Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Distribution of the Moderna vaccine will begin to more than 3,800 sites across the United States this weekend, after it was approved on Friday by the medicines regulator, the Food and Drug Administration.
Workers in Bloomington, Indiana, will fill and package vials with the mRNA vaccine before handing them on to be shipped from sites including Louisville, Kentucky and Memphis, Tennessee. Those locations are close to air hubs for United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx Corp.
A further 339 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, NHS England said on Saturday.
Patients were aged between 44 and 100. All except 13, aged between 64 and 95, had known underlying health conditions. The deaths were between 5 November and 18 December.
This is not the first time that a pandemic has gripped the holiday season. In December 1918, preparations for the first Christmas without war in four years took place in the midst of the worst pandemic since the Black Death.
The 1918-19 influenza, like Covid-19, came in waves. The deadliest began in autumn, peaked in late November and continued through the first weeks of December. It struck hundreds of millions and killed tens of millions worldwide.
The massive public, private and foundation investments in a coronavirus vaccine are producing results at a record pace. And countries are reacting accordingly. A recent global assessment of purchasing agreements for Covid-19 vaccines reveals that high-income countries, as well as a few middle-income countries with high manufacturing capacity, have already bought enough doses for their populations.
But delivery of the vaccine needs a new level of focus. This is especially the case for populations in poor and war-torn countries, where the health system is weak or nonexistent. Even before the pandemic, approximately 20 million infants a year, often some of the most vulnerable in the world, were missing out on basic vaccines. For example, there are estimated to be more than 10.6 million children in the world’s poorest countries who in 2019 did not receive even a first dose of a diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine (DPT).
The United States on Thursday surpassed a total of 17m coronavirus cases, with infections rising by more than a million a week during the early winter surge – while at the start of the year it took three months for the US to accumulate its first million cases.
Nearly a quarter of a million new coronavirus infections and more than 3,600 deaths had been reported just on Wednesday, shattering previous records as the national vaccination campaign against Covid-19 began rolling out across the country this week.
To Australia (where your correspondent currently sits):
The state of Victoria has imposed a ‘traffic light’ restriction system on travellers from New South Wales from tonight.
We are very strongly advising all Victorians not to travel to Sydney. As conditions are expected to deteriorate, and you may not be able to re-enter Victoria without undertaking quarantining for 14 days.
Don’t come from Sydney if you’re planning to come to Melbourne... it won’t be a holiday. It won’t be a Christmas. It won’t be the Christmas or the holiday you were planning. The situation in NSW and Sydney is rapidly evolving.
There are no restrictions on movement in the northern beaches in Sydney, but here is an indication people are complying with requests to stay home, from the MP for Mackellar.
The Department of Health has released a written ministerial statement giving the reasons for the decisions taken today about why areas in England are staying in, or moving from, particular tiers. It’s here - although the version up at the moment only covers the north-west, the north-east and London.
The government is to provide interim cover for EU holiday healthcare costs for people who require routine hospital treatment such as dialysis and chemotherapy in the event there is no Brexit deal to replace the current European Health Care Insurance Scheme (EHIC).
This government will introduce the scheme with the intention that it is used by individuals who are certain to require treatment while abroad, such as regular dialysis, oxygen therapy or certain types of chemotherapy. The government recognises that these ongoing, routine treatment costs can be expensive, and makes travelling abroad extremely challenging for many people.
The company behind cigarette brands including Lucky Strike, Rothmans and Benson & Hedges said the US Food & Drug Administration had given it clearance to begin a clinical study with adult volunteers.
Europeans gathering for Christmas with their friends or families should try to celebrate outside or wear masks indoors in a well-ventilated space, according to an advisory issued by the World Health Organization.
A severe weather warning has been issued for Wagga and much of the Riverina for flash flooding this afternoon.
Severe thunderstorms have been forecast for the entire region, all the way from Hay in the west, right across to the east coast, and from the Queensland border down to Tumbarumba.
⚡SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING⚡ for HEAVY RAINFALL. Warning current for much of central and eastern NSW and the ACT. 2hr Obs: 92mm @ Lismore. 30min Obs: 26mm @ Glen Alice, 25mm at Mt.Werong & 22mm @ Lake Burley Griffin. ⚠️Warnings: https://t.co/30woSZ6O2x#ifitsfloodedforgetitpic.twitter.com/L8OXMiSlAz
Victoria police commissioner Shane Patton has sought to differentiate between the police approach during the Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne in early June and anti-lockdown protests that were broken up during the second wave, with many more fined.
Patton told a Victorian parliament Covid-19 committee on Wednesday that at the time of the BLM protest, the spread of Covid was not as big as it was later on in the second wave, and there weren’t the severe restrictions at the time that were seen later – in June, groups of up to 20 people could assemble.
We eventually made a decision to reluctantly allow that Black Lives Matter to go ahead, because of the emotion that was in the community, because of the emotion that was being displayed across the world.
The 45-year-old man who tested positive was a van driver transporting international flight crew to and from the airport • Follow Wednesday’s Australia liveblog
New South Wales has recorded a new locally acquired case of Covid after a van driver transporting international airline crew to and from Sydney airport contracted the virus.
The state’s health minister, Brad Hazzard, said the case was discovered Wednesday morning.
Christmas plans for millions of families were in the balance last night as ministers and devolved leaders held talks on curtailing freedoms over the festive period amid warnings that the NHS would be overwhelmed.
Boris Johnson is likely to face down calls to change course, though the government may issue new advice urging extreme caution. A government source said it was possible the four nations may diverge after no agreement was reached at a crisis meeting with devolved administrations on Tuesday chaired by Michael Gove.
The London borough of Greenwich has reluctantly backed down over plans to close schools and switch to online learning to slow the spread of coronavirus, after the government launched legal action ordering schools to remain fully open until the end of term.
In a letter to parents, the leader of Greenwich council, Danny Thorpe, said he could not agree this was the best choice for schools in the borough, but neither could he justify using public funds to fight a court battle with the government.
Plans to relax Covid restrictions at Christmas must be reversed or many lives risk being lost, according to a rare joint editorial from two of the UK’s most eminent medical journals.
The government can no longer claim to be protecting the NHS if it goes ahead with “rash” plans to allow households to mix indoors over Christmas, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal have said.
For scientists, 5 January was a turning point in the fight against the coronavirus. That day, a team led by Prof Yong-Zhen Zhang at Fudan University in Shanghai sequenced the genetic code of the virus behind Wuhan’s month-long pneumonia outbreak. The process took about 40 hours. Having analysed the code, Zhang reported back to the Ministry of Health. The pathogen was a novel coronavirus similar to Sars, the deadly virus that sparked an epidemic in 2003. People should take precautions, he warned.
The Chinese government had imposed an embargo on information about the outbreak and Zhang and his co-workers were under pressure not to publish the code. The blackout couldn’t hold. On 8 January, news broke about the nature of the pathogen and was confirmed a day later by Chinese authorities. To sit on the code now seemed ridiculous.
The prime minister’s spell in intensive care underscored the severity of the pandemic. Did it also make him reassess his life?
It was an unexpected twist in what already felt like an excessively dramatic disaster movie. On 6 April, the British prime minister was admitted to the intensive care ward at St Thomas’ hospital in London, after contracting a new and potentially deadly virus. Donald Trump said he was “praying for his good friend”; the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said all his wishes were with the prime minister, his family and the British people in “this difficult time”. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, described it as “terribly sad news”.
Boris Johnson pulled through, of course, surviving to witness the birth of his son, Wilfred – given the middle name Nicholas, after the doctors, Dr Nick Price and Dr Nick Hart, who saved Johnson’s life. But more than eight months later, could the country still be feeling the impact of this dramatic turn of events?
Health secretary suggests that variant could be linked with the rapid spread of the virus in south-east England, although it was highly unlikely a vaccine would not work against it
From December 2019, when an unknown virus was found in China, to the release of vaccines for Covid-19 – here are the points where momentum shifted
From December 2019, when an unknown virus was found in China, to the release of vaccines for Covid-19, it has been an extraordinary year. Here’s how the momentum shifted
Turkish president has said Turkey will impose a five-day full lockdown beginning on 31 December, as official data showed new daily coronavirus deaths hit a record 229.
Recep Tayip Erdoğan, speaking after a cabinet meeting, said the stay-home order would begin at 9pm on New Year’s Eve and run to 4 January.