Goodbye and summary
That’s it from the Guardian’s Covid blog for today. Please join us a little later for a new live feed where we will continue to cover the coronavirus crisis.
You can also keep up with the top headlines here.
I leave you with a summary of the latest developments from the past 24 hours:
- The mayor of Ottawa has declared a state of emergency over Covid-19 protests. Jim Watson said the order highlights the need for support from other levels of government, as protesters opposed to lockdowns brought downtown of the Canadian capital to a stand still. Thousands descended at the weekend, joining a hundred who had stayed throughout this week.
- The Chinese city of Baise in Guangxi (population 3.57 million) has been locked down because of a Covid outbreak, reports the BBC’s China correspondent Stephen McDonell. He says that it has reportedly been sealed off with people not allowed to enter or leave.
- That news comes as China’s chief epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou, says that as long as there’s no other way to contain the spread of the virus, the country won’t adjust it’s “dynamic Zero Covid” pandemic control policy.
- Xiomara Castro, the president of Central American country Honduras, has tested positive for Covid-19. In a tweet, she said she had mild symptoms.
- Authorities in India have approved Russia’s one-jab Sputnik Light Covid-19 vaccine. It will be the second Russian-developed jab to be approved by the country, after Sputnik V was allowed in April 2021.
- China detected 10 new cases of Covid-19 among Olympic Games-related personnel on Saturday, down from 45 a day earlier, the organising committee of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games said on Sunday. Of the cases detected, four were among new airport arrivals, including two athletes or team officials.
- Another 54,095 Covid cases have been confirmed in the UK, the lowest figure since December, but the statistic does not include cases in Scotland.
- Papua New Guinea’s prime minister James Marape tested positive for Covid-19 upon arrival in Beijing on Thursday for the opening of the Winter Games and will not be travelling to France next week for an Indo-Pacific summit, his office has said.
- UK travellers have been warned to check their half-term holiday plans to make sure they meet Covid vaccination rules when travelling to EU destinations as a growing number of countries impose new restrictions.
- Boris Johnson’s desperate efforts to save his premiership have been undermined with one of his most loyal backbench supporters saying it was now “inevitable” that Tory MPs would remove him from office over the “partygate” scandal.
Updated
Portugal has announced an easing of its travel restrictions for holders of European Covid-19 certificates by scrapping a requirement to test negative before entering the country, AFP reports.
Travellers with an EU digital health pass or other recognised vaccine passes will be exempt from having to prove a recent negative test result from Monday.
The EU Covid certificate proves a traveller is fully vaccinated, has recently tested negative or has recovered from a Covid infection within the past six months.
The move comes after the European Council recommended harmonising the bloc’s travel rules to avoid placing restrictions on fully vaccinated travellers from neighbouring EU states with higher infection rates.
Like other EU member states, Portugal has since early December required passengers aged 12 and above to test negative before entering the country regardless of their vaccination status.
On Thursday, the government reduced the validity of lateral flow test results from 48 to 24 hours.
Portugal has entered a steep wave of coronavirus cases driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant, recording more than 41,000 new infections and 44 deaths on Saturday.
