Australia news live: NSW considers easing Covid restrictions as vaccine information campaign launches

Limits on gatherings could be lifted in Sydney after more than a week of zero locally-acquired cases

NSW hotspots; State-by-state restrictions and lockdown rules explained
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Berejiklian was asked to comment on the new Covide-19 vaccine advertising campaign, and said the Therapeutic Goods Administration “would not have approved it if it wasn’t safe”.

We’re able to rely on research, the experience that other nations have had, and I for one will be getting it absolutely the day it’s available to me...I know some people feel strongly about not having a vaccine. I’m not one of them. I think it’s really important for us, for as many of us to get the vaccine as possible in a timely way, to safeguard all of us moving forward. And potentially to give us greater freedoms.

Oh, look, I just focus on what I need to focus on.

My view is all of us should always follow the health advice. We have experts appointed and serving in positions which have kept all of us and Australia safe to this point in time. All of us owe it to the health experts to follow the advice and what we present is based on science and fact.

He’s not in my team. You have to ask...

I’m not going to add any further to what I said. Please ask me other questions.

I think I have answered the question twice already. To say you should always base, base the advice, the actions you take based on health advice. And I think I’ve been saying that straight for about a year everyday. And I don’t think any of us should waste our time on people who express opinions not based on evidence.

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said she is “hoping” to receive medical advice that will allow her ease to coronavirus restrictions this week, but wouldn’t be drawn on exactly when or what that might look like.

She told ABC News Breakfast:

Well, look, we’ll behaving those discussions and getting the advice today. I’m hoping to make a announcement by the end of the week. We’re doing more. There’s more contagious strains of the virus coming into Australia. In New South Wales our policy always is don’t keep restrictions or burden our citizens a day longer than you need to. I hoping to have confirmation of advice that allows us to announce that later this week.

I think perhaps people will be looking forward to welcoming more people into their homes, and mask policy moving forward. There’s a number of areas looking forward. The hospitality sector also wants certainty moving forward. We’re looking forward to making the announcements later. I get advice on a daily basis from the health experts and today and tomorrow we’ll be having longer conversations about what it means.

They’re the conversations we’ll have. There could be some settings where we do think it should be an ongoing way of doing things, a way of living. In other settings we may ease off and say we remembered you do this, but you don’t have to.

The important message on public transport and we’re encouraging people to go back to work in a Covvid-safe way. We do want people to catch public transport, where they’re going to work from and how they’re going to work. Because jobs and focusing on the economy is critical for us this year. I think people will feel safer if there’s masks on public transport. Those are the conversations we’ll be having.

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US senators sworn in as jurors for Trump’s second impeachment trial – live

There’s been a steady stream of activity on Capitol Hill today, paricularly leading up to the swearing-in of the senators for Trump’s impeachment trial.

At a weekly press conference, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said the chamber is prepared to work simultaneously to hold an impeachment trial, approve Biden’s cabinet nominees, and pass additional coronavirus relief.

.@SenSchumer says “a vote on a budget resolution could come as soon as next week.” This would give Dems option to use reconciliation for Covid relief package

McConnell doesn’t say if Trump’s actions were impeachable, saying only that he’ll “listen to the arguments” in the trial.

He says he hasn’t spoken to Trump since the day after he declared Biden had “obviously” won the election (that was 12/15).

Tim Ryan tells reporters on Zoom presser that the order among Capitol Police on Jan. 6 was to not use lethal force unless lives were threatened, as was standard for USCP (he'd asked about it during this morning's closed-door briefing)

Vice president Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, received her second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.

Twenty-eight days after receiving her first shot, Harris removed her jacked, rolled up her sleeve and extended her left arm for the jab.

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Head of AstraZeneca confirms UK has prior claim on vaccine

Chief executive of pharmaceutical giant says the firm will honour UK’s earlier contract despite EU anger over shortfall

AstraZeneca’s chief executive has insisted the UK will come first for vaccines as he rejected calls to divert doses to the European Union following a breakdown in supply.

Amid a growing row, Pascal Soriot, the French head of the pharmaceutical giant, said the UK was benefiting from being early to sign a contract for 100m doses.

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AstraZeneca vaccine may not be given to older people, says EU medicines chief

European Medicines Agency approval could stipulate age range, suggests Emer Cooke

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine may be authorised only for younger people in Europe, because there is insufficient data on how well it works in the over-65s, the head of the regulatory body has suggested.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to authorise the AstraZeneca vaccine at the end of this week, a month after it was approved in the UK.

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‘We’ll learn lessons,’ Johnson promised, far too late in the day for many | John Crace

It was asking too much for the PM to show genuine humility and remorse, but even he could not shrug this off

You’ve got to hand it to Priti Patel.

Either she is completely shameless or totally clueless. Though one shouldn’t rule out the possibility that she’s both. Most of us distinctly remember the home secretary causing problems for Boris Johnson a few weeks ago by saying she had been calling for stricter border controls last March to control the coronavirus pandemic.

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Why has AstraZeneca reduced promised vaccine supply to EU and is UK affected?

Analysis: technical problem at Belgium plant failed to produce enough vaccine but EU demanding fulfilment of contract

AstraZeneca warned the European commission on Friday that there would be a significant shortfall in the promised 100m vaccine doses this quarter, of up to 60%. It says this is due to a technical issue: not enough vaccine is being produced by the main plant making the supplies destined for Europe, which is in Belgium.

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Johnson ‘deeply sorry’ as UK Covid death toll passes 100,000 – video

Boris Johnson said it was ‘difficult to compute the sorrow’ for every life lost to Covid as the official UK death toll passed 100,000. The prime minister said he took ‘full responsibility’ for the government's response to the crisis, and insisted the government 'did everything we could' to limit deaths

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Italy’s power struggle raises fears over Covid and the economy

Italians struggle to fathom Giuseppe Conte’s resignation as prime minister and resulting political limbo

Italy’s political crisis has left the country in limbo in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, raising fears that a power struggle in the heart of government will hamper its economic recovery plan.

The prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, resigned on Tuesday after weeks of feuding with former prime minister Matteo Renzi, who withdrew his small Italia Viva party from the ruling coalition following clashes over the handling of the pandemic and a spending plan for the €209bn (£185bn) Italy is due to receive from the EU’s economic recovery plan.

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Life in hotel quarantine: ‘I’m on day two. It’s around day 11 things get difficult’

Ian Samson, originally from Edinburgh, describes his experience of Hong Kong’s strict isolation rules for travellers

I have a pile of 20 bananas in my hotel room here in Hong Kong, a spin bike I’ve had delivered and some rapidly dying flowers that the hotel gave me on the first day as a morbid reminder of how little sunlight I would be getting for the next 21 days.

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Why experts say there is no basis to claims in Germany about efficacy of AstraZeneca vaccine

Analysis: Drug company and scientific partners at Oxford University have strongly pushed back against German press report

A row has broken out after German newspapers suggested the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine might have a lower efficacy among the over-65s. Below we take a look at the claims, and whether we should be concerned.

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Netherlands shaken by third night of riots over coronavirus curfew – video

A third night of rioting has shaken the Netherlands as protesters rampaged through towns and cities around the country after government introduced a night-time curfew.

More than 180 people were arrested on Monday in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where shops were vandalised and looted

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EU means business over Covid vaccine exports, says Von der Leyen

Commission president says firms must deliver on orders after AstraZeneca warns of shortfall

The EU “means business”, Ursula von der Leyen has said, as the bloc doubled down on plans for tighter monitoring of vaccine exports to countries outside of the union, such as the UK.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, the president of the European commission said the EU had invested billions and “companies must now deliver” to the 27 member states.

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Pharmaceutical giants not ready for next pandemic, report warns

Ten of the world’s most infectious diseases identified by the WHO not being catered for by drug firms

The world’s biggest pharmaceutical firms are little prepared for the next pandemic despite a mounting response to the Covid-19 outbreak, an independent report has warned.

Jayasree K Iyer, executive director of the Netherlands-based Access to Medicine Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation funded by the UK and Dutch governments and others, highlighted an outbreak of the Nipah virus in China, with a fatality rate of up to 75%, as potentially the next big pandemic risk.

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Coronavirus live news: EU ‘to stop short of vaccine export ban’; Germany may cut inbound flights to almost zero

EU to make pharmaceutical companies register exports but not ban them, reports say; German ministers discussing near-total flight ban

A custody sergeant in the UK has become the fifth Metropolitan police staff member to die from Covid-19 in recent weeks.

The officer, who worked in the Met’s detention department comes after the deaths of three police constables and a traffic police community officer since 11 January, according to the Press Association.

I’m deeply saddened by the news that in recent days and weeks Covid has taken five of our colleagues from us.

“Policing is a family and the scale of our loss is truly shocking. My deepest condolences are with the families, friends and colleagues of Fabrizi, Warren, traffic police community support officer Chris Barkshire, PC Sukh Singh and our colleague from Met Detention, who will be named soon.”

US states will get a 17% increase in the amount of vaccines from next week after shortages across the country.

Some vaccination sites have had to cancel tens of thousands of appointments, with people still waiting for their first dose, according to Associated Press.

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Covid patients turned away as hospitals in Indonesia face collapse

One man died after rejection from 10 hospitals as country nears one million cases of coronavirus

Health experts in Indonesia have warned that hospitals in some areas are on the brink of collapse as the nation approached one million cases of coronavirus.

In one case, a man died after he was turned away from 10 hospitals, including three in Jakarta, with doctors under greater strain that an any time in the pandemic.

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Wuhan doctor: China authorities stopped me sounding alarm on Covid

Medic at heart of original outbreak tells BBC documentary staff were not allowed to wear masks despite concern about human transmission

A doctor from the Wuhan hospital hit hardest by the Covid-19 epidemic has said he and colleagues suspected the virus was highly transmissible in early January last year, weeks before Chinese authorities admitted it, but were prevented from warning anyone.

The doctor’s testimony – in a new BBC documentary on the 54 days between the first known case of coronavirus and the Wuhan lockdown – adds to mounting evidence of Beijing’s early attempts to cover up the virus outbreak, and intimidate healthworkers into staying quiet.

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Giuseppe Conte to quit as Italy’s PM in tactical move

Resignation expected to be handed in to president Sergio Mattarella on Tuesday morning

Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte will resign on Tuesday in a tactical move aimed at maximising his chances of leading a new government.

Conte will hold a cabinet meeting at 9am CET before officially handing in his resignation to president Sergio Mattarella, his office announced in a statement.

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US watchdog to investigate whether officials made ‘improper attempts’ to alter election result – live

Here’s more on South Africa and coronavirus travel restrictions in relation to the US.

The White House confirmed Joe Biden is signing an order today imposing a ban on most non-US citizens entering the country who have recently been in South Africa, starting on Saturday.

The Treasury Department is taking steps to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, as was planned in the Obama administration.

Psaki says the Treasury Department is taking steps to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, as was planned in the Obama administration.

NEW: White House says Treasury Dept. is "taking steps to resume efforts" to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

Press Sec. Psaki says the Biden admin. is "exploring ways to speed up that effort." pic.twitter.com/c4bARsGf1Z

Related: She Came to Slay: Tubman biography looks beyond Underground Railroad

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Mexico president rebuked for careless response to Covid after testing positive

Andrés Manuel López Obrador tests positive day after saying crisis nearing the end and ‘little lights’ at end of tunnel could be seen

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, declared at the weekend that his country was nearing the end of the coronavirus crisis, telling supporters that “little lights” at the end of the tunnel could already be seen.

The next day he tested positive for Covid-19, throwing the country into tumult – and prompting fresh criticisms of his cavalier response to a disease that has killed nearly 150,000 citizens.

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