police.
The statement was quoted in an identical way by at least four prominent Hungarian news web sites. Reuters was unable to download the original text.
Healthcare workers and others recommended for the first Covid-19 inoculations in the US could start getting shots within 24 hours or at most within 36-48 hours after the vaccine receives regulatory nod.
Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser for the US government’s “Operation Warp Speed” vaccine programme, said he hoped 20 million people will be immunised by the end of this year.
“Within 24 hours, maybe at most 36 to 48 hours, from the approval, the vaccine can be in people’s arms,” Slaoui said at a Washington Post event.
Updated
Nine restaurant, bar and nightclub owners began a fifth day of hunger strike on Tuesday outside Portugal’s parliament in protest against coronavirus restrictions.
“We need support ... to keep our heads above water,” said Alberto Cabral, who runs a nightclub.
The protesters – camping outside parliament and living off water, tea and coffee donated by their supporters – say they will not eat until they are met by the prime minister and economy minister. One more business owner joined their strike on Sunday.
Bars and nightclubs have been closed since March and while restaurants were allowed to reopen in May, a curfew and weekend lockdown in place across most of the country since 8 November has angered restaurateurs, who say many of their businesses will not survive the year.
“It’s just insolvencies, insolvencies,” restaurant owner Joao Sotto Mayor said. “Many businesses depend on this time ... it’s incredibly important that next weekend we return to normal opening hours.”
An online petition by the movement behind the strike is gathering steam, with nearly 45,000 signatures so far and gaining several thousand each hour.
In compensation for weekend lockdowns, the government offered restaurants 20% of their average revenue between January and October of this year. Owners say that is nowhere near enough.
“How can we sustain a company that isn’t earning any money but has to pay taxes, pay for light, water?” asked Jose Gouveia, a nightclub owner and spokesman for the movement.
The number of people registered as unemployed jumped 34.5% in October from last year’s figures with about 72% of the newly unemployed working in restaurants or retail, according to government data. “Everything is dying here in Portugal,” Gouveia said.
Updated
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said France should be in a position to embark on a broader Covid-19 vaccination campaign between April and June next year, after initially targeting much a smaller group of people.
A first vaccination campaign starting towards the end of December or in January would be targeted at a smaller segment of the population, Macron said after meeting with the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo.
France’s top health advisory body said on Monday it had recommended Covid-19 vaccinations should target retirement homes residents and their staff first.
“There will be a first phase that will start as soon as possible, meaning when approvals are in from European health authorities and doses are supplied,” Macron said, adding that figuring out the logistics of this first campaign would be complex, in part due to the very cold conditions needed to store some vaccines.
He said a second phase of vaccinations would likely take place between April and June. “It will be broader and more aimed at the general public,” Macron said.
He reiterated that vaccination would not be compulsory in France, but added the country would aim to get as many people as possible on board “with a strategy to convince and based on transparency”.
France has one of the world’s lowest levels of trust in vaccines. According to an Ipsos poll for the World Economic Forum, only 59% of French respondents said they would get a Covid-19 vaccine if it became available, compared with 67% in the US and 85% in Britain.
Updated
The US Transportation Department said it has made preparations to enable the “immediate mass shipment” of Covid-19 vaccines and completed all necessary regulatory measures.
The department said US agencies have been coordinating with private sector companies, which will carry vaccines from manufacturing facilities to distribution centres and inoculation points.
It added it had established “appropriate safety requirements for all potential hazards involved in shipping the vaccine, including standards for dry ice and lithium batteries used in cooling”.
Updated
The coronavirus pandemic will further shift the global balance of power in Asia’s favour, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has said, while the health minister said he expected Germany to start rolling out vaccinations by January.
“The pandemic will set us back economically,” Merkel said, pointing to an economic revival in countries such as China and South Korea, where more people wore masks and there were fewer demonstrations against lockdowns.
“I believe this will lead again to another reordering of the regions,” she said, adding that Germany did not want to control its population in the way China did, but it did have to make more of an effort to keep up with technological developments.
Last month, German police fired water cannon and pepper spray in an effort to scatter thousands of protesters in Berlin angry at coronavirus restrictions.
Germany was widely praised for its response to the first coronavirus wave in spring, but it imposed lighter lockdown measures than neighbouring countries as a second wave hit Europe in November and infection numbers have stayed stubbornly high.
Schools remain open but private gatherings are limited to five people from Tuesday and fewer people are allowed in shops.
The official case tally rose by 13,604 on Tuesday to 1,067,473, while deaths were up 388 to 16,636.
The Bavarian city of Nuremberg tightened its rules on Tuesday to try to rein in a surge of the virus, forcing people to stay home unless they have a compelling reason until 20 December.
The European Medicines Agency said earlier on Tuesday it planned to decide on whether to approve the vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech by 29 December, and by 12 January on the vaccine being developed by Moderna.
“I assume that we will start being able to vaccinate in January at the latest,” the German health minister, Jens Spahn, said.
Updated
Austria set to bow to pressure on Covid risk with ski holiday ban
Austria’s government appears to have bowed to pressure from Germany, France and Italy and will ban skiing holidays over the Christmas break in an attempt to control the coronavirus pandemic, Austrian media is reporting.
The decision, expected to be officially announced on Wednesday, follows heated disagreements between Berlin and Vienna.
On Tuesday morning, Austria’s tourist minister accused the German government of interfering in its domestic affairs after Angela Merkel said she had wanted a ban on skiing holidays. The chancellor secured the backing of the Italian and French governments as well as the leaders of the 16 German states.
According to initial reports, Austrian resorts, including hotels, restaurants and ski schools will be closed into January. In some resorts, ski lifts are expected to stay open but tourists will be told to stay away.
Merkel said last week she would seek an alliance within Europe to support her efforts for ski resorts to close until the new year at least, amid fears of a repeat of events last winter when Austrian resorts in particular proved to be a breeding ground for the virus.
She admitted that strong resistance from Austria meant it would be hard to find an “easy solution”.
Elisabeth Köstinger, Austria’s tourism minister, had said in an interview with Bavarian broadcasting that her country had no intention of abiding by any restrictions.
Updated
Lastminute.com to pay £7m in refunds for cancelled holidays
Lastminute.com, the flight and hotel booking site, has agreed to pay £7m in refunds to more than 9,000 customers whose holidays were cancelled because of coronavirus – many of whom have spent months battling for repayments.
After an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), lastminute.com has given undertakings that it will pay refunds as soon as possible, and by 31 January at the latest.
Angry holidaymakers say they have spent months trying to force the online travel agent to make refunds – many from hotels and flights that were cancelled during the UK lockdown in March and April.
Lastminute.com – which came to prominence 20 years ago – is no longer a UK based company but is a brand operated by a Swiss group, BravoFly, in Chiasso, close to the border with Italy. Many customers have written to the Guardian’s consumer champions column to complain that attempts to contact the company have hit a brick wall.
Updated
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has appealed to rebellious members of his own party as parliament prepares to vote on tough new Covid restrictions to replace an England-wide lockdown.
The month-long stay-at-home order ends at midnight GMT and the Conservative government plans to restore regionalised restrictions, depending on coronavirus rates in different parts of the country.
While London will escape the tightest tier 3 rules, more than 23 million people will fall into the category, including in some affluent Conservative-held constituencies, forcing hospitality and leisure facilities to remain closed.
Johnson said the onset of vaccines and mass testing would “allow us to reclaim our lives” but until then, “we cannot afford to relax, especially during the cold months of winter”.
“All we need to do now is to hold our nerve until these vaccines are indeed in our grasp and being injected into our arms,” he told the House of Commons before the vote on the new tiers later Tuesday.
Senior minister Michael Gove said “we are all too grimly aware” of the impact on struggling businesses, as the collapse of two retail groups threw the future of 25,000 jobs into doubt.
But interviewed on BBC radio, he stressed: “What would the effect be on the economy if the NHS [National Health Service] was overwhelmed?”
Isolated hotspots mean entire counties are due to enter tier 3, despite their infection rates remaining below the English average. That has prompted outrage from dozens of Conservative MPs, who are threatening to vote against the plan.
Johnson, however, said future changes would make the tiered restrictions more “granular” and that they will be subject to reviews every two weeks from mid-December.
He also announced new cash support for pubs forced to close unless they can offer a “substantial meal”, although government ministers have given differing interpretations of whether that includes snacks such as scotch eggs.
Gove pointed to the experience of the devolved government in Wales, which he said is having to “slam the brakes on again” with fresh curbs on hospitality venues after a two-week lockdown last month.
Britain has been Europe’s worst-hit country during the pandemic, recording more than 58,000 deaths from about 1.6 million cases.
Updated
Sweden, whose unorthodox pandemic strategy placed it in the global spotlight, has registered 17,629 new coronavirus cases since Friday.
The increase compares with 17,265 new cases recorded during the corresponding period last week. Sweden does not publish updates of Covid-19 statistics on weekends and Mondays.
Sweden registered 117 new deaths, taking the total to 6,798. Sweden’s death rate per capita is several times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours but lower than some larger European countries.
Bangladesh expects to receive its first batch of coronavirus vaccines by February which people will receive free of charge, the health secretary has said.
The south Asian country of more than 160 million last month signed a deal with the Serum Institute of India to buy 30m doses of the vaccine developed by the British drugmaker AstraZeneca.
“We expect to get the vaccine as early as February and people will get it for free,” the health secretary, Abdul Mannan, told reporters.
Frontline workers, like health service providers and police, will be given priority.
In the global race to develop vaccines against Covid-19, AstraZeneca’s candidate is viewed as offering one of the best hopes for many developing countries because of its cheaper price and ability to be transported at normal fridge temperatures. Some experts, however, raised questions about its trial data.
Bangladesh will also get 68m doses of vaccine from the Gavi vaccine alliance, Mannan said, referring to a global health partnership set up in 2000 to increase access to immunisation in poor countries.
Experts say Bangladesh, with patchy healthcare facilities, could face another surge in infections, having so far confirmed 467,225 cases and 6,675 deaths since the pandemic began. Daily infections have shown a rising trend over the past few weeks, with 2,293 new cases and 31 deaths reported on Tuesday.
Updated
Turkey will implement its strictest lockdown measures so far in an effort to tackle the soaring coronavirus infection rate, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced.
In a televised address on Monday night, the Turkish leader said the country would reinstate total weekend lockdowns and extend the curfew to weeknights from 9pm-5am. The new measures go into effect from today, 1 December.
Preschools, Turkish baths, swimming pools and amusement parks have been ordered to close and restaurants are restricted to delivery services.
Erdoğan also announced that people older than 65 or younger than 20 – who are currently only allowed out for three hours a day – would not be allowed to use public transport.
Access to shopping malls and other large indoor public spaces will require a contact-tracing code, and weddings and funerals are limited to 30 people.
The new controls come following fury from doctors’ unions and opposition parties after the health minister, Fahrettin Koca, admitted that only the number of new daily symptomatic cases have been released for the last four months.
Last week, Ankara resumed reporting all positive tests for the virus, causing daily cases to shoot up to about 30,000 and putting Turkey among the hardest-hit nations during the second wave of the pandemic in Europe.
Twenty healthcare workers have died in one week from Covid-19 complications, the Turkish Medical Association said, and ICU bed occupation is about 71%.
Updated
The Madrid region has inaugurated a €100m hospital to treat Covid-19 patients, though unions say a lack of healthcare workers has raised questions about how it will be staffed.
The cost of the newly built hospital, which doubled from the original announcement, and Spain’s shortage of health sector staff have been criticised by local opposition politicians and labour unions.
Arriving at the hospital for the inauguration, the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, was greeted by dozens of protesting healthcare workers with placards reading: “Politicians’ hospitals” and “Enough.”
The new hospital, called Isabel Zendal in honour of a 19th century nurse who led early vaccination campaigns, was built in just three months near Madrid airport.
It will eventually have a capacity of 1,056 beds, including 48 intensive care beds, the regional authority said.
Initially a wing with 240 beds, including an intensive care unit, will open. That wing will require 669 staff including nurses, doctors and technicians.
“The hiring will start gradually according to healthcare needs,” the Madrid region said in a statement.
Labour unions say with healthcare staff working flat out in a country that has been hit hard by the coronavirus, and with many hospitals suffering staff shortages, they fear the new hospital will only poach crews from other health facilities.
“Nothing will be solved,” the nursing union SATSE said in a statement, calling the new hospital “a vanity project”. “Rather, existing units and services will be dismantled as they will have to operate without the professional nurses they need.”
Spain has registered more than 1.6 million coronavirus cases, the second highest number in western Europe, and more than 45,000 deaths.
Updated
The US has entered the final month of the year hoping that promising vaccine candidates will soon be approved to halt the rapidly spreading coronavirus after 4.2 million new cases were reported in November.
The new Covid-19 cases were more than double the previous monthly record set in October, as large numbers of Americans still refuse to wear masks and continue to gather in holiday crowds, against the recommendation of experts.
With outgoing president Donald Trump’s coronavirus strategy relying heavily on a vaccine, the US Food and Drug Administration is expected to rule on 10 December on whether to approve the emergency use of a vaccine developed by Pfizer.
A second candidate from Moderna could follow a week later, officials have said, raising hopes that Americans could start receiving inoculations before the end the year, although widespread vaccinations could take months.
Other global pharmaceuticals including AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson also have vaccines in the works, leading a member of the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” programme to predict the country could be vaccinated by June.
“One hundred percent of the Americans that want the vaccine will have the vaccine by (June). We will have over 300 million doses available to the American public well before then,” Paul Ostrowski, the vaccine programme’s director of supply, production and distribution, told MSNBC television on Monday.
In the meantime, leading health officials are pleading with Americans to follow their recommendations and help arrest a pandemic that killed more than 36,000 people in November, pushing hospitalisations to a record high of nearly 93,000 on Sunday, according to a Reuters tally.
Biden has pledged to make combating the coronavirus his top priority upon taking office on 20 January, saying he will rely on the best scientific evidence.
In the absence of a federal blueprint to curb the spread of the virus, states are issuing new or revamped restrictions on businesses and social life.
California’s governor said he might renew a stay-at-home order in the coming days, warning that ICU admissions were on track to exceed statewide capacity by mid-December unless public health policies and social behaviour changed.
“The red flags are flying,” the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said. “If these trends continue, we’re going to have to take much more dramatic, arguably drastic, action.”
Updated
Russia is trying to import foreign-made drugs to fight the Covid-19 pandemic due to a shortage of products at home, the health minister, Mikhail Murashko, said, as authorities reported a record 569 new daily deaths from the coronavirus.
Russia has several vaccines against the virus in the works and produces some drugs domestically, including Coronavir and Avifavir, both of which are based on favipiravir, which was developed in Japan and is widely used there as the basis for treatment.
During a meeting with senior government officials on Tuesday, Murashko said there was a problem with the supply of favipiravir in some regions.
“Supply volumes of anti-clotting agents have increased. But we still see that a shortage for the network remains, and so we are working with the trade and industry ministry on additional deliveries from abroad,” he said.
New daily infection numbers, which stood at 26,402 on Tuesday, have been gradually decreasing since hitting a record high on 27 November. Anna Popova, head of consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said the growth of the disease was slowing.
However, the prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, said the situation remained quite tense in many of Russia’s more than 80 regions.
In 17 regions, hospital bed capacity was less than 5%, said Murashko, with the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad and St Petersburg presenting the greatest cause for concern.
Russia has resisted imposing lockdowns during the second wave of the virus, preferring targeted curbs.
Updated
Vietnam will suspend all inbound commercial flights after it detected its first Covid-19 outbreak in nearly three months, the prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, said.
Phuc said inbound evacuation flights can continue but anyone coming in will still have to go into 14 days of quarantine.
Updated
Thai authorities have urged calm as they scramble to trace a potential coronavirus outbreak after at least four women tested positive on returning from neighbouring Myanmar.
Since detecting the first case outside of China back in January, Thailand has managed to keep Covid-19 infections low, at just over 4,000 cases, in part by imposing strict entry rules.
But it shares an extremely porous 2,400km-border (1,500 miles) with Myanmar, where the virus is rampant, with more than 1,000 new cases a day in recent months.
Four Thai women who worked in the Myanmar border town of Tachilek and returned to Thailand have now tested positive, health officials said on Tuesday.
The prime minister, Prayut Chan-ocha said so far more than 100 people the women might have been in contact with had been tested, and officials were tracking down more.
The authorities have not confirmed where the women worked in Tachilek, but Thai media reported they were employed at an “entertainment centre” – a euphemism that can include bars, karaoke lounges and brothels.
“Only these women, working in this kind of venue – where they socialise with many people ... have tested positive,” Prayut said Tuesday. “There’s no need to panic about this.”
Since the pandemic, border patrols have stepped up surveillance to prevent illegal migrants from crossing into the kingdom.
On returning to Thailand, the first woman travelled to the northern city of Chiang Mai, where she went to a karaoke bar and a shopping mall – potentially coming into contact with hundreds of people. The city has been put on high alert and authorities have sprayed disinfectant on areas the woman was in.
Her other three colleagues stayed in Chiang Rai, just an hour across the border from Tachilek, and self-isolated in hotels before getting tested.
Tachilek serves as a conduit for the so-called Golden Triangle’s lucrative drug trade and is home to numerous casinos and brothels.
Myanmar currently has more than 90,000 cases, with parts of northern Rakhine state and the commercial capital, Yangon, under lockdown.
Updated
The European commission is likely to give the final authorisation for the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines days after the EU drug regulator approves them, a spokesman for the EU executive has said.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said earlier on Tuesday it planned to decide on whether to approve the vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech by 29 December, and by 12 January for the vaccine being developed by Moderna.
“It’s probably a matter of days. The goal is to do it rapidly,” the spokesman told a news conference, adding the exact date depended on the EMA’s possible authorisations.
Under EU rules, EMA recommends the authorisation of a drug or vaccine and the EU commission authorises them on the basis of the EMA’s scientific advice.
Updated
Hamas’s Gaza leader, Yehya Al-Sinwar, has tested positive for Covid-19, a spokesman for the Islamist militant group, which runs the Palestinian territory, said.
Sinwar, 58, is “following the advice of health authorities and taking precautionary measures”, spokesman Hazem Qassem said, without disclosing whether the Hamas chief was in quarantine.
“He is in good health and he is pursuing his duties as usual,” Qassem said.
Sinwar, a former head of Hamas’s security apparatus, became the movement’s Gaza leader in 2017, six years after he was freed in a prisoner swap with Israel after more than 20 years in jail.
Gaza has logged nearly 21,000 coronavirus cases and 111 deaths, mostly since August, amid concern of a wider outbreak in the densely populated enclave of 2 million people.
The European Medicines Agency said if its experts have received enough data from drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna about their coronavirus vaccine candidates, the agency would complete its reviews for the Pfizer vaccine by 29 December and the Moderna vaccine by 12 January, at the latest.
The companies said earlier on Tuesday they had submitted approval requests for their vaccine candidates to the European drugs regulator.
Updated
BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna file for EU approval of Covid-19 vaccine
Germany’s BioNTech and its US partner, Pfizer, have applied for EU regulatory approval for their Covid-19 vaccine, raising hopes that the first jabs could be administered in December.
The two companies said they had submitted an application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Monday seeking “conditional marketing authorisation (CMA)” for their vaccine.
The move comes after large-scale tests showed their vaccine was 95% effective against Covid-19 and triggered no serious side effects.
If approved by the Amsterdam-based EMA, the vaccine could potentially be rolled out “in Europe before the end of 2020”, the companies said in a statement.
Pfizer and BioNTech already filed for emergency use authorisation with the US Food and Drug Administration on 20 November. If US regulators give the green light, Americans could start getting vaccinated around mid-December. UK regulators are also screening the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine.
“We have known since the beginning of this journey that patients are waiting, and we stand ready to ship Covid-19 vaccine doses as soon as potential authorisations will allow us,” Pfizer chief executive, Albert Bourla, said.
A fellow frontrunner in the global vaccine race, the US biotech company Moderna said on Monday it had sought emergency regulatory approval for its Covid-19 shot in both the US and Europe.
The Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines are both based on a new technology that uses mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) to deliver genetic material to the body that makes human cells create a protein from the virus. This trains the immune system to be ready to attack if it encounters the coronavirus.
But Moderna’s vaccine can be kept in long term storage at -20C , while Pfizer’s requires -70C.
Pfizer and BioNTech have previously said they expect to manufacture up to 50m doses of their vaccine globally this year, and up to 1.3bn doses by the end of 2021.
Updated
The UK and other countries should steer clear of cutting government spending to ensure a stronger economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has said.
In its latest economic outlook report, the leading global thinktank said it expected the UK economy to contract by 11.2% this year, compared with the 10.1% fall in GDP it was forecasting in September. The Paris-based organisation also sharply downgraded its forecasts for UK growth next year, to 4.2% from 7.6% three months ago.
The OECD said governments were at risk of failing to learn the lessons from the 2008 financial crisis when the UK and other wealthy nations cut back spending in response to record levels of national debt, choking off the economic recovery.
In a clear warning to nations contemplating spending cuts or tax rises, the OECD said public spending would be vital to support the rebound in growth expected next year as Covid-19 vaccines enable a gradual return to normality.
Tokyo’s governor has asked the government to temporarily exclude Tokyo residents aged over 65 from a scheme encouraging travel and tourism in Japan, saying it could expose them to the coronavirus and result in more severe cases of Covid-19.
The Go To Travel campaign offers subsidies for domestic travel. It has been credited by the Japanese government with boosting the country’s regional economies, and helping airlines and other travel companies weather the coronavirus pandemic.
The campaign, however, has come under pressure as Japan encounters a fresh wave of coronavirus infections that some fear could escalate beyond the capacity of hospitals to cope.
“The elderly are more susceptible to becoming severely ill, so from that standpoint we asked for the change,” Yuriko Koike told journalists following a meeting with prime minister Yoshihide Suga. “The decision and how to go about it is for the government to make.”
Suga’s government last week agreed to suspend the Go To Travel programme in two cities, Sapporo in northern Japan and Osaka in the west, following a sharp rise in cases.
Japan’s capital on Tuesday reported 372 new cases, the seventh straight day above 300, with 33 Covid deaths nationwide, the most in a single day since the outbreak began, according to public broadcaster NHK.
Economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura earlier said the request from Tokyo asked that elderly people be excluded from the travel campaign until 17 December.
Updated
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be taking over the liveblog for the next few hours. As always, please do get in touch with any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
Vietnam has reported two more coronavirus cases linked to a rare domestic infection in its commercial hub Ho Chi Minh City. The government has urged public vigilance and tighter enforcement of health measures.
From Reuters:
The south-east Asian nation is back on high alert after confirming on Monday the country’s first community infection in 89 days, prompting the closure of several places in the densely-populated southern city.
The latest cases have been traced back to a flight attendant, who had been kept inside a quarantine facility for five days before being released to self-isolate at home.
The health minister, Nguyen Thanh Long, said:
The flight attendant contracted the virus inside the quarantine area then spread it to others during his home-quarantine time.
It’s the first ever time such thing happened. The flight attendant seriously violated quarantine regulations.
With its usually strict quarantine and tracking measures, Vietnam has managed to quickly contain its coronavirus outbreaks, allowing it to resume its economic activities earlier than much of Asia.
Vietnam crushed its first wave of coronavirus infections in April and went nearly 100 days without local transmission until the virus re-emerged in the central tourist city of Danang in July and spread widely, before being contained in a few weeks.
The prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, asked citizens and authorities to step up measures to guard against the spread of coronavirus, especially ahead of the Communist party’s five-yearly congress:
There will be many big gathering events ahead the National Congress, our country’s biggest political event, we can’t let the virus affect us.
Vietnam has registered a total of 1,349 coronavirus cases altogether, with 35 deaths.
Updated
Lewis Hamilton tests positive for Covid-19 and will miss F1 Sakhir GP
Lewis Hamilton will miss this weekend’s Sakhir Grand Prix in Bahrain after testing positive for coronavirus.
The seven-time Formula One world champion is in isolation after his positive result was announced on Tuesday morning.
An F1 statement said:
The FIA, Formula One and Mercedes Team can today confirm that during mandatory pre-race PRC testing for the Sakhir Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton has tested positive for Covid-19. In accordance with Covid-19 protocols, he is now isolating. All contacts have been declared. The procedures set out by the FIA and Formula One will ensure no wider impact on this weekend’s event.
Updated
Concerns in Ireland as shopping sprees follow Covid lockdown
Ireland emerged from maximum Covid-19 restrictions on Tuesday, prompting pre-dawn shopping sprees and appeals to the public to stay vigilant against infection.
Beauty salons, gyms, department stores and other non-essential retail opened after a six-week lockdown, drawing queues of shoppers outside some stores before 6am. Restaurants and pubs that serve food can reopen from Saturday.
The second lockdown drove down the 14-day national incidence rate to 89.2 cases per 100,000 people, one of the lowest in Europe, but health officials had hoped that by now the virus’s reproduction number (R) would be about 0.5, but it is between 0.7 and 1.
They warned that infections could swiftly surge again unless people minimised socialising. “Just because you can do things tomorrow doesn’t mean you should,” Ronan Glynn, the assistant chief medical officer, said on Monday.
Officials said office parties should not be held. Under the new rules restaurants and gastropubs are not supposed to take bookings for office parties or other business-related gatherings. The government said it will impose fresh restrictions if infections soar.
Not everyone was celebrating the easing of restrictions. Fr PJ Hughes, a county Cavan parish priest, said capping the number of people in a church at 50 would hinder Christmas ceremonies. He will not be “dictated to by a pagan and communist government”, he told the Irish Times.
Updated
Such a powerful image from the Getty photographer Go Nakamura of Dr Joseph Varon, chief of staff at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, in the US, taking time to comfort a patient on Thanksgiving Day.
Varon was on his 252nd consecutive day working during the coronavirus pandemic, when the pictures was taken. Today is day 256.
"He's in a room where he knows nobody."
— ABC News (@ABC) November 30, 2020
Dr. Joseph Varon, chief of staff at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, was on his 252nd consecutive day working during the coronavirus pandemic when he took time to comfort a patient on Thanksgiving Day. https://t.co/JKizsU2UGU pic.twitter.com/HyB91LQoaA
He told CNN he was entering the Covid-19 ICU when he saw the elderly patient “out of his bed and trying to get out of the room”. Varon said:
As I’m going inside my Covid unit I see that this elderly patient is out of his bed and trying to get out of the room and he’s crying. So, I get close to him and I tell him ‘why are you crying’ and the man says, ‘I want to be with my wife’. So, I just grab him, I hold him, I did not know that I was being photographed at that time.
The Texas doctor today pleaded with people to “do the basic things” to avoid infection and stay out of hospital.
Varon said he was frustrated by people not doing the right thing as coronavirus patients continue to fill his hospital beds:
I do this day in and day out and people are out there doing the wrong thing. People are out there in bars, restaurants, malls – it is crazy – it’s like we work, work, work, work, work and people don’t listen and then they end up in my ICU
What people need to know is that – I don’t want to have to be hugging them. They need to do the basic things: keep your social distance; wear your mask; wash your hands and avoid going to places where there are a lot of people. Very simple. If people can do that health care workers like me will be able to – hopefully rest.
Varon said the impact on healthcare workers was enormous:
I don’t know what keeps me going, I don’t know how I haven’t broken down. My nurses have broken down. My nurses cry in the middle of the day because they get so sad, sometimes for situations like this. Just seeing a patient that’s crying because he wants to see his family.
Varon said he was trying to be transparent to the media so that the public could see the reality of the situation in his hospital and had given Nakamura access to his Covid-19 ward, which is how the image of him had been captured.
Updated
London’s FTSE 100 has jumped this morning – with its biggest monthly gain in more than three decades thanks to the hope of a working Covid-19 vaccine and upbeat factory activity data fuelling hopes of a global economic recovery.
From Reuters:
The blue-chip FTSE 100 gained 1.7% as data showed China’s factory activity accelerated at the fastest pace in a decade in November. Asia-focused banks and trade-reliant miners were among the top boosts to the index.
In the UK, British factories recorded their fastest growth in almost three years last month. Oliver Brennan, senior macro strategist at TS Lombard said:
The FTSE 100 is a global bellwether so any data that supports cyclical recovery is going to benefit the UK markets.
The domestically focused FTSE 250 added 1.1%, as attention turned to Brexit trade talks, with the UK set to leave the European Union within weeks.
Negotiations are still stuck on fishing, governance rules and dispute resolution because the European Union is asking too much, the prominent Brexiter Michael Gove said on Tuesday.
Updated
Hopes that the world will bounce back from the ravages of coronavirus in the new year have been buoyed by strong growth in output from Asia’s huge manufacturing centres, led by an accelerating post-pandemic boom in China.
China’s factory activity expanded at the fastest pace in a decade in November, a closely watched survey showed on Tuesday, in the latest sign that the world’s second-largest economy is recovering to pre-pandemic levels.
In the UK, the Ofsted chief inspector of schools will warn today that the invisibility of vulnerable children as a result of the pandemic should be a matter of national concern.
Amanda Spielman is expected to say that school closures during the first national lockdown had a “dramatic impact” on the number of child protection referrals made to local authorities.
Councils are now more likely to be responding to a legacy of abuse and neglect after local safeguarding partners struggled to identify children and families in need of early support and protection, according to the watchdog.
The inspectorate’s annual report is expected to highlight that, in normal times, about 20% of referrals to local authorities come from schools and early years settings as staff spot signs of abuse or neglect.
Updated
A planned air travel bubble between Singapore and Hong Kong has been delayed until next year, according to the cities’ authorities, after to a surge in coronavirus cases in Hong Kong.
The first flights between the two Asian financial hubs were called off a day before they were due to depart on 22 November, Reuters reports. If they had gone ahead it would have been the first quarantine-free travel bubble in Asia.
The civil aviation authority of Singapore said in a statement there would be a review in late December over when to proceed.
Updated
In the UK, new guidance has been published on Santa’s grottos, carol singing and nativity plays.
PA Media reports:
Festive traditions must go ahead only within the regulations – with limited numbers allowed and social distancing required.
Door-to-door carol singers can spread their annual cheer – but only in groups of six and while keeping at least 2 metres away from “the threshold of any dwellings”.
Government guidance, published on Sunday to cover the Christmas period, also allows indoor singing when England’s national lockdown ends on 2 December, but only by choirs and with no audience participation.
Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, said the news that people can come together to sing outdoors over the festive season “will bring comfort and joy to many”.
For door-to-door carol singing, where there are more than six people, the groups should not mingle or socialise, the guidance states.
Participants are expected to follow social distancing by staying at least 2 metres apart from anyone who is not from the same household, and the same distance away from the door of the property outside which they are singing.
Indoor singing by professional and amateur choirs can take place according to the particular area’s tier, but audiences or congregations are not to join in “any activity that can create aerosols, including singing, shouting and chanting”.
Those activities are known to increase the risk of virus transmission.
For indoor choirs, the maximum number of people present “should take into account the area of the space and the requirement to maintain 2 metres social distancing at all times”, the guidance states.
Bishop Mullally, who chairs the church’s recovery group, said:
Singing is a very special part of our worship, especially at Advent and Christmas, so I know that the announcement that we will be able to come together for public singing outdoors this Christmas will bring comfort and joy to many.
Advent and Christmas this year will not be the same as previous years but having outdoor congregational singing and indoor carol services with choirs is a reasonable balance and recognises our duty to protect and care for each other.
Meanwhile school nativity plays will be allowed to go ahead “within existing school bubbles” and avoiding any mixing across groups.
Audiences will only be allowed to attend in tier 1 and 2 areas – subject to “appropriate safeguards”.
For proud parents in tier 3, schools are advised to use live-streaming or record the performances. Santa’s grottos can open in all tiers – so long as they are in venues which are allowed to open.
The guidance warns the venues should put “appropriate Covid-secure measures, including social distancing” in place.
For people hoping to get in the festive mood by attending a Christmas market, the government advises they must check the rules according to their tier.
It states:
The rules might be different for indoor shops and open air shops, such as Christmas markets or Christmas tree markets.
Personally, I am very sad not to be able to attend my son’s first ever nativity play this year, especially as he is the eponymous Sleepy Shepherd, and will definitely never get such an important role again. I’m hoping at least for a recording we can taunt him with on his 18th birthday.
Updated
Russia has reported a record 569 deaths linked to Covid-19 today, bringing the official death toll to 40,464.
Authorities also reported 26,402 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, including 6,524 in the capital Moscow, bringing the national cumulative tally to 2,322,056.
Thanks to regular reader Scott Lafferty, who has been in touch to remind us that the Netherlands has today finally made face masks mandatory in indoor public spaces.
Face masks will be compulsory in all public buildings, shops, and stations from tomorrow as the coronavirus law comes into effect, and people who refuse to wear one face a fine of €95, reports Dutch News.
The Netherlands is one of the last countries in Europe to impose the wearing of masks following pressure from the public and MPs, but the Dutch health institute RIVM, which advises the government, still maintains that face masks do not significantly lower the risk of infection.
it seems unclear how the mandatory measure will be implemented, however. Retail chains, such as Ahold, which includes the largest Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn, Etos and Gall & Gall, have already said they will ‘inform customers about the obligation but not refuse non-wearers’. The chain said they won’t ask anyone why they are not wearing a mask, as it could be for a medical reason and they don’t want to intrude on anyone’s privacy.
In other news, thanks to this reader, and writing this post, I now know what winkelwagentje means in Dutch.
Updated
In the UK the British prime minister is facing a difficult day – he is trying to get a vote passed in the House of Commons today that would leave much of the country still facing severe restrictions.
But the opposition leader, Keir Starmer, has decided to break with the government in a vote on Covid restrictions for the first time – while at the same time the government is scrambling to contain a Tory rebellion by unveiling a multimillion-pound fund for pubs, write my colleagues Jessica Elgot, Peter Walker and Rajeev Syal.
They say:
The prime minister is to announce new one-off discretionary funding paid to councils for “wet” pubs and bars which cannot open under the strictest new tier restrictions for England, the Guardian understands.
But the Labour party is understood to believe that support for the hospitality sector must go further, and will abstain in Tuesday’s Commons vote on the tiers system, which is due to replace lockdown rules from Wednesday and put 99% of the country into tiers 2 and 3. The vote is still expected to pass.
Though Boris Johnson will hope to win around some rebels with the new funding, lockdown-sceptic MPs were expressing anger on Monday night at the publication of an impact assessment of the economic and health costs of the stricter tier system.
I’m Alexandra Topping and I’ve be at the helm of the global liveblog for the next few hours. As ever, we love to hear from readers all over the globe. Please do get in touch on alexandra.topping@theguardian.com or I’m @LexyTopping on Twitter and my DMs are open.
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today.
Just leaving this under the tree as I go – Melania has decided not to put the “Ho” in horror with the Christmas decorations this year:
Summary
Here are the key global developments from the last few hours:
- Dr Scott Atlas has resigned as special adviser to President Donald Trump, a White House official said on Monday, after a controversial four months during which he clashed repeatedly with other members of the coronavirus task force. “I am writing to resign from my position as special advisor to the president of the United States,” Atlas said in a letter to Trump dated 1 December, according to Fox News, which first reported his resignation.
- US health secretary Alex Azar said Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine could be authorised and shipped within days of a 10 December meeting of outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration tasked with reviewing trial data and recommending whether it warrants approval.
- China has provided North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his family with an experimental coronavirus vaccine, a US analyst said on Tuesday, citing two unidentified Japanese intelligence sources. Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said the Kims and several senior North Korean officials had been vaccinated. It was unclear which company had supplied its drug candidate to the Kims and whether it had proven to be safe, he added.
- WHO says ‘will do everything’ to find Covid-19 origins. The World Health Organization insisted Monday it would do everything possible to find the animal origins of Covid-19, insisting that knowledge was vital to preventing future outbreaks. “We want to know the origin and we will do everything to know the origin,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
- Vietnam reported its first local transmission of Covid-19 in nearly three months on Monday, with officials scrambling to prevent a wider outbreak in the country’s most populous city.
- The cases were detected in a 70-year-old who had travelled from Melbourne in Australia, and a sailor repatriated from Italy. Both Samoan citizens arrived in Apia on a repatriation flight on 13 November, and subsequently tested positive for the novel coronavirus. But further examination of their cases has found they were both historical: the sailor had the virus in May and the Australian-based man in August.
- Anies Baswedan, the governor of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, said on Tuesday he had tested positive for Covid-19, as the world’s fourth most populous country struggles to contain a spike in the number of infections. The 51-year-old governor of south-east Asia’s biggest city is among a number of politicians and officials to contract the virus. Indonesia’s transportation and religious affairs ministers have previously been treated for the virus.
- US may begin vaccinations before Christmas. After a Thanksgiving weekend when the number of people traveling through US airports reached its highest since mid-March, a top government official said on Monday some Americans could begin receiving coronavirus vaccinations before Christmas.
- UN tourism body urges uniformity in virus travel rules. The World Tourism Organization called Monday for the standardisation of traveller health checks and the establishment of air corridors to ease international travel during the pandemic. The call came at a conference in Spain’s Canary Islands as the global tourism industry reels from a year in which travel restrictions to slow the coronavirus pandemic have decimated the sector.
- Japan cancels Yamanashi contest after eight speed skaters get coronavirus. The Japan Skating Federation has decided to cancel a competition this month in Yamanashi prefecture, west of the capital Tokyo, after eight speed skaters were confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus. The federation will cancel the event, set to run from Friday to Sunday, to ensure the safety of athletes and others involved, it said on Monday.
- Los Angeles shuts down Covid testing site to allow film shooting. Los Angeles, which on Tuesday entered stay-at-home order, has shut down a “heavily visited” testing site in order to allow a film shoot to happen there, Deadline reports.
- Three more members of the touring Pakistan cricket party have returned positive tests to Covid-19, according to New Zealand’s health ministry. In a significant setback to the Pakistan’s hopes of a competitive series against the Black Caps, the latest cases mean 10 of the 53-strong group have tested positive for coronavirus since arriving in New Zealand last month.
Updated
Hopes that the world will bounce back from the ravages of coronavirus in the new year have been buoyed by strong growth in output from Asia’s huge manufacturing centres, led by an accelerating post-pandemic boom in China.
China’s factory activity expanded at the fastest pace in a decade in November, a closely watched survey showed on Tuesday, in the latest sign that the world’s second-largest economy is recovering to pre-pandemic levels.
China’s Caixin/Markit manufacturing purchasing managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 54.9 from October’s 53.6, marking the highest level since November 2010. The gauge stayed well above the 50-level – which separates growth from contraction – for the seventh consecutive month.
A steady recovery in global demand also helped Japan’s factory activity move a notch closer to stabilisation in November, while in South Korea the same metric grew at the fastest pace in nearly a decade:
With more than 530,000 infections and nearly 17,000 deaths, the country has the highest tallies in Southeast Asia, though some health experts say limited testing and contact tracing is masking a far higher caseload.
Jakarta, a bustling megacity, has also recorded new record highs in infections over the past month, with an average of around 1,240 cases per day in the past week. Unlike some neighbouring countries, Indonesia has not brought in strict national lockdowns but opted for local curbs.
Since October, Jakarta’s governor has relaxed curbs to reinstate “large-scale social restrictions,” which means malls and restaurants can operate though with shorter hours.
Some health experts and officials have linked the recent spike in cases to mass gatherings in an around the capital.
This has included thousands joining street protests against a new job creation law and large gatherings, often with little social distancing, to mark the return from exile of controversial Islamic cleric Rizieq Shihab.
More on Jakarta’s governor testing positive for coronavirus now, from Reuters:
Anies Baswedan, the governor of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, said on Tuesday he had tested positive for Covid-19, as the world’s fourth most populous country struggles to contain a spike in the number of infections.
The 51-year-old governor of Southeast Asia’s biggest city is among a number of politicians and officials to contract the virus. Indonesia’s transportation and religious affairs ministers have previously been treated for the virus.
In a video posted on his Instagram account, the governor said he was currently asymptomatic and would self-isolate.
“I would like to remind everyone that Covid is still around and can come to anyone,” he said.
His deputy, Ahmad Riza Patria, also tested positive to the virus on Sunday, according to the city’s website. Indonesia, a country of 270 million people, has posted three days of record-high case numbers in the past week.
The subway system serving the US capital region may be forced to make devastating cuts in 2021, including ending weekend services, closing 19 stations and shrinking weekday operations if Congress does not approve additional assistance, Reuters reports.
The transit system’s proposed budget, which was made public late Monday, is set to be presented Friday and projects total ridership will rise to just 34% of pre-Covid-19 levels for its budget year that starts July 1.
The proposal calls for preserving “affordable bare bones service network to sustain essential travel and support the region*s recovery” even as it projects revenue declining by more than $500 million.
It also proposes dramatically cutting bus services, from 60 routes to 41. Thousands of Washington-area workers rely on buses and trains to get to jobs throughout the region and many students use the system to attend school.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) serves a region of about 6 million people and last year had 182 million rail riders, but like many public transit systems in the United States, has seen demand plummet because of the coronavirus pandemic. WMATA, which is already cutting 1,400 jobs, projects it will need to cut another 2,400 jobs to meet next year’s budget.
In April, Congress approved $25 billion for US public transit systems, including $1.02 billion for the Washington area systems, including about $775 million for WMATA.
Much of the US transportation sector has been battered by Covid-19 as millions of workers stay home rather than commute to urban centres and tourism remains sharply lower.
Earlier this month, New York City warned it could cut subway and bus service by up to 40% and commuter train service by 50% as it seeks $12 billion in emergency funding.
Updated
Los Angeles shuts down Covid testing site to allow film shooting
Los Angeles, which on Tuesday entered stay-at-home order, has shut down a “heavily visited” testing site in order to allow a film shoot to happen there, Deadline reports.
Deadline confirms that Los Angeles is shutting down a coronavirus testing location so Miramax's gender-swapped reboot of "She's All That," starring Addison Rae, can film there: https://t.co/QNLSSeiGRLhttps://t.co/37CO7lp5k2
— Lois Beckett (@loisbeckett) December 1, 2020
Deadline:
The kiosk at downtown LA’s Union Station will be shuttered on Tuesday so the She’s All That remake can use the iconic terminal as a location.
Despite the hundreds of people who use the South Patio located COVID-19 testing site at well-trafficked Union Station, the Miramax pic was granted a permit by FilmLA, Deadline has confirmed. With exterior shots and interior scenes at the terminal. there is estimated to be a total cast and crew size of around 170 at Union Station tomorrow.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 13,604 to 1,067,473, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Tuesday.
The reported death toll rose by 388 to 16,636.
For centuries, the maze of narrow, cobbled streets that make up Lisbon’s Alfama neighbourhood has told the story of the city’s past. But in recent years, as trendy cafes and tourist flats proliferated, the historic quarter began telling a worrying tale of the city’s future.
A rapid transformation had rippled across the city centre as Airbnb-style tourist rentals swelled to a third of the properties. As locals found themselves priced out and communities began hollowing out, many began grumbling about the aftershocks of terramotourism – a tourism earthquake.
That was, at least, until the pandemic brought tourism to a standstill. “In a certain sense Covid has created an opportunity,” Fernando Medina, the mayor of Lisbon, told the Guardian. “The virus didn’t ask us for permission to come in, but we have the ability to use this time to think and to see how we can move in a direction to correct things and put them on the right track.”
The city seized on the moment to cast new light on a programme that was in the works prior to the pandemic: an ambitious plan to convert some of the city’s more than 20,000 tourist flats into affordable housing.
The initiative, billed by the city as a “risk-free” option, offers landlords the possibility of receiving up to €1,000 a month by renting their properties to the city for a minimum of five years. From there the city takes over, finding tenants and renting the homes at a subsidised rate capped at a third of the household’s net income:
Updated
India recorded 31,118 new coronavirus cases, the lowest daily tally since 17 November, data from the health ministry showed on Tuesday.
India now has 9.46 million Covid-19 infections, but the number of new daily cases has stayed below the 50,000 mark since Nov. 7 despite a busy festival season last month, according to a Reuters tally.
Deaths rose by 482, bringing the total to 137,621.
Updated
Jakarta governor and deputy test positive
The Jakarta governor and his deputy have both tested positive for coronavirus, Reuters reports.
Indonesia confirmed a national record case rise on 29 November, with 6,267 new infections reported, according to Johns Hopkins University. There are a total of 538,883 cases in the country, and 16,945 people have died.
Bad news for Jakarta, the governor and his deputy are both positive for the coronavirus now. https://t.co/9vFvGcEYKv
— Kate Lamb (@_KateLamb) December 1, 2020
Three more Pakistan cricketers test positive for coronavirus
Three more members of the touring Pakistan cricket party have returned positive tests to Covid-19, according to New Zealand’s health ministry.
AAP: In a significant setback to the Pakistan’s hopes of a competitive series against the Black Caps, the latest cases mean 10 of the 53-strong group have tested positive for coronavirus since arriving in New Zealand last month.
Pakistan’s players and staff are completing a fortnight in isolation, as is compulsory on arrival in New Zealand, in a Christchurch hotel.
The Covid-19 cases mean none of the group have received permission to leave their hotel to train.
The touring party has also earned rebukes from health officials for breaching NZ’s strict quarantine rules by mingling in their hotels.
On Monday, the 46 members of the squad to have previously tested negative to Covid-19 were re-tested.
Health authorities said 42 returned another negative test result but three were under investigation “to determine whether they are historical cases” - and therefore not infectious - and one result was pending.
A Ministry of Health spokeswoman clarified the three had returned positive PCR tests.
Pakistan’s tour of three T20s and two Tests is due to begin with a short-form clash against the Black Caps at Auckland’s Eden Park on December 18.
Updated
Japan cancels Yamanashi contest after eight speed skaters get coronavirus
The Japan Skating Federation has decided to cancel a competition this month in Yamanashi prefecture, west of the capital Tokyo, after eight speed skaters were confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus, Reuters reports.
The federation will cancel the event, set to run from Friday to Sunday, to ensure the safety of athletes and others involved, it said on Monday.
All the infected skaters were quarantined and in stable condition, public broadcaster NHK said on Tuesday.
Federation officials were not immediately available to comment on details.
WHO calls Mexico's rising coronavirus trend 'very worrisome'
The head of the World Health Organization said on Monday that Mexico is in “bad shape” regarding the coronavirus as infections and deaths surge, while the Mexican government forecast the pandemic would likely continue worsening until January.
Mexico’s coronavirus death tally, the fourth highest in the world, stands at almost 106,000. Confirmed cases are in excess of 1.1 million, though public health experts say the true figure is likely significantly higher.
“The number of increase in cases and deaths in Mexico is very worrisome,” WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a press briefing in Geneva. Citing the increase in the number of weekly deaths from 2,000 the week of Oct. 12 to around 4,000 by Nov. 23, “This shows Mexico is in bad shape,” he said.
At least seven of Mexico City’s 54 public hospitals treating Covid-19 patients are at full occupancy for coronavirus beds with respirators, according to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The OCHA said another 14 health centers risk being stretched, with Covid-19 bed occupancies exceeding 70%. It noted that Mexico’s Health Ministry reported 63% of all general hospital beds for Covid-19 patients in the capital are occupied.
“When both indicators, deaths and cases, increase I think this is a very serious problem and we would like to ask Mexico to be very serious,” said Tedros.
Speaking later at an evening news conference, Mexico’s deputy health minister, Hugo Lopez-Gatell, said he had “great respect” for Tedros and that he did not have to answer him.
Separately, Lopez-Gatell said the pandemic would very probably continue to worsen in Mexico until January.
Since Mexico began lifting its strictest lockdown restrictions in June, it has been reluctant to reimpose blanket measures because so many of the population living hand-to-mouth depend on being able to go out every day and do business.
However, some states have ratcheted up restrictions to contain the pandemic in recent weeks.
The head of the world’s largest humanitarian network is urging governments and institutions to combat “fake news” about Covid-19 vaccines which has become “a second pandemic” and start building trust in communities around the world about the critical importance of vaccinating people, AP reports.
Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said in a virtual briefing to the UN Correspondents Association on Monday that “to beat this pandemic, we also have to defeat the parallel pandemic of distrust.”
He said there is “a growing hesitancy about vaccines in general, and about a Covid vaccine in particular” around the world, pointing to a recent Johns Hopkins University study in 67 countries that found vaccine acceptance declined significantly in most countries from July to October this year.
In a quarter of countries, Rocca said, the study found that the acceptance rate for a vaccine against the coronavirus was near or below 50%, with Japan dropping from 70% to 50% acceptance, and France dropping from 51 percent to 38 percent acceptance.
He stressed that the lack of trust “is by no means a Western phenomenon,” citing the federation’s research in recent months in eight African countries – Congo, Cameroon, Gabon, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Lesotho and Kenya – which showed a steady decline in the perceptions of the risk of Covid-19 infection.
In the UK, local authorities in tier 3, with the toughest Covid restrictions, will be invited to apply for funds to run mass testing programmes of people with no symptoms, in hopes of driving down the virus and moving to tier 2, the government has said.
Public health directors will be able to put forward proposals for testing in those parts of their communities most at risk from the virus, if they so choose, which could be particular neighbourhoods or workplaces where infection rates are high.
It would be open to them if they wanted to focus on particular ethnic minority communities, where there have been high death rates, if there was evidence they were more at risk or that an outbreak had originated in one community, with priority groups decided by local councils and directors of public health, the Department of Health and Social Care said.
Sarah Boseley and Jessica Elgot report:
WHO says ‘will do everything’ to find Covid-19 origins
The World Health Organization insisted Monday it would do everything possible to find the animal origins of Covid-19, insisting that knowledge was vital to preventing future outbreaks, AFP reports
“We want to know the origin and we will do everything to know the origin,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
He insisted the UN health agency was intent on getting to the bottom of the mystery, and urged critics who have accused it of handing the reins of the probe to China to stop “politicising” the issue.
“WHO’s position is very, very clear. We need to know the origin of this virus, because it can help us prevent future outbreaks,” Tedros said.
The WHO has for months been working to send a team of international experts, including epidemiologists and animal health specialists, to China to help probe the animal origin of the novel coronavirus pandemic and how the virus first crossed over to humans.
The organisation sent an advance team to Beijing in July to lay the groundwork for the international probe.
But it has remained unclear when the larger team of scientists would be able to travel to China to begin epidemiological studies to try to identify the first human cases and their source of infection.
Last week, the WHO’s emergencies chief Michael Ryan said the agency was hoping to send the international team to Wuhan “as soon as possible”.
Tedros meanwhile rejected on Monday criticism over lacking transparency on the probe, stressing that the names of the experts on the team and the terms of reference had been made public.
“There is nothing to hide. We want to know the origin. I don’t want to have any confusion on that.”
Scientists initially believed the killer virus jumped from animals to humans at a market selling exotic animals for meat in the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected late last year.
The full story on Scott Atlas’s resignation now:
Australia has welcomed its first group of international students to arrive since the coronavirus pandemic began, with more due to follow, AP reports.
A charter flight carrying 63 students from mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam and Indonesia landed Monday in the northern city of Darwin.
The students will all attend Charles Darwin University, with some new to the campus and others previously enrolled. They are part of a pilot program aimed at boosting the local economy and providing a template for international students to arrive in other parts of Australia.
The arrival comes amid growing tensions between Australia and China after a Chinese official this week posted a fake image on Twitter of an Australian soldier appearing to slit a child’s throat.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the image “repugnant” and demanded an apology from the Chinese government, but China has not backed down. The post took aim at alleged abuses by Australian soldiers during the conflict in Afghanistan.
The arriving students were required to undertake a pre-departure health screening and have been placed in a quarantine facility for two weeks before they can begin attending classes.
Updated
Scott Atlas resigns as special adviser to Trump on coronavirus
Dr. Scott Atlas has resigned as special adviser to President Donald Trump, a White House official said on Monday, after a controversial four months during which he clashed repeatedly with other members of the coronavirus task force.
“I am writing to resign from my position as Special Advisor to the President of the United States,” Atlas said in a letter to Trump dated 1 December, according to Fox News, which first reported his resignation.
Atlas, a neuroradiologist, apologised on Twitter this month for giving an interview to Russia’s Kremlin-backed television station RT, saying he was unaware it was a registered foreign agent in the United States.
Atlas has been sharply criticised by public health experts, including Anthony Fauci, the leading US infectious disease expert, for providing Trump with misleading or incorrect information on the virus pandemic.
He has repeatedly downplayed the importance of face masks and this month said lockdowns had been “an epic failure” in stopping its spread.
His views on the handling the pandemic have been denounced by his peers at Stanford University’s medical school and elsewhere.
China gave Covid-19 vaccine candidate to Kim Jong Un
China has provided North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family with an experimental coronavirus vaccine, a US analyst said on Tuesday, citing two unidentified Japanese intelligence sources.
Reuters: Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said the Kims and several senior North Korean officials had been vaccinated.
It was unclear which company had supplied its drug candidate to the Kims and whether it had proven to be safe, he added.
North Korea has not confirmed any coronavirus infections, but South Korea’s National Intelligence Service has said an outbreak there cannot be ruled out as the country had trade and people-to-people exchanges with China - the source of the pandemic - before shutting the border in late January.
Microsoft said last month that two North Korean hacking groups had tried to break into the network of vaccine developers in multiple countries, without specifying the companies targeted. Sources told Reuters they included British drugmaker AstraZeneca.
The NIS said last week it had foiled North Korea’s attempts to hack into South Korean Covid-19 vaccine makers.
UN tourism body urges uniformity in virus travel rules
The World Tourism Organization called Monday for the standardisation of traveller health checks and the establishment of air corridors to ease international travel during the pandemic, AFP reports.
The call came at a conference in Spain’s Canary Islands as the global tourism industry reels from a year in which travel restrictions to slow the coronavirus pandemic have decimated the sector.
“We call for the adoption of international protocols for Covid-19 tests before departure and the acceptance of the results upon arrival,” the UN body said in joint statement with the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and the Spanish tourism ministry.
The statement came at the end of a one-day conference grouping representatives of more than 95 countries and more than 100 companies that was held in Las Palmas on Gran Canaria.
It also called for agreements to develop “international travel corridors to facilitate tourism and business travel between countries and cities with similar epidemiological situations”.
The text also warned that until a vaccine or treatment for Covid-19 was widely available, “tens of millions of jobs (in tourism) would likely be lost”.
And it called for “an international standard for contact tracing”.
Just over a month ago, the WTO said international tourists arrivals plunged by an annualised 70 percent during the first eight months of 2020 because of the pandemic.
US may begin vaccinations before Christmas
After a Thanksgiving weekend when the number of people traveling through US airports reached its highest since mid-March, a top government official said on Monday some Americans could begin receiving coronavirus vaccinations before Christmas, Reuters reports.
US Health Secretary Alex Azar said Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine could be authorised and shipped within days of a Dec. 10 meeting of outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration tasked with reviewing trial data and recommending whether it warrants approval.
A vaccine from Moderna Inc could follow a week later, he said, after the company announced on Monday it would apply for US and European emergency authorization. Final trial data showed the vaccine to be 94.1% effective at preventing Covid-19, comparable with Pfizer’s results.
“So we could be seeing both of these vaccines out and getting into people’s arms before Christmas,” Azar said on CBS’ “This Morning.”
The federal government will ship the vaccines. State governors will decide how they are distributed within their states.
The United States has reported 4.2 million new Covid-19 cases so far in November and more than 36,000 coronavirus-related deaths, according to a Reuters tally. Hospitalizations are at a pandemic high and deaths the most in six months.
Samoa’s two positive Covid-19 cases have been declared historical cases and not infectious.
Samoa’s two positive Covid-19 cases have been declared historical cases and not infectious.
The cases were detected in a 70-year-old who had travelled from Melbourne in Australia, and a sailor repatriated from Italy. Both Samoan citizens arrived in Apia on a repatriation flight on November 13, and subsequently tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
But further examination of their cases has found they were both historical: the sailor had the virus in May and the Australian-based man in August.
Blood samples from the two cases were sent to New Zealand: results showed low viral counts for both, and the cases were deemed not to be infectious.
Samoa’s director-general of health, Leausa Dr Take Naseri, said the two positive cases, and the rest of the 274 passengers who arrived in Samoa on the same flight, will have to remain in quarantine for an additional seven days as a precaution.
Leausa said all front-line workers at the airport, including health staff, police, and airport crew had been tested and cleared of the coronavirus.
Samoa has recorded no other cases of the coronavirus.
Elsewhere in the Pacific, the Mariana Islands has recorded 106 cases, 80 of which have been imported to the islands, mainly from the US mainland and the US territory of Guam.
Fiji has recorded four more cases, all in border quarantine.
But French Polynesia, one of the worst affected territories in the Pacific, has surpassed 14,000 cases, and 73 deaths. 82 people remain in hospital, including 21 in intensive care. France has flown out additional medical personnel to assist with the surge in cases.
All but 62 of the 14,096 confirmed cases across French Polynesia came after the archipelago re-opened its borders in July and abolished mandatory quarantine.
Vietnam reports first community virus in almost three months
Vietnam reported its first local transmission of Covid-19 in nearly three months on Monday, with officials scrambling to prevent a wider outbreak in the country’s most populous city.
Vietnam was applauded earlier this year for controlling the pandemic with strict restrictions on movement, extensive quarantine measures and a robust track-and-trace regime.
But late on Monday the health ministry announced that that it had detected coronavirus in a 32-year-old man in Ho Chi Minh City, a relative of a Vietnam Airlines flight attendant who tested positive on the weekend.
“A temporary lockdown has been made on locations (in the city) where the patient had visited,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that dozens of people in contact with the latest case had been put under quarantine.
Vietnam has recorded just 1,347 coronavirus cases and 35 deaths across a country of 95 million.
Life has almost returned to normal in the country over the past almost three months, despite a summer outbreak centred on the beach resort city of Danang that put health authorities back on high alert.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
You can find me (and a picture of my dog) on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
After a Thanksgiving weekend when the number of people traveling through US airports reached its highest since mid-March, a top government official said on Monday some Americans could begin receiving coronavirus vaccinations before Christmas.
US Health Secretary Alex Azar said Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine could be authorized and shipped within days of a Dec. 10 meeting of outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration tasked with reviewing trial data and recommending whether it warrants approval.
Meanwhile Vietnam reported its first local transmission of Covid-19 in nearly three months on Monday, with officials scrambling to prevent a wider outbreak in the country’s most populous city.
Here are the other key developments from the last few hours:
- The director general of the World Health Organization has warned that spending time with friends and family at Christmas is “not worth putting them or yourself at risk”. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the body’s director general, said people should consider whether travelling during the festive period is necessary.
- France has seen its death toll rise by 406 to 52,731. Its health ministry said there were 4,005 new cases, fewer than on Sunday. It has also seen a fall in people in intensive care, and in the numbers admitted to hospital due to the virus. The country’s seven-day average of daily new infections stands at 11,118, an almost two-month low.
- Brazil’s health ministry has confirmed 21,138 new cases of Covid-19 and 287 deaths. Earlier on Monday, the WHO urged its government to be “very, very serious” about its rising coronavirus infection numbers, as more than 170,000 have now been killed.
-
Opec will hold a second day of talks on Tuesday, as the oil producers’ club hopes to reach an agreement over cuts to production. Demand has been affected by the pandemic, with the current Opec president, Abdelmadjid Attar, saying it had caused “immense challenges”.
-
Rating agency Moody’s has said that most countries still face a “significant negative shock” from the pandemic, and vaccine trials have not caused it to change its forecasts.
-
Labour will abstain in a vote on England’s new coronavirus tier system on Tuesday over a disagreement on support for the hospitality sector.
-
Colombia will keep its land and river borders closed until 16 January in an attempt to stem Covid’s spread.
- Serbia is to start tests of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, as it continues talks with Pfizer about purchasing the jab. Laboratories will get 20 doses this week for testing, according to a statement from the country’s prime minister, Ana Brnabić.
- Mexico is in a “bad shape” as coronavirus cases and deaths surge, according to the WHO. The country’s death rally is now more than 105,500 and confirmed cases have passed 1.1 million. Public health experts believe it is likely to be significantly higher.
