Covid live: Germany tightens restrictions on travel from UK — as it happened

Brazil on Saturday recorded 153 new Covid-19 deaths and 3,323 new coronavirus cases, the country’s health ministry said.

However, the data is still not up to date, as the ministry is still struggling to reconcile its figures after a cyber attack on its systems over a week ago, Reuters reports.

Nearly 618,000 Brazilians have died from Covid-19, the second highest total in the world after the US.

Police officers have suffered minor injuries during “scuffles” at an anti-vaccine protest in Parliament Square in London, the Metropolitan police said in a statement.

The officers were injured while attempting to escort a police motorcyclist through the area.

Video footage from the protest posted on social media shows shoving between police and protesters.

Later at around 3pm a group of protesters began “directing abuse” at people inside and egging the shop until police intervened, the Met added. No injuries were reported.
A further incident occurred when beer cans and flares were thrown at officers on Whitehall.

The force said that their officers were also subjected to abuse and physical violence elsewhere on Whitehall, leading to several more officers sustaining minor injuries.
No arrests have been made.

As coronavirus has wreaked havoc with the Premier League fixture list in England, the Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp outlined a future whereby a vaccine refusenik could be more trouble than he is worth: as a threat to his teammates, creating a two-tier system when he has to be separated from the rest of the squad and a logistical nightmare as the need to quarantine could rule him out of many a game.

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The UK’s Brexit minister, Lord Frost, has resigned from the cabinet, the Mail on Sunday reports.

Lord Frost, who has led negotiations with the EU, is said to have handed in his resignation letter to Boris Johnson last week. But the Mail on Sunday reports he had been persuaded to stay on until January.

The newspaper says it was the introduction of plan B coronavirus measures, including the implementation of Covid passes, that prompted Lord Frost’s decision.

Iran is evacuating its envoy to Yemen’s rebel Houthi movement after he contracted Covid-19, Iran’s foreign ministry said.

“In order to transfer him (Irlu) to our country for treatment, the Foreign Ministry conducted consultations with some regional countries to prepare for his transfer, which is currently under way,” ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told state media.

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said on Twitter: “Under an Iranian-Saudi agreement reached through contacts with Iraq, the Iranian ambassador in Sanaa was transferred on an Iraqi plane due to his health condition,” Reuters reports.

France will compensate ski resorts hit by the ban on British tourists and will try to steer more French tourists to the mountains to make up for lost earnings, the tourism minister said.

Under new rules taking effect on Saturday, meant to protect from importing the Omicron variant, holiday travel from Britain is not allowed and only French nationals and their partners, as well as foreigners with a permanent residence in France, can enter the country from the UK.

Tourism minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne said on BFM TV that British tourists accounted for about 15% of French ski resort customers overall, but the percentage was much higher in some resorts such as Val d’Isere, Courchevel and Meribel.

“Last year the government has provided 7 billion euros ($7.9 billion) of support for the sector and we will continue to stand by the industry,” Lemoyne said, without specifying what measures could be implemented.

He added that because of a new lockdown in the Netherlands, Dutch tourists, who account for about 5% of the customers in French ski resorts, may also be more scarce this season, Reuters reports.

Here is more on UK government scientists’ stark warning there are now hundreds of thousands of infections every day.

The daily number could reach between 600,000 and 2m by the end of the month if new restrictions are not brought in immediately, they said.

The government’s SPI-M-O group of scientists, which reports to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), also warned that, based on their modelling, hospitalisations could peak between 3,000 and 10,000 a day and deaths at between 600 and 6,000 a day.

US president Joe Biden will deliver a speech on Tuesday addressing the Omicron variant of coronavirus, NBC News reported.

Biden is expected to go beyond his “winter plan” with additional steps to help communities in need, Reuters reports.

France hopes that a planned new vaccine pass that will be required to enter public places will persuade more people to get inoculated against Covid-19 as the country faces a rapid spread of the Omicron variant, the health minister said.

The government does not want to impose new curfews or lockdowns on people who have been vaccinated, but the threat of Omicron means authorities have to increase pressure on those refusing vaccination, Olivier Veran said on France Inter radio.

“We cannot continue to say that the choice of not getting vaccinated is a choice that has no consequences,” Veran said.

Prime minister Jean Castex said on Friday the government will propose a bill in parliament in January to change France’s “health pass” into a “vaccine pass”, meaning only vaccinated people will be allowed to enter indoor public places such as bars, restaurants and cinemas.

Veran said the government would ask MPs to also consider making the vaccine pass a requirement on trains and planes, and to make it mandatory to show proof of identity along with the pass. “There is too much fraud,” he said.

Veran said Omicron was currently suspected to account for up to 10% of new coronavirus cases and that could rise to more than 50% early next year, Reuters reports.

Australia could take until well into next year to hit an 80% booster vaccination rate, with the rollout currently ranking almost last out of 70 countries, Guardian analysis shows.

Boosters are now available to anyone who has had a second dose of a Covid vaccine more than five months ago.

However, Australia’s slow initial vaccine rollout meant that more than half of all second doses were administered in the final four months of 2021. So with a five-month dosing interval, the people who received their second doses late in 2021 won’t be eligible for a booster until February.

France has reported 58,536 new coronavirus cases and a total of 94,404 Covid-related deaths in hospital, up by 85, Reuters reports.

British musician Brian May said it has been “a truly horrible few days” after testing positive for coronavirus.

The Queen guitarist, 74, warned others to take care so the illness does not jeopardise their festive celebrations, PA reports.

He shared a photo of a lateral flow test with two red lines and wrote: “Yep. The shocking day finally came for me. The dreaded double red line.

“And yes – definitely NO sympathy please – it has been a truly horrible few days, but I’m OK. And I will tell the tale.

“Please take extra care out there, good folks.”

Guests invited to a holiday party at the home of the leading anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr in the US were urged to be vaccinated or tested for Covid-19 because, Kennedy said, he is “not always the boss at my own house”.

Speaking to Politico, which reported the request before the party in California last week, Kennedy said his wife, the actor Cheryl Hines, was behind it.

He also said no effort was made to check if guests had been vaccinated or recently tested.

Restrictions “similar in scale to the national lockdown” are needed to keep hospital admissions from coronavirus below previous peaks, experts in the UK have warned.

Amid high numbers of cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, documents released by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) revealed the bleak picture painted by advisers throughout December as the threat from the strain rose.

Advice included that indoor mixing is the “biggest risk factor” for the spread of the variant of coronavirus, and that large gatherings risked creating “multiple spreading events”.

Two US Air Force crew members supporting US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s travel last week to the UK and south-east Asia have tested positive for the coronavirus, a spokesperson for the airforce said.

It brings the total number of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 traveling on Blinken’s plane last week to three, Reuters reports.

“Both aircrew members were fully vaccinated. Neither had come into close contact with the secretary of state or senior staff,” an Air Force spokesperson told Reuters.

“One aircrew member is asymptomatic, while the other is experiencing mild symptoms.”

Large swathes of the UK have no vaccination walk-in centres, it has emerged, sparking fears the government will miss its target of offering all adults a booster jab by the end of this month.

As the tide of Omicron cases surges, thousands seeking a third vaccination without having to wait days or weeks for an appointment are driving miles to neighbouring counties. People without transport and those for whom a walk-in centre is the only option – because they do not have a GP or an NHS number – have no access to Covid booster jabs.

Several cities, including Norwich, Peterborough and York, have no walk-in centres. And there are no walk-in boosters available in entire counties, including Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Buckinghamshire, although some offer third doses for people with weakened immune systems.

More data from Italy. Patients in hospital with coronavirus – not including those in intensive care – stood at 7,576 on Saturday, up from 7,520 a day earlier.
There were 95 new admissions to intensive care units, up from 70 on Friday.

The total number of intensive care patients increased to 953 from a previous 923, Reuters reports.

697,740 tests for Covid-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 669,160, the health ministry said.

Official figures show that 817,625 people in the UK have received their booster Covid jab in the latest 24-hour period, which brings the total number of jabs delivered to more than 27 million.

Italy reported 123 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections was 28,064.
Italy has registered 135,544 deaths linked to Covid-19, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the ninth-highest in the world. The country has reported 5.365 million cases to date, Reuters reports.

Indoor mixing is the “biggest risk factor” for the spread of the Omicron variant, UK experts have warned, as documents revealed advisers cautioned that large gatherings risked creating “multiple spreading events”.

Documents released by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) on Saturday revealed the advice it had given to ministers.

And at a meeting on Thursday the experts said that stricter measures may be needed for Omicron, because of its transmissibility.

Minutes from the meeting said this could include “reducing group sizes, increasing physical distancing, reducing duration of contacts and closing high-risk premises”.

They said that lateral flow tests should also be used on a group basis – so if one person in a group tests positive before going to an event, their whole group should also not attend, even if they did not test positive.

The experts warned that “hospitalisations in the UK will reach high levels in about two weeks even if transmission is reduced soon” and predicted between 1,000 and 2,000 hospital admissions per day in England by the end of the year, PA reports.

Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, has conceded that the Biden administration was blind to the emergence of the Delta and Omicron variants of Covid-19, and said she fears “misinformation” over vaccines will prolong the pandemic well into a third year, writes Richard Luscombe for the Guardian US.

The vice-president’s candid admission came in a wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times, which followed reports that Harris was “struggling” to make a mark as Joe Biden’s No 2 and was keen for a more prominent role.

Harris, who has suffered the same sinking approval ratings as the 79-year-old president, was seen as shoo-in for the 2024 Democratic nomination until Biden said last month he would seek a second term. The White House said on Thursday that Harris would be his running mate again.

Harris’s comments about Covid, in which she also appeared to place blame on the medical community for a lack of foresight, would seem to confirm the administration’s view that the pandemic is its biggest obstacle to progress.

“We didn’t see Delta coming. I think most scientists did not – upon whose advice and direction we have relied – didn’t see Delta coming,” Harris said.

“We didn’t see Omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”

Scotland has recorded nine new coronavirus deaths and 5,917 positive cases in the past 24 hours, according to the PA Media news agency.

The daily figures from the Scottish government show 494 people are in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19, of which 34 are in intensive care.

The Covid-19 death toll in Scotland under the daily measure - of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days - now stands at 9,780.

The test positivity rate stands at 12.2%.

A total of 4,369,398 people have received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine while 3,988,961 have received their second dose and 2,436,952 have received a third dose or booster.

Omicron is spreading rapidly in Italy, with new cases identified in both the north and south of the country, according to the national health institute (ISS).

The health agency reported that regional laboratories had so far identified 84 cases of the new coronavirus variant on Saturday, “a strong acceleration” from 55 early on Friday, according to Reuters.

Thirty-three cases were found in Lombardy, around Milan, in the north of Italy; 20 more were identified in Campania, the southern region centred on Naples.

Silvio Brusaferro, the president of the ISS, said the spread of Omicron was “widely expected, in line with what we have seen in other countries, and we will probably see an increase in cases in coming days”.

Italy reported 120 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday against 123 the day before, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 28,632 from 26,109.

This is Damien Gayle back at the controls of the blog now.

UK cabinet ministers have received a briefing on the latest situation regarding the Omicron variant, according to the PA Media news agency.

The agency said it understood there was no meeting of the cabinet or further discussion but ministers were given an update on the data surrounding the variant.

A rush of passengers travelling to France to beat the country’s ban on UK tourists that came into force at 11pm on Friday has led to a knock-on effect on freight traffic, resulting in long queues of lorries.

There were lengthy tailbacks on the M20 motorway in Kent heading to Dover and at the entrance to the Channel tunnel on Saturday, PA reports.

A day earlier there were queues at the Port of Dover after many people brought their Christmas travel plans forward to avoid new restrictions imposed by France.

It was hoped freight traffic queues would clear by Saturday afternoon.

A spokeswoman for Eurotunnel said:

Congestion in Dover overnight and on the A20 into Dover this morning has led to a transfer of freight traffic to Eurotunnel.

There is currently slow-moving traffic on the approach to J11A (Eurotunnel exit) on M20, but freight is flowing through the tunnel at normal rates and so this will disappear in the coming hours.

She said all passengers who wanted to get to France through the Channel tunnel before the deadline had been able to do so.

Under the new rules brought in due to the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, UK citizens now need a “compelling reason” to enter France, with trips for tourism or business banned.

Hauliers, transport workers and French nationals and their UK spouses and children are exempt from the new rules.

A Dutch government spokesperson has confirmed reports that new stricter measures will be announced at a press conference this evening.

Health ministry spokesperson Axel Dees told Reuters there would be a government press conference to announce new measures at 7pm (1800 GMT). He did not comment on the types of measures that would be announced.

The Dutch government is expected to announce a “strict” Christmas lockdown under which everything but essential stores will close amid fears over the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, Dutch media reported.

The government is meeting on Saturday with its health experts who have recommended the closure of all non-essential shops, schools, bars, restaurants and other public venues.
In the city centre of Leiden, around 20 km outside The Hague, people flocked to the main shopping street to get last-minute gift shopping done.

Some stores, like toy stores and luxury skincare and cosmetics shops, had lines outside, with the manager of a cosmetics shop telling Reuters it was “much busier than usual”.
The prime minister, Mark Rutte, said earlier this week that Omicron could be the dominant coronavirus variant in the Netherlands by January.

On Friday the National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) reported 15,433 new Covid-19 cases, down around 25% from a week earlier, but higher than the peak of any previous wave.

Hello, I’m Jedidajah Otte and I’ll be taking over for a bit. Feel free to get in touch if you have anything to flag you think is relevant to our coverage, I’m on Twitter @JedySays or you can email me.

The New Year’s celebration fireworks display on the ChampsÉlysées in Paris has been cancelled, after scientific advisers warned of risks associated the festive season.

“The fireworks will not take place, nor unfortunately will there be any DJ sets,” the mayor’s office told AFP. In an announcement, the Paris municipal authorities said that “with regret that we will have to cancel all the festivities planned on the Champs-Élysées on 31 December.”

The announcement was in line with new recommendations laid out by government scientific advisors to slow the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

“With regard to the acceleration of the pandemic, and the risks related to the end-of-year festivities, authorities should impose significant restrictions,” France’s scientific panel said.

Trials of the Pfizer vaccine in children aged two to five have found it did not provide expected levels of immunity in children of that age, CNN reports.

The research found that two child-sized doses of the Pfizer/BioNtech were working for babies aged up to the age of two, but not in older children. Pfizer said it would “amend” the trial to add a third dose for the older group.

CNN quoted the pharmaceutical company as saying: “The study will now include evaluating a third dose of 3 micrograms at least two months after the second dose of the two-dose series to provide high levels of protection in this young age group.”

The child dose of Pfizer vaccine is a fraction of the size given to older age groups. Injections given to 12-year-olds and over contain 30 micrograms of vaccine while children aged from five to 11 are injected with 10 micrograms.

Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the changes probably mean a delay in authorization for vaccines for younger children.

Omicron is spreading rapidly in countries with high levels of population immunity, but it is unclear if this is due to the virus’ ability to evade immunity, its inherent increased transmissibility or a combination of both, the World Health Organization has said.

In its latest technical update on the coronavirus pandemic, the UN health agency said data on the clinical severity of Omicron remains limited.

“More data are needed to understand the severity profile and how severity is impacted by vaccination and pre-existing immunity,” the WHO said.

It added: “There are still limited available data, and no peer-reviewed evidence, on vaccine efficacy or effectiveness to date for Omicron.”

With cases rising so rapidly, hospitals could be overwhelmed in some places. “Hospitalisations in the UK and South Africa continue to rise, and given rapidly increasing case counts, it is possible that many healthcare systems may become quickly overwhelmed.”

An announcement on a strict Christmas lockdown is expected in the Netherlands, with the government expected to close everything but essential shops.

The government is meeting on Saturday with its health experts who have recommended the closure of all non-essential shops, schools, bars, restaurants and other public venues.

The Dutch national broadcaster, NOS, and the news agency ANP cited government sources saying a press conference announcing the new measures would be held at 7pm. However, a spokesman for the health ministry, Axel Dees, declined to comment on any proposed measures or the timing of any press conference.

It is only days since the government ordered that the 5pm to 5am closure of bars, restaurants and most stores, introduced in late November, would continue until 14 January.

More than 1.18bn people in China have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, a spokesperson for the country’s national health commission has said.

Mi Feng told a press conference on Saturday that more than 2.66bn Covid-19 vaccine doses had been administered.

“China is meeting the growing pressures of guarding against inbound cases, with a total of 77 countries and regions having reported cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19,” Mi was quoted as saying by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.

Portugal became the latest country to widen distribution of Covid vaccines to children over five on Saturday.

More than 60,000 children aged between five and 11 were set to receive their first jab of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine this weekend in the country, which already has 88.9% vaccine coverage in older groups.

France is set to follow suit next week.

The EU’s medicines watchdog last month approved a lower-dosage Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for five to 11-year-olds, an age group experiencing high coronavirus infection rates across the continent.

Denmark, where there has been a surge in cases attributed to the new Omicron variant, and some Austrian regions began offering vaccines to younger children in November.

The US was the first large country to widen access to young children and has so far vaccinated more than 5m in the five-to-11 age bracket.

Plans are being formulated for a two-week “circuit breaker” lockdown in England after Christmas, although a final decision on new restrictions is yet to be taken, the Times reports.

The draft regulations would return England to similar restrictions as those seen in spring, with indoor mixing banned except for work purposes and pubs and restaurants limited to table service outdoors.

Schools and shops would remain open, but the “rule of six” would be reimposed for meetings with friends and family, weddings and funerals would be limited to 15 to 30 people, and the most-vulnerable would once again be advised to “shield”.

According to the Times, some sources said planning was under way to recall parliament next week to debate the restrictions. They could prove politically difficult for the prime minister, after a rebellion by 100 of his MPs against the plan B restrictions, including Covid passes for public events, earlier this week.

The football grounds Anfield, Stamford Bridge and Wembley and the racecourses, Sandown Park, Bath and Chelmsford are among the almost 3,000 sites taken over by vaccination centres in England this weekend.

Other venues open this weekend include the Christmas Market at Chester Cathedral, the Liverpool Christmas Ice Festival, Bluewater shopping centre in Kent and London’s Oxford Street, where there will be a vaccine bus.

More than 21 million booster jabs have been delivered by the NHS in England so far, NHS England said. On Monday Boris Johnson announced that the government would aim to offer a booster to every single adult in the UK by the end of December.

Many vaccination sites across the country are working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, the NHS told the PA Media news agency, adding that in every community there should be slots available at least 16 hours a day.

NHS national medical director, Prof Stephen Powis, said: “From stadiums to racecourses and mobile buses to Christmas markets, NHS Covid vaccination programme, the biggest and most successful in our history, is pulling out all the stops to make it easier than ever.

“Thanks to the hard work of our health service staff and brilliant volunteers we have already delivered record boosters so far this week but we want to keep up the momentum so if you haven’t taken up the offer yet get boosted now.”

Olivier Veran, France’s health minister, has said the spread of the Omicron variant is the main reason behind plans for stricter vaccine pass measures.

Under the current regulations, a recent negative Covid test is sufficient for entering many indoor public places, but a new health pass set to be introduced early next year will require people to show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and long-distance public transport.

Veran, speaking on France Inter radio, also said that he expected that early next week the French health authority will give the green light to start offering coronavirus vaccinations to children aged 5 to 11.

Seven to 10% of new confirmed coronavirus cases in France are suspected to be of the Omicron variant, the country’s health minister, Olivier Veran, said on Saturday, as a ban on travellers from the UK comes into force.

From Saturday morning, travellers will only be allowed to enter France from the UK if they are travelling for “compelling reasons”, unless they are French nationals, residents or hauliers.

Even then, those wanting to travel will have to show a negative Covid test and self-isolate for two days after arriving in the country.

On Saturday, Veran said the rapid spread of the new variant was the main reason for the planned introduction of a new vaccination pass early next year, which will require that people show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and long-distance public transport.

Under the current health pass regulation, a recent negative Covid test is sufficient for entering public places.

Stricter Covid restrictions must be introduced “very soon” in England to prevent hospital admissions rising to 3,000 a day, according to leaked minutes from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, seen by BBC News.

The leaked minutes, from a meeting of government scientific experts held on Thursday, warn that any delay in imposing new restrictions “would greatly reduce the effectiveness”.

So far the government has taken a relatively light touch despite fears of the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, with the UK setting new records for lab-confirmed cases of Covid-19 for two days in a row this week.

The Sage minutes say: “If the aim is to reduce the levels of infection in the population and prevent hospitalisations reaching these levels, more stringent measures would need to be implemented very soon.”

“The timing of such measures is crucial,” say the Sage minutes. “Delaying until 2022 would greatly reduce the effectiveness of such interventions and make it less likely that these would prevent considerable pressure on health and care settings.”

This is Damien Gayle kicking off the Guardian’s coronavirus live blog coverage this morning. All day I will be bringing you the latest Covid-related updates and headlines.

Seen a story you think we should be covering? Drop me a line on my Twitter profile @damiengayle, or via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com