That’s all from me, Samantha Lock, for today.
We will be launching another live Covid blog a little later today but in the meantime you can catch up with all the latest developments here.
Thanks for following along and, as always, I appreciate your tips and reader insights. You can email me at samantha.lock@theguardian.com or via Twitter @Samantha__Lock
Summary of key developments
Here are all the international Covid updates from today:
Europe:
-
Boris Johnson said he welcomes a police inquiry into Downing Street parties and will help “draw a line” under matters. Earlier, Metropolitan police said they would begin investigating parties held at No 10 during coronavirus lockdowns. The development piles further pressure on the prime minister after fresh revelations of two more gatherings, including one to celebrate his birthday.
- Sue Gray’s inquiry report is reportedly set to come this week after the Met said there is no need to hold material back.
- The UK reported 439 deaths within 28 days of a Covid-positive test. That’s the highest tally since February 2021. Tuesday’s data showed 94,326 new daily cases. The figures are often higher on a Tuesday when most deaths at the weekend are included in the tally. Last Tuesday, 438 deaths were reported.
- The UK’s health secretary, Sajid Javid, said 77,000 NHS workers remain unvaccinated, and Covid policies – including on mandatory jabs for NHS staff – should be kept “under review”.
- Scotland will allow people to return to offices from Monday, in a “phased” plan announced by Nicola Sturgeon. The first minister asked employers to begin a phased return to work by introducing hybrid working next week after a continuing decline in Omicron variant cases in Scotland, in an update to MSPs at Holyrood.
- Italy’s daily cases have more than doubled in a day to 186,740. This is up from 77,696 a day earlier, the health ministry said. The number of deaths jumped to 468 from 352, though more tests had been taken in the past day than on Monday.
- In Germany, the anti-vaccination movement is ramping up, with thousands of people taking part in weekly protests across the country. More than 2,000 rallies were held on Monday.
-
Russia has cut the isolation time for Covid contacts from 14 days to seven, amid a surge in infections driven by the Omicron variant. On Tuesday, daily cases reached the record high of 67,809, official figures show.
- Doctors have discovered an “antibody signature” that can help identify patients most at risk of developing long Covid.
- Malta will start to scrap a requirement for people to present a vaccination certificate for entry to restaurants and other venues from next month.
- Bars, restaurants and theatres in the Netherlands can reopen on 26 January, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, further relaxing restrictions despite record infection levels.
United States:
- The US Department of Labor said it will withdraw its Covid-19 vaccine-and-testing requirement for large employers after the Supreme Court blocked the rule.
Asia:
- South Korea’s daily count of new cases topped 8,000 for the first time, despite the recent extension of strict social-distancing rules.* Two years since its first infection, Australia recorded one of its highest number of Covid-related deaths in a day.
- Japan expanded regions subject to tighter curbs to cover 70% of the country, as the government tried to counter a record wave of Covid-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant.
Middle East:
- An Israeli government advisory panel has recommended offering a fourth vaccine dose to all adults, on condition that at least five months have passed since they received the third or recovered from the illness.
Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, have begun testing a vaccine specifically designed to fight the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the companies have announced.
Elton John has postponed two farewell concert dates in Dallas, Texas, after contracting Covid-19.
The singer was reportedly vaccinated and boosted.
According to a statement, John is experiencing “only mild symptoms”.
“Elton and the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour look forward to returning to the stage shortly.”
John was due to hit the American Airlines Centre stage in Dallas on 25 January and 26 January but fans “should hold on to their tickets as they will be honoured at the rescheduled dates to be announced soon.”
John’s rescheduled 2020 North American tour kicked off on Jan. 19 in New Orleans and was scheduled to make stops in Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, New York and Miami.
John previously said he was postponing European dates on his world tour until 2023 so that he can have an operation on an injured hip.
Judge restores New York’s mask mandate
An appeals judge has temporarily restored New York’s mask mandate on Tuesday, a day after a judge in a lower court ruled that Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration lacked the constitutional authority to order people to wear face coverings.
Judge Robert Miller in New York City granted the state’s request for a stay of a Long Island judge’s ruling while the governor’s administration pursues an appeal, the Associated Press reports.
Arguing before Miller on Tuesday, Judith Vale, an attorney for the state, said judge Thomas Rademaker’s earlier ruling would “radically disrupt the status quo” and endanger the health of students and staff at schools.
The state’s court filing read:
The order, if not stayed will allow individuals to refuse to wear face coverings in indoor public settings where the risk of Covid-19 spread is high, including in schools where many children remain unvaccinated against Covid-19.”
Attorney Chad Laveglia, who brought the challenge on behalf of a group of parents, vowed to take the challenge “as far as it needs to go.”
“The judge got it wrong entirely. It’s so blatantly unconstitutional to grant a stay whatsoever,” he said.
It’s Samantha Lock with you on the blog again as we catch up with all the latest Covid headlines.
My colleagues in the UK have been busy covering all the latest on the Downing Street parties with the Sue Gray report expected to be released shortly.
You can follow all the live coverage here.
As I’m reporting to you from Sydney, here’s a snapshot of how Covid is unfolding across Australia. The country’s most populous state of NSW is expected to report its one-millionth infection of the pandemic today. Half of those cases were added in the last two weeks and more than 90% of them in the last two months. State premier Dominic Perrottet announced that reintroduced restrictions for mask use, hospitality density limits and bans on singing and dancing – due to end on Thursday – would be extended until the end of February in a bid to suppress the spread of Omicron as children return to school.
He said extending restrictions to February 28 was “the right approach” as it would suppress the spread of Omicron ahead of increased movement once schools return next week, he said.
A total of 73 Covid deaths were recorded across Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
Summary
Here are the global Covid updates from today:
- Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, have begun testing a vaccine specifically designed to fight the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the companies have announced.
-
Boris Johnson said he welcomes a police inquiry into Downing Street parties and will help “draw a line” under matters. Earlier, Metropolitan police said they would begin investigating parties held at No 10 during coronavirus lockdowns. The development piles further pressure on the prime minister after fresh revelations of two more gatherings, including one to celebrate his birthday.
- Sue Gray’s inquiry report is reportedly set to come this week after the Met said there is no need to hold material back.
- The UK reported 439 deaths within 28 days of a Covid-positive test. That’s the highest tally since February 2021. Tuesday’s data showed 94,326 new daily cases. The figures are often higher on a Tuesday when most deaths at the weekend are included in the tally. Last Tuesday, 438 deaths were reported.
- The UK’s health secretary, Sajid Javid, said 77,000 NHS workers remain unvaccinated, and Covid policies – including on mandatory jabs for NHS staff – should be kept “under review”.
- Scotland will allow people to return to offices from Monday, in a “phased” plan announced by Nicola Sturgeon. The first minister asked employers to begin a phased return to work by introducing hybrid working next week after a continuing decline in Omicron variant cases in Scotland, in an update to MSPs at Holyrood.
- Italy’s daily cases have more than doubled in a day to 186,740. This is up from 77,696 a day earlier, the health ministry said. The number of deaths jumped to 468 from 352, though more tests had been taken in the past day than on Monday.
- In Germany, the anti-vaccination movement is ramping up, with thousands of people taking part in weekly protests across the country. More than 2,000 rallies were held on Monday.
-
Russia has cut the isolation time for Covid contacts from 14 days to seven, amid a surge in infections driven by the Omicron variant. On Tuesday, daily cases reached the record high of 67,809, official figures show.
- Doctors have discovered an “antibody signature” that can help identify patients most at risk of developing long Covid.
- The US Department of Labor said it will withdraw its Covid-19 vaccine-and-testing requirement for large employers after the Supreme Court blocked the rule.
That’s all from me, folks. Thanks for joining the feed today. We’re going to pause the global Covid blog for a while, but do head over to our politics live page which will keep running updates on “partygate” and more …
Updated
When pressed on the issue of mandatory jabs for NHS staff, Sajid Javid said Covid policies should be kept “under review”.
The health secretary said patient safety was the principle behind the decision to make jabs mandatory, but noted that this was decided when Delta was the dominant variant.
Javid told the health and social care committee: “That was the principle and we weighed it up. The dominant variant at the time was Delta, that was the dominant variant. The dominant variant now, in fact, almost all cases, are Omicron.”
Javid said people had “made representations” to him about Omicron being “very different” to Delta, suggesting while the former is more transmissible it is “intrinsically less severe”.
He said: “I think it is right in light of Omicron that we reflect on all this and keep all Covid policies properly under review. Because Omicron is different to Delta. Equally, we don’t know what the next variant is going to be.”
Updated
Health secretary Sajid Javid says 77,000 NHS workers remain unvaccinated
Sajid Javid has said about 77,000 NHS workers have not been jabbed. He added it was the “professional duty of every NHS worker to get vaccinated”.
Javid told the health and social care committee:
Even before the mandate, the vast majority had [been jabbed]. Since the mandate, since we announced a consultation in September, we’ve had around 100,000 in the NHS that were unvaccinated at that point that have come forward. So there’s been a very good response.
I think now almost 95% of NHS workers that have had at least one jab. The latest numbers I have is that around 77,000 that have not. That is improving every day.
I think it’s also reasonable to assume that not everyone ultimately is going to come forward.
He said the NHS was asking trusts to set out the estimations for the staff who “will ultimately just not come forward, and then to break down what kind of roles they are and see how they would manage that”.
Updated
Russia has cut the isolation time for Covid contacts from 14 days to seven, amid a surge in infections driven by the Omicron variant. On Tuesday, daily cases reached the record high of 67,809, official figures show.
AP reports:
The prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, announced the new rules apply to those who had close contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid, not for those with a confirmed infection. Those who have Covid are still required to isolate for 14 days, with a mandatory test on day 10 or 11.
Daily new infections in Russia have been rising sharply for the past two weeks, increasing more than four-fold – from about 15,000 on 10 January to 67,809 on Tuesday, the highest daily tally in the pandemic.
However, according to health minister, Mikhail Murashko, there has been no significant increase in hospitalisations nationwide. Hospital admissions grew by 6.4%.
About 116,000 Covid patients were being treated in hospitals on Tuesday, leaving about 50,000 remaining hospital beds unoccupied.
According to Anna Popova, head of Russia’s public healthcare watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, more than half of all new infections have hit the capital, Moscow, and St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
The surge in Moscow, which reported nearly 19,000 new cases on Tuesday, has put a strain on the city’s outpatient clinics. Social media users have posted long lines of people waiting to see a doctor. Moscow mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, said that the influx of patients to outpatient facilities has grown four-fold.
Updated
In Germany, protests against Covid rules are escalating, with more than 2,000 rallies being held across the country on Monday alone.
Our Berlin correspondent Kate Connolly takes us to the heart of the action:
On Monday evening at 7pm people emerged from dimly lit side streets and gathered on the Oberkirchplatz square in Cottbus for what has become a weekly ritual in towns and cities across Germany: a protest against coronavirus restrictions.
The demonstrations have grown in strength as cases of the Omicron variant have surged, and in recent weeks a looming decision on bringing in a vaccine mandate has become the focus of protesters’ ire.
In Cottbus, a university city south-east of Berlin, a familiar pattern played out. Moments after the protest started, police declared over megaphone that it was illegal – the participants did not wear masks or physically distance from each other. Groups then broke away and began the Spaziergänge, walks that snake in a variety of directions and are designed to overwhelm any police response.
“I just want my freedom back,” said one woman. Another younger woman said she was trying to stop the government from forcibly vaccinating her nine-year-old, though there is currently no plan to oblige parents to have children vaccinated. A physiotherapist, one of the few protesters who was wearing a mask, said she was fearful of losing her job if she refused to get vaccinated under plans for a mandate for medical staff due to be introduced next month.
Asked why there was need for resistance, Maik, a landscape gardener who refused to wear a mask – calling them “chin nappies” – said: “When injustice becomes law, resistance is our duty.”
Updated
The US Department of Labor said on Tuesday it will scrap its Covid-19 vaccine-and-testing requirement for large employers after the Supreme Court blocked the rule.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court had ruled against president Joe Biden’s vaccine and testing mandate aimed at large businesses, but it allowed a vaccine mandate for certain health care workers to go into effect nationwide.
Biden’s controversial mandate for large employers – requiring workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 or undergo weekly testing and wear a mask on the job – was designed to convince hesitant Americans to get their shots.
But the court’s conservative majority concluded the administration overstepped its authority by seeking to impose the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (Osha) vaccine-or-test rule on US businesses with at least 100 employees. More than 80 million people would have been affected.
Back to Downing Street parties now...Sue Gray’s report into the events could arrive at No 10 tonight, said Pippa Crerar, the Daily Mirror’s political editor. It’s up to the prime minister, Boris Johnson, when the report will be made public.
NEW: Sources tell me that No 10 is now expecting Sue Gray report at some point TONIGHT.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) January 25, 2022
On a day of timetable twists and turns, the final decision on publication is in hands of PM.
But expectation is it will be released in full. https://t.co/T2SomBRmoT
No 10 has always said it expects to release the report to MPs, and to the public, soon after receiving it from Gray and her team.
ITV’s Robert Peston has also been told that the Sue Gray report is set for publication within the next 24 hours.
There’s plenty to digest from the Guardian’s lobby journalists, who have been documenting the day’s twists and turns:
Italy's daily cases more than double in a day to 186,740
Italy recorded 186,740 Covid-linked cases on Tuesday. This is up from 77,696 a day earlier, the health ministry said. The number of deaths jumped to 468 from 352, though more tests had been taken in the past day than on Monday.
Some 1.4m Covid tests were carried out in the past 24 hours, compared with a previous 519,293, the health ministry added.
Italy has registered 144,343 deaths linked to the virus since its outbreak emerged in February 2020, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the ninth highest in the world. The country has reported 10.2m cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid – not including those in intensive care – stood at 20,027 on Tuesday, increasing from 19,862 a day earlier.
This makes for bleak reading considering yesterday, a health official said Italy has reached a peak in the number of Omicron infections with cases of the variant now declining.
Covid emergency commissioner Francesco Paolo Figliuolo told journalists in Milan:
There is good news: it seems that we have reached the plateau of the curve for what concerns Omicron and it is going downhill.
In the past two days, even in Lombardy [where death rates are highest] the number of admissions to the hospital is lower than the number of discharged. This bodes well.
Updated
Western Australia, which has mostly dodged the virus by sealing itself off from the rest of the world, has scrapped plans to reopen next month due to fears of Omicron spreading. But experts say more public health measures are needed to ease the burden of staff shortages.
The president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Omar Khorshid, said:
It takes something to be really on the horizon for you to understand how urgent it is to actually prepare. One of the good things about the 5 February date was it focused the health system’s collective mind on getting ready. You could finally see some action.
Now the 5 February border reopening has once again been delayed Khorshid is concerned some of that earlier momentum will be lost and may lead to a false sense of security. But with Covid-19 already spreading in the community, Khorshid said it was only a matter of time before health plans would need to swing into action.
On Sunday the state’s health minister, Amber-Jade Sanderson, conceded it would not be possible to eliminate Covid in WA. The premier, Mark McGowan, said the delay in border reopening was to give people more time to get their booster shot.
But Khorshid said borders should be opened to help address critical health worker shortages. At the same time, he wanted public health measures like venue density limits and social distancing to be introduced to slow spread and reduce the health system burden.
Guardian Australia’s medical editor, Melissa Davey, has the latest:
Long Covid: doctors find ‘antibody signature’ for patients most at risk
Our science editor, Ian Sample, sheds light on an antibody signature that may help doctors identify who is most at risk of long Covid:
Doctors have discovered an “antibody signature” that can help identify patients most at risk of developing long Covid, a condition where debilitating symptoms of the disease can persist for many months.
Researchers at University hospital Zurich analysed blood from Covid patients and found that low levels of certain antibodies were more common in those who developed long Covid than in patients who swiftly recovered.
When combined with the patient’s age, details of their Covid symptoms and whether or not they had asthma, the antibody signature allowed doctors to predict whether people had a moderate, high or very high risk of developing long-term illness. Onur Boyman, a professor of immunology who led the research, said:
Overall, we think that our findings and identification of an immunoglobulin signature will help early identification of patients that are at increased risk of developing long Covid, which in turn will facilitate research, understanding and ultimately targeted treatments for long Covid.
Although there is no effective cure for long Covid, being able to work out who is most at risk could help doctors direct patients to clinical trials for long Covid therapies and arrange early rehabilitation.
Another hope is that early identification of long Covid patients will help doctors work out what causes the condition in particular people. Researchers have proposed several possible drivers, from long-term damage wrought by the virus to a misfiring immune system and pockets of virus hiding out in the body.
Updated
The UK reports 439 deaths – the highest total in 11 months
In the last 24 hours, 94,326 people have tested positive and 439 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test, the government said.
This is up from 88,447 new Covid cases and 56 deaths within 28 days of a positive test recorded a day earlier.
Updated
Scotland allows 'partial return' to work from Monday
Our Scotland editor, Severin Carrell, reports from Holyrood:
Scottish office workers will be allowed to return to their desks from Monday after Nicola Sturgeon lifted strict guidance urging non-essential staff to work from home.
The first minister asked employers to begin a phased return to work by introducing hybrid working next week after a continuing decline in Omicron variant cases in Scotland, in an update to MSPs at Holyrood.
Sturgeon also announced an easing of face mask rules from Friday. People not wearing face coverings, such as church ministers, will be able to stand one metre away from other people rather than 2m.
School pupils must still wear face coverings in class, however, despite calls from the Conservatives and others for that regulation to be lifted. Sturgeon said cases numbers in under-15 year olds had grown 41% in Scotland since the return of schools, despite significant reductions in all other age groups.
Sturgeon has faced significant pressure from businesses and opposition parties to lift Scotland’s stricter Covid measures, which heavily hit spending in shops, bars and restaurants over the Christmas and Hogmanay holidays.
Sturgeon insisted the tougher rules were proportionate and had helped suppress the Omicron wave far more effectively than in England.
“We would not expect to see a wholesale return to the office next week – indeed, given that the level of infection, though falling, remains high, a mass return at this stage is likely to set progress back,” Sturgeon said.
“But we know there are many benefits to both employees and employers, and to the economy as a whole, in at least a partial return to the office at this stage.”
Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, said Sturgeon was still unnecessarily controlling what people could do. “While some people will still want to work from home, why doesn’t the first minister leave that decision up to employers and workers?” he asked.
In the week to 21 January, 704 people were admitted to hospital with Covid, compared to 1,026 in the previous week. The number of Covid-positive people in intensive care had fallen to 49 from a total of 59 people last Tuesday.
Updated
In pictures: the City of London returns to the office after easing of Covid rules
Updated
PA report that Covid guidance in Scotland that required people to work from home where possible is being ditched in favour of hybrid working.
Nicola Sturgeon said the “significantly improved situation”, with cases of coronavirus falling, meant the changes could be made.
She announced the current guidance on working from home, which had been strengthened after the emergence of the Omicron variant, was being updated.
The first minister said: “Instead of recommending home working whenever practical, the new guidance will pave the way for a phased return to the office.
“It will recommend that, from Monday 31 January, employers should consider implementing hybrid working, following appropriate guidance, with workers spending some time in the office and some time at home.”
However, she warned that a “mass return” to offices was “likely to set progress back”.
Other changes will mean adults taking part in organised activities with children will no longer need to wear face coverings. But staff and pupils in secondary schools will still need to wear face coverings.
Tokyo has reported a record high of Covid cases, as Japan prepares to roll out fresh curbs amid surging infections driven by the Omicron spread.
AP reports:
The capital city logged 12,813 new cases, while Osaka, Japan’s second business hub, also reported a record caseload of 8,612.
Rising infections have begun to disrupt hospitals, schools and other sectors in some areas.
“We must do everything not to overwhelm the medical systems, so the lives that can be saved will not be lost,” the economy revitalisation minister, Daishiro Yamagiwa, who is also in charge of Covid measures, told reporters.
Nationwide, more than 62,000 virus cases were reported, according to Japanese media, for an accumulated total of about 2.2m cases and some 18,500 deaths.
Large swathes of the country – including Tokyo and other metropolitan areas such as Osaka and Kyoto – will be placed under new restrictions from Thursday, with shortened hours for bars and restaurants and curbs on large public events.
Updated
Inflation and Omicron will dent world growth in 2022, says IMF
Our economics editor, Larry Elliott, reports on the dampened outlook for the global economy:
The International Monetary Fund has sharply cut its growth forecast for 2022 with a warning that higher-than-expected inflation and the Omicron variant have worsened the outlook for the global economy.
In a quarterly update to predictions made in October 2021, the IMF said it anticipated growth of 4.4% this year – down 0.5 percentage points – and emphasised the risks were of a weaker performance.
The Washington-based organisation blamed the downgrade on rising cost pressures and the rapid spread of Omicron, and said while the 2022 outlook was markedly worse for the world’s two biggest economies – the US and China – few countries would be spared a slowdown.
Photograph: Erik Pendzich/REX/Shutterstock
The UK is expected to grow by 4.7% in 2022, a cut of 0.3 points to the IMF’s forecast in its October 2021 World Economic Outlook. Despite the reduction, the IMF anticipates the UK growing faster this year than the other six members of the G7 industrial nations – the US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Canada.
“News of the Omicron variant led to increased mobility restrictions and financial market volatility at the end of 2021. Supply disruptions have continued to weigh on activity”, the IMF said, noting bottlenecks had shaved between 0.5% and 1% off global growth in 2021.
Updated
Johnson welcomes police inquiry into lockdown parties and says it will ‘draw line’ under affair
Let’s turn to Boris Johnson who is making his statement to MPs about the Russian threat to Ukraine. My colleague Andrew Sparrow has live updates.
Johnson says he commissioned the investigation into events in Downing Street. That involved sharing information with the police continuously.
I believe this will help to give the public the clarity it needs and help to draw a line under matters.
But Johnson says he also wants to assure people that the government is focused “100% on dealing with the people’s priorities”, including defending freedom around the world.
Johnson said:
A few weeks ago I commissioned an independent inquiry into a series of events in Downing Street, in the Cabinet Office as well as some other Whitehall departments that may have constituted potential breaches of the Covid regulations.
That process has quite properly involved sharing information continuously with the Metropolitan police, so I welcome the Met’s decision to conduct its own investigation because I believe this will help to give the public the clarity it needs and help to draw a line under matters.
But I want to reassure the House and the country, that I and the whole government are focused 100% on dealing with the people’s priorities, including the UK’s leading role in protecting freedom around the world.
Updated
A Covid outbreak has hit an Australian aid ship bound for virus-free Tonga.
Twenty-three Covid cases were found among sailors onboard an Australian warship expected to arrive in Tonga on Wednesday to deliver humanitarian aid, Australian authorities said on Tuesday. There are more than 600 crew onboard, who are all fully-vaccinated.
The Australian Associated Press reports:
The Department of Defence confirmed the positive cases and close contacts were isolating as per Covid-safe protocols, adding the ship would continue on to Tonga and arrive off its coast early Wednesday morning.
HMAS Adelaide would fulfil its mission to support the relief effort, with humanitarian and medical supplies, engineering equipment and helicopters on board, the department said in a statement.
“Defence recognises the Covid-free status of Tonga, and will ensure the humanitarian supplies and equipment on board are delivered in a Covid-safe manner,” it said.
HMAS Adelaide has “excellent” medical facilities on board and a 40-bed hospital. The recorded positive cases are mild or asymptomatic.
The Australian defence minister, Peter Dutton, said the government was working with Tonga to ensure no threat to the Pacific nation.
“They need the aid desperately but they don’t want the risk of Covid,” the minister told Sky News. We will work through all of that as quickly as we can. We are not going to put the Tongan population at risk.”
It is the second aid shipment from Australia where a positive case has turned up. A C-17 plane turned around mid-flight after someone was diagnosed with Covid-19.
Updated
What does the police inquiry into alleged parties mean for Boris Johnson?
Earlier, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, said officers are investigating events where lockdown rules were allegedly broken. The move is a significant change of tack by the Met, which previously said its policy was not to undertake retrospective investigations of lockdown breaches.
What will this mean for the Sue Gray inquiry?
The pivotal inquiry by Gray was expected to be published late this week. But publication will now be delayed until the Met has concluded its investigation, according to sources, which could take weeks. No timeline has been given.
Many MPs were awaiting the results of the Gray inquiry before deciding whether to submit letters of no confidence in the prime minister.
How serious is this development for the prime minister?
Very. The investigation raises the prospect of sanctions for Johnson and his staff if regulations are found to have been breached. Dick raised the prospect of fixed penalty notices being issued for some, but not all, of those attending, depending on the conclusions of the investigation.
The launch of a criminal inquiry and delay of the Gray report could create breathing space for Boris Johnson. Some commentators are already arguing the moves will be a form of reprieve for the prime minister, with interest and fury waning by the time the findings are published.
But it could also spur MPs to submit their letters now. A total of 54 letters would trigger a no-confidence vote, and the prime minister would be forced to resign if 180 or more MPs vote against him in a secret ballot.
Updated
Hospitals in the Czech Republic are recording a surge in Covid patients as the Omicron variant spreads through the country.
According to figures released by health ministry, the number of hospitalised people with Covid jumped to 1,695 on Monday, up from 1,537 the previous day.
It had been declining since 6 December when the previous wave, caused by the Delta variant, peaked at 7,135 people needing hospital treatment.
Anticipating the surge, the government has shortened the isolation period for those testing positive for Covid-19 from 14 to five days, and also similarly cut the quarantine time for close contacts of infected people.
Czech doctors, nurses and care home workers are allowed to keep working even if they have Covid, the government announced on 14 January. Those who are infected but are required to keep working will only be allowed to go from home to the workplace and back.
Updated
School leaders want the government in England to look again at how exams will be graded this year, as Covid continues to tear through classrooms in England.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “Schools are struggling to keep things running with nearly 10% of their staff off on average – but for some this is much higher. Our members are repeatedly telling us that they are having to drop everything to find cover and that just keeping things going is a challenge.
“This disruption is putting huge pressure on students in exam years. The government needs to look again at its plans and do more to reassure students that exams can be fair and will take into account differences in missed learning.”
In pictures: Tight controls in Beijing, a week before the Winter Olympics begin
One in 20 pupils in England absent with Covid last week
Our education editor Richard Adams gives us a schools update:
The Department for Education’s latest attendance figures show that more than 5% of state school pupils in England were absent for Covid-related reasons (previously 3.9%), almost all with confirmed or suspected infections. That accounts for 374,000 pupils.
The figures estimate 9% of teachers were off – half with Covid. Concerns over children’s safeguarding and education are being raised as attendance in both primary and secondary schools slips to below 90%.
Updated
Pfizer-BioNTech launches Omicron vaccine trial
Pfizer and BioNTech have begun enrolment for a clinical trial to test the safety and immune response of their Omicron-specific Covid-19 vaccine in adults aged up to 55, the companies said in a statement on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, the chief executive of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, said an Omicron vaccine would be ready to file for regulatory approval by March, and the company was already manufacturing doses.
AFP reports:
Pfizer’s head of vaccine research, Kathrin Jansen, said in a statement that while current data showed that boosters against the original Covid strain continued to protect against severe outcomes with Omicron, the company was acting out of caution.
“We recognise the need to be prepared in the event this protection wanes over time and to potentially help address Omicron and new variants in the future,” she said.
Uğur Şahin, chief executive of the German biotech company BioNTech, added the protection of the original vaccine against mild and moderate Covid appeared to wane more rapidly against Omicron.
“This study is part of our science-based approach to develop a variant-based vaccine that achieves a similar level of protection against Omicron as it did with earlier variants but longer duration of protection.”
The trial will involve 1,420 people aged 18-55.
A spokesperson for Pfizer said that it did not include people older than 55 because the goal of the study was to examine the immune response of participants dosed, rather than estimate vaccine efficacy.
The trial is taking place across the United States and South Africa, and the first participant was dosed in North Carolina.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first Covid shot to be approved in western states, in December 2020. Because it is based on messenger RNA technology, it is relatively easy to update to reflect the genetic code of new variants.
Updated
Public health academics at Imperial College London have warned that people with Covid should be careful not to end their isolation too early.
Since last Monday, people with Covid in England have been able to leave isolation after five full days, provided their lateral flow test shows up negative on both day five and day six and they do not have a temperature.
But a new research paper by Imperial College’s Azeem Majeed, professor of primary care and public health, and Dr Michael Soljak, public health researcher and consultant, says Covid-positive cases should not just rely on the results of the lateral flow tests to decide when they can leave isolation. Their take home message is: “Base your recovery on how you feel and not just on your test results.”
In an accompanying Imperial blog post, they write:
Some people will remain infectious after five days, so there are risks from this policy. A lateral flow test will identify many of the people who are infectious but some will be missed by the tests.
It’s essential therefore that people also focus on their symptoms and not just rely on the results of their lateral flow tests. We need to remember the expression that doctors have: “Treat the patient and not the test result.”
If you remain unwell after five days – for example, if you have a high temperature or a bad cough – you should continue to isolate. Although many people of working age will have a mild infection – particularly if fully vaccinated – some people will have a more prolonged illness.
The government does not mention cough as one of the symptoms that should lead to a longer isolation period – probably because a cough can persist for some time after a respiratory infection. If you feel well and have a mild cough, that is acceptable. But if you have a severe cough, you should consider extending your isolation period to longer than five days.
Updated
The saga of Downing Street parties rumbles on. Sue Gray’s report into “partygate” will now be delayed, according to the FT’s Sebastian Payne.
NEW: Sue Gray's investigation into Partygate *HAS* been delayed and won't be published this week due to Met announcement.
— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) January 25, 2022
One senior Whitehall official says, "it won't be this week."
Cab Off spox: "The investigation being carried out by Sue Gray is continuing. "
As Andrew Sparrow writes in our politics blog, we’re still unsure how long the Gray report will be delayed. In the Commons two weeks ago Michael Ellis, a Cabinet Office minister, told MPs that if there was a police investigation, the Gray report might be shelved until the police inquiry had concluded.
“If evidence emerges of what was a potentially criminal offence the matter would be referred to the Metropolitan police and the Cabinet Office’s work may be paused,” he said.
But in any case, Labour aren’t loosening their tight hold on partygate.The deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has issued a statement saying she does not see how Boris Johnson can continue as prime minister in the light of the investigation. She said: “We welcome this investigation by the Metropolitan police. Millions of people are struggling to pay the bills, but Boris Johnson and his government are too wrapped up in scandal to do anything about it.
“Boris Johnson is a national distraction. Conservative MPs should stop propping him up and he should finally do the decent thing and resign.”
Updated
A quick snap from Reuters: Denmark is expected to scrap all Covid restrictions by the end of this month, Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten reported on Tuesday citing several sources. It is believed the prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, will announce the changes tomorrow.
The Netherlands is also expected to lift Covid rules later today, despite record numbers of infections.
Updated
Investigators in South Africa have flagged Covid contracts worth about 2.1bn rand (£102m) for possible corruption and fraud, a report into Covid-linked corruption showed.
The country’s Special Investigating Unit (SIU), an independent statutory body accountable to parliament and the president, led the inquiry. It has referred 224 officials in government for disciplinary action after finding 2,803 contracts were irregular.
Reuters reports:
President Cyril Ramaphosa authorised the investigation into his government’s coronavirus spending in 2020 following a spate of scandals that caused public outrage.
The SIU had said previously that it had uncovered instances where personal protective equipment was overpriced, procurement rules flouted and services not delivered despite money being paid.
In a statement accompanying the SIU’s final report on Tuesday, Ramaphosa’s office said: “It is unacceptable that so many contracts associated with saving lives and protecting livelihoods were irregular, unlawful or fraudulent.”
The 2.1bn rand of contracts under suspicion have been enrolled in the special tribunal, which is mandated to recover public funds lost through corruption, fraud and illicit money flows, the report said.
The SIU identified some of those officials facing accusations and estimated that the value of cash and assets to be recovered was around 552m rand.
South Africa has reported more Covid cases and deaths than any other country on the African continent after being hit by four infection waves.
Earlier, UN data highlighted the colossal number of children who have lost out on their schooling during the pandemic – a “nearly insurmountable” figure. In South Africa, schoolchildren are between 75% and a whole school year behind where they should be, with up to 500,000 having dropped out of school altogether between March 2020 and October 2021.
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Greetings from London! I’m Georgina Quach and I’ll be at the helm for the next eight hours. Please contact me with any tips and stories @georginaquach on Twitter, or georgina.quach@theguardian.com. All contributions welcome!
Elaine Simons, a 61-year-old substitute art teacher in the Seattle, Washington area, was on a 10-month contract and hoping to settle into a more permanent role at the school where she was teaching when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the US in March 2020.
Her school shut down for the remainder of the school year, with Simons having to pack up her classroom and learn to navigate the technology necessary to teach remotely. In June 2020, Simons was informed her teaching contract would not be renewed.
About 5.7 million workers ages 55 or older lost their jobs in the US in March and April 2020, 15% of workers in an age demographic that has also experienced the vast majority of Covid-19 deaths. The unemployment rate for workers ages 65 and older hit a record rate of 7.5% in 2020.
Simons was able to find a summer teaching position but had to file for unemployment assistance before the fall 2020 school year began. Since then, she has switched back and forth between taking periods of substitute teaching jobs whenever they’re available, and reverting to unemployment during periods where she’s been unable to find work.
She found, despite claims of substitute teacher shortages, that longer term substitute contract positions weren’t being offered, and older workers at higher risk for Covid-19 like herself aren’t willing to take substitute gigs day by day, at various different schools without any compensation for quarantine if they catch or are exposed to Covid-19. Simons is fully vaccinated and boosted, but still worried about catching Covid-19 and exposing her elderly mother, whom she helps care for.
Read more of Michael Sainato’s report from Florida here: Too young to retire but at risk for Covid, older Americans struggle to find work
Updated
Met police commissioner says 'number of events' at No 10 and Whitehall being investigated
Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, is appearing now before the London assembly’s police and crime committee, and has confirmed there is a criminal investigation into parties at No 10 and Whitehall.
She says she can now confirm that the Met is investigating “a number of events that took place at Downing Street and Whitehall in the last two years in relation to potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations”.
She says other cases are not being investigated because they do not meet the threshold for criminal investigation. The police will not give a running commentary, she says.
Follow the latest here with Andrew Sparrow:
Updated
Prof Sir Andrew Pollard is director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, University of Oxford. He writes for us today, saying that vaccines will always be our best weapon against Covid:
We don’t yet know exactly how the future of Covid-19 will manifest. Perhaps Covid-19 will decline and then return in regular seasonal waves, as with RSV and influenza. It is also possible that outbreaks at other times of year will continue, but get less spiky due to higher levels of immunity in the population.
Have we learned how to fight back? Yes. What has changed most dramatically over the past 12 months is not the virus, but us. Immunity is the armour that means we can now walk the streets again. Vaccines have changed the world. But we must accept that protection against infection is, and will continue to be, incomplete. Over time, as the armour wears thinner, infections will occur again. But protection against severe disease will be largely maintained. We should not expect to return to the vulnerable situation we were in before the vaccines were first made, where we had to hide behind closed doors. (At least, not until the next pandemic, with a new disease, for which we must be better prepared.)
This is why the next phase of the battle against Covid-19 must involve making vaccination available everywhere during 2022. With the huge increase in global capacity since the first doses were give 13 months ago, there really is no excuse for failure.
Read more here: Andrew Pollard – Vaccines will always be our best weapon against Covid – here’s how to deploy them
The scale of the number of children who have lost out on their schooling during the pandemic is “nearly insurmountable”, according to UN data.
Up to 70% of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries cannot read or understand a simple text, up from 53% pre-Covid, the research suggested.
Classroom closures continue to affect more than 635 million children globally, with younger and more marginalised children facing the greatest loss in learning after almost two years of Covid, according to children’s agency Unicef, which called for intensive support to help students recover.
Across the world, from Ethiopia to the US, children have lost basic literacy and numeracy skills and their mental and physical health has suffered.
In South Africa, schoolchildren are between 75% and a whole school year behind where they should be, with up to 500,000 having dropped out of school altogether between March 2020 and October 2021.
Read more of Karen McVeigh’s report here: UN data reveals ‘nearly insurmountable’ scale of lost schooling due to Covid
Andrew Sparrow is live with his UK politics live blog for the day – I think it might prove to be quite a busy one for him. You can find that here.
I’ll be continuing on this blog with all the latest coronavirus news from around the globe, and any major Covid developments that emerge in the UK, so stay tuned.
Authorities in the United Arab Emirates have published new information about Abu Dhabi’s entry requirements, saying that unlike residents and citizens, vaccinated tourists do not need to show proof of a booster shot to cross into the capital.
Associated Press report that the tourism-specific change comes as confusion swirls around entry rules for Abu Dhabi, which has taken a more stringent approach to containing the coronavirus than neighbouring city Dubai.
The pandemic had prompted Abu Dhabi to erect a hard border with Dubai, forcing all drivers to come to a halt for vaccination and Covid checks before entering.
Ever-changing requirements have caused some headaches for commuters, with drivers from Dubai who had not received booster shots unexpectedly turned away from the capital last week. The emirate later clarified that all citizens and residents seeking entry must now show proof of a booster shot to be considered fully vaccinated and maintain a “green status” on the government health app.
The updated Abu Dhabi tourism website now says that the new rule does not apply to international visitors, who may enter the city-state if they have received both doses.
Updated
Our community team would like to hear from you:
In another party allegation, No 10 has admitted that Carrie Johnson held a party for the prime minister and up to 30 staff on 19 June 2020 as part of a surprise lockdown birthday party.
At the time, Covid rules banned indoor social gatherings and outdoor ones were limited to groups of six.
We would like to know what your birthday celebrations were like during the first lockdown in 2020. Did you or members of your family miss a significant one? How did you celebrate it within the restrictions at the time?
You can in touch with them here:
Here’s Jessica Elgot and Jamie Grierson with their round-up of what happened this morning in reaction to the Boris Johnson birthday party revelations:
Boris Johnson’s gathering with birthday cake in the cabinet room was not a party, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has said, denying the prime minister had organised the event.
“The prime minister clearly didn’t organise to be given a cake,” Shapps told Sky News after the latest revelations about lockdown breaches in Downing Street. “Some people came forward and thought it would be appropriate on his birthday.”
But he suggested it was “unwise” for the prime minister have been given a cake at the gathering of staff. He told BBC Radio 4 Today that he shares “the sense of unease about all of this”.
Asked if, at the time, he would have advised someone at a Downing Street press conference that the gathering as described would be allowed, Shapps said: “I think it’s clearly unwise to do those things … This is in a workplace with a bunch of people who were working together all of the time, who decide to give the prime minister a birthday cake on his birthday. Unwise, I’m sure, given the circumstances as we know them.”
Shapps confirmed that the event on 19 June 2020 would be considered by the official inquiry into the breaches by Sue Gray, saying she was “already aware of this particular incident, so she will be using that in her report and we’ll wait to see what she says”.
Read more of their report here: Cake and singing on PM’s birthday was not a party, says Grant Shapps
Updated
A quick snap from Reuters here that Japan’s daily count of new Covid-19 infections surpassed 60,000 for the first time on Tuesday, broadcaster FNN has said.
Russia reports record Covid cases for fifth consecutive day
Russia has reported a record number of daily new Covid cases for the fifth successive day, the government coronavirus task force said.
Reuters report that the new daily cases jumped to 67,809, from 65,109 a day earlier. The previous single day peak of Covid in Russia was in November 2021, when the country briefly recorded just over 40,000 cases in one day.
Gordon Brown, the former UK prime minister, has described the row over Downing Street lockdown parties as a “moral” issue. PA Media quote him telling ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
I could not go to the funeral of a very close relative last year at the same time. I couldn’t visit a dying friend in hospital, and there are thousands and thousands of families who were in that position.
Therefore, this is not a political issue. This is a moral issue about whether the standards you ask people to follow are standards you are prepared to follow yourself.
Something has got to be done - both to help families in need and get the attention of the Government to the people I am really worried about and that is people facing rising food bills and tax rises. They are facing heating bill rises, food bill rises and at the same time benefits were cut by £20 a week a few months ago.
Following the UK government’s decision to ease coronavirus testing and self-isolation requirements for people arriving in England, Heathrow Airport chief executive has John Holland-Kaye warned there are “other things we will need” if international travel is to recover from the pandemic. He seems to be asking that the UK government makes a promise not to return to any anti-Covid measures, even if a new variant of concern emerges. PA Media quote him telling Sky News:
We need to get the tests lifted at the other end of the journey, because for most countries you might need to go to you will still need testing before you’re allowed into those countries.
So that’s something we’ll work on.
And also a playbook for what happens if there is another variant of concern, that is quite likely to occur.
So that we don’t have this handbrake being slammed on by the government, and most people can travel with confidence, even if there is a new variant of concern.
During the last couple of weeks UK government ministers have been very quick to invoke the name Sue Gray in order to avoid answering any questions that might implicate the prime minister in the Downing Street lockdown party scandal, but often happy to repeat denials that also would be pre-judging the outcome of her report. Grant Shapps has taken a slightly different line here this morning.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tells @BBCr4today on the PM's birthday party in No 10 in June, 2020: “I don’t want to present a defence because I would be adding speculation to speculation... I share a sense of unease about all this."
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) January 25, 2022
Some conservative voices have been critical of the media – in particular the BBC – for the prominence given to the story.
Is there ANY embarrassment inside the BBC that YET AGAIN (Eg Today prog at 6am) it puts the lockdown parties saga above the high risk of war between Russia and Ukraine?
— Tim Montgomerie 🇬🇧 (@montie) January 25, 2022
PS I haven’t and won’t defend Boris over party-gate but enough already. We know all we need to know. Times two
However the i Paper’s political correspondent Paul Waugh points out exactly why Shapps is expressing frustration on the airwaves this morning that he can’t get to talk about the message the government wants to get across.
“I find it frustrating we can’t be talking about the big issues today…”
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) January 25, 2022
That Shapps line sounds not just like a comment on the media, but it sounds like the very reason some Tory MPs now believe @BorisJohnson's premiership is getting in the way of governing.
Drakeford: Johnson lacks 'moral authority' to lead the country
First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has also been doing the UK media round this morning, and he has said: “I just don’t think that the prime minister has the moral authority to lead a country like the United Kingdom,” following the claims that Boris Johnson attended a party in June 2020.
PA Media quote Drakeford saying on the BBC Today programme: “You cannot be someone who asks other people to do things – difficult, upsetting things – that you are so patently unwilling to do yourself.”
There might be a few bleary heads in Scotland this morning, as last night was the first time that nightclubs have been open since before December.
There are plenty of pictures coming through the wires of people very much appearing to enjoy their newly-rediscovered night life.
There’s another novel line being taken by the UK’s transport secretary Grant Shapps on the airwaves this morning – he appears to have argued on BBC Breakfast that British people would not consider a gathering of people with a birthday cake “a party”. PA Media quote him saying:
I think most people would think of a party as being an arranged event rather than something where on somebody’s birthday in the office that they work in with the people that they always work with, someone says ‘it’s your birthday here’s a cake’.
But that is for Sue Gray to get to the bottom of, I do agree and understand why - not least from my own personal experience - this would cause upset.
Netherlands expected to drop Omicron measures
The Dutch government is expected to announce later today that it will allow restaurants, bars and theatres to re-open, despite record numbers of coronavirus infections. Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Health Minister Ernst Kuipers are expected to announce the new rules at a news conference at 7pm (1800 GMT).
Late last night, the government released official advice of health experts and local government officials who support the end of a strict lockdown that has been in effect since mid-December.
Reuters note that despite record infections, the experts said the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which is now dominant in the Netherlands, “has a less serious clinical picture” than the Delta variant, which caused an earlier wave.
Foreign studies show hospital admissions with Omicron are between 40% and 60% lower, while intensive care admissions halved, they said.
Government advisers said bars, restaurants and theatres should be allowed to open until 10pm.
A quick update from Reuters on France, where health minister Olivier Veran has told LCI TV he hoped the country would reach the peak of the current Covid-19 wave in the next few days.
Almost 400 people in France who were hospitalised due to a Covid infection died over the past 24 hours, official data showed for Monday, the highest figure since April.
Labour’s shadow foreign secretary in the UK, David Lammy, has been on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme talking about the allegations that the prime minister attended a birthday party in his honour during the lockdown period. PA Media quote Lammy saying:
The prime minister tweeted a letter he sent to a young woman, Josephine, seven she was, and he said to her: ‘Well done for not having your birthday party. We must do all we can to protect the NHS.’
Why should Josephine forgo her birthday party? Indeed. Why should the Queen forgo her birthday party? The semantics of what constitutes a party is frankly not the subject that I as shadow foreign secretary want to be debating on the Today programme on a Tuesday morning.
That’s very sad that we have to do this, what I would say is it is very, very serious.
The prime minister and his government had to make a set of rules, but they’re actually laws that restrict people’s going about their affairs, their socialisation, that meant they couldn’t go to funerals. It meant they couldn’t do all sorts of things, and that included my own family.
That is why this is serious, and when you take on that duty as prime minister, you need to reflect on your ability to then live by those rules. And week after week, we have this drip drip drip of a behaviour, a culture.
Was he at a party? Did he know he was at a party? He didn’t realise the rules? He is the prime minister of our country, and he has breached that trust.
A quick snap from Reuters here which appears to show a shift in position in Israel. Earlier we reported the health minister had appeared to rule it out, but the health ministry has recommended offering a fourth Covid-19 vaccine dose to all adults, on condition that at least five months have passed since they got the third or since they recovered from the illness.
Here is what the Grant Shapps defence of the Downing Street birthday party allegations appears to boil down to – that the prime minister was surprised with a cake that he didn’t organise himself, and that everybody was already in that building for work purposes anyway.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps trying a new line on @SkyNews - he argues that people at Boris Johnson's birthday do "were already working together" in Downing Street
— Lizzy Buchan (@LizzyBuchan) January 25, 2022
Grant shapps: “the Prime minister didn’t organise to be given cake. Some people came forward…”
— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) January 25, 2022
Understandably UK transport secretary Grant Shapps has been questioned on Sky News about allegations that Boris Johnson was present at some kind of birthday party in his honour during a period of lockdown restrictions.
Shapps has done his best to argue variously that Downing Street is both an office building and a home, and so therefore the rules are somewhat blurred, and then at another juncture he also said that the prime minister hadn’t organised any event himself. He also seemed to try and widen the argument out to argue that a lot of people may have unwittingly transgressed the rules at some point.
He finished the segment by saying:
I understand the sense of frustration. I say to you, I could not see my own dad who we didn’t think we were going to see again, when he went to the hospital. I feel personally very upset when I see stories about lockdowns being broken in any form … I don’t seek to defend it. It will be up to Sue Gray to decide on whether this was appropriate.
Updated
The UK’s transport secretary Grant Shapps is on Sky News – he has been championing the government’s decision to drop Covid testing and quarantine requirements for international travel from 11 February, which he pointed out was in time for half-term holidays in England. He said:
It’s been a long time coming, but when you go abroad there are no more tests to take when you come home. So you don’t need to take a test before you leave, wherever you’re coming from, to get here. You don’t need to take a day two test, it’s already gone. You can just come home, and the only thing we ask you to do is fill in a passenger locator form, which we are going to simplify. That’s it. No quarantine. No testing. And all that cost would fall away.
A couple of other small things, including children 12 to 15 being able to use the NHS Covid app to demonstrate that they’ve been vaccinated. That’s where countries require that. And under-eighteens are exempt anyway. It’s going to be a big change, much cheaper, and I’m really delighted.
In all the furore over allegations of parties at Downing Street during lockdown, it is easy to lose track of where we are with the current Covid caseload in the UK. Here is a quick catch-up.
There were 88,447 new Covid cases recorded yesterday. Over the last seven days there have been 652,679 new coronavirus cases recorded in the UK. Cases have decreased by 6.8% week-on-week.
There have been 1,843 deaths within 28 days of a positive test recorded in the last week, including 56 deaths recorded yesterday. Deaths have decreased very slightly by 0.1% week-on-week.
Hospital admissions data is up to 18 January 2022, and they have decreased by 12.6% week-on-week. At the latest count on the UK government’s own dashboard, there were 17,523 people in hospital in total, of whom 640 are in ventilation beds. According to the government’s figures, the peak of hospitalisations during the pandemic was in January 2021, with 39,254 patients in hospital.
Testing has decreased by 5.8% in the last week. There were 1,229,253 tests carried out and officially recorded yesterday. The most recent peak was 2m tests on 4 January.
Hello from Martin Belam in London, taking over from my colleague Samantha Lock in Sydney. Here are a couple of links you might find immediately useful just to get a handle on where we stand. This is a timeline of fifteen social gatherings alleged to have taken place at the heart of government during periods of Covid restrictions that should have forbidden them, and here are seven occasions when Boris Johnson denied that No 10 broke Covid rules.
I draw your attention particularly to 8 December 2021, when in the House of Commons, the prime minister said he was “sickened myself and furious” about staff joking about a Christmas party, and told parliament “I repeat that I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken.”
On 13 December the prime minister told Sky News “I can tell you once again that I certainly broke no rules.”
I will bring you what emerges from the UK morning media round – transport secretary Grant Shapps has drawn the short straw to represent the government on the airwaves today – and all the latest coronavirus developments from around the world.
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Organising Committee has said that 15 new positive cases of Covid-19 were detected among games-related personnel on Monday.
Twelve of the confirmed positive cases were among new arrivals, the committee said. The other three were found among those already in the closed loop, and of those three, one was an athlete or team official, a notice on the Beijing 2022 official website reads.
Germany has reported another daily rise of 126,955 coronavirus cases and 214 deaths, according to recently released figures from the Robert Koch Institute.
The numbers take the nationwide tally of confirmed coronavirus cases to 8,871,795 and 116,960 deaths.
The Czech Republic recorded 30,350 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, the European country’s highest daily count since the pandemic began, health ministry data showed on Tuesday.
The country is bracing for a surge in cases from the new Omicron variant which could peak this month, the health minister said.
New York judge strikes down mask mandate
A New York judge has struck down the state’s mask mandate, ruling that it was unconstitutional and a violation of state law, according to the court decision.
Judge Thomas Rademaker, of New York State Supreme Court on Long Island, wrote in his decision, which reportedly takes effect immediately, that the state legislature last year curbed any governor’s ability to issue decrees, such as a mask mandate, amid a declared state of emergency.
Rademaker argued that because New York was no longer under a state of emergency at the time the mask mandate was announced, the governor and health commissioner did not have the additional authority to order such a mandate, adding the mandate is now unenforceable.
The legislature’s action “prevents the type of mandates and directives that former Governor Cuomo included in his various Covid-19 related Executive Orders,” the judge wrote.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement:
My responsibility as governor is to protect New Yorkers throughout this public health crisis, and these measures help prevent the spread of Covid-19 and save lives.
We strongly disagree with this ruling, and we are pursuing every option to reverse this immediately.
Rademaker wrote in his decision that he had no doubt there was good intention behind the mask mandate and said his ruling is not intended “in any way to question or otherwise opine on the efficacy, need, or requirement of masks as a means or tool in dealing with the Covid-19 virus.”
Updated
While we are in the Asia region, South Korea’s daily count of new coronavirus cases surpassed 8,000 for the first time on Tuesday, despite the recent extension of strict social-distancing rules to slow infection.
A total of 8,571 new infections were reported for Monday, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), exceeding the previous peak of 7,848 in mid-December.
The new record came amid the spread of the Omicron variant, which became dominant across the country last week.
South Korea reimposed tougher distancing curbs in December as record-breaking numbers of daily cases and critically ill patients threatened to overwhelm its medical system before the Omicron wave hit.
Daily tallies had almost halved to around 4,000 this month but began rising again last week because of Omicron infections.
The surge fuelled worries about a potentially bigger wave ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays, when tens of millions of Koreans usually travel across the country.
Prime minister Kim Boo-kyum issued a special statement on Monday to plead for people to refrain from travel and gatherings during the break, which starts on Saturday.
“It is no different to adding fuel to the raging flames if many people move around the country and meet each other,” he told a briefing.
More than 95% of South Korean adults have been fully vaccinated and nearly 58% have received a booster shot, KDCA data showed.
Japan to place 70% of the country under new Covid curbs
Japan is expected to expand quasi-emergency measures to more parts of the country from Thursday in an attempt to stem a surge in Omicron cases.
Restrictions on opening hours and alcohol sales at bars and restaurants are already in place in 16 of the country’s 47 prefectures, but the measures will go into effect in a further 18 prefectures from Thursday until 20 February, according to the Kyodo news agency.
The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, is expected to announce the new measures, covering more than 70% of the country, later today.
The western prefectures of Osaka and Kyoto are among the areas covered by the measures.
The advisory panel is also expected to greenlight an extension through 20 February of the so-called quasi-emergency measures prevailing in three regions.
The measures have prompted complaints that Japan’s nighttime economy is being unfairly targeted as governors in those regions can request restaurants and bars to shorten business hours and stop serving alcohol.
Mitsuru Saga, the manager of an izakayapub in Tokyo, said he would serve alcohol but close at 8pm, even though he will receive less compensation from the government. “We can’t do business without serving alcohol,” Saga told Nippon TV. “It seems only eateries are targeted for restraints.”
Packed trains and crowded shopping districts suggest people are tiring of requests to limit their movements two years into the pandemic, although mask wearing is still the norm.
Japan logged more than 44,000 new cases on Monday, a tally by public broadcaster NHK showed.
Kishida is coming under increasing pressure to speed up Japan’s booster rollout. While about 80% of of the 125 million population has received two vaccine doses, less than 2% has received a booster shot.
Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you on the blog as we unravel all the latest coronavirus developments.
Let’s jump in with some news straight from the UK with the Downing Street crisis continuing to reach new lows.
Boris Johnson is facing renewed anger from MPs and bereaved families after the disclosure that his fiancee threw him a surprise lockdown birthday party, as sources said an official inquiry had uncovered “appalling evidence of mismanagement” at the heart of Downing Street.
Sue Gray, the senior civil servant leading the inquiry into Downing Street parties, is expected to make deeply critical recommendations on overhauling No 10’s operation after hearing of repeated failures of leadership, according to a Whitehall source who spoke to the inquiry.
In the latest alleged breach of rules, No 10 admitted that Carrie Johnson held a party for the prime minister and up to 30 staff on 19 June 2020 despite Covid rules banning indoor social gatherings. Outdoor gatherings were limited to groups of six.
Meanwhile, in Japan an advisory panel is set to approve the expansion of tougher measures against Covid-19 to 18 additional regions on Tuesday, putting more than 70% of the country under restrictions.
The western prefectures of Osaka and Kyoto are among the areas covered by the measures, taken in response to a surge of infections and hospitalisation driven by the Omicron variant, Reuters reports.
The curbs will be enforced from Thursday through 20 February, and governors in those regions can request restaurants and bars to shorten business hours and stop serving alcohol.
Here is a comprehensive rundown of all the latest international Covid developments:
Europe:
- Italy said that the Omicron wave had peaked in the country as case numbers begin to fall.
- The UK announced plans to end testing rules for all doubly vaccinated travellers from 11 February.
- Rules requiring a vaccine passport to enter hospitality businesses and take public transport came into force in France.
- The European Union’s drug regulator is set to decide whether to approve Pfizer’s Covid-19 pill at the end of this month, before doing a final review of Merck’s similar but less effective drug in February, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
- Fully vaccinated travellers arriving in Britain will no longer have to take a Covid-19 test, while Germany extended its current pandemic measures.
- Norway will end its system of mandatory quarantines for non-vaccinated travellers and close contacts of infected persons, replacing it instead with a daily test regime.
Asia:
- Covid-related deaths surged in Australia and authorities warned numbers could rise further when schools return from holidays next week.
- Japan announced plans to extend coronavirus restrictions beyond the current 9pm curfew in a bid to tackle the spread of Omicron. The country is poised to double the number of regions subject to restrictions such as shortened restaurant opening hours in order to rein in a record surge in cases.
- Organisers of next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics slightly eased the strict Covid-19 requirements for participants.
- One of China’s longest lockdowns in the northern city of X’ian comes to an end after its 13 million residents were confined to their homes on December 22.
Middle East:
- Israel’s health minister said he did not think Israel will offer a fourth Covid-19 vaccine dose to most people after the government made it available to over 60s and other high-risk groups.
United States:
- The US advised against travel to 15 countries and territories.
Medical developments:
- A third booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine made by AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson increases antibody levels significantly in those who have previously received two doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac shot, a study has found.
- Omicron can survive longer than earlier versions of the coronavirus on plastic surfaces and human skin, Japanese researchers found in laboratory tests.
- British scientists will begin testing Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’ antiviral pill molnupiravir as a possible treatment for patients hospitalised with Covid-19.
- The US Food and Drug Administration is likely to restrict the use of Covid-19 antibody treatments from Regeneron and Eli Lilly as they are ineffective against Omicron, the Washington Post reported.
- World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a press conference in which he warned that conditions remain ideal for more coronavirus variants to emerge and said it was dangerous to assume Omicron was the last one, but added that the acute phase of the pandemic could end this year if some key targets were met.
