A summary of today's developments
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, for today. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s happened today:
- New Zealand will move to its highest red traffic light setting at midnight on Sunday in an effort to tackle the spread of the Omicron variant. Face coverings are mandatory when travelling on public transport, in retail and to an extent in education. Public facilities and retail outlets are open, with capacity limits.
- The head of Pfizer has said that an annual Covid-19 vaccine would be preferable to more frequent booster shots in fighting the pandemic. Asked whether he sees booster shots being administered every four to five months on a regular basis, Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla replied: “This will not be a good scenario. What I’m hoping (is) that we will have a vaccine that you will have to do once a year.”
- The UK detected 76,807 new Covid infections in the past 24 hours, a 54% drop on the 176,191 cases detected two weeks ago as the record-breaking Omicron wave appears to have spiked. The UK reported a further 297 people died within 28 days of a positive Covid test on Saturday, 3% up on the 287 deaths reported last Saturday.
- The deadline for health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 should be delayed to prevent staff shortages in England, the Royal College of GPs has said. Martin Marshall, the chairman of the college, described compulsory vaccination for health professionals as “not the right way forward”.
- The small Pacific nation of Samoa has been placed under a 48-hour nationwide lockdown after 15 passengers on a flight from Australia tested positive for Covid-19. The passengers were on a flight from Brisbane carrying 73 people, all of whom were fully vaccinated and had tested negative for Covid-19 before departure.
- Food banks across the United States are experiencing a critical shortage of volunteers driven by fears over the Omicron variant. The extent of the problem was highlighted this past week during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day national holiday, when many food banks were forced to cancel their plans or had far lower numbers than pre-pandemic years.
- Thousands of people took to the streets of Sweden’s two biggest cities, Stockholm and Gothenburg, on Saturday to protest against the use of vaccine passes. In France, hundreds of people took part in small-scale demonstrations two days before tighter restrictions come into force against unvaccinated people.
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Greece has detected two cases of an offshoot of the Omicron variant in passengers arriving at Athens international airport. The travellers, who have the BA.2 sub-variant, are in isolation. The BA.2 sub-variant, of which 426 cases have been sequenced in the UK, may have an “increased growth rate” over the earlier form of Omicron, officially designated as BA.1, according to UKHSA.
New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Arden has cancelled her wedding to partner Clarke Gayford, as the country prepares to move to red traffic light setting at midnight on Sunday.
“My wedding will not be going ahead,” she told reporters, adding she was sorry for anyone caught up in a similar scenario.
Asked how she felt about her wedding cancellation, Ardern replied: “Such is life.” She added: “I am no different to, dare I say it, thousands of other New Zealanders who have had much more devastating impacts felt by the pandemic, the most gutting of which is the inability to be with a loved one sometimes when they are gravely ill. That will far, far outstrip any sadness I experience.”
Pressure is building on the Metropolitan police from Tory MPs who want the force to investigate Downing Street’s lockdown parties regardless of the findings of the Sue Gray report this week.
Although many MPs have said that they are withholding judgment until the outcome of the Gray inquiry, some believe that the details of what is already publicly known are sufficient to merit police action.
The Met’s stance, reiterated again on Saturday, is that it is content to wait for the result of the inquiry from the senior civil servant before deciding whether to investigate if potential criminal offences are unearthed.
Since news of the first party emerged, opposition MPs have been calling for the Met to investigate, but backbench Tory MPs are now also urging the force to step in.
Martin Vickers, Conservative MP for Cleethorpes since 2010, last week told constituents that “disciplinary actions, and possibly prosecutions, should follow”.
“The truth is that none of this should have happened. I despair at the management structure in Downing Street that this could happen,” Vickers told the Observer on Saturday night.
Read the full article below:
New Zealand put under highest 'red' Covid alert setting
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed the entire country will move to the red traffic light setting at midnight on Sunday in an effort to tackle the spread of the Omicron variant.
“Omicron is now circulating in Auckland and possibly the Nelson area, if not further,” she said today.
Red is the highest level on New Zealand’s Covid traffic light system, but domestic travel can continue. Face coverings are mandatory when travelling on public transport, in retail and to an extent in education. Public facilities and retail outlets are open, with capacity limits.
Vaccine passes are legally required to enter venues such as weddings, gyms and hospitality with a maximum of 100 people. Without passes, hospitality services must remain contactless and gatherings are limited to 25 people.
When customers walk through the doors of V’s Punjabi Grill, a family-run restaurant in Gravesend in Kent, the sign above their heads says in gold-letters: cocktails, grills, events.
Now, the family may need to paint a fourth bullet point: vaccinations.
After their father, Jagtar Chopra, was hospitalised with Covid in December 2020, brothers Rav and Raj Chopra were inspired to immunise the local community from their Punjabi grill.
The brothers’ kebab shop is one of hundreds of little walk-in vaccine centres, alongside sports stadiums and shopping centres and nightclubs, that form part of the NHS’s wider vaccination programme. It opened on 10 January in a marquee attached to the restaurant and has already immunised dozens of people.
“Come down, get your jabs” to “protect everyone in society”, said Rav Chopra, who along with his brother is also a pharmacist.
Raj, 43, told the PA news agency he was inspired by the experience of his 74-year-old father, who has since fully recovered, in battling the virus.
“From a personal point of view, it was very debilitating to see Dad like that,” said Raj. “It got everyone’s emotions in play.
“To see it hit home so close to our hearts, it was a very tough pill – pardon the pun – to take. However, every cloud has a silver lining and it’s inspired us to really emphasise the job that we do, help the community and help out the fellow citizens in our home town and really try and protect as many people as we can.”
Read the full article here:
A Virginia mother was charged with making a threat on school property after she told local board members she would bring “every single gun loaded” if the district instituted a mask mandate.
Renewed mask fights were touched off this month after the new Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, issued an executive order making masks optional for students, subject to the preference of parents.
In Luray, a small town in the Shenandoah Valley, the governor’s move prompted a special board meeting on Covid-19 mitigation strategies.
At the Thursday meeting, Amelia Ruffner King, 42, told school board members: “No mask mandates – my child, my children will not come to school on Monday with masks on. That’s not happening.”
She continued: “And I will bring every single gun loaded and ready to – I will,” before she was cut off.
Food banks across the United States are experiencing a critical shortage of volunteers driven by fears over the Omicron variant, at a time when food banks are already dealing with higher food costs due to inflation and supply chain issues.
The extent of the problem was highlighted this past week during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day national holiday, when many food banks have traditionally organised mass volunteer drives as part of a day of service, Associated Press reports.
Many food banks chose to cancel their plans this year or had far lower numbers than pre-pandemic years. In Tallahassee, Florida, plans for a volunteer-driven event on the holiday were abruptly cancelled when all the volunteers dropped out.
The head of Pfizer has said that an annual Covid-19 vaccine would be preferable to more frequent booster shots in fighting the pandemic, Reuters reports.
In an interview with Israel’s N12 News, Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla was asked whether he sees booster shots being administered every four to five months on a regular basis.
“This will not be a good scenario. What I’m hoping (is) that we will have a vaccine that you will have to do once a year,” Bourla said.
“Once a year - it is easier to convince people to do it. It is easier for people to remember.”
The UK detected 76,807 new Covid infections in the past 24 hours, a 54% drop on the 176,191 cases detected two weeks ago as the record-breaking Omicron wave appears to have spiked.
The UK reported a further 297 people died within 28 days of a positive Covid test on Saturday, 3% up on the 287 deaths reported last Saturday. Over 177,000 people in the UK have Covid on their death certificate, according to the Office for National Statistics, the seventh highest tally in the world.
It comes after the health secretary, Sajid Javid, reiterated his message the UK is “learning to live with” Covid. Javid confirmed steps on Wednesday to axe virtually all Covid restrictions in England despite warnings from senior NHS figures it could provoke a resurgent wave.
Ahead of the deadline for England’s NHS workers to be vaccinated or lose their jobs on 1 April, Dr Nikki Kanani, deputy lead for the NHS Covid vaccination programme, said it’s the “duty” of staff to protect patients. Kanani’s comments were made amid protests against mandatory vaccines in London on Saturday.
Read the full article here:
France reported 389,320 new coronavirus cases today, after seeing four consecutive days with more than 400,000 new cases.
The health ministry also reported 3,746 Covid patients in intensive care units, 46 fewer than on Friday and marking the fifth day in a row that the number of patients has fallen.
Banners reading “Boot him out! - Stop Boris.com” were flown over Premier League matches held at Old Trafford in Manchester and Elland Road in Leeds.
Campaign group Open Britain told the PA news agency it had “booked the aircraft”, adding it was taking its “campaign fighting to have Boris Johnson removed from power...to the skies”.
The group said it had decided to “increase public pressure after the Prime Minister failed to step down this week” after he claimed “nobody warned me it was against the rules” for a drinks party to be hosted in Downing Street during the first lockdown.
The deadline for health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 should be delayed to prevent staff shortages in England, the Royal College of GPs has said.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Martin Marshall, the chairman of the college, described compulsory vaccination for health professionals as “not the right way forward”.
He said the vast majority of NHS staff were vaccinated, but between 70,000 and 80,000 were not, accounting for 10% of staff at some hospital or GP surgeries.
If unvaccinated staff were taken out of frontline roles by 1 April, there would be “massive consequences” for the NHS, and a delay would allow time for booster jabs and a “sensible conversation” about whether vaccines should be mandatory at all, he said.
Updated
The Fox News host Tucker Carlson has compared coronavirus vaccine mandates imposed by US President Joe Biden’s government to medical experiments conducted by Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.
“I thought that we had a kind of consensus,” he said on Friday.
“I mean, after watching what the imperial Japanese army and the Nazis did in their medical experiments, I thought that American physicians agreed that compulsory medical care was unethical, it was immoral and it could never be imposed on anyone. When did we forget that?”
Carlson’s guest, the virologist and anti-vaxxer Robert Malone, said: “Apparently about a year ago, I think yesterday” – a reference to Biden’s inauguration on 20 January 2021 – “was when we must have forgotten that, although Mr Biden prior to his election made clear statements that he wasn’t going to force vaccination.”
Carlson is vastly influential, commanding huge primetime audiences. He has promoted resistance to vaccine mandates and conspiracy theories about the effects of the shots. It is not known if he is vaccinated, but Fox News has strict rules for its staff.
Read the full article here:
Updated
Italy reported 171,263 new cases on Saturday, down from 179,106 on Friday, the health ministry said.
A further 333 deaths were also recorded, against 373 the previous day. The country’s overall toll stands at 143,296, the second-highest in Europe after the UK and the ninth highest in the world.
Updated
The small Pacific nation of Samoa has been placed under a 48-hour nationwide lockdown after 15 passengers on a flight from Australia tested positive for Covid-19.
The passengers were on a flight from Brisbane carrying 73 people, all of whom were fully vaccinated and had tested negative for Covid-19 before departure.
The prime minister, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, said government may cancel further flights from Australia. The local governor in neighbouring American Samoa announced the cancellation of flights between the territory and Samoa for a week.
Another Pacific island, Kiribati, went into lockdown on Friday after two-thirds of passengers on the first commercial flight in almost two years tested positive for Covid-19.
Updated
Thousands of people took to the streets of Sweden’s two biggest cities, Stockholm and Gothenburg, on Saturday to protest against the use of vaccine passes. Police had warned of possible clashes between neo-Nazi groups and opponents but the marches unfolded calmly, Agence France-Presse reports.
Vaccine passes have been mandatory for indoor events of more than 50 people in Sweden since 12 January. More than 83% of Swedes over the age of 12 are fully vaccinated.
In France, hundreds of people took part in small-scale demonstrations two days before tighter restrictions come into force against unvaccinated people. Although the size of protests has dropped off in recent weeks, a hard core remain angry at the country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, who has said he will continue to extend restrictions forthose who have not been vaccinated.
From Monday, a new vaccine health passport system will require those aged 16 and above to show they have been vaccinated in order to access restaurants or bars, leisure activities or use inter-regional public transport. A negative Covid test will no longer be sufficient except to access health services.
Updated
UK reports 78,807 new Covid cases and 297 deaths
According to the UK government’s daily dashboard, 641,929 people had a confirmed positive test result for Covid-19 between 16 and 22 January, a decrease of 22.2% compared with the previous seven days.
There were 1,888 deaths within 28 days of a positive test in the same period, increase of 2.4% compared with the previous seven days.
The #COVID19 Dashboard has been updated: https://t.co/XhspoyTG79
— UK Health Security Agency (@UKHSA) January 22, 2022
On 22 January 78,807 new cases and 297 deaths in 28 days of a positive test were reported in the UK.
Our data includes the number of people receiving a first, second and booster dose of the #vaccine pic.twitter.com/nv9tC5tGMe
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show there have been 177,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
Hello, I’m Léonie Chao-Fong taking over from Jedidajah Otte to bring you all the latest global development on the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Updated
This from my colleague Jason Rodrigues on anti-vaccine protests in London today:
A good few thousand anti-vaccination protestors have assembled outside BBC Broadcasting House in London today, ahead of march to Parliament. Chants of “freedom, freedom” pic.twitter.com/9icIwkXJ2P
— Jason Rodrigues (@RodriguesJasonL) January 22, 2022
Risk related to Omicron remains 'very high', WHO says
The World Health Organization issued a statement on Saturday on the Omicron variant. In an updated press briefing containing further data and study results, the WHO said:
Based on the currently available evidence, the overall risk related to Omicron remains very high.
Omicron has a significant growth advantage over Delta, leading to rapid spread in the community with higher levels of incidence than previously seen in this pandemic.
Despite a lower risk of severe disease and death following infection than previous SARS-CoV-2 variants, the very high levels of transmission nevertheless have resulted in significant increases in hospitalisation, continue to pose overwhelming demands on health care systems in most countries, and may lead to significant morbidity, particularly in vulnerable populations.
The WHO said epidemiological trends continue to show “a decoupling” between recorded case numbers, hospital admissions and deaths, compared with previous waves driven by other variants, which is likely to be the result of a combination of Omicron being milder, and the fact the vaccines are more effective at protecting against serious illness than they are against infection.
But the brief added:
However, high levels of hospital and ICU admission are nevertheless being reported in most countries, given that levels of transmission are higher than ever seen before during the pandemic.
Moreover, more data are needed to better understand how clinical markers of severity – such as the use of oxygen, mechanical ventilation, and number of deaths are associated with Omicron.
This is particularly important given that current evidence about severity and hospitalisation has largely been shared from countries with high levels of population immunity, and there remains uncertainty about the severity of Omicron in populations with both lower vaccination coverage and lower prior exposure to other variants.
Updated
A further five people who had previously tested positive for Covid-19 have died in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health has said.
Another 3,476 confirmed cases of the virus have also been logged in the last 24-hour reporting period.
Updated
Infections are on an overall upward trend in Romania, with 13,985 new cases reported on average each day. That’s 93% of the peak — the highest daily average reported on 20 October, according to the Reuters Covid-19 tracker.
On Saturday, 19,371 new Covid cases were registered, 278 less than the previous day. On Friday, the country reported a record 19,649 new daily cases.
Covid-19 vaccinations for children aged between 5 and 11 years are scheduled to start on 26 January, according to Valeriu Gheorghita, the coordinator of the national vaccination campaign.
The government is trying to combat vaccine hesitancy in the population by posting personal accounts of people who have taken up the vaccine offer on social media.
As of Friday, 7.9 million people out of a population of around 19 million have been fully vaccinated, according to the government’s vaccine task force.
In the UK, vaccines have been administered in a vast array of locations, including sports stadiums, a nightclub, and even a hot tub.
Describing how NHS teams “stop at nothing to make sure that our country is protected”, Dr Nikki Kanani, a GP and deputy lead for the NHS Covid vaccination programme, told reporters about a person with additional learning needs who was given a jab at home in a hot tub.
Kanani said there had been “incredible stories” of people taking up a dose after being given “an approach that is just much more tailored for them”. She said that while most people were able to get vaccinated at their local pharmacy, at centre or by their general practice team, “for others it’s a little bit more complicated”.
“I’m so proud of our teams, for example in Portsmouth where they’ve gone out and vaccinated people with quite complex health needs,” the GP said. “One individual was vaccinated at home in his hot tub because he has additional learning needs and it was a way of making sure that he felt safe and secure as he got his vaccination. Our teams stop at nothing to make sure that our country is protected.”
Updated
In the week that the UK health secretary, Sajid Javid, told the nation that “we must learn to live with Covid in the same way we have to live with flu”, our science correspondent Hannah Devlin reports on the fears clinically vulnerable people feel.
About 3.7 million people in England are classified as clinically extremely vulnerable, many of whom feel like a “forgotten minority” as the country axes plan B restrictions.
Read the full report here:
Updated
Greece has detected two cases of an offshoot of the Omicron variant in passengers arriving at Athens international airport.
The travellers, who have the BA.2 sub-variant, are in isolation.
The news comes as the country reported 20,507 Covid new cases, 108 deathsand 467 patients admitted to hospital with the virus.
The BA.2 sub-variant, of which 426 cases have been sequenced in the UK, may have an “increased growth rate” over the earlier form of Omicron, officially designated as BA.1, according to UKHSA. The public health body stressed, however, that there is a “low level of certainty early in the emergence of a variant”.
Hello, I’m Clea Skopeliti and I’m covering the blog while Jedidajah takes a break. Please do send any tips or coverage suggestions my way by Twitter DM or email. Thanks in advance.
Updated
The deputy lead for England’s NHS Covid vaccination programme, Dr Nikki Kanani, said on Saturday that healthcare professionals have a duty to make sure they are protected against Covid-19.
All NHS staff in England who have direct contact with patients must have had their first dose of a Covid vaccine by 3 February, and have had two jabs by 1 April, or risk losing their job at the end of March - a government policy unions fear will worsen the health service’s staffing crisis.
Kanani was asked if the NHS could cope with the possibility of losing thousands of staff over mandatory vaccination.
She told reporters:
Mandatory vaccination is a government policy but as healthcare professionals we all have a duty to make sure that we are protected, to make sure that our colleagues and our patients are protected.
I know that our teams will be doing everything they can to continue to have vaccine confidence building conversations and offering that all important vaccination to staff who are yet to have their first, second or their booster dose.
Our NHS staff have been utterly incredible. The last 24 months have been the most difficult that any of us have ever experienced and they have worked through the pandemic, they’ve delivered the most incredible vaccination programme.
I know some people are still trying to make that really important decision.
Pressed on whether patients would suffer if the NHS were to lose staff over vaccine mandate, she said:
As we’ve seen through the pandemic, and of course those days before the pandemic that we don’t even think of very often, our NHS continues to deliver.
What I want to say is to our patients who are listening - we will keep looking after you.
That’s what we do in the NHS. Our general practice teams, our pharmacy teams, our healthcare services.
We’re here for you, so don’t ever worry. The NHS is open. The NHS is there for you.
Updated
England’s public health body is investigating an offshoot of the Omicron variant known as BA.2 amid concerns that it may be even more contagious than the original.
The Financial Times reported:
The UK Health Security Agency said it was designating the Omicron offshoot a ‘variant under investigation’ because of “increasing numbers of BA.2 sequences identified both domestically and internationally”.
Early analysis suggests the BA.2 sub-variant may have an “increased growth rate” over the earlier form of Omicron, officially designated as BA.1, according to UKHSA, which stressed that there is a “low level of certainty early in the emergence of a variant”.
Moreover, BA.2 has not been named a ‘variant of concern’ — the highest risk ranking for new strains.
About 426 cases of the Omicron offshoot have been sequenced in the UK, with the first found in early December.
Updated
The daily average of reported Covid-19 infections in France is at its peak, with 320,068 newcases reported each day, according to Reuters.
The country’s constitutional council approved strict new restrictions for unvaccinated people on Friday.
The new law will exclude them from large parts of public life via a “vaccine pass” that will be introduced from Monday.
People in France have to show proof of vaccination or recovery if they want to gain entry to hospitality venues, cultural sites and sporting events or use long-distance public transport.
Other measures are to be gradually relaxed from February, however, because the French prime minister, Jean Castex, believes the country’s high vaccination rate will protect hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.
Updated
Germany reports record seven-day incidence rate
Germany’s seven-day incidence rate has risen to a high of 772.7 infections per 100,000 people, up from 706.3.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 135,461 new infections on Saturday, an increase of 57,439 on the same day a week ago, when 78,022 positive tests were reported.
It also reported a further 179 deaths, bringing the country’s total to 116,664.
At least half of the population, or about 41.7 million people, had received a Covid booster shot and at least 75.4% had received at least one vaccine dose, the RKI said. At least 73.3% have been fully vaccinated, and 24.6% remain unvaccinated.
The federal government has set a target for 80% of the population to receive at least one vaccine dose by the end of January.
Updated
The Philippines recorded 30,552 new Covid-19 infections on Saturday, as well as 97 new fatalities, bringing the death toll to 53,406.
The department of health said it was still too early to say whether Metro Manila could lower its Covid alert level from 3 to 2 next month, CNN Philippines reports.
“I think it’s too early to declare and to say to people that we will shift or deescalate to alert level 2,” health undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told a briefing on Saturday.
Vergeire said she was still working with earlier projections that cases might peak by the end of the month or by the middle of February.
Updated
Hong Kong health officials warned on Saturday of a significantly worsening Covid-19 outbreak as suspected infection numbers rose in a congested residential area.
Health authorities said on Saturday they had detected at least 130 preliminary-positive Covid-19 cases and 26 confirmed cases at a public housing estate in the Kwai Chung district north of the Kowloon peninsula.
On Friday, authorities ordered 2,700 residents of the housing block into an unprecedented 5-day lockdown.
“It’s not easy for us to control the spread because we cannot trace all their whereabouts,” senior health department official Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said, referring to the 2,700 residents as well as workers and visitors linked to the building at the centre of the outbreak.
She urged people across the city to limit their social engagements and avoid large gatherings.
Local media reports on Saturday said that officials were considering tighter city-wide restrictions but none have yet been confirmed.
Earlier this week, officials announced traces of the virus had been found on 11 hamsters, and ordered the killing of more than 2,000 of the imported animals, including any pets bought since 22 December, causing a backlash in the population.
Thousands of people have offered to hide or adopt unwanted hamsters, as local media was flooded with footage and images of crying children saying goodbye to their pets.
Unlike many other cities, Hong Kong has maintained a “zero Covid” strategy focused on eliminating the disease, with schools and gyms shut, restaurants closing at 6 pm and air travel with many major hubs severed or severely disrupted.
Poland reports record number of new infections
Poland reported a record 40,876 new daily infections on Saturday, the health ministry said, as the country’s fifth wave gathers pace.
On Friday Poland logged a record high of 36,665 new infections, with at least 1,390 cases of the Omicron variant.
Authorities have said the latest wave of the pandemic will drive case numbers to levels not yet seen in Poland, with estimates of the peak ranging from 60,000 to as many as 140,000 daily infections.
Officials are expecting the number of cases to reach more than 50,000 a day next week, a number that could begin to put unsustainable strain on the health system.
Prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned on Friday that the healthcare system will find itself under “unprecedented” pressure.
“The fifth wave of the pandemic has become a fact,” Morawiecki said. “In recent days we’ve been seeing over 30,000 new [daily] infections. These numbers must be making an impression even on those who disregarded the pandemic.”
About 57% of the 38 million strong population have been vaccinated, and circa 9 million people have received booster shots.
Updated
Russia reported a new record number of confirmed daily Covid-19 infections on Saturday, the government coronavirus taskforce said.
Daily new cases jumped to 57,212, from the previous record of 49,513 a day earlier, as the Omicron variant continues to spread.
The taskforce also reported 681 deaths.
Russia’s infections are now at about 85% of the country’s peak and rising, according to the Reuters Covid-19 tracker, with 34,378 new infections reported on average each day.
Updated
An order for UK civil servants to return to work as soon as possible has more to do with deflecting attention from prime minister Boris Johnson’s own political troubles, the head of a trade union representing senior civil servants has claimed.
Dave Penman, the FDA’s general secretary, said:
All the evidence shows that across the economy, hybrid working is being embraced, delivering efficiencies for employers and flexibility for employees.
Despite this, ministers are clinging to an ideology of presenteeism that demonstrates they are out of touch with how the world of work has changed since the pandemic began.
The Cabinet Office said measures had been put in place in government buildings to reassure staff and allow the transition back to office working, including increased ventilation and improved cleaning routines.
It added that there was no government requirement or recommendation for employers to limit capacity in the workplace.
Taiwan’s government said on Saturday restrictions would be tightened after a rare surge in domestic transmission of the Omicron variant, saying it needed to act now to prevent being overwhelmed, even though overall numbers remain quite low.
After months of no or few community infections, Taiwan has seen a small rise in local Covid-19 cases since the beginning of January, mainly linked to workers at the main international airport in the northern city of Taoyuan who were infected by arriving passengers, Reuters reports.
On Friday evening the government announced 60 new cases at a factory near the airport after testing 1,000 workers.
There have been no deaths and most of the cases have had only mild or no symptoms.
In a statement, premier Su Tseng-chang said that, even though this outbreak has brought no serious illness, steps needed to be taken. “If the pandemic cannot be contained, it will still cause a burden on the medical system,” he said.
New restrictions will include a ban on eating and drinking on public transport and limits on the number of people visiting temples, ahead of the week-long lunar new year holiday, which starts at the end of this month.
Testing will be expanded to reach the largest number of possible contacts, said the health minister, Chen Shih-chung.
“Of course we think this pandemic is threatening, so we must raise our vigilance,” he said.
Taiwan has been highly successful at controlling the pandemic due to early and strict border checks and an effective tracing system.
More than 70% of people in Taiwan have received two vaccine doses and booster shots are currently being rolled out, with about 15% of residents having received a third shot so far.
UK government civil servants have been ordered to return to the office, with government departments told to rapidly get back to “full occupancy” after the lifting of plan B Covid-19 restrictions in England.
The announcement on Friday night sets up a clash between the government and unions, who have warned against a “headlong rush” back to workplaces with coronavirus cases still high. Across the UK, 95,787 positive tests were reported on Friday.
My colleague Ben Quinn has the full story.
Ireland lifts majority of Covid restrictions
Ireland has taken a significant stride back to normality after the majority of pandemic-related curbs on society were lifted as of 6am Saturday – sooner than some had expected.
The government announced the sweeping relaxations on Friday evening, with an 8pm hospitality curfew lifted, as well as the scrapping of Covid passes that previously had to be shown in order to enter hospitality, entertainment and leisure venues.
Live events and sporting events can return to full-capacity audiences and guidance advising limits on household visits has been removed, while workers will return to offices on a staggered basis from Monday, Reuters reports.
Only a small number of restrictions remain in place: Masks still have to be worn in public places such as shops, schools and on public transport, and self-isolation rules and the use of Covid passes for international travel continue to apply.
Protective measures will remain in place in schools until at least the end of February, when they will be reviewed.
The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, stressed the pandemic was not over but that the “emergency” phase had passed.
“I want to be clear that the pandemic isn’t over – it will still require all of us to be vigilant,” he said on Friday.
But he added:
Spring is coming. I don’t know if I’ve ever looked forward to one as much as I’m looking forward to this one.
Humans are social beings and we Irish are more social than most.
As we look forward to this spring, we need to see each other again. We need to see each other smile. We need to sing again.
As we navigate this new phase of Covid, it is time to be ourselves again.
Tokyo logs record daily cases for fourth consecutive day
Hello everyone, I’m Jedidajah Otte and will be bringing you the latest developments in all things pandemic over the next few hours.
If there’s anything you think is relevant for our coverage, you can message me on Twitter @JedySays or drop me an email.
Tokyo on Saturday recorded 11,227 new daily Covid-19 infections, the highest daily tally for the fourth consecutive day amid a continued rapid spread of the Omicron variant.
The local government has reinstated restrictions that are due to run until 13 February.
On Friday, the number of severely ill Covid-19 patients in Japan reached 404, up by 117 from a day before, the health ministry said, as it issued fast-track approval for the Pfizer vaccine for children aged 5 to 11, with the government preparing to kick-start the rollout in March, the Japan Times reported.
