Covid news: Queen changes Christmas plans; EU drug regulator approves Novavax vaccine – as it happened | World news

That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, for right this moment. Earlier than I hand over to my colleague Samantha Lock, right here’s a fast roundup of what’s been occurring to date:

• The UK authorities held off saying additional Covid restrictions however its prime minister, Boris Johnson, warned additional measures stay on the desk, with knowledge on the specter of Omicron monitored “hour by hour”. Johnson was accused of failing to observe scientists’ recommendation on the necessity for instant restrictions whereas leaving tens of millions of individuals and companies in limbo after a two-hour cupboard assembly ended with no resolution on Monday.
• Faculties, bars, gyms and cinemas in Quebec will shut as of Monday as public well being officers race to sluggish the unfold of the Omicron variant. All non-essential employees are being requested to work at home and eating places must cut back their capability to 50% and restrict their hours from 5am to 10pm.
• London’s New 12 months’s Eve celebration occasion in Trafalgar Sq. is not going to happen due to the surge in circumstances of the Omicron Covid variant within the capital, the town’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has mentioned.
• The European Union’s medicine regulator has given the inexperienced mild to a fifth Covid vaccine to be used, granting conditional advertising and marketing authorisation to the two-dose remedy made by the US biotech firm Novavax.
• Donald Trump was greeted with boos from a reside viewers after revealing he has acquired a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot. The previous US president dismissed the group’s adverse response and claimed his administration was answerable for creating the coronavirus vaccines.
• Moderna mentioned a booster dose of its Covid vaccine gave the impression to be protecting towards the fast-spreading Omicron variant in laboratory testing and that the present model of the vaccine would proceed to be Moderna’s “first line of defence towards Omicron”.
• Britain reported 91,743 new Covid circumstances on Monday, the second-highest determine because the begin of the pandemic, because the Omicron variant continues to unfold quickly. The variety of deaths inside 28 days of a constructive Covid check was 44.
• Queen Elizabeth will have fun Christmas at Windsor as an alternative of her ordinary alternative of Sandringham over Covid security fears, in accordance with a palace supply. The monarch often spends the festive vacation at her property in Norfolk and sources have mentioned the choice was “a private one after cautious consideration and displays a precautionary method”.
• The Russian maker of the Covid Sputnik V vaccine is because of submit its newest knowledge by the tip of December, with manufacturing website inspections anticipated to observe in February, a World Well being Group official mentioned.
• Panama has detected its first case of the Omicron variant of Covid, the Central American nation’s well being ministry mentioned.

Omicron accounted for 73% of infections within the United States for the week ending 18 December, federal well being officers have mentioned.

Every week in the past, knowledge by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention confirmed Omicron had precipitated some 3% of latest infections within the US.

Within the New York space, the Southeast, industrial Midwest and the Pacific Northwest, the variant is answerable for an estimated 90% of recent infections.

Workers at one UK hospital have been advised they might not be capable of take any annual go away because the Omicron variant causes hovering hospitalisations, the Independent has learned.

In an e-mail seen by the paper, College Hospitals Birmingham Basis Belief was pressured to inform workers final week they may not make any new vacation requests and that present go away could also be cancelled as it’s experiencing “important pressures”.

Docs at Barts Well being Belief, which runs three hospitals in London, have additionally been warned it might must cancel “some or a lot” of its deliberate operations in January to deal with the approaching Covid surge.

The belief instructed it must depend on workers volunteering for further shifts to keep away from cancelling go away and redeploying employees.

Premier League golf equipment in England have mentioned driving up vaccination charges of their squads by creating separate guidelines for gamers but to get a Covid-19 jab. On a day when it emerged that 16% of top-flight gamers are unvaccinated and a document 90 constructive checks had been recorded amongst gamers and workers within the week as much as final Sunday, a two-tier system was raised at an emergency assembly.

Proposals embody unvaccinated gamers travelling individually to video games, dealing with a further verify to get into stadiums and having meals away from vaccinated teammates. The strikes are designed to protect towards extra fixtures being cancelled because the golf equipment determined to press on with the season.

A complication for the league is that below authorities pointers unvaccinated gamers should isolate for 10 days if deemed an in depth contact of anybody who has examined constructive, even when they produce adverse outcomes. This will increase the chance of postponements by decreasing the pool of gamers obtainable to a membership.

On Monday the league mentioned that 77% of its gamers have been double-jabbed and that 84% had acquired one, two or three vaccinations. On Friday Serie A mentioned that 98% of its gamers had acquired two jabs.

Learn the total article by my colleagues Jacob Steinberg, David Hytner and Paul MacInnes right here:

London’s New 12 months’s Eve celebration occasion in Trafalgar Sq. is not going to happen due to the surge in circumstances of the Omicron Covid variant within the capital, the town’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has mentioned.

Not less than 5 UK nationwide sights together with the Pure Historical past Museum and Edinburgh Fort have closed through the Christmas faculty holidays, often one of many busiest instances of the yr.

Donald Trump revealed he has acquired a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot throughout a reside interview present with former Fox Information host Invoice O’Reilly. O’Reilly confirmed he additionally acquired a booster shot, although neither mentioned which one they acquired.

The previous US president was booed by a portion of the viewers however he appeared to dismiss the group’s adverse response. “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t!” he mentioned. “That’s all proper, it’s a really tiny group over there.”

Throughout the identical present, Trump mentioned his administration was answerable for creating the coronavirus vaccines. “Look, we did one thing that was historic,” he mentioned. “We saved tens of tens of millions of lives worldwide once we, collectively, all of us, we obtained a vaccine finished.”

“This is able to have been the Spanish Flu of 1917 … This was going to ravage the nation, far past what it’s proper now. Take credit score for it,” he added.

His feedback come as a comparatively giant proportion of Republicans have refused to get even preliminary doses of the vaccines. A recent study by the New York Times confirmed roughly 60% of Republican adults have acquired their first shot, in contrast with 91% of Democrats.

Good night from London. I’m Léonie Chao-Fong, I’ll be bringing you all the newest international developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the following few hours.

In Quebec, Canada’s second-most populous province, faculties, bars, gyms, casinos and cinemas shall be closed as of Monday with a view to fight the fast unfold of the Omicron variant.

All non-essential employees are being requested to work at home and eating places must cut back their capability to 50% and restrict their hours from 5am to 10pm. The brand new measures will come into impact at 5pm native time on Monday.

The province’s well being minister, Christian Dubé, urged Quebecers to chop down their private contacts after a document 4,571 new circumstances have been recorded.

“The state of affairs is essential. The explosion of circumstances is overwhelming,” he mentioned in a press briefing right this moment.

Here’s a round-up of all the highest Covid headlines right this moment from the UK and around the globe:

• The European Union’s medicine regulator has given the inexperienced mild to a fifth Covid vaccine to be used, granting conditional advertising and marketing authorisation to the two-dose remedy made by the US biotech firm Novavax.
• The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading sooner than the Delta variant and is inflicting infections in folks already vaccinated or who’ve recovered from the Covid illness, the pinnacle of the World Well being Group mentioned on Monday.
• Moderna mentioned on Monday {that a} booster dose of its Covid vaccine gave the impression to be protecting towards the fast-spreading Omicron variant in laboratory testing and that the present model of the vaccine would proceed to be Moderna’s “first line of defence towards Omicron”.
• Bereaved households and pals who misplaced family members to Covid have criticised Boris Johnson over a photograph that has emerged exhibiting the prime minister at a gathering within the Downing Avenue backyard with wine and cheese alongside his spouse and as much as 17 workers in an obvious breach of lockdown guidelines.
• Britain reported 91,743 new Covid circumstances on Monday, the second highest determine because the begin of the pandemic, because the Omicron variant continues to unfold quickly. The variety of deaths inside 28 days of a constructive Covid check was 44.
• Within the UK, at the very least 5 nationwide sights together with the Pure Historical past Museum and Edinburgh Fort have closed due to a surge in Covid circumstances.
• Belgium’s well being ministers have agreed to start out vaccinating youngsters aged between 5 and 11 towards coronavirus.
• Britain’s Queen Elizabeth will have fun Christmas at Windsor as an alternative of her ordinary alternative of Sandringham, a palace supply mentioned on Monday, because the Omicron variant continues to unfold quickly.
• Italy reported 137 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday towards 97 the day earlier than, the well being ministry mentioned, whereas the each day tally of recent infections fell to 16,213 from 24,259.
• Israeli ministers on Monday agreed to ban journey to the US, Canada and eight different nations amid the fast, international unfold of the omicron variant.
• The Russian maker of the Covid Sputnik V vaccine is because of submit its newest knowledge by the tip of December, with manufacturing website inspections anticipated to observe in February, a World Well being Group (WHO) official mentioned on Monday.
• Panama has detected its first case of the Omicron variant of Covid, the Central American nation’s well being ministry mentioned on Monday.
• China have to be extra forthcoming with knowledge and data associated to the origin of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, the pinnacle of the World Well being Group has mentioned.
• Royal Caribbean Group has mentioned 48 folks on its Symphony of the Seas cruise ship examined constructive for Covid.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for right this moment. I’ll be again tomorrow morning however for now I shall go away you with my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong, who will hold you throughout all of the Covid information all through the night. Goodbye.

Queen Elizabeth will have fun Christmas at Windsor as an alternative of her ordinary alternative of Sandringham, a palace supply has mentioned, because the Omicron variant continues to unfold quickly.

“The choice was a private one after cautious consideration and displays a precautionary method,” the supply mentioned. “There shall be household visiting Windsor over the Christmas interval and all acceptable pointers shall be adopted.”

Chris Ship, ITV Information’s royal editor, tweeted that the choice taken by the monarch was a “private one”.

Panama has detected its first case of Omicron, the Central American nation’s well being ministry has mentioned.

A 50-year-old who labored in mining and not too long ago travelled to South Africa was discovered to have contracted the variant, mentioned Luis Sucre, the well being minister.

The Russian maker of the Covid Sputnik V vaccine is because of submit its newest knowledge by the tip of December, with manufacturing website inspections anticipated to observe in February, a World Well being Group has mentioned.

Rogério Gaspar, the WHO’s regulation director, gave the brand new timelines for the vaccine made by the Gamaleya Institute at a WHO briefing for journalists in Geneva.

Coronavirus circumstances surged in New York Metropolis and across the United States over the weekend, dashing hopes for a extra regular vacation season.

In New York, new Covid circumstances rose 60% within the week that ended on Sunday because the Omicron variant spreads quickly across the US northeast. New York has set data for essentially the most new circumstances reported in a single day because the pandemic began for 3 consecutive days.

The rise in circumstances has set off alarm bells for public well being officers, who see Omicron quick turning into dominant in the US and worry an explosion of infections after vacation gatherings., Reuters reported.

With the brand new variant in circulation, the variety of Covid circumstances is now doubling in a single and a half to 3 days in areas with group transmission, the World Well being Group mentioned on Saturday.

China have to be extra forthcoming with knowledge and data associated to the origin of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, the pinnacle of the World Well being Group has mentioned.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus mentioned there had been “many failures” through the pandemic due to a scarcity of guidelines or obligations below the WHO’s present 2005 Worldwide Well being Rules.

“We have to proceed till we all know the origins, we have to push tougher as a result of we must always be taught from what occurred this time with a view to [do] higher sooner or later,” Tedros advised a information briefing for Geneva journalists.