France's Covid toll passes 70,000 – as it happened

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More from Australia’s health minister Greg Hunt. He’s nudging state governments to ease internal border restrictions as he declared the removal of the last Covid-19 hotspot in Australia.

He told reporters in Melbourne on Sunday the federal government’s priority remained on helping Australians stranded overseas to return home, but also “ensuring that Australians who are within our own borders are able to reunite with their families as soon as possible”.

Hunt said the chief medical officer Prof Paul Kelly, had removed the last remaining hotspot definition in Australia on Sunday – the hotspot for greater Brisbane.

That step came after Kelly reviewed data from the past 14 days and the handling of the case involving the UK variant in hotel quarantine.

“We are very, very thankful to everybody involved in Queensland,” Hunt said.

Kelly’s decision is based on the federal government’s definition of a hotspot, but states and territories indicated last year they wanted to maintain their right to make their own border decisions, a stance Scott Morrison ultimately accepted.

Hunt said the removal of the hotspot declaration showed Australia was “containing” the virus. That didn’t mean there would be no cases in the time ahead, “but we have very, very clear evidence that the Australian system has been tested and tested again and continues to pass”.

“It’s important to understand that our real challenge, our real threat, is international, not domestic,” Hunt said, noting that 39 of the 40 cases in Australia over the past three days had been in hotel quarantine.

“We are very keen to ensure that our priority is bringing Australians home [from overseas] and also as a result of the removal of the last of the hotspot definitions, ensuring that Australians who are within our own borders are able to reunite with their families as soon as possible.”

In the United States Joe Biden’s team has flagged a raft of executive orders to be issued by the new president immediately he’s in office, including several relating to the US Covid-19 epidemic.

In a memo to senior staff, incoming chief of staff Ron Klain said Biden would sign orders related to the outbreak aimed at reopening schools and businesses and expanding virus testing. He would mandate mask-wearing on federal property and during interstate travel, and the following day, Friday, will act to provide economic relief to those suffering the economic costs of the pandemic.

On Thursday, Biden unveiled a $1.9tn “rescue plan” and said his administration “will manage the hell out of this operation”. About $400bn of the plan is focused on measures aimed at controlling the virus. Those range from mass vaccination centres to more sophisticated scientific analysis of new strains and squads of local health workers to trace the contacts of infected people.

He pledged to boost supplies of coronavirus vaccine and set up new vaccination sites to meet his goal of 100m shots in 100 days, as part of a broader strategy that also seeks to straighten out snags in testing and ensure minority communities are not left out.

The real payoff, Biden said, will come from uniting the nation in a new effort grounded in science.

He underscored a need for Congress to approve more money and for people to keep following basic precautions, such as wearing masks, avoiding gatherings and frequently washing their hands.

NSW’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, wants more residents to be tested after six new cases of community transmission were recorded in the state.

The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the six people were all close contacts of a person who was diagnosed yesterday.

“Five out of the six are the spouse and children of the one case we had yesterday – and the sixth person is a person who had a very close contact of them in very close proximity,” she said.

Berejiklian said all six people were near Berala – but genomic testing was yet to be done that could confirm whether they were associated with the Berala cluster.

The state conducted 12,700 tests over the past 24 hours.

“That is a decline among testing levels,” Chant said. “It is critical that we get those testing rates up very high.”

She especially called on more testing in Bankstown, Lidcombe, Auburn, Berala and Wentworthville.

One person who tested positive was a healthcare worker who worked in a radiology ward, but Chant said:”The person’s role involves minimal patient contact and they wore a face mask during each shift.”

She said seven close workplace contacts had been tested, and had so far tested negative.

There were also three cases of Covid-19 recorded in returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

NSW Health also gave more details about the Concord hospital worker who is now in isolation. They worked three shifts in the cardiology and radiology wards while potentially infectious on 12, 13 and 14 January. The person’s role involves minimal contact with patients, and they wore a face mask during each shift.

It also issued new public health alerts – details available here – for:

The Wentworthville Medical and Dental Clinic at 122/128 Station Street, in the dental, physio and imaging waiting room on Friday, 15 January between 11.30am and 1.15pm. Anyone who visited at that time is a close contact who must immediately get tested and self-isolate for 14 days, regardless of the result. People in other areas of the clinic at that time should monitor for symptoms and immediately isolate and get tested if they appear.

Anyone who was at Auburn Centrelink at 5-9 Macquarie Road, Auburn, on Thursday, 14 January between 3pm and 4.15pm should monitor for symptoms and if they appear, immediately get tested and isolate until a negative result is received.

Anyone who travelled on a number of T2 line train services between Warwick Farm and Auburn on Thursday 14 and Friday 15 January must also monitor for symptoms and if they appear, immediately get tested and isolate until a negative result is received.

Hello all, this is Helen Davidson here to take you through the next few hours of updates. You can also find me on twitter @heldavidson.

New public health alerts have been issued for a western Sydney venue and additional public transport routes following confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Anyone who attended Centrelink in Auburn on 14 January in the afternoon should get tested immediately and self-isolate until a negative result occurs.

Those who travelled on train services between Warwick Farm and Auburn on 14 and 15 January have also been given the same health directions.

One local case of Covid-19 infection was reported on Saturday in a western Sydney man believed to be linked to the Berala bottle shop cluster.

It comes after days without a locally transmitted infection.

All people who were in the dental, physio and imaging waiting room of the Wentworthville Medical and Dental Clinic between 11.30am and 1.15pm on Friday are now considered close contacts.

“[They] must immediately get tested and self-isolate for 14 days regardless of the result,” NSW Health said on Saturday afternoon.

“Anyone who was in other areas of the clinic at that time should monitor for symptoms and immediately isolate and get tested if they appear.”

Just 14,547 tests in NSW were reported to 8pm on Friday - down on the previous day’s total of 16,070.

NSW has flagged the possibility of loosening restrictions on Greater Sydney next week but one of the conditions is high testing rates.

The testing rates are “not where we would like them to be”, premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters on Friday.

The premier is due to provide the state with an update on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, Victoria is also watching Sydney closely, as it considers moving parts of the city from “red” to “orange” in its traffic-light permit system.

Travellers from orange zones still need to self-quarantine for 14 days but don’t need to apply for an exemption to enter Victoria.

“There are clearly some local government areas within Greater Sydney that have now gone a number of days of cases without transmission,” Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said in Melbourne.

“I will look very intensively at the epidemiology across Greater Sydney over the next couple of days.”

The UK government said on Saturday it would provide financial aid to airports before the end of March, after the industry called for urgent support as tighter Covid-19 rules for international travellers start on Monday.

Aviation minister Robert Courts said the government would launch a new support programme this month.

“The Airport and Ground Operations Support Scheme will help airports reduce their costs and we will be aiming to provide grants before the end of this financial year,” he announced on social media, adding that more details would follow soon.

From 04:00 GMT on Monday, all travellers to Britain must have a recent negative Covid-19 test and be prepared to quarantine at home for 10 days on arrival.

Britain’s current lockdowns ban most international travel, meaning that airline schedules are currently minimal. But the withdrawal of any quarantine-free travel will be a further blow for the industry.

The latest restrictions were prompted in part by a third wave of the disease that has caused record daily death tolls in Britain, as well as concern about a new coronavirus variant discovered in Brazil.

Brazil recorded 61,567 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and 1,050 further deaths, marking the fifth consecutive day with more than 1,000 fatalities, the health ministry said on Saturday.

The South American country has now registered 8,455,059 cases since the pandemic began, and the official death toll has risen to 209,296, according to ministry data.

It is the world’s third worst outbreak outside the US and India.

Portugal’s finance minister, Joao Leao, has tested positive for Covid-19, his office announced on Saturday.

The day before, he had attended a meeting in Lisbon with high-ranking EU representatives such as commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

The 46-year-old minister has not reported symptoms.

Leao will continue his work at home in self-isolation.

Slovakia is planning another large-scale testing and quarantine push to combat a serious rise in coronavirus infections, health minister Marek Krajci said on Saturday.

The central European country with a population of 5.5 million has seen record numbers of new cases and hospitalisations since the turn of the year.

There were 3,055 people in hospital on Saturday despite some slowdown amid a partial national lockdown.

“We want to do screening testing of our people, isolate those who spread the virus, their contacts and thus cut the number of infections by up to 50%,” Krajci said during a TV press briefing.

The government will finalise the details on Sunday. If the testing succeeds, Slovakia could ease some epidemic measures in early February, Krajci said.

Its colour-coded, six-level state of emergency is currently at black, the most serious.

France reported 196 coronavirus deaths on Saturday, taking its cumulative death toll to 70,145, BFM TV reported, citing the public health authority.

Friday’s death toll had been 399.

On Saturday 21,406 new cases were reported, slightly up from the 21,271 new infections that were recorded on Friday.

Up to a million French children and teachers are to be tested for Covid-19 each month to curb the spread of the UK virus variant, the country’s health minister, Olivier Véran, said on Thursday.

Children as young as six are to be tested.

The government is closely monitoring the variant, which is believed to be up to 70% more infectious, and decide whether to close schools “if the situation was to change and we had an increase in the share of the variant”, Véran said.

The Health Ministry said 413,046 people had been vaccinated, up from 389,000 on Friday.

Easing England’s restrictions before March would be a disaster in the battle against coronavirus and would risk putting the health system under enormous pressure if lifted prematurely, a leading epidemiologist has said.

Prof John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said prime minister Boris Johnson would be very unwise to ease lockdown curbs before the majority of the public has received vaccinations.

The latest stay-at-home measures, which came into effect on 5 January in England and include schools being closed to all but vulnerable pupils and children of key workers, are due to be reviewed in the middle of February.

My colleague Yohannes Lowe has more.

Italy forecasts its debt to soar to a new post-war record level of 158.5% of gross domestic output (GDP) this year, surpassing the 155.6% goal it set in September, a government source told Reuters on Saturday.

The new estimate reflects the impact of a stimulus package worth €32bn ($39bn) announced this week, which will drive the 2021 budget deficit to 8.8% of national output, up from a previous target of 7%.

The extra spending will be used to help the hard-pressed national health service, fund grants and furlough schemes to businesses forced to close due to coronavirus lockdowns, and provide cover for a postponement of tax payment deadlines.

The government is due to update its debt and deficit targets in April.

Italy’s huge public debt is the second highest in the eurozone after that of Greece.

Despite the higher forecasts for 2021, however, the debt figure for 2020 is expected to come in lower than previously estimated, the source said, asking not to be named.

Rome is now expecting the 2020 debt-to-GDP ratio to be 156.5%, below the official target set in September of 158%, which previously was the highest level since the second world war.

The 2020 deficit is estimated at between 10.5% and 10.8% of national output. The final deficit and debt figures for last year will be published by national statistics bureau IStat in March.

France today implemented a 6pm curfew intended to help stem the spread of infections.

Covid-19 has killed 70,000 people in France, the seventh highest death toll in the world, and the government is particularly worried by the more transmissible variant first detected in the UK, which now accounts for about 1% of new cases.

An already existing curfew was brought forward two hours to 6pm and runs until 6am.

In addition, from Monday, anyone travelling to France from outside the EU will have to show a negative Covid-19 test and self-isolate for a week upon arrival.

“These measures were necessary given the situation. While worsening, it remains relatively better than many countries around us, but I took them because the context, notably with the evolution of the virus, means we have to have utmost vigilance,” the prime minister, Jean Castex, said.

The number of daily infections has hit a plateau of about 20,000, but the number of people entering hospitals and in particular intensive care units is still rising steadily.

The French government has also been criticised for the slow pace of the vaccine rollout.

Renaud Piarroux, an epidemiologist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, said the curfew would have little impact in curtailing the new variants, which he believed would predominate within six weeks.

“We will have to make big efforts like the English and even the Germans. I think it’s best to toughen things up now rather than later,” he told BFM TV. “We have to anticipate. I think a new lockdown is inevitable.”

The UK has given almost 3.6 million people a first dose of coronavirus vaccine so far, government statistics showed on Saturday.

The country is aiming to have given first doses of Covid-19 vaccines to 15 million people in high-risk categories by mid-February.

In the UK, 447,261 people have so far received the second dose as well.

In England, 3,090,058 people got a first jab, and 424,327 a second.

Northern Ireland has so far administered 117,906 first doses, and 19,474 second doses.

Scotland has given 224,840 first doses and 3,331 second doses, while in Wales 126,375 people received their first jab so far, and 129 a second.

Italy reported 475 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, against 477 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose from 16,146 to 16,310.

Italy has registered 81,800 Covid-19 deaths since the virus was first detected in the country last February, making it the second-highest toll in Europe and the sixth-highest in the world.

The country has also reported 2.369 million cases to date, the health ministry said.

On Friday, the government issued a new decree extending curbs aimed at keeping a lid on infections.

Restrictions have been tightened to the maximum “red-zone” level in three of Italy’s 20 regions, including northern Lombardy around Milan, the country’s wealthiest and most populous area.

Italy is also suspending flights from Brazil, health minister Roberto Speranza said on Saturday, in response to a new coronavirus strain.

Anyone who has transited Brazil in the last 14 days is also prohibited from entering Italy, he said on Facebook, while people arriving in Italy from Brazil will be required to take a test for the virus, Reuters reports.

“It is critical for our scientists to study the new strain. In the meantime, we are taking a very cautious approach,” he said.

The government of Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte is in trouble after former premier Matteo Renzi took his party out of the ruling coalition on Wednesday.

Renzi had previously threatened to quit the coalition, had criticised Conte’s plans for spending €200bn (£177bn) in EU coronavirus aid, and was reprotedly not a fan of Conte’s frequent use of decrees instead of turning to parliament since the pandemic started.

The UK government said a further 1,295 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Saturday, bringing the official UK total to 88,590.

It is the third-highest daily death toll from coronavirus in the UK, but the number of new infections dropped to its lowest level this year.

Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 104,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK, the PA reports.

The government also said that, as of 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 41,346 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.

It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 3,357,361.

As of Saturday, 5.3% of the UK population have been vaccinated with a first of two required doses.

Hello, I’m taking over from my colleague Damien Gayle. As always, feel free to get in touch if you have relevant updates or tips to flag, you can reach me on Twitter @JedySays and via email.

China has pledged to donate half a million Covid-19 vaccine doses to the Philippines, according to officials in Manila.

President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration is scrambling to lock in supplies of Covid-19 vaccines for the country’s 110 million people, after being criticised for being too slow off the mark in the global race to procure the drugs, according to the French state-backed news agency AFP.

Among other deals, the Philippines has already agreed to buy 25 million doses of Chinese company Sinovac’s Coronavac, despite the jab not having been approved by regulators in China.

It is not clear which vaccine China will donate, and whether the donation is part of that earlier deal; the Chinese embassy in Manila did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, told his counterpart of the intended donation when he was in Manila on Saturday, the Philippines foreign ministry said.

As many as 5,000 health and social care staff were expected to take part in a mass coronavirus vaccination exercise today in Glasgow, Scotland.

The vaccination rollout for frontline healthcare workers was being carried out by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) building, that was converted for use as the emergency Louisa Jordan hospital during the pandemic.

Up to 500 doses of the Pfizer vaccine were due to be administered each hour from 8.45am to 7.30pm, according to PA Media.

It comes as Scotland recorded 1,753 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours and 78 deaths of people who tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 28 days. The number of new infections is 407 below the 2,160 announced on Friday but the number of people who have died is 17 higher.

As of Friday evening, 1,863 people were in hospital across the country with recently confirmed Covid-19, up by three. There were also 145 patients in intensive care, an increase of four.

Commenting on the vaccine rollout in Glasgow, the health secretary, Jeane Freeman, said:

To have 5,000 vaccinations taking place at NHS Louisa Jordan in a single day is testament to the hard work of all the staff at the hospital and I want to thank each and every one of them for their part in the rollout of the biggest vaccination programme ever undertaken in Scotland.

The vaccine offers us hope and as we vaccinate more and more people that hope becomes more real.

On its own, it won’t be enough to win the race against this virus. Our testing programme is crucial. In addition, each one of us needs to follow the guidance, abide by the restrictions, wash our hands, wear face coverings and maintain a two-metre distance from others.

If we all play our part to suppress the prevalence of the virus, then vaccination can do the job we need it to do. Doing all of this will protect us, protect the NHS and save lives.

Another coronavirus variant is likely to be in the UK already despite the imposition of a travel ban from affected countries, a leading epidemiologist has said.

Prof John Edmunds, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said he would find it unusual if the second of two new variants from Brazil was not already present, although it has not yet been detected.

The first variant has a small number of mutations, and eight cases have been confirmed in the UK, but this is not the “variant of concern”, leading virologist Prof Wendy Barclay said on Friday.

The second, which has been detected in Manaus and in travellers arriving in Japan, and is thought to be more infectious, has not been detected in the UK so far.

The children’s television favourite Dr Ranj has joined a chorus of voices urging people in the UK to stay at home this weekend as the country’s coronavirus transmission rate remain high.

In a short infographic produced with data from the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), the doctor - full name Dr Ranj Singh - appeals to viewers not to risk contracting or passing on the virus.

In a statement sent to the Guardian, he said:

Please don’t risk contracting or passing on the virus and stay home as much as possible. I know it is tough and we are bored with the guidelines, but on behalf of my colleagues in the NHS, please stay at home this weekend. I can see it in my hospital, staff are struggling to cope with the amount of care needed to be given to more and more patients suffering from this terribly debilitating virus.

If you are going out to exercise, please do so as locally as possible, never exercise with more than one person from another household and always keep 2 metres distance. If you have to go to the shops, go alone, wear a face mask when indoors and washing your hands before and afterwards. We all need to be vigilant - meeting someone for a coffee could have a knock-on effect and help spread the virus.

The health system in Portugal is close to being overwhelmed, data from intensive care units show, as the country reported its biggest rise in coronavirus infections and deaths since the start of the pandemic on Saturday.

Portugal’s hospitals, whichhad the lowest number of critical care beds per 100,000 inhabitants in Europe before the pandemic, can accommodate a maximum of 672 Covid-19 patients in ICUs, according to health ministry data.

There are currently 638 people in ICUs and the Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators said the number of coronavirus patients needing hospitalisation was likely to increase dramatically over the next week.

On Saturday, a day after Portugal entered a new national lockdown, 10,947 new cases and 166 deaths were reported, bringing the total number of cases in a country of just over 10 million people to 539,416. The death toll stands at 8,709.

The Guardian’s wealth correspondent, Rupert Neate, has written on the problem which is exercising the minds of the obscenely rich. How does one keep one’s superyacht Covid-free?

It is a problem not many us have to consider: how to ensure your multimillion dollar superyacht remains a coronavirus-free zone despite taking on board crew from around the world.

But for the billionaire owners of floating luxury homes there is now a solution – a very expensive one, naturally. An Australian naval architecture firm is launching a new double-hulled support vessel, in which new crew and guests can isolate while they await coronavirus test results from onboard medical staff.

The catamaran, called ShadowCAT Haven and designed by Sydney-based firm Incat Crowther, is being promoted as offering rich owners a “protective layer between the shore and the vessel”, allowing them to “maintain their bubble of protection” from the real world.

Dan Mace, technical manager at Incat Crowther, said the design of the catamaran allowed crew and goods to be “sanitised” before passing to the “clean side”.

“With its certified helipad and generous guest lounge, the Haven allows guests transiting to the yacht to undergo testing and a brief but luxurious isolation period prior to transfer by tender to the mother vessel,” Mace said.

Forthcoming mass rallies planned by Bolivia’s Movement Towards Socialism (Mas) have been suspended to avoid the spread of Covid-19.

Denmark has registered 256 cases of infections with the new and more contagious coronavirus variant known as B117, health authorities said on Saturday, according to Reuters.

Between mid-November and 10 January, 256 Danes have been infected with the new variant, first seen in the UK, corresponding to 1.3% of all positive tests genetically analysed in that period, the State Serum Institute said in a report published on Saturday.

Air travel between Moscow and the capitals of Finland, Vietnam, India and Qatar, suspended since the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, will resume from 27 January, Russian authorities have said.

A statement shared after a meeting of the government’s coronavirus HQ said that the four countries were seeing fewer than 40 new cases per fortnight per 100,000 people, according to Reuters.

Emergency legislation is needed to protect doctors and nurses from “inappropriate” legal action over Covid treatment decisions made amid the pressures of the pandemic, health organisations have argued.

A coalition of health bodies has written to the government urging it to update the law to ensure medical workers do not feel “vulnerable to the risk of prosecution for unlawful killing” when treating coronavirus patients “in circumstances beyond their control”.

Health groups argued that there is no legal protection for Covid-related issues such as when there are “surges in demand for resources that temporarily exceed supply”, PA reports.

The letter, addressed to health secretary Matt Hancock, was co-ordinated by the Medical Protection Society, with the British Medical Association and the Doctors’ Association UK among the signatories.

AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine has been approved for emergency use in Pakistan, the health minister said on Saturday, making it the first coronavirus jab to be allowed for use in the South Asian country.

Pakistan, which is in the midst of a second wave of infections, has said it would procure more than a million doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine, but the Chinese vaccine has not yet been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP).

“DRAP granted emergency use authorisation to AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine,” the country’s health minister, Faisal Sultan, told Reuters.

Pakistan reported 2,432 new coronavirus infections and 45 deaths on Friday, taking the total number of cases to more than 516,000 and deaths close to 11,000.

Greece started vaccinations among the elderly on Saturday, after first inoculating tens of thousands of frontline workers to halt the spread of coronavirus.

More than 75,000 healthcare workers and nursing home residents and carers have received the shot of the vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech since the country rolled out the plan along with other EU countries last month.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, has said the aim is to have 2 million people inoculated by March. The country has a population of about 11 million.

Snow has forced all three rapid Covid testing centres in Luton to close, the local council has said, adding the decision would protect staff and public safety.

China has finished building a 1,500-room hospital for Covid patients to fight a surge in infections believed to have arisen from infected people or goods arriving from abroad.

The hospital is one of six with a total of 6,500 rooms being constructed in Nangong, south of Beijing in Hebei province, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

A total of 645 people are being treated in Nangong and the Hebei provincial capital, Shijiazhuang, Xinhua said.

The latest infections spread unusually fast, the National Health Commission said, adding in a statement: “It is harder to handle”.

It attributed the latest cases to “abnormal management” and “inadequate protection of workers” involved in imports but gave no further details.

Part of the statement said:

They are all imported from abroad. It was caused by entry personnel or contaminated cold chain imported goods.

A plane carrying one million doses of Sinopharm’s Covid vaccine arrived on Saturday in Serbia, making it the first European country to receive the Chinese vaccine for mass inoculation programmes.

President Aleksandar Vučić was accompanied by Beijing’s ambassador to the Balkan country at Belgrade’s airport as containers carrying the vaccines were unloaded from an Air Serbia plane, Reuters reports.

“I would like to thank President Xi Jinping and Chinese leadership for sending us one million doses of the vaccine,” Vucic told reporters.

Hello everyone, it is Yohannes Lowe here. I am taking over the liveblog from Damien for an hour or so, so feel free to drop me a message on Twitter for coverage suggestions.

Nearly three-quarters of black people in the UK have said they are unlikely to consent to Covid-19 vaccination, a survey has found. Linda Geddes, a Guardian science correspondent, has the story:

Historical issues of unethical healthcare research, and structural and institutional racism and discrimination, are key reasons for lower levels of trust in the vaccination programme, a report from Sage said.

The figures come from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, which conducts annual interviews to gain a long-term perspective on British people’s lives.

In late November, the researchers contacted 12,035 participants to investigate the prevalence of coronavirus vaccine hesitancy in the UK, and whether certain subgroups were more likely to be affected by it.

Overall, the study found high levels of willingness to be vaccinated, with 82% of people saying they were likely or very likely to have the jab – rising to 96% among people over the age of 75.

Women, younger people and those with lower levels of education were less willing, but hesitancy was particularly high among people from black groups, where 72% said they were unlikely or very unlikely to be vaccinated. Among Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups this figure was 42%. Eastern European groups were also less willing.

A further 4,029 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Malaysia, the country’s health ministry has announced, the biggest daily increase since the beginning of the pandemic.

So far the country has recorded 155,095 infections.

The health ministry also reported eight new deaths, taking the total number of fatalities to 594.

Police in Wales have fined a woman £500 for organising protests over the death of a young black man hours after he was released from police custody.

The family of Mohamud Hassan allege that he was beaten by South Wales police and had a number of serious injuries at the time of his death. The police have referred the case to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

Protests took place outside Cardiff Bay police station for three days after Hassan’s death.

Regarding the fine, South Wales police said:

South Wales police can confirm that on Thursday, one woman was reported for summons for breaching Covid-19 regulations by organising an outdoor event, namely protests in Cardiff Bay on Tuesday and Wednesday, at which more than 30 people were in attendance.

She now has the opportunity to either pay a £500 fixed penalty notice or request a court hearing.

Welsh government regulations are in place to protect the community from the spread of Covid-19 and this action was taken in an effort to protect the public’s health during this global pandemic.

Enquiries into the protests are continuing and further action against other individuals for breaching Covid-19 regulations and, or other criminal offences, is anticipated.

The medicines regulator in Switzerland is set to approve AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine this month, according to a local media report.

The NZZ newspaper on Saturday cited two unnamed sources as saying that the watchdog, Swissmedic, will hold a meeting at the end of the month to confirm its approval of the vaccine.

The Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines, which both use a novel mRNA mechanism, are already approved for use in Switzerland.

“If everything proceeds in an exemplary manner and we get the necessary data soon, the next approval decision can come very quickly,” the paper cited a Swissmedic spokesman as saying without giving a date, according to Reuters.

The Swiss government has told the country’s 8.6 million residents that everybody can be vaccinated for free by the middle of the year.

Cafes and restaurants will reopen in Azerbaijan from the beginning of February, but other coronavirus restrictions will be extended until April, the government has said.

According to Reuters, Azerbaijan’s coronavirus measures were introduced in late March and have been extended several times, with borders closed as the number of new cases keeps rising.

Shopping malls will stay closed and the metro service in the capital, Baku, will remain suspended.

As of Saturday, the country of about 10 million people in the south Caucasus had registered 226,549 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 2,983 deaths.

A leading British epidemiologist has warned against the lifting of coronavirus restrictions in the UK at the end of February, saying it would be a disaster that would put enormous pressure on the NHS.

Prof John Edmunds, who works on the government’s coronavirus response as part of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

I think it would be a disaster if we removed restrictions in, say, the end of February when we have gone through this first wave of the vaccination.

First of all vaccines aren’t ever 100% protective, and so even those that have been vaccinated would be still at some risk.

Secondly, it is only a small fraction of the population who would have been vaccinated and if you look at the hospitalisations at the moment, about half of them are in the under-70s, and they are not in the first wave to be vaccinated.

If we relaxed our restrictions we would immediately put the NHS under enormous pressure again.

The UK airport industry has warned of devastating consequences from the country’s drastic tightening of border controls.

Responding to the announcement that all travel corridors will be suspended, Karen Dee, Airport Operators Association chief executive, said:

The closure of travel corridors is understandable from a public health perspective but this adds to the current near-complete shutdown of the UK’s airports, which are vital for our post-pandemic prosperity. This is making a devastating situation for UK airports and communities relying on the jobs and economic benefits that aviation brings, worse.

The UK and devolved governments now need to set out as a matter of extreme urgency how they will support airports through this deepening crisis. Business rate support, announced last year and in England not yet even open to applications, is no longer sufficient to ensure airports can weather the difficult months ahead.

Airports are currently keeping their infrastructure open to support vital and critical services, such as post, freight, emergency services, military and Coastguard flights, as well as to help keep the lights in the UK on through supporting flights to offshore oil, gas and wind operations.

Airports are doing so while running on empty – there is only so long they can run on fumes before having to close temporarily to preserve their business for the future. Government needs to help cover airports’ operational costs by, for example, urgently providing relief from regulatory, policing, air traffic and business rates costs in the current and the coming tax year.

This morning the same coronavirus-related story is leading nearly all the UK national papers this morning.

The Saturday print editions of the Guardian, the Times and the Telegraph all lead with the news of the UK drastically tightening its border controls. As Peter Walker, one of our political correspondents, writes:

Boris Johnson announced a dramatic tightening of the UK’s borders last night, with all international arrivals forced to quarantine and to show they have had a negative Covid test.

After months of criticism of the government’s lax border policies, which Labour claimed were “costing lives”, the prime minister said he was now tightening the rules to prevent new variants of the virus reaching the UK and to safeguard the vaccination programme, as the number of deaths worldwide reached 2 million.

“It is vital to take these extra measures now when day by day, hour by hour, we are making such strides in protecting the population,” Johnson told a Downing Street press conference. Despite some tentative signs that infections may be levelling off, he also underlined the desperate situation in hospitals, urging the public to think twice before going out at the weekend.

The same story also leads the Express, but its mid-market rival the Daily Mail leads with something about the royal family.

Russia on Saturday reported 24,092 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, including 4,674 in Moscow, Reuters reports.

The latest update takes the country’s national tally to 3,544,623, the world’s fourth largest.

Authorities also confirmed 590 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 65,085.

Good morning world, Damien Gayle here on another cold, wet morning in London, where the news is as grim as the weather.

As usual, I’ll be keeping you updated with the latest coronavirus-related news from the UK and around the world today. If you have any comments, tips or suggestions for coverage then feel free to drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.

And with that, I might leave you in the capable hands of Damien Gayle who will take you through the rest of the morning’s news.

Advisers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have raised fresh concerns over Covid vaccine uptake among black, Asian and minority ethnic communities (BAME) as research showed up to 72% of black people [in the UK] said they were unlikely to have the jab.

Historical issues of unethical healthcare research, and structural and institutional racism and discrimination, are key reasons for lower levels of trust in the vaccination programme, a report from Sage said.

The figures come from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, which conducts annual interviews to gain a long-term perspective on British people’s lives.

In late November, the researchers contacted 12,035 participants to investigate the prevalence of coronavirus vaccine hesitancy in the UK, and whether certain subgroups were more likely to be affected by it.

You can read Linda Gedde’s full story below:

China on Saturday finished building a 1,500-room hospital for Covid-19 patients in five days to fight a surge in infections in a city south of Beijing, state media reported.

The hospital is one of six with a total of 6,500 rooms being built in Nangong in Hebei province, the Xinhua news agency said. All are due to be completed within the next week.

China, which largely contained the spread of the coronavirus, has suffered hundreds of infections this month in Nangong and the Hebei provincial capital of Shijiazhuang, south-west of the Chinese capital.

A similar program of rapid hospital construction was launched by the ruling Communist party at the start of the outbreak last year to set up isolation hospitals in Wuhan, the central city where the virus was first detected in late 2019.

Nationwide, the National Health Commission reported 130 new confirmed cases – 90 of those in Hebei – in the 24 hours through midnight Friday. There were 645 cases, two of them acquired abroad, being treated in Nangong and Shijiazhuang, according to Xinhua.

In Shijiazhuang, authorities have finished construction of one-third of the rooms in a planned 3,000-room coronavirus facility, state TV said on Saturday.

More than 10 million people in Shijiazhuang underwent virus tests by late Friday, Xinhua said, citing a deputy mayor, Meng Xianghong. It said 247 locally transmitted cases were found.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 18,678 to 2,019,636 on Saturday, according to the Robert Koch Institute.

The reported death toll rose by 980 to 45,974, the tally showed.

Thank you, Michael, Matilda Boseley here now, and NSW Health has just added another potential exposure site in Sydney to their list.

Anyone who visited the Wentworthville Medical and Dental Clinic in western Sydney between 11.30am and 1.15pm on Friday 15 January is now considered a close contact and must immediately get tested and self-isolate for 14 days regardless of the result.

This comes after someone recently diagnosed visited the clinic while potentially infectious.

The health department says this warning is for the dental, physio and imaging waiting room only.

Anyone who was in other areas of the clinic at that time should monitor for symptoms and immediately isolate and get tested if they appear.

That’s all from me today. I leave you in the very capable hands of Matilda Boseley.

The 14 travellers who have been in quarantine in Tasmania after having been at the Grand Chancellor Hotel in Brisbane will be released today, the government has announced.

Tasmania’s deputy state controller Scott Tilyard said on Saturday the decision was made after Queensland Health authorities declared the cluster over with no further cases of Covid-19 found after testing of all close contacts.

Based on the Queensland Health decision, and none of the travellers here returning a positive test result, and it has been 14 days since their possible exposure, there is no need for them to remain in quarantine any longer.

This was always a precautionary measure as all had completed their quarantine requirements previously and returned a negative test result before being released.

However we believed the extra precaution was necessary to enable further information to be obtained and we are grateful for the co-operation of the people involved who returned to quarantine while the matter was looked into.

With the ending of the quarantine period, the 10 crew members of the Buccoo Reef catamaran who were quarantining on the vessel will be released from quarantine and the vessel will be able to depart.

However, Tilyard said the greater Brisbane area remained “a high risk area”. People from those areas currently in quarantine would need to remain in quarantine.

Those who have arrived here since January 8 are in quarantine in relation to concerns about community cases in the greater Brisbane area and are separate to the specific Grand Chancellor cluster.

So at this stage other travellers who have arrived since January 8 and are currently in quarantine need to remain in quarantine at this time.

A further assessment of the situation is being undertaken and an update on the situation for these people will be advised on Monday.

Mexican tennis player Santiago González, one of the players on board the Australian Open charter flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne that has had two passengers test positive for Covid-19, has posted his own negative result on social media. Via my colleague Matilda Boseley:

Western Australia has recorded two new cases of Covid-19, but both are returned overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.

The two cases – both men in their 40s – bring the state’s total number of cases to 886.

WA Health says there are 15 active cases of the virus in the state.

The Queensland chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, has confirmed that some of those people linked to the Hotel Grand Chancellor cluster that emerged in Brisbane a fortnight ago will have to remain in quarantine.

While a number of guests and staff will be released from quarantine at 6pm this evening, Young said only those “who I believe are no longer an infection risk to the community” would be allowed to re-enter the community.

Community contacts associated with the hotel cleaner who tested positive to the UK variant of Covid-19 – or her partner – are to remain in quarantine for the full 14 days.

Guests and staff yet to complete their 14 days mandatory quarantine will also remain in quarantine.

But I am happy that we are in a position where we can release many people from quarantine, especially guests who have already completed more than the required 14 days.

I ordered the evacuation of the Hotel Grand Chancellor out of caution and relocated all guests to other quarantine facilities. Most hotel workers and government staff were placed into home quarantine.

This was the safest action to take to protect the community.

Queensland Health said in a statement that the following groups would be released from hotel or home quarantine at 6pm today:

• All staff engaged at Hotel Grand Chancellor since 30 December 2020, including hotel workers, Queensland police officers, Australian Defence Force officers, Queensland Health staff, pathology staff and other workers.
• Quarantined guests released from the Hotel Grand Chancellor since 30 December 2020 after completing 14 days of mandatory quarantine.
• Quarantined guests transferred from the Hotel Grand Chancellor and remain at The Westin, where they have completed their 14 days of mandatory quarantine.

The guests and staff are required to meet a set of conditions before they are released, including completing their individual quarantine requirements, evidence of negative Covid-19 tests, being free of Covid-19 symptoms, and providing up-to-date contact details.

Iceland has genetically sequenced all its positive Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, an increasingly vital practice as worrying new strains emerge from Britain and South Africa, AFP reports.

The World Health Organization on Friday urged all countries to ramp up genome sequencing to help combat the emerging variants.

Scientists at the Icelandic biopharma group deCODE Genetics’ laboratory in Reykjavik have worked relentlessly for the past 10 months, analysing each positive coronavirus test in Iceland at the request of the country’s health authorities.

The aim is to trace every case in order to prevent problematic ones from slipping through the net.

“It takes us relatively short time to do the actual sequencing,” explains the head of the lab, Olafur Thor Magnusson, adding that “about three hours” is all that is needed to determine the virus strain.

The entire process, from isolating the DNA to sequencing it, can take up to a day and a half, and has enabled Iceland to identify 463 separate variants – which scientists call haplotypes.

Prior to sequencing, the DNA of each sample is first isolated, then purified using magnetic beads.

The samples are then taken to a massive, bright room full of equipment, where a deafening sound emanates from small machines resembling scanners.

The machines are gene sequencers, which map the novel coronavirus genome.

In a twist that, well, many people could see coming, the Australian Open is now facing massive complications after two people on the charter flight QR7493 from Los Angeles tested positive to Covid-19 on arrival in Melbourne.

In an email posted on social media by Mexican world number 155 Santiago González, which appears to be sent by Tennis Australia, the players on the flight are instructed that they must isolate in their rooms for two weeks with no ability to train in the vital days leading up to the competition.

Unfortunately we have been informed by the health authorities that two people on your flight from LAX that arrived at 5:15am on Friday 15 January have returned positive Covid-19 PCR tests on arrival to Melbourne.

The chief health officer has reviewed the flight and has determined that everyone on board needs to isolate and will be confined to their rooms for the 14 days quarantin [sic].

We know this is not how you imagined your preparations for the AO would start but our entire team is here to support and do everything we can to get you through this.

Former world No 1 Victoria Azarenka, as well as American Sloane Stephens and Japanese player Kei Nishikori were reportedly also on board this flight.

The flight with the two positive cases was the same one that US player Tennys Sandgren tweeted he had been allowed to board despite returning a positive test.

It was later clarified Sandgren had contracted the virus in November, and was not considered to be a risk of transmitting the virus. At the time a spokesman for the Victorian quarantine program said it was common among people who had tested positive and then recovered to “shed viral fragments for some time”, which could “trigger another positive result”.

There is no suggestion Sandgren is one of the positive cases on board, though Guardian Australia is seeking additional information from the Victorian health department.

Here’s our story on a grim landmark. The world has now passed 2m deaths from Covid-19.

“Our world has reached a heart-wrenching milestone,” United Nations chief António Guterres announced on Friday.

“Behind this staggering number are names and faces: the smile now only a memory, the seat forever empty at the dinner table, the room that echoes with the silence of a loved one.”

Guterres used the landmark to push for greater global solidarity to fund vaccination efforts.

The World Health Organisation has called for a worldwide acceleration in vaccine rollouts - as well as a ramp-up in efforts to study the sequencing of the virus, in order to tackle troubling new strains emerging around the world.

“I want to see vaccination under way in every country in the next 100 days so that health workers and those at high risk are protected first,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Geneva on Friday.

His call came as infections snowballed, with 724,000 new cases recorded on average per day globally over the past week, according to AFP - a record 10 percent increase on a week earlier.

While countries from Spain to Lebanon have announced record caseloads, the surge has been most marked in Latin America and the Caribbean, where confirmed cases leapt 26 percent this week.

US President-elect Joe Biden said Friday he would harness the full strength of the federal government in a vaccine blitz: creating thousands of immunization sites, deploying mobile clinics and expanding the public health workforce.

“You have my word: we will manage the hell out of this operation,” said Biden, five days before he assumes leadership of the world’s hardest-hit country, where the death toll is approaching 400,000.

And that’s it from Victoria.

Andrews defended the decision to push ahead with the Australian Open, despite criticism that the 1,200 players and staff who have been allowed to enter hotel quarantine in the state is occurring while thousands of Australians remain stranded overseas.

There are literally dozens of cities around the world that would pay almost anything to have a grand slam at our expense. We are simply not going to do that. We are running a hotel quarantine model to the highest standard and they are the important decisions that have been made. Of course, that doesn’t influence - that has no impact whatsoever on the number of returning Australians that are coming into hotel quarantining here.

Andrews won’t confirm the 15 February date reported by the Age newspaper this morning for the beginning of the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine.

He confirms he will be getting the vaccine.

Anything I can do to send the message that it’s safe and something that all Victorians should sign up to, of course I will.

Victoria’s decision to begin allowing entry to residents stranded in other states will be welcome news for the thousands who have been stuck in NSW and Queensland for more than two weeks.

But Andrews flags that anyone travelling to those states should be aware that “circumstances can change and they can change rapidly”.

That’s just the nature of this virus. Until we get vaccinations across the board, until we have that sort of protection, then this there will be a feature of life in your home state and life across the nation and indeed across the world. You just have to factor that in, and I know that’s really challenging.

I can’t wish this thing away and I certainly can’t start ignoring public health advice, so when you add those two things together plus the fact that this is such a rapid and dynamic and highly contagious virus, coronavirus has got to be part of your thinking when you’re making plans to travel anywhere.

The five Brisbane local government areas which will switch from a red to orange zone at 6pm tonight are:

• Brisbane
• Moreton Bay
• Logan
• Ipswich
• Redlands

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews will hold a press conference at 10.15am, local time.

India begins one of the world’s biggest coronavirus vaccine programs on Saturday, a colossal and complex task compounded by safety worries, shaky infrastructure and public scepticism.

AFP reports the world’s second-most populous nation hopes to inoculate around 300 million of its 1.3 billion people by July – a number equal to almost the entire US population.

Health workers, people over 50 and those deemed at high risk are prioritised to receive one of two approved vaccines, although one has yet to complete clinical trials.

On day one around 300,000 people will receive the first of two doses, with prime minister Narendra Modi set to launch the program virtually in New Delhi.

Authorities say they are drawing on their experience with elections and child immunisation programmes for polio and tuberculosis in rolling out the vaccine.

About 150,000 staff in 700 districts have been specially trained, and India has held several national dry runs involving mock transportation of vaccines.

But in an enormous, impoverished nation with often shoddy transport networks and one of the world’s worst-funded healthcare systems, it is still a daunting undertaking.

Regular child inoculations are a “much smaller game” and vaccinating against Covid-19 will be “deeply challenging”, said Satyajit Rath from the National Institute of Immunology.

In the US, governors have accused the Trump administration of deceiving the states about the amount of Covid-19 vaccine they can expect to receive, as the country’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention warns the new more infectious strain of the virus will probably become the dominant infection in the country by March.

The CDC said it is about 50% more contagious than the virus that is causing the bulk of cases in this country so far.

“We want to sound the alarm,” said Dr Jay Butler, CDC deputy director for infectious diseases.

AP reports the clash over the pace of the government’s Covid-19 vaccine allotments threatens to escalate tensions between the outgoing Trump administration and some states over who is responsible for the relatively slow start to the vaccination drive against the scourge that has killed over 390,000 Americans.

Oregon had announced earlier this week that it would expand vaccine eligibility to roughly 760,000 residents 65 and older, as well teachers and child care providers, because of what it said were promises that the state’s vaccine allotment would be increased.

But Democratic governor Kate Brown said those plans are now in disarray because of “deception on a national scale” by the administration.

Via Twitter, Brown said she was told by General Gustave F Perna, who leads Operation Warp Speed, that states will not be receiving increased shipments of vaccine from the national stockpile next week “because there is no federal reserve of doses.”

Minnesota governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, said he was among several governors deceived by federal officials about availability of a strategic supply of doses.

“This one is so far beyond the pale to be almost unimaginable,” he said. “Who’s going to be prosecuted for this? What are the states to do when they’ve been lied to and made all their plans around this?”

Alena Yarmosky, a spokeswoman for Virginia governor Ralph Northam, said governors were “told explicitly” on Tuesday that they would be provided additional doses. Northam, a Democrat and a doctor, had moved quickly as a result to announce that the state would expand vaccine eligibility

Now, Northam’s administration is trying to determine whether those additional supplies don’t exist, Yarmosky said.

“What we’re seeing is fully in line with the dysfunction that has characterised the Trump administration’s entire response to Covid-19. President-elect Biden cannot be sworn in fast enough,” she said.

Overnight the West Australian premier Mark McGowan said his government would move Victoria to a “low risk” coronavirus category from next week, meaning some restrictions will be loosened on travellers from the state.

While Victorian travellers will still need to self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in WA, from Monday they will be allowed into the state without needing a special exemption. They will also be required to present for a coronavirus test on day 11 of their quarantine.