How Britons celebrated during the pandemic while unable to meet loved ones
Britons across the country celebrated a very different Christmas on Friday, with many unable to gather with loved ones or take part in some of their festive traditions.
Dozens of residents at a Leeds care home were able to embrace friends and family members on Christmas Day after a rapid results trial allowed for visitors.
Continue reading...Warning comes as all passengers on board a regional flight told to isolate, and alerts issued across Sydney for a gym, cafes, shopping centre, food court and Santa photos
Sydney shoppers have been urged not to enter the central business district for the traditional Boxing Day sales after the state recorded seven new locally acquired coronavirus cases and the northern beaches cluster grew to 108.
The Australian Retailers Association labelled the NSW premier’s plea for consumers to stay at home on “the biggest day on the retail calendar” as “incredibly disappointing”.
Continue reading...Gladys Berejiklian discourages Sydneysiders from Boxing Day shopping; experts fear Christmas could turn into a superspreading event as ‘Avalon cluster’ rises to 108 and spreads. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
It has been a whole year since the skies parted and the almighty delivered this gift - Barnaby Joyce’s memorable Christmas message for the ages.
In the video, the Nationals MP and former deputy prime minister declared “I just don’t want the government anymore in my life”.
Merry Christmas pic.twitter.com/QGYPv51pTN
One of the Australian government-facilitated repatriation flights to bring home Australians from India has been cancelled, as about 39,000 Australians remain stranded overseas for Christmas.
The flight from New Delhi to Brisbane was scheduled to depart on Sunday 27 December, operated by Qantas.
Continue reading...Pope addresses fewer than 200 people in St Peter’s; China and US take action against UK amid concerns about new variant; South Korea reports daily case record
The coronavirus pandemic cast a pall over Christmas celebrations worldwide, with the pope holding a reduced St Peter’s mass, and further restrictions imposed on arrivals from the UK and South Africa amid concerns about potentially more transmissible variants of the virus.
China said it would halt UK flight arrivals indefinitely, deciding to follow the example of dozens of countries that introduced bans this week following the emergence of a new mutation in the virus. There are currently eight weekly flights between mainland China and Britain, including two by British Airways.
Continue reading...Escaping the UK to spend Christmas alone in a New Zealand Novotel was a small price to pay to rejoin my family in relative freedom
On my third day of quarantine, a nice nurse gave to me: a swab up my nasal cavity. It also happened to be Christmas.
Along with nearly 6,000 other returning New Zealanders, I was spending the festive period in quarantine at a government-managed hotel.
Continue reading...Donald Trump went to his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, after claiming to be “working tirelessly for the American people” with a schedule that included “many meetings and calls”. Back in Washington, a Democratic proposal to increase direct payments to Americans under the Covid relief bill, from $600 to $2,000, was blocked.
Related: Donald Trump's latest wave of pardons includes Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner
Continue reading...Mosque beset by difficulties finally to allow in worshippers thanks to relaxation of Greece’s Covid restrictions
Christmas has been greeted with enthusiasm by Muslim worshippers in Athens after the modern Greek capital’s first official mosque – forced to close only days after its inauguration in November – was told it could reopen for the holiday.
Relaxation of a national lockdown to enable Greek Orthodox faithful to attend mass on Christmas Day means the mosque will also be able to operate.
Continue reading...Initiative using rapid-turnaround tests is part of plan to let hauliers cross Channel by Christmas Day
A team of French firefighters has been sent to Dover with 10,000 coronavirus tests for lorry drivers under a renewed Franco-British mission to let hauliers cross the Channel by Christmas Day as it emerged that fewer than 100 of the thousands of waiting vehicles were embarked on Wednesday.
France’s ambassador to the UK, Catherine Colonna, said the two countries were “neighbours, partners, allies and (yes) friends” and that 26 firefighters had brought thousands of rapid-turnaround tests to the port on Christmas Eve.
Continue reading...New border measures have been introduced as Sydney’s northern beaches Covid cluster continues to grow. Here’s what we know about the current rules
As the coronavirus cluster on Sydney’s northern beaches grows, other states and territories have introduced border closures and restrictions.
Here are the current border restrictions as of Sunday 20 December.
Continue reading...Visitors who have travelled from or through South Africa will be denied entry to England and all direct flights banned
A ban on all direct flights from South Africa to England came into force on Christmas Eve morning, while New York authorities announced they would visit arrivals from the UK to check they were quarantining, amid the spread of new variants of coronavirus in the UK and South Africa.
The UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the new mutation in South Africa was “highly concerning”, and was believed to be even more transmissible than the variant in the south-east of England that led to the introduction of tier 4 restrictions.
Continue reading...Premier warns state is ‘far from out of the woods’ as nine new cases reported and six infections remain a mystery
New South Wales health authorities are worried undetected Covid cases among office workers in Sydney’s CBD could spread the virus at Christmas gatherings, as the number of infections linked to the northern beaches cluster grew to 104.
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, pleaded on Thursday with residents to “limit your mobility” over Christmas as she reported nine new community cases from a record 60,184 tests and warned NSW was “far from out of the woods”.
Continue reading...Girls who got free sanitary products at school were pushed to desperate measures in what is being called a shadow pandemic
Thousands of girls in Kenya will not be going back to school when classes start again in January, because they became pregnant during the Covid 19-lockdown.
The African Institute for Development Policy puts the number of teenage girls who became pregnant in the country between January and May at more than 150,000, with Nairobi recording nearly 12,000 pregnancies. Anecdotal evidence from healthcare workers across the Kenyan capital suggest the true figures could be higher, as many pregnant teenagers are not coming to clinics.
Continue reading...Gladys Berejiklian urges people to ‘limit your mobility’ as new rules kick in for Christmas Eve in Sydney; medical experts says New Year’s Eve fireworks should be cancelled. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
Today’s seven cases linked to the Avalon cluster brings the total number of cases there to 104.
Chant says all people onboard a Qantas flight from Darwin to Sydney on 17 December have been considered close contacts and have been asked to self-isolate.
A Qantas crew member contracted Covid-19 who was onboard the flight subsequently tested positive. Chant says they are investigating another potential case but the current data is preliminary.
Continue reading...A Kent football team made 200 pizzas and delivered them to stranded lorry drivers on the M20 and Manston airport on Tuesday night.
Hot meals were also provided by a Sikh charity and delivered by Gravesend's Gurdwara Sikh community as thousands of lorry drivers waited for information after France closed its border with the UK for fear of a new variant of Covid-19
Continue reading...Research still to confirm threat posed but variant does not appear to provoke more serious symptoms
The South African variant of Covid-19, two cases of which have now been detected in the UK, is likely to be more transmissible, may hit young people harder, and may be slightly more resistant to vaccines, scientists in South Africa believe.
However, research is still continuing to confirm the threat posed by the variant, which does not appear to provoke more serious symptoms or require different treatment.
Continue reading...Tony Blair and others make argument for giving more people a single jab rather than two
A senior scientific adviser has said more data is needed before the government can adopt a proposal to give as many people as possible a single dose of a Covid vaccine rather than preserving stocks so there is enough for a second jab.
The former prime minister Tony Blair and Prof David Salisbury, a former director of immunisation at the Department of Health, backed the idea on Wednesday, saying second shots should be given only when more stock is available.
Continue reading...With a mutant Covid variant out of control and lorries piling up in Kent, Britain feels like a country adrift and rudderless
The rest of the world is calling the UK Plague Island because it’s true: a mutant strain of the coronavirus is out of control, laying waste to fantasies that any region is out of the woods, or that the November lockdown had its desired effect, or that we might manage a “merry little Christmas”, in the words of the prime minister.
The plague phrase carries a lot of resonance, beyond being a reference to the high prevalence of infectious disease: it casts us as a far-flung place, isolated, chaotic, uncivilised, a place that wise and/or decent people stay well away from. But is that how it feels from the inside?
Continue reading...One appears to have arisen in Kent, the other brought in from South Africa. Both are highly transmissible
Two new variants of Covid-19 have been identified as of concern in the UK, both said to be more transmissible than the previously dominant version. Here’s what we know so far.
Continue reading...Lipa facility had been criticised by rights groups for failing to provide basic services
A fast-moving fire has destroyed a migrant camp in Bosnia strongly criticised by rights groups as inadequate due to its lack of resources.
The blaze broke out at the Lipa camp, close to the border with Croatia, on the same day the International Organization for Migration (IOM) had declared the effective closure of the facility, saying Bosnian authorities had ignored its appeals to supply basic services.
Continue reading...The week before Christmas quickly turned chaotic as the health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced a new, more contagious strain of coronavirus had been found in south-east England. The news resulted in a last-minute government U-turn over Christmas mixing rules, the implementation of a new, stricter coronavirus tier, and dozens of countries suspending travel from the UK days before the end of the Brexit transition period, prompting 'Plague Island' to trend on Twitter. Here is a look back at the week of chaos
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