Arrests in Brusselsand Budapest in anti-lockdown protests; UK carried out 598,389 first dose vaccinations on Saturday; WHO team visits Baishazhou wet market in Wuhan
- Much of Western Australia goes into five-day lockdown after hotel guard tests positive to UK Covid variant
- Australian state of New South Wales marks 14 days with no cases
- Scores of foreigners breach lockdown rules at Austrian ski resort
- From lockdowns to pool parties: how Covid rules vary around the world
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Scott Morrison will commit $1.9bn for Australia’s vaccine rollout and attempt to bolster consumer confidence while preparing the public for the withdrawal of fiscal supports in a scene-setting address ahead of the resumption of parliament.
Read the full story by my colleagues Katharine Murphy and Daniel Hurst here first:
Related: Morrison commits $1.9bn to Australia's vaccine rollout as he prepares to withdraw pandemic payments
Italy reported 237 Covid-related deaths on Sunday, down from 421 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections was equal to 11,252 compared with 12,715 on Saturday.
The UK has carried out the highest number of Covid vaccinations in one day, with figures showing 598,389 received their first dose on Saturday.
The previous record was set last Saturday when the UK reported 491,970 doses in a single day.
Around 30 people were arrested in Amsterdam when police dispersed an anti-lockdown protest on Sunday, as authorities sought to prevent a repeat of riots that raged across Dutch cities for three days last week.
Police said they had sent home around 600 people who had flouted social distancing rules and ignored a nationwide ban on public gatherings by assembling in Amsterdam’s central Museumplein on Sunday afternoon.
Hello everyone. This is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be taking over the global blog for the rest of the evening. As always, please do get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips or coverage suggestions.
There have also been protests against coronavirus restrictions in Vienna, Austria, Reuters reports:
Vienna police banned numerous protests planned for this weekend, including one by the far-right Freedom Party on Sunday, on the grounds that protesters have generally failed to observe rules on social distancing and often not worn face masks.
Since 26 December, Austria has been in its third national lockdown, with non-essential shops and many other businesses closed and their staff unable to work.
Police in the Belgian capital said Sunday they have detained scores of people in a bid to prevent two banned demonstrations against measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, AFP reports.
“We are above 200 arrested at the moment,” mainly around the rail stations in Brussels, a police spokesman said around midday.
Police evacuated one square in front of the main railway station, where some of the protesters were football supporters from Belgian clubs.
Oman will extend the closure of its land borders for another week, until 8 February to curb the spread of coronavirus, state TV said today, citing a decision by the Gulf state’s coronavirus emergency committee (via Reuters).
The borders were closed on 19 January because of concerns about a new coronavirus variant, a measure that was extended last week.
Police said today they broke up a boat party of more than 70 people breaching coronavirus regulations in west London, England, on Saturday night. The partygoers could now face fines.
Met police officers were called to the party at a moored boat Volt Avenue, North Acton, shortly after 11pm
This was a blatant breach of the coronavirus rules that are in place to save lives and protect the huge pressure on the NHS.
All the people who attended this event, which appears to have been organised on social media, have quite rightly been reported for the consideration of fines.
Here are the latest key developments:
Germany’s military will send medical staff and equipment to Portugal, where space in hospital intensive care units is running out after a surge in coronavirus infections, the defence ministry in Berlin said today (via Reuters):
Portugal, which said on Saturday that only seven of 850 ICU beds set up for Covid-19 cases on its mainland were vacant, had asked the German government for help.
“We will support Portugal with medical staff and equipment,” a defence ministry spokesman told Reuters, adding that details were expected to be announced early this week.
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Israelis today participated in the funeral of a prominent rabbi in Jerusalem, flouting the country’s ban on large public gatherings amid the pandemic, AP reports:
The funeral procession for Rabbi Meshulam Soloveitchik, who died at age 99, wended its way through the streets of Jerusalem in the latest display of ultra-Orthodox Israelis’ refusal to honour coronavirus restrictions.
The phenomenon has undermined the country’s aggressive vaccination campaign to bring a raging outbreak under control and threatened to hurt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March elections.
Fines have been issued to people attending a gym, a hotel and a house party in England as police enforce new coronavirus regulations. From PA Media:
Essex Police said 18 “reckless revellers” were fined almost 15,000 after officers interrupted a house party on Saturday, while in Merseyside, police found about 200 people partying in a hotel in the early hours of Sunday morning and broke up a gathering of 20 people in a gym on Saturday night.
Restaurant workers were among hundreds of people protesting against coronavirus lockdown measures today in Budapest, Hungary, and at least 100 restaurants planned to re-open even as the government threatened them with heavy fines. From Reuters:
Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has said it could only start easing the measures if the number of coronavirus cases falls sharply, or if large numbers of Hungarians are inoculated.
Hungary became first in the EU this week to sign a deal for Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine and Chinese Sinopharm’s vaccine.
Saudi Arabia’s health minister said today that complacency around coronavirus restrictions had led to a notable increase in daily cases in the kingdom, Reuters reports.
Saudi Arabia recorded 270 new infections on Saturday, 105 of them in the capital Riyadh. The kingdom, the largest among the six Gulf Arab states, has recorded more than 367,800 cases and 6,370 deaths so far, the highest tally in the region. It saw daily infections fall from a peak above 4,000 in June to dip below the 100 mark in early January.
We have unfortunately in recent days registered a noticeable increase and continued rise in infections. One of the main reasons is gatherings and complacency with precautionary measures.
Lack of compliance will force us to take measures to protect society. I ask you to help us preserve the gains we made in combating coronavirus ... This is a very difficult stage.
Scandinavia’s biggest film festival is going ahead this year despite the coronavirus pandemic, but will be hosted on an isolated island and admit only one attendee - a healthcare worker, selected from 12,000 applicants, Reuters reports.
Swedish nurse and film fan Lisa Enroth was chosen to be the 2021 Gothenburg film festival’s castaway who will spend a week on the remote island of Pater Noster watching film after film.
“In healthcare I seem to have spent ages listening, testing and consoling. I feel like I’m drained of energy,” Enroth said.
The Irish premier, Micheal Martin, has called for calm in the race to vaccinate populations, PA Media reports.
Martin was speaking in the wake of a move by the European Union (EU) to use a post-Brexit mechanism to interfere with supply lines of the jab.
We were watching what’s happening in the UK and saying, ‘well done, you are vaccinating quickly and that’s important.
Overall, across Europe we all need to roll out the vaccination programme as effectively and efficiently as we can, so I would like if we can dial down the tone and work collegially is the best way to deal with this.
The UK has a long way to go, we have a long way to go, Europe has long way to go. I think all of us have a collective responsibility to ensure that the developing world, and particularly frontline workers in the developing world, are vaccinated as well because this is a global situation.
There’s very little point in the virus raging across developing countries while we vaccinate 100% here because that would mean more mutations. We have a journey to go but I think we will get there if we can just calm down.
On the EU-AstraZeneca row, Irish PM Micheal Martin says, "the Commission took the wrong mechanism in invoking Article 16 and the Protocol to deal with it"#Marrhttps://t.co/ctZYEiCih2pic.twitter.com/iufoibpVdK
Malaysia today reported 5,298 new coronavirus cases, down from yesterday’s 5,728 after two days in a row of record highs, raising the total number of recorded infections to 214,959.
The health ministry also reported 14 new deaths, up from 13 yesterday, bringing total fatalities from the pandemic to 760.
Dr Susan Hopkins, Covid-19 strategic response director at Public Health England (PHE), said experts expect to see an impact of the coronavirus vaccine on the over-80s over the next two weeks.
Asked if there was evidence the vaccination programme was beginning to reduce infections, she told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show:
We are seeing declines in all age groups at the moment. We’re starting to see declines in the over-70s and over-80s. It’s a bit early to say whether those declines are directly related to the vaccine.
What we would like to see is a divergence in the case rate in the over-70s and over-80s who have been vaccinated from the younger age groups, to show that they are declining faster.
We have learnt, as we did on the first occasion, we have to relax things really quite slowly, so that if cases start to increase we can clamp down quite fast.
The NHS is going to be under pressure until the end of March, as normal in winter, but even more so with the amount of inpatients they still have with Covid-19.
The UK’s international trade secretary, Liz Truss, says the EU has guaranteed there will be no disruption to Pfizer vaccines being supplied to the UK from within the EU despite the EU’s threat of export controls on vaccines produced within the bloc.
Asked if she could absolutely guarantee the Belgium-made Pfizer jabs would not be disrupted, she told BBC One’s the Andrew Marr Show:
Yes, I can. The prime minister has spoken to the president of the European Commission, she has assured him that there will be no disruption of contracts that we have with any producer in the EU.
The office of Israel’s defence minister, Benny Gantz, says Israel has agreed to transfer 5,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine to the Palestinians to immunise front-line medical workers, the Associated Press reports.
It is the first time that Israel has confirmed the transfer of vaccines to the Palestinians.
South Korea is to extend its social distancing curbs by two weeks until the end of the lunar new year holidays as new Covid-19 infection clusters emerge in the country, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said today (via Reuters).
The announcement dashed earlier expectations that the government would ease the rules from the current highest levels, which include a restaurant curfew and a ban on gatherings of more than four people and have been in place since early December.
The government is planning to extend the current distancing levels and anti-virus standards as they are until the Lunar New Year holidays end.
The third Covid-19 wave, which had temporarily slowed, is again threatening our daily lives following the group infections from the missionary institutes.
Labour is asking for the UK’s advisers on immunisation to ensure frontline workers get greater priority for vaccination because of their increased risk of contracting coronavirus.
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published last week showed people in some of the lowest-paid manual jobs were significantly more likely to die from coronavirus than those in higher-paid white-collar jobs.
We know that some people, because of the work they do, are more exposed to the virus.If you are lucky enough to be able to work from home, you’ve got a car when you do need to get out, then you are less at risk to being exposed to the virus than if, say, for example, you are a bus driver, or a taxi-driver, or you work in a supermarket or you work on the front line in the police.
If you work in those jobs you are more exposed to the virus, so what Labour are saying is can the JCVI, the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations, look at how we can ensure that those people who are most exposed to the virus can get access to it at a bit of an earlier stage. I think that is the right thing to do.
At least 5.6 million doses of two international Covid-19 vaccines are expected to arrive in the Philippines in the first quarter of the year, the chief of the country’s coronavirus task force said today, Reuters reports:
The initial volume is part of the 9.4 million doses of the two vaccines - one developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, the other by AstraZeneca PLC - that are expected to be shipped in the first half, said Carlito Galvez, who also handles the government’s vaccine procurement.
Galvez said he has received a letter from Aurelia Nguyen, managing director of the World Health Organization (WHO)-led Covax facility, informing the Philippine government of the shipment schedule and volume.
Prof Anthony Harnden, deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises the UK government on immunisation, said it is advising people should have a second dose of another vaccine, rather than no second dose, if supply issues make it impossible to have two doses of the same medicine.
He told BBC Breakfast:
The key thing at the moment from the JCVI perspective is to try and get the same vaccine for the second dose as the first dose.
We are recommending a second dose because that’s important for long-term protection and it will be interesting to see on the supply side whether we can deliver that.
The UK international trade secretary also spoke out about vaccine nationalism after the EU’s threat of export controls on vaccines produced within the bloc.
Liz Truss told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge programme:
What we know about the vaccination programme is this is a global problem and we need a global solution.We’re only going to be able to deal with this disease if we get everybody vaccinated across the world.
“It’s vital we work together, it’s vital we keep borders open and we resist vaccine nationalism, and we resist protectionism. I’ve been working with my fellow trade ministers to make that happen. We’re pleased that the EU admitted that the Article 16 ... for the border in Ireland was a mistake and they are now not proceeding with that.
Liz Truss, the UK’s secretary of state for international trade, has said it is “too early” to say what the country will do with its excess vaccine doses after the World Health Organization urged it to pause its vaccination programme after vulnerable groups have received their jabs to help ensure the global rollout of doses is fair.
In total, the UK has procured 247m vaccine doses from companies with positive phase 3 results: roughly 3.7 jabs per person, Guardian analysis has found. It has placed orders for a further 120m vaccines from Sanofi-GSK and Valneva, but these still await positive trial results.
Truss on UK sharing doses: "We first need to make sure our population is vaccinated.. It's a bit too early to say how we would deploy XX vaccine, but we want to work with neighbours & developing countries."
UK is sticking by timetable to vaccinate all adults by autumn, she adds
Authorities in Hanoi, Vietnam, announced today that all schools in the city would close, after locking down several residential areas and a factory in the northern province of Hai Duong, the outbreak’s epicentre, since the first cases of community transmission in almost two months were detected there last week, Reuters reports.
The country’s ministry of health today reported 14 new Covid-19 infections in Vietnam, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 1,781, with 35 deaths.
The WHO and its Covax programme to secure fair access to Covid-19 vaccines for poor countries and the Gavi vaccine alliance, which works to increase immunisation in poor countries, are among nominees for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, according to a Reuters survey of Norwegian lawmakers.
Last year’s winner of the prize, the result of which is rarely as predicted, was the World Food Programme.
Russia has today reported 18,359 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, including 2,284 in Moscow, pushing the national tally to 3,850,439 (via Reuters).
Authorities said 485 people had died in the last day, taking the official death toll to 73,182. Both the number of new cases and deaths were down on the respective figures yesterday, which were 19,032 and 512.
Good morning, this is Haroon Siddique taking over the blog. You can contact me via the following channels:
Email: haroonl.siddique@theguardian.com
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along.
It was announced last week, to nobody’s excitement, that Sir Kenneth Branagh will take the role of Boris Johnson in a Sky TV drama about the first weeks of the pandemic. If Branagh’s casting indicates that this is to be conceived as a Shakespearean tragedy, with Johnson in the lead, then it would seem doomed from the start. The classic tragic hero has just a single fatal character flaw that proves his undoing. With Johnson, where do you start?
As an opening scene in that drama, it will, anyhow, be hard to beat the speech that the prime minister gave almost exactly a year ago – perhaps the last moment in which he fondly imagined that all the world lay before him:
Related: A year after Johnson’s swaggering Greenwich speech: and 100,000 dead
In case you missed it earlier: A World Health Organization team looking into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic visited a market on Sunday known to be the food distribution centre for the Chinese city of Wuhan during the 76-day lockdown last year, AP reports.
The team was seen walking through sections of the Baishazhou market – one of the largest wet markets in Wuhan – surrounded by a large entourage of Chinese officials and representatives.The team, with expertise in veterinarian, virology, food safety and epidemiology, has visited two hospitals at the centre of the early outbreak – Wuhan Jinyintan hospital and the Hubei Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine hospital.On Saturday, the members also visited a museum exhibition dedicated to the early history of Covid.
Charity shops are expecting a boom in business when they are allowed to reopen as lockdown restrictions ease, following the loss of millions of pounds of revenue since last March.
“We’re anticipating very strong trading when we open up,” Robin Osterley of the Charity Retail Association (CRA) told the Observer. The boom will be driven by two factors, he said: a surge in donations as people seek to offload unwanted Christmas gifts, and the impact of job losses and falling incomes, forcing people to cut household spending. “Unfortunately this group is likely to increase,” he said.
Related: UK charity shops hope donation surge will help cover lockdown losses
In case you missed this earlier: Germany’s government on Sunday threatened legal action against laboratories failing to deliver coronavirus vaccines to the European Union on schedule, amid tension over delays to deliveries from AstraZeneca, AFP reports.“If it turns out that companies have not respected their obligations, we will have to decide the legal consequences,” economy minister Peter Altmaier told German daily Die Welt.
There has been growing tension in recent weeks between European leaders and the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which has fallen behind on promised delivers of its Covid-19 vaccine.The company said it could now deliver only a quarter of the doses originally promised to the bloc for the first quarter of the year because of problems at one of its European factories.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
The latest social media trend involves no ice buckets, no filters and certainly no sea shanties. Now celebrities and politicians around the world are vying to post the best “vaxxies” – selfies of the moment they receive their Covid-19 vaccination.
While vaxxies send out a strong message that the vaccines are safe, they are also an undeniable photo opportunity. The image of Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis being vaccinated with his shirt off went viral last week. With its unreconstructed masculinity, some compared it to photos of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin bare chested out hunting. Mitsotakis became something of a Twitter heartthrob as a result, with one user writing “Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis doing whatever it takes to sell his people on the #COVID19 vaccine.” Others fretted about the prospect of Boris Johnson, who might have his vaccine live on TV, doing the same:
Related: What a great shot! Vaccination selfies become the latest social media hit
Here is the full story on the lockdown in much of Western Australia following the discovery of the first community transmission case in nearly 10 months:
The Philippines’ health ministry on Sunday welcomed the offer of the country’s group of Catholic bishops to help in the government’s coronavirus vaccination drive, which is struggling to persuade many Filipinos to get the shots, Reuters reports.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has offered to transform church facilities in the country into Covid-19 vaccination sites, and said its members were also willing to get vaccinated in public to help build confidence in the campaign.
“We are happy with the CBCP’s offer,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque said in a statement. “Churches really can be alternative sites to areas that lack facility, especially those in hard-to-reach municipalities.”
Moving away from Australia now, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 11,192 to 2,216,363, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Sunday. The total is about average for the last week, and significantly lower than the weeks before.
The reported death toll rose by 399 to 56,945, the tally showed.
A few last clarifications before that presser wraps up:
If you are due to have surgery this week, do not call the hospital to clarify, says the health minister, the hospital will contact you.
I want to clarify that South West is the normal boundary of the South West, Harvey, Collie, Bunbury, all of those communities in the South Peel region as understood.
And I have contacted the other premiers, the prime minister, our advice to people from interstate is now is not the time to come. It’s a matter of the other states’ wish to put up a border with Western Australia or hotspot or whatever they wish to do.
WA commissioner of police Chris Dawson is speaking now.
He starts by echoing the premier’s pleas not to panic shop:
I would ask you, just be very careful that you do not do things that you would not want done to you. Sounds like a biblical statement, but be considerate, do not do panic shopping, we just have to respond in the way that we responded previously, and we will get through this in consideration of all our vulnerable people in the community.
...
Asked why he is not locking down the entire state, health minister Roger Cook says:
We are locking down about 80% of the state by locking down the population areas, but we are trying to look at where the risk is. There are no indications this person has been outside of those areas, he has not been into any of the other regional areas.
If we get into any information that suggests may have been the case, or that has been any spread further, or contacts have gone further, that we will look at that as an option. All schools will be closed, both public and private from Monday, so they will need to put in arrangements.
Here is what we know so far, via AAP:
McGowan is asked whether after the five days of restrictions are likely to be lifted all at once, or whether there will be a gradual easing of the restrictions.
It will be the latter, he says.
We are hopeful it will be no positives, but then a gradual scale-down, I would expect. That is something we will take health advice on over the coming week.
The infected person’t housemates have tested negative, which McGowan says is a relief as (though they may test positive in coming days) means they are unlikely to be infectious. They have been placed in hotel quarantine.
Premier Mark McGowan says that the government believes the case – a hotel security guard – acquired the infection on Tuesday or Wednesday:
We think he acquired the illness on Tuesday or Wednesday of the last week. His last days were Tuesday and Wednesday. So therefore, he got tested, I think, yesterday or the day before because he was feeling unwell, he went to a GP and then to to the clinic.
We got the result last night. We are advised he has not worked a second job in the time since he last worked in hotel quarantine.
I will just say as well, this is a hot day and there are hot days ahead. The hours that the Covid clinic operating are long, that I would be prepared but there may be a wait. This is the normal practice around Australia and around the world. We expect that there will be a wait when you go to get tested. Take a hat, take sunscreen, take water.
If you have questions or comments about the restrictions, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
WA premier Mark McGowan says the measures announced moments ago will come into effect at 6pm tonight. But he stresses there is no need for people to rush to supermarkets:
The measures will start from 6pm this evening and in the time. Between now and then I just urge people to be sensible and do the right thing.
There is no need to rush to the supermarkets. They will not be a shortage of toilet paper or other goods. You will be able to go out and shop for essentials over the course of this week. I urge everyone to remain calm and to act responsibly. Why didn’t daily testing happened much earlier to ensure that this particular case would be called earlier?
So in case you are just joining us, the Australian state of Western Australia has imposed a lockdown on large parts of the state in response to a single coronavirus case – the first case of community transmission in nearly 10 months.
Premier Mark McGowan explains why the case is feared to be the new UK variant:
The reason why we are particularly interested around the UK variant is because we know he was on the floor with an active case, we do not know if that is the active case that he caught it from or if it is from some other interaction in the workplace. We know he did not go into a room and he did not expose himself unnecessarily and as a result of that we will undertake necessary investigations.
This is obviously a very fresh situation and we are trying to get to the bottom of it. Over the coming 24-48 hours we will be undertaking extensive contact tracing and our contact tracing teams were stood up early this morning and they are working hard.
People who have been to the following areas must be tested:
Now people who have been to these venues on these dates must attend a Covid clinic and be tested.
In addition, people who live or work in the Kirk Avenue Maylands area including Coles, Liquor Land and the shopping precinct should present for a test also. After undertaking the test they must go home and isolate until a negative test result is returned.
Premier Mark McGowan ends – before handing over to the health minister – by saying:
I urge the community to act calmly. This is crucial ... We have maintained a careful, cautious approach throughout, and our measures have worked.
Despite our state’s success we have been well prepared to respond to any situations as they emerge. We will provide further updates as they come to hand. All relevant information will be posted on websites as it comes to hand.
Further restrictions in WA following the confirmation of the first community case in nearly 10 months:
Elective surgery and procedures for categories two and three will be suspended from Tuesday, 2 February, and category one and urgent category two surgery will continue.
For a majority of schools, school was due to start tomorrow. That has now been put on hold, and schools will be closed until next week, following the lockdown measures. It is in effect an extension of the school holidays.
More restrictions:
We are strongly encouraging that everyone in this area who is from another WA region, stay here. Do not travel further outside of this area until the lockdown is over. If you do need to travel outside the region ... that can only occur if you need to return to your place of residence.
The transport of essential goods into this region is permitted under our existing transport guidelines.
This lockdown means the following businesses, venues and locations need to close for the next five days:
10 people can attend funerals.
Weddings are cancelled for the next five days.
The areas under the restrictions below are Perth, Peel and south-west regions of WA.
In addition to this five-day stay home rule, if you do leave home for one of the four reasons you will be required to wear a mask at all timesoutside, and if you need to do work indoors, then wearing a mask is also mandatory.
To be clear, mask wearing on public transport is also mandatory.
In light of the new case, McGowan has announced restrictions for specific areas – we will list these in a moment.
Here are the restrictions so far:
Following discussions with the chief health officer and police commissioner, the following measures will be put in place from 6pm. People in these regions are required to stay home:
Except for the following four reasons:
“It appears this new case likely has the highly transmissible UK variant,” Mark McGowan has said. This has not yet been confirmed, however.
Western Australia has confirmed its first community transmission case in nearly 10 months, premier Mark McGowan has announced.
The case is a hotel security guard in his 20s.
The emergency Covid press conference called by Western Australian premier Mark McGowan is starting now.
We’ll bring you the developments live.
A World Health Organization team looking into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic visited a market on Sunday known to be the food distribution centre for the Chinese city of Wuhan during the 76-day lockdown last year, AP reports.
The team was seen walking through sections of the Baishazhou market – one of the largest wet markets in Wuhan – surrounded by a large entourage of Chinese officials and representatives.
Mark McGowan, the premier of the state of West Australia, has called an emergency Covid media conference, the ABC reports.
Health minister Roger Cook will be present.
A number of countries tightened their borders against a surge in variant strains of the deadly coronavirus as the United States ordered travellers to wear masks on most public transport, AFP reports.
With doses of the different Covid-19 vaccines so far approved for use still in relatively short supply – and mass inoculation programs in their early stages – Britain and the EU have become embroiled in an ugly row over the shots they had been promised by AstraZeneca.
Queensland is looking forward to a tourism windfall from NSW worth hundreds of millions of dollars as the two states bicker over jobkeeper, AAP reports.
Queensland has gone another day with no new coronavirus cases, while the state government is standing firm on its call to extend jobkeeper for the tourism sector.
More on China’s manufacturing activity from Reuters:
The fall in the PMI reflects weakening growth momentum due to government measures to contain the new Covid-19 wave, including tightening social distancing rules, reimposing lockdowns and travel bans in some parts of China, Nomura’s chief China economist Lu Ting told AFP.
Factory activity in China slowed slightly in January, official data showed Sunday, as the country rushed to stamp out a recent coronavirus wave in northern China, AFP reports.
The purchasing managers’ index (PMI), a key gauge of manufacturing activity, came in at 51.3 this month, as the world’s second-largest economy tightened Covid-19 precautions ahead of the lunar new year.
The Trans-Tasman bubble allowing quarantine free travel from New Zealand to Australia will resume on Sunday, Australian health authorities have announced.
Australia’s acting chief health officer, ProfMichael Kidd, said “green zone” flights could recommence on Sunday afternoon because they were now “sufficiently low risk”.
The AHPPC at its meeting this morning noted that there had been no further confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the community in New Zealand since the initial three cases were infected with what was concerned – the B1351 variant – known as the South African variant.
As you know, the three cases all originated from transmission within hotel quarantine at the Pullman hotel in Auckland. The AHPPC has also noted that all close contacts of these three New Zealand cases have returned negative test results and there have been no further cases found to date in the casual contacts, in the previous residents of the hotel or in the staff of the hotel.
As well as being screened for possible symptoms of Covid-19, this screening will check that travellers have not been identified as close contacts of the infected cases,who have not visited any of the contact tracing areas of interest in New Zealand, and if they have, that they have been tested and they have received negative test results and clearance as required by the New Zealand authorities.
Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador continues to be only mildly affected by Covid-19, an official said on Saturday, a day after the Mexican leader broadcast a video saying his health was improving.
Reuters reports that Ricardo Cortes, a senior health ministry official, told a regular evening news conference that Lopez Obrador still had a “mild case” and had almost reached the halfway mark of his isolation phase.
Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez said on Saturday that his country would receive its initial batch of Covid vaccines during the second half of February through the Covax program backed by the World Health Organization, Reuters reports.
Co-led by the Gavi vaccine alliance, WHO and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, Covax is aiming to deliver 1.3bn doses of approved vaccines to 92 eligible low- and middle-income countries in 2021.
Almost 50m doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been distributed in the United States and nearly 30m have been administered, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday.
The amounts include the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines as of 6am ET, the agency said.
Colombia will receive up to an initial 4.4m doses of coronavirus vaccines via the World Health Organization-backed Covax mechanism, the government said on Saturday, Reuters reports.
“The Andean country will receive vaccines produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, as well as by AstraZenca, via the scheme, president Ivan Duque said.
“We have received information from the multilateral Covax strategy indicating that Colombia has been ratified among 18 countries in which the administration of vaccines will begin,” Duque said.
Cormac the llama lives a quiet life on a farm in Washington State, totally unaware that his unique immune system may be key to protecting the developing world from Covid-19.
“He is an extremely charismatic llama … he’s a pretty cool guy,” says TJ Esparza, a neuroscientist at the Uniformed Services University. He is part of the team attempting to transform Cormac’s nanobody cells into a drug that will coat the inside of human lungs, providing temporary but effective protection from coronavirus particles.
Related: In the search for Covid protection, Cormac the 'extremely charismatic' llama may hold a key
The Australian Capital Territory has confirmed no new coronavirus cases. It has no active cases.
In the past 24 hours, 228 tests returned negative results, but ACT deputy chief health officer Dr Vanessa Johnston has urged people to get tested if they have even the mildest symptoms after virus fragments were found in sewage at a wastewater site in Belconnen.
The Belconnen testing site covers wastewater from Aranda, Belconnen, Bruce, Charnwood, Cook, Dunlop, Evatt, Florey, Flynn, Fraser, Giralang, Hall, Hawker, Higgins, Holt, Kaleen, Latham, Lawson, Macgregor, Macquarie, McKellar, Melba, Page, Scullin, Spence, Strathnairn and Weetangera.
All other locations in the ACT had negative sample results on 27 January.
A week-long, $5m advertising blitz encouraging Australians to travel domestically in 2021 kicks off today, AAP reports.
The government wants locals to holiday in Australia, including areas affected by last summer’s bushfires, to give the embattled industry a boost.
The earliest references to the “one-stop shop” emerged during the first decades of 20th century as the fast-growing US economy spurred rapid retail innovation. A single location for various products provides obvious benefits: removing the hassle of travelling around town to visit different stores.
Jeff Bezos redefined that logic for the internet age, making Amazon a dominant (and perhaps ambivalent) force first in selling books, and then in pretty much everything else. Before 2020 Amazon was a phenomenon, but the coronavirus pandemic has made it all but ubiquitous.
Related: Mighty Amazon looks all but unassailable as Covid continues
Health authorities in the Australian state of Victoria are investigating an “indeterminate” test result.
Victoria notched up its 25th day in a row without a community transmission coronavirus case on Sunday, but one test has not yet been confirmed as negative.
The state’s health department said it would provide more information on the potential case later on Sunday.
There were 10,681 tests undertaken in Victoria on Saturday.
DHHS received a notification of an indeterminate result last night. Follow up tests are underway and precautionary public health actions are being taken.
There will be an update on the case later today.
Australia’s health minister says the European Union’s dramatic decision to impose export controls on vaccine manufacturers is “not expected to affect Australia”.
The EU has imposed sweeping powers that would allow it to block Covid-19 vaccine shipments from the bloc and Australia was left off a list of 120 nations exempt from the measures.
Our advice is that our vaccine supply and guidance remains on track, those dates that we provided earlier in the week followed discussions with country heads of Pfizer and AstraZeneca and took into account supply and regulatory conditions within Europe and had been reaffirmed in the last 24 hours. The guidance from the EU is provisional and preliminary at this stage, so I will remain cautious, but that guidance is that the EU regulatory steps are not aimed at Australia, and not expected to affect Australia.
The Australian government says thousands of local pharmacies will be enlisted to distribute Covid vaccines.
Greg Hunt, the health minister, said on Sunday that community pharmacies would administer the vaccine for free from phase two of the Australian rollout. That begins in May, when the vaccine will be available for those over 50 and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
They are experienced, they are trained in dispensing medicines, and they would be participating from phase 2A onwards, and that means more points of presence for Australians in terms of where they can receive their Covid-19 vaccine.
Germany’s government on Sunday threatened legal action against laboratories failing to deliver coronavirus vaccines to the European Union on schedule, amid tension over delays to deliveries from AstraZeneca, AFP reports.
“If it turns out that companies have not respected their obligations, we will have to decide the legal consequences,” economy minister Peter Altmaier told German daily Die Welt.
In case you missed this earlier, the Australian state of South Australia has lifted its Covid-19 restrictions for travellers from the Sydney region.
The change comes after New South Wales reached two weeks without a locally transmitted case. The Victorian government has revealed figures that show it issued more than a million travel permits since virus border restrictions were imposed just over six weeks ago.
Despite 14 days with no new cases, NSW Health warns that the virus could re-emerge.
“While NSW has now seen 14 days without a known locally acquired case of Covid-19, the virus may still be circulating in the community among people with mild or no symptoms. We have previously seen successive days of no local cases, only to see cases re-emerge,” it said.
In Australia, NSW Health has recorded no new locally acquired cases of Covid-19 from almost 9,000 tests.
NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.
There were three cases acquired overseas, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 4,915. pic.twitter.com/aURefq94hj
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
You can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
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