A small-scale US study has found a significant proportion of people remain infectious beyond the five-day self-isolation period recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control.
Forbes reports more than half of the cases examined in the Harvard University study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, were still contagious on the fifth day and 25% on the sixth day. Only 13% were still infectious on day seven.
A three-week-old baby has died from Covid-19 in Qatar, the health ministry said on Sunday, reporting a rare child fatality from the illness in the Gulf country.
The emirate’s public health ministry said in a statement:
A three-week-old baby has sadly died as a result of severe infection from Covid-19.
The baby had no other known medical or hereditary conditions.
The death is the second child to have died in the country since the pandemic began, it added.
Child deaths from Covid-19 are infrequent but health authorities in several countries have registered a rise in childhood infections since the spread of the Omicron variant.
The Qatari ministry said youngsters have generally been less at risk of severe Covid infection than older people, but that “a greater number of children are being infected in this current wave and needing medical care than in previous waves”.
Boris Johnson has held talks with Sue Gray, the civil servant investigating lockdown busting parties in Number 10. The Telegraph reports Johnson has shared what he knows with Gray ahead of the publication of her report, which could come as early as this week.
Samantha Lock back with you on the blog as my colleague Tom Wall calls it a night in London. I’ll be bringing you all the latest Covid news from Sydney.
Here’s a quick snapshot of how Covid is unfolding across Australia.
The country’s most populous state of NSW recorded 29,504 cases and 17 deaths, with 2,776 people in hospital. Victoria reported 22,429 new Covid cases, six deaths and 1,229 people in hospital.
After 11 tumultuous days, world tennis No 1 Novak Djokovic has been deported after the full bench of the federal court upheld the Morrison government’s decision to cancel his visa on the grounds of health and good order.
Djokovic was due to play his first match this evening but instead he flew out of the country late last night, bound for Dubai.
People in the UK may no longer be legally required to self-isolate after catching Covid, according to unsourced reports in the Telegraph. Official advice to self-isolate will remain in place but there will be no fines if it is ignored. The report claims plans will be worked up over the coming weeks, with an announcement possible in the spring, as Boris Johnson is keen to permanently revoke emergency coronavirus laws.
This comes as the health secretary, Sajid Javid, cuts the self-isolation period from seven days to five days if someone tests negative twice in England. This change applies from tomorrow.
Updated
The Omicron covid wave has reached a new high in France, according to Reuters. The average number of new infections has risen to 297,019 – the highest daily average reported so far.
There have been 13,894,255 infections and 126,869 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country since the pandemic began.
Updated
The French parliament has approved a range of measures including a vaccine passport. The new law, which will come into force in the coming days, will require people to have a certificate of vaccination to enter public places like restaurants, cafes, cinemas and long-distance trains.
This comes after President Emmanuel Macron, said he wanted to “piss off” unvaccinated people by making their lives so complicated they would end up getting the COVID vaccine.
Reuters reports:
France is in the grips of its fifth COVID-19 wave with daily new cases regularly hitting record levels over 300,000. Nonetheless the number of serious cases putting people in ICU wards is much lower than the first wave in March-April 2020.
Updated
While the latest daily UK covid case numbers are certainly encouraging, they are not completely unexpected. Since the 11 Jan people who test positive with a lateral flow test (LFT) no longer need a confirmatory PCR test. Although LFT results are supposed to be registered, it is possible not everyone is officially logging them. This could be contributing to daily case rates hitting their lowest point since mid-December.
Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, the chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, warned earlier this month before the change came into force: “It will become much more important that people report positive lateral flow tests otherwise nobody will know what’s going on. There’s already a problem with daily cases, with people not getting tested or not reporting results.”
However, it should be noted that some experts believe cases could be plateauing. Dr Susan Hopkins, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) chief medical adviser, said cases appeared to be “plateauing” in parts of the country. Meanwhile, Prof Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh and chief social policy adviser to the Scottish government, said Omicron cases in the UK appeared to be “stabilising”.
Covid infections are rising fast again in US nursing homes. About 32,000 cases have been identified in nursing homes in the week ending 9 January – a near sevenfold increase month on month. A total of 645 covid related deaths among residents were recorded in the same week. This is leading to a range of measures including new restrictions on family visits and renewed efforts to vaccinate residents and staff.
AP reports:
Nursing homes were the lethal epicentre of the pandemic early on, before the vaccine allowed many of them to reopen to visitors last year. But the wildly contagious variant has dealt them a setback.
Updated
UK records 70,924 new cases
Latest daily case numbers from the UK show they are at their lowest point since mid-December, but Sunday’s figures do not include new Scottish infections.
A total of 70,924 people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland tested positive for coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the government reported on Sunday. The figures normally include cases from Scotland. This is a fall from the 81,713 on Saturday.
The last time new case numbers were this low was 14 December. Since then, more than 4 million positive tests in the UK have been reported, as Omicron took hold.
Another 88 people have died with 28 days of a positive Covid test, taking the death toll to 151,187.
A total of 174,233 people have died with Covid-19 on their death certificate.
Updated
I’m Tom Wall. I’m taking over the blog now. Get in touch about anything you think we should be covering.
Summary
It’s been another day where the controversy about parties in Downing Street, the home of the UK government in Westminster, has led the headlines.
The highlights include:
- The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, accused prime minister Boris Johnson of breaking the law, saying that “industrial scale partying” had taken place during lockdowns (see 9:52).
- Starmer himself rejected accusations that he had broken Covid restrictions when he was photographed eating and drinking with others in late April 2021, saying “there was no party, no breach of the rules. There is absolutely no comparison with the prime minister.”
- The Conservative party co-chair Oliver Dowden appeared on both BBC and Sky to say the prime minister should not resign, that he was sorry, and it was “totally wrong” that parties took place. He said the “party culture” in No 10 would be changed. Sky also saw an emotional account from presenter Trevor Phillips, who talked about when his daughter died during the spring 2021 lockdown.
- Dowden said current restrictions in England could be lifted by the end of January.
- The former UK prime minister Tony Blair has said he could understand how rule-breaking parties in No 10 could happen, but that they were still inexcusable.
From outside the UK, Covid news includes:
- World tennis No 1 Novak Djokovic has been deported from Australia after court threw out an appeal against his vaccination status, and his visa was cancelled.
- Authorities in Thailand have reported the country’s first death from the Omicron variant, an 86-year-old Alzheimer’s patient.
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Amnesty International has urged Italy to change its strict anti Covid-19 restrictions to avoid discriminating against unvaccinated people. Vaccination is now compulsory for people over 50, in order for them to use some services and public transport.
- The billionth Covid-19 vaccine as part of the global Covax scheme was delivered in Rwanda on Saturday night.
- The Austrian government has proposed setting the minimum age for Covid-19 vaccinations at 18, and rolling out the latest restrictions from 1 February, Reuters reports.
- Protests continued in Europe against restrictions on unvaccinated people. In Malta hundreds of people marched in the capital Valletta, the biggest demonstration in the country so far.
- Farmers joined protesters in Amsterdam against stringent Covid curbs which mean hospitality in the Netherlands is closed until at least 25 January.
- Italian police have arrested a nurse in Palermo for allegedly pretending to give Covid vaccines to anti-vaxxer activists so they could benefit from official health certificates.
Updated
Thousands of people have demonstrated in Amsterdam city centre in opposition to Covid-19 measures and the vaccination programme.
Infections in the Netherlands have hit new heights in recent days, 36,000 cases were confirmed on Sunday, as protesters turned out and marched with banners and yellow umbrellas.
The country has seen protests in other cities – and Sunday’s demonstration saw farmers join the march in the capital, parking tractors along the central Museum Square.
The crowd played music, chanted anti-government slogans and then marched along thoroughfares, blocking traffic, Reuters reports.
The Dutch have faced some of the strictest lockdown measures in Europe. A new lockdown was introduced in mid-December as the health system came under pressure.
Amid growing public opposition, prime minister Mark Rutte on Friday announced the reopening of stores, hairdressers and gyms. Bars, restaurants and cultural venues will stay closed until 25 January.
Updated
Novak Djokovic’s family has spoken after the tennis star was deported from Australia on Sunday.
In a statement they said they were disappointed.
“Despite the scandalous behaviour towards Novak, we believed that the sport would win,” they said.
They claimed the court ruling was related to “politics and all (other) interests”.
Updated
Italian police have arrested a nurse in Palermo for allegedly pretending to give Covid vaccines to anti-vaxxer activists so they could benefit from official health certificates to travel and access bars, restaurants and public transport in the country.
Investigators used a hidden camera to film the nurse, a 58-year-old woman working at a major inoculation centre in the Sicilian capital. The clip, released on Saturday on Twitter, shows the health worker apparently loading up a dose of Covid-19 vaccine and then emptying the syringe into a tissue before injecting it into the arms of anti-vaxxers.
Police said the woman’s own booster dose was fake and arrested her on charges of forgery and embezzlement.
The number of patients in hospital in Ireland has fallen week-on-week for the first time since the Omicron variant triggered a sharp rise in cases.
Ministers have said they are increasingly hopeful they will be able to end restrictions around hospitality and entertainment, and it will depend on whether pressure on hospitals eases.
According to official figures, there were 965 Covid-19 patients in hospital on Sunday, down from 984 a week before and a peak of 1,063 the previous Monday.
The number peaked a year ago, when more than 2,000 people were receiving hospital care.
The number of patients needing intensive care treatment is 88, down from a peak of 221 a year ago.
“I’m very keen to see the reopening happen at an ambitious pace over the next few weeks,” deputy prime minister Leo Varadkar told the national broadcaster RTÉ.
Curbs introduced in December include the closure of nightclubs and a cut to the capacity of indoor events, with closing times for bars and restaurants at 8pm, Reuters reports.
Updated
There are fresh protests in Malta against Covid rules on Sunday – and they’re the biggest yet, according to Reuters.
Hundreds of people were marching in the capital Valletta against new measures requiring a Covid certificate to enter entry most venues including restaurants, gyms and bars.
Malta’s take-up of the Covid jabs has been one of the best in the EU. Almost three-quarters of adults would have taken the additional booster jab by Sunday, according to health ministry data.
But a health minister said the new rules, which come into force on Monday, are needed to defend against the Omicron variant of the virus, now accounting for well over 90% of new cases.
Sunday’s protest was organised by a group of small political parties, but the main opposition Nationalist party has also criticised the new rules, saying they do not strike the right balance between public health and people’s freedoms especially when there has been a high take-up of the vaccine.
Since the start of the pandemic, 502 people have died with Covid in Malta. The island has recorded a vaccination rate of some 95%.
Updated
The former UK prime minister Tony Blair has said he could understand how rule-breaking parties in No 10 could happen, but that they were still inexcusable.
Blair said he did not want to “get into questions of resignation or not” when asked whether Boris Johnson should resign over the “partygate” allegations.
PA Media reports that the former Labour leader told Times Radio he could “understand people feeling enraged and very angry” about the claims of lockdown-contravening events, but that he could also see it “from the perspective of Downing Street”.
He added: “The people in Downing Street would have been working under the most enormous pressure, enormous difficulty. I understand how it happened.
“But the trouble is, you can give an explanation but you can’t really excuse it. People were obeying restrictions, often with massive personal cost and anguish and grief, and it just shouldn’t be allowed to happen, frankly.
“But I guess he (Boris Johnson) knows that.”
Updated
Supporters of Novak Djokovic had gathered to hear the court’s decision about the tennis player’s Australian visa.
Some of them expressed their dismay at the decision not to overrule the Australian government. See what they had to say:
The Austrian government has proposed setting the minimum age for Covid-19 vaccinations at 18, and rolling out the latest restrictions from 1 February, Reuters reports.
The conservative-led government in Vienna said it intended the rule to apply to all people aged 14 and above, making it the first European Union country to make vaccinations compulsory for the general population at large.
Thousands have marched against the plans, but chancellor Karl Nehammer said: “This is not a fight between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.”
People who remain unvaccinated will not be able to access services and face fines. Nehammer said the measure was to avoid future lockdowns.
Nearly 72% of Austria’s population has a valid vaccine certificate, but far right parties in the country have sought to exploit any scepticism.
Elsewhere in the UK Sunday morning media rounds, the former head of the vaccines taskforce said a new long-term inoculation strategy is needed for Covid.
Dr Clive Dix told radio station LBC that “to just keep vaccinating people” to protect the population is a “waste of time”.
He said: “We need a focused approach for the vulnerable people. So, I think we’ve got something like 2% of the over-60s still not vaccinated.
“We should have a highly-focused approach to get those people vaccinated and anybody else who’s vulnerable.”
He added that he wasn’t convinced of the case for vaccinating younger, non-vulnerable people: “We’ve seen that because we’ve seen these huge, huge levels of infection but what they (boosters) do do, and it’s absolutely clear, they stop people getting seriously ill and dying. 85% of the people who get seriously and dying are the vulnerable and the elderly, so they’re the ones we should focus on.”
The billionth Covid-19 vaccine as part of the global Covax scheme was delivered in Rwanda on Saturday night.
The body, co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, World Health Organization (WHO) and Cepi (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) has sent vaccines to 144 countries across the globe in a push to get vaccines distributed to poorer countries.
Joanna Rea, director of advocacy from UNICEF which works with Covax, said: “This is a remarkable milestone in the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history. Yet, with so many people still waiting to be offered a single dose, more needs to be done urgently.
“The need for a predictable and steady supply of vaccines remains, as well as the vital funds to deliver vaccines into the arms of the people who need them the most.”
Updated
Novak Djokovic's plane leaves Australia hours after court upholds visa cancellation
Novak Djokovic has now left Australia hours after the full federal court dismissed the world No 1’s bid to restore his visa.
The Serbian tennis player was seen boarding an Emirates flight from Melbourne to Dubai after the court rejected his challenge to the decision of Australian immigration minister, Alex Hawke, to cancel the visa. The flight left shortly after 10.30pm local time (11.30am GMT).
Here’s our full story:
Restrictions in England could be lifted by the end of January, according to a government minister.
Oliver Dowden told Trevor Phillips on Sunday that current indications are “encouraging”, ahead of Plan B rules being reviewed in 10 days.
“I’m under no doubt the kind of burdens this puts hospitality, wider business, schools and so on under, and I want us to get rid of those if we possibly can,” he said.
“The signs are encouraging but, clearly, we will wait to see the data ahead of that final decision.”
Amnesty International has urged Italy to change its strict anti Covid-19 restrictions to avoid discriminating against unvaccinated people.
A recent decree by Italian prime minister Mario Draghi made vaccination compulsory for people over 50, and for anyone to be able to use public transport and some other services.
The human rights charity asked for alternatives to be considered, including mask wearing and Covid testing to allow unvaccinated people to go to work and use public transport.
Current rules are in place until 15 June.
“The government must continue to ensure that the entire population can enjoy its fundamental rights, such as the right to education, work and medial treatment, with particular regard to non-Covid patients who need urgent surgery,” it said, according to Reuters.
Djokovic boards plane to leave Australia
World tennis No 1 Novak Djokovic has boarded a plane to leave Australia after a court cancelled his visa on Sunday.
The player got on to an Emirates flight from Melbourne heading for Dubai, hours after the Australian federal court upheld the government’s cancellation of his visa over his decision not to be vaccinated against Covid-19 – bringing an end to a saga that has run on since 5 January.
Updated
Thailand reports first Omicron death
Authorities in Thailand have reported the country’s first death from the Omicron variant.
An 86-year-old woman from the southern province of Songkhla died a month after the government brought in travel restrictions for foreign visitors as Omicron spread.
“The woman is a bed-ridden, Alzheimer patient,” health ministry spokesman Rungrueng Kitphati told Reuters.
The country reported 8,077 new infections and nine deaths on Sunday, bringing the total to more than 2.3 million cases. Nearly 22,000 people have died from Covid since the start of the pandemic.
Updated
Another sign of unhappiness in the Conservative party ranks in parliament was on display this morning on one of the regional politics shows on BBC One.
Speaking to Politics Midlands, Mark Garnier, MP for Wyre Forest in Worcestershire, said “[The apology] was a start. I think one of the things for someone like me is that this is not the first apology we’ve had. We’ve had an apology for the Owen Paterson stuff, we are still waiting to hear more potentially about ‘wallpapergate’. It is frustrating as a Conservative MP finding yourself having to be put on the defensive all the time.”
The chair of Garnier’s local Conservative association is the latest local official in a safe seat who has called for Johnson to resign. “Whether you interpret the events of May 2020 as a work event or as a party, there are too many people there, it was against the rules, Boris Johnson knew he had broken the rules,” they said.
Garnier, a minister in Theresa May’s government, said that he has not sent in a vote of no confidence letter, but adds that he thinks Johnson’s departure is likely: “We’re on a bit of a glide slope towards that.”
Updated
Finally, Starmer is asked whether his poll lead is because of Johnson’s crisis rather than Labour’s turnaround in fortunes.
“It’s a combination. Every time we are behind in polls, everyone says that’s the fault of the Labour party. Now we’re ahead in the polls, I’m not going to deny the prime minister is in a mess of his own making.
“We’ve got a new team in place, we’ve been out there with strong policies. Yesterday, I was announcing our plan for the NHS on mental health; while the prime minister is dithering we are out there with strong proposals for the country. I hope now we’ve got the chance to be heard, and we’re going to take it.”
That’s the end of the Sunday morning national politics shows in the UK.
Updated
Labour leader denies breaking lockdown rules after photo emerges
The Labour leader is then asked if he has broken any Covid rules, Raworth referencing a photograph on the front page of the Daily Mail over the weekend showing him drinking and eating with others in a building during Covid lockdowns in April 2021.
Saturday's Mail: Starmer the Covid party hypocrite #TomorrowsPapersToday #DailyMail #Mail pic.twitter.com/lmStNIIQYx
— Tomorrows Papers Today (@TmorrowsPapers) January 14, 2022
Starmer replies that he hasn’t. “I was in a constituency office days before an election. We were working in the office and we stopped for something for food then we carried on working. There was no party, no breach of the rules. There is absolutely no comparison with the prime minister.
“We had stopped to eat a takeaway while we were working in the office. This was a few days before the May elections. We were really busy, we’d been at it all day on Zoom calls, members calls in the office.”
He adds: “It shows just how far the Conservatives are sinking that they’re trying to pretend there’s some comparison between industrial scale partying and this.
“People will look at the photos and make their own minds up.”
Updated
Starmer: 'Johnson has degraded office of prime minister and lost authority'
Raworth asks him what he’ll do if Johnson doesn’t resign.
Starmer says: “I have always resisted calling for him to resign. But the prime minister has degraded the office of prime minister and lost all authority, not only in his own party but in the country.
“When he tries to persuade the public how to behave in the rest of the pandemic, he won’t be taken seriously.”
Starmer says that Sue Gray’s report is a fact-finding mission and will not rule on whether Johnson broke Covid restrictions nor say he broke the law.
Raworth asks that if she finds he didn’t break rules, would he retract comments asking him to resign.
“I am clear in my own mind that the has broken the rules, broken the law. He has apologised, and apologised to the Queen. I’m not doing Sue Gray down, I know her, she’s a woman of great integrity and respect.
“If you look at her remit, it is to establish the facts. She will say ‘this is what happened, this is when it happened, this is who was there.’ I think it is extremely unlikely to say that the prime minister committed a criminal offence.”
Updated
The BBC has just reported that Novak Djokovic is on his way to the airport to take a plane back to Dubai.
And Australian journalist Paul Sakkal says the tennis player will leave at 10.30pm local time:
Novak Djokovic will be leaving Australia tonight, 11 days after he arrived
— Paul Sakkal (@paulsakkal) January 16, 2022
He'll fly out on the 10.30pm Emirates flight to Dubai, just over two hours from now
Novak Djokovic visa saga LIVE: Djokovic to miss 2022 Australian Open after losing case https://t.co/R4pPYm1BYg @theage
Starmer: 'Johnson broke the law over parties'
Labour leader Keir Starmer is now up.
He opens by saying that the prime minister broke the law by attending at least one of the parties.
“I think he broke the law. He’s as good as admitted he broke the law. Downing Street has now apologised to the Queen for some of the parties that have gone on.
“I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on. There was industrial scale partying going on, not much of it is being denied. The facts speak for themselves. The prime minister broke the law and then he lied about it.”
He added: “When I first challenged the prime minister about it, he said ‘I’ve been assured there were no parties.’
“Then the Allegra Stratton video came out, I challenged him again and he said ‘I’m furious. I’ve just found out about these parties. I’m furious.
“Then it comes out last week he was at one of the parties and his third defence is ‘I was there but I didn’t realise it was a party.’”
Updated
Dowden is asked whether there will be any further revelations to come out about other parties.
“To the best of mine and the government’s knowledge, this is the full extent of it.
“This is why we set up this Sue Gray process, because if further allegations to come out, all of them have to be brought to the fore, he is allowing everyone to bring any further concerns that they have, Sue Gray will get to the bottom of these concerns.”
He said that Johnson is responsible for the culture in Downing Street.
“The prime minister is responsible for it, and you saw in his statement to parliament he was taking responsibility for it. You see it again in his response to the Sue Gray report, he will take responsibility for it.”
Oliver Dowden says the culture in Downing Street needs to be changed, and understands the anger felt by people.
He’s repeats the process under way with Sue Gray’s investigation, and that Boris Johnson will make a statement to parliament afterwards.
He said: “We were dealing with this unprecedented pandemic, working on plans for the vaccine rollout, which meant we had the most rapid vaccine rollout in Europe, twice.
“It allowed us to have one of the most open economies in Europe, and get the economy back to where it was before the pandemic. That is where our focus was.”
Updated
Oliver Dowden is being interviewed by Sophie Raworth on BBC One’s Sunday Morning programme.
Dowden said he didn’t notice a party atmosphere on 20 May, moments after giving a press conference to the nation on Covid restrictions. People must have been arriving as he left, Raworth adds.
“I didn’t see people coming in or going out. This is why it’s important there’s a full investigation, and that’s why it has been set up.
“This event was totally wrong. It shouldn’t have happened. The prime minister has rightly apologised. People feel angry about what’s been going on in Downing Street.”
Streeting tells Trevor Phillips that the Labour party isn’t calling for a vote of no confidence in the government as it would rally the Conservatives.
“We could call a motion of no confidence in the government - we’ve been around the block with this before, that would galvanise the Conservative party.”
He added: “I’ll make no bones about it – Boris Johnson carrying on is great for the Labour party.
“If I’m thinking purely through the prism of party politics, then my message is: ‘Keep him on, knock yourselves out, you’ll be literally knocked out at the next election’.
“But we are still in the middle of a national crisis here and the prime minister’s actions and judgments matter.”
Oliver Dowden will be back in a TV studio shortly as he appears on BBC Sunday Morning with Sophie Raworth. Labour leader Keir Starmer will also appear.
Updated
Serbia’s president has reacted to an Australian court’s decision to uphold the cancellation of Novak Djokovic’s visa.
Reuters quotes Aleksandar Vučić as saying he had spoken to Djokovic after the ruling.
“I spoke to Djokovic and told him we cannot wait to see him,” Vučić told reporters. “I told him he is always welcome in Serbia.”
Updated
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting follows Oliver Dowden on Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday.
He is asked whether if he was health secretary he would relax Covid restrictions given Omicron is less dangerous than previous variants.
Streeting said he would follow the data. He raises concern about the impact on other parts of the country.
He said: “We don’t want any restrictions or measures that aren’t absolutely necessary. While London might be over the peak, other parts of the country are bearing the brunt of it.
“The goal is to make sure we never have to go into another lockdown again. And what we can move forward as a country, protecting public health, lives and liberties.”
Updated
Here is some more reaction to the news that Djokovic will be deported from Australia:
Vasek Pospisil, who created the PTPA with Djokovic and spent time with him in Belgrade in December, says Djokovic was “ready to stay home” from #AusOpen had he not gotten an exemption. pic.twitter.com/edpsLrEPzg
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) January 16, 2022
Boris Johnson has 'sincere sense of remorse' over party, says Tory chair
Trevor Phillips now speaks movingly about the death of his daughter that weekend, who had been ill and was isolating.
“She had stuck to the spirit and letter of the rules. There will be thousands of people who have that story in their background, and you are in there telling me about a civil servant’s inquiry. It will not answer that anger. Does the prime minister really understand why people are angry?”
Oliver Dowden responds: “It is totally wrong that there has been any way in which those rules have not been fully obeyed in Downing Street. I am trying to offer to you an explanation of how the government is seeking to move forwards with this.
“The prime minister has a sincere sense of remorse over what happened, as do I, as do other members of the government.”
Updated
Djokovic made a statement following the court’s decision. Here is what he said in full:
I would like to make a brief statement to address the outcomes of today’s court hearing. I will now be taking some time to rest and to recuperate, before making any further comments beyond this.
I am extremely disappointed with the court ruling to dismiss my application for judicial review of the minister’s decision to cancel my visa, which means I cannot stay in Australia and participate in the Australian Open.
I respect the court’s ruling and I will cooperate with the relevant authorities in relation to my departure from the country.
I am uncomfortable that the focus of the past weeks has been on me and I hope that we can all now focus on the game and tournament I love. I would like to wish the players, tournament officials, staff, volunteers and fans all the best for the tournament.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, friends, team, supporters, fans and my fellow Serbians for your continued support. You have all been a great source of strength to me.
Updated
Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips reads out a list of parties that have been confirmed as taking place. He asks Oliver Dowden whether he thinks it’s “shameful” that they happened while others were following rules.
“Yes it was completely unacceptable that this happened. I’m happy to use whichever adjectives that you use to express my anger at what happened. The prime minister is angry about what happened and there needs to be a change in the culture.
“It’s important to find the full facts of what happened. It’s important to get that full picture. The prime minister will make a statement to parliament and be held accountable in parliament for his actions.”
Updated
Oliver Dowden backs Boris Johnson, praising booster programme
Conservative Party chair Oliver Dowden has backed Boris Johnson in an interview on Sky News.
He said the prime minister was right to apologise, but the success of the booster rollout meant he should stay. Dowden said he had been angered by recent revelations about parties.
“It was the prime minister who made that call about having a mass booster programme which has ensured we’re getting through the worst of Omicron.
“He made the call around having a further lockdown in the face of that Omicron variant. He made the right call and meant we have been able to have the most open and the most vaxxed economy in Europe.”
Updated
Novak Djokovic loses Australian visa fight as Boris Johnson's future hangs in the balance
Good morning from London, where the main Covid-19 news is the decision overnight by an Australian court to deport world No 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic over his Covid status.
The court rejected a challenge to the decision of the Australian immigration minister, Alex Hawke, to cancel the visa on the basis Djokovic’s presence in Australia might risk “civil unrest” as he is a “talisman of anti-vaccination sentiment”.
It’s the latest turn in a saga that began on 5 January when Djokovic arrived in Melbourne and was then held under armed guard over concerns about his visa, and whether he was exempt from vaccine requirements in a country that has tight Covid rules.
He won a court appeal, before Hawke then revoked his visa. In a statement, Djokovic has said he respects the court’s ruling and will leave the country.
Elsewhere, newspapers in the UK this morning are leading with claims that Conservative MPs are ready to oust prime minister Boris Johnson after a week where the furore around parties in Downing Street during Covid-19 lockdowns intensified.
I’m Harry Taylor and I’ll be at the helm as we bring you the latest developments in this story, and any other Covid-19 news from around the world for the rest of Sunday.
If you have any tips or suggestions, you can contact me by email or Twitter, where my DMs are open.
Updated
