Record numbers admitted to US hospitals with coronavirus; Sweden to introduce stricter curbs – as it happened

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We have also launched a new live news feed here with all the current developments.

Here’s a quick rundown of all the latest headlines:

• Boris Johnson was accused on Monday night of an “utterly outrageous” breach of lockdown rules as a leaked email showed one of his top officials invited more than 100 Downing Street staff to a “bring your own booze” party during the first lockdown. The police are now investigating.
  
• Boris Johnson has ordered officials to examine plans to cut Covid isolation to five days in England as scientists urged caution over the lack of evidence to support a change.
  
• NHS England has struck a deal with private healthcare providers under which their hospitals will be ready to start treating NHS patients who cannot get the Covid or non-Covid care they need because their local NHS hospital is under too much pressure.
• Pfizer Inc chief executive Albert Bourla said on Monday that moving toward a redesigned Covid-19 vaccine that is specifically targeted to combat the Omicron variant is the “most likely scenario.”
  
• The small number of people in Italy’s population who refuse to be vaccinated against Covid-19 are largely responsible for the continued health crisis, prime minister Mario Draghi said on Monday.
• In the US, a new record has been set for the number of people admitted to hospital with Covid-19, with 132,646 currently on wards, according to Reuters. The latest figure, which comes as the highly contagious Omicron strain spreads across the country, surpassed the record of 132,051 set in January last year.
• Moderna has announced it expects record sales of about $18.5bn (£13.6bn) in contracts for its Covid vaccine in 2022.
• Novak Djokovic’s brother reportedly ended a press conference after questions about why the tennis ace appeared in public in Belgrade a day after he had tested positive for Covid-19.
• Emmanuel Macron has condemned protesters on the French overseas territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon who pelted an MP with seaweed and dirt during a protest against vaccine passes.
• Stricter pandemic measures are to be introduced in Sweden in response to a rising number of Covid cases and pressure on hospitals, the prime minister has said.
• The prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, has called for European officials to consider ditching detailed pandemic tracking for Covid in favour of a flu-like monitoring system. The change would mean treating Covid-19 as an “endemic illness” rather than a pandemic, Sánchez said on Monday. He pointed out that deaths as a proportion of recorded cases has fallen since the pandemic began.

France has announced an easing of Covid rules for schools as record-high case numbers shut down thousands of classes and sparked concern among parents and teachers.

Prime minister Jean Castex told France 2 television on Monday that more than 10,000 classes - 2% of the total - had to be cancelled because of coronavirus outbreaks, but that the government would not “shut down the schools or the country”, Agence France-Presse reports.

France on Monday reported more than 125,000 new coronavirus cases as the Omicron variant drives up daily infections to record highs.

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Under the first change, from Tuesday, parents will no longer be obliged to pick up their child immediately for Covid testing if he or she is a contact case of a virus sufferer.

Home-testing will be deemed sufficient in such cases rather than testing at an officially approved site, with the parents signing a certificate to confirm the result.

The test kits, available from pharmacies, will be free.

Peru reported an all-time high 70,000 Covid-19 infections in the first week of January, a health official told reporters on Monday.

Dante Cersso, a government health official, said the new weekly case count had exceeded the previous record of 67,107 cases during the second week of April of last year.

At the time, Peru was going through a brutal second wave that left the country with the world’s worst per-capita death rate, according to Johns Hopkins University.

About 0.5% of Peru’s population has died of Covid-19.

Death counts have not spiked with the recent surge in cases, according to data from Peru’s Ministry of Health, Reuters reports.

More than 65% of Peru’s population has received two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to Our World in Data. Peru is also offering booster shots to all adults three months after receiving their second shot.

Samantha Lock back with you on the blog reporting to you from Sydney.

Here’s a quick snapshot of how Covid is unfolding across Australia.

Victoria recorded 37,944 new Covid-19 cases and 13 deaths while NSW recorded 25,870 new Covid-19 cases and 11 deaths.

Novak Djokovic yesterday won an appeal against his visa cancellation after spending four days in an immigration detention centre.

A wild 24 hours saw ecstatic Djokovic’s fans pepper-sprayed by police as they celebrated his release in Melbourne. But the victory comes with the threat that immigration minister Alex Hawke may revoke his entry visa for a second time, using powers granted by Australia’s Migration Act. Djokovic said he was “pleased” and “grateful” for the ruling, and was still determined to stay and compete at the Australian Open.

Meanwhile, Australia passed the grim milestone of 1m active Covid-19 cases yesterday. There have been 250,000 Covid cases since Friday alone.

Brazil reported 34,788 new cases in the past 24 hours and 110 deaths from Covid-19, the health ministry said on Monday.

Infections are increasing in Brazil, with 32,954 new infections reported on average each day. According to the Reuters Covid-19 Tracker that is 43% of the country’s peak, the highest daily average reported on 23 June 2021.

The South American country has now registered 22,558,695 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 620,091, according to ministry data.

Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid has tested positive for Covid-19, Israel’s Ynet news website reported on Monday.

Lapid was in quarantine at home and was feeling well, the website reported.

In a tweet, the minister said: “I feel great because I’m vaccinated. Go get vaccinated, put on a mask, [and] we’ll get through this together.”

Several Israeli lawmakers have been infected with the virus over the past week, Haaretz reports, as the Omicron variant drives a surge in cases in the country.

Lapid’s deputy, Idal Roll, is also in isolation after having tested positive last week. He was confirmed to have contracted the virus a few days after seen in footage at a New Year’s Eve party without a mask.

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From delayed ambulances to police shortages, Canadian public agencies hit hard by Covid-19 worker absences have cut back on service, rearranged staff or warned the public that emergency responses may be disrupted.

Reuters reports:

Over the weekend, paramedics in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, said there were briefly no ambulances available to respond to emergencies.

The city said about 12.8% of its “essential and critical services” staff were off due to Covid-19 as of Monday.

It is not unusual for ambulances to be tied up at any moment, city spokesperson Brad Ross said. But with workers sidelined by Covid-19 and stretched hospitals delaying ambulance offloading, it was becoming more common.

Low-priority calls may be put off and some will go to the fire department, he said.

Like much of the rest of the world, Canada is swamped by the fast-spreading Omicron variant. Earlier this month Canada broke its previous one-day record for the highest number of people hospitalised with Covid-19, at more than 4,100 nationally.

Ontario regional transit operator Metrolinx cut its service by 15% as 20-30% of its staff were off work due to Cocid-19, spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said.

About 9% of Winnipeg Police Service staff were on leave due to Covid-19, and the police service said it had reallocated officers from specialised units such as gang enforcement to street patrol.

The Atlantic city of Halifax cancelled bus and ferry trips due to Covid-19 absences.

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Pfizer Inc chief executive Albert Bourla said on Monday that moving toward a redesigned Covid-19 vaccine that is specifically targeted to combat the Omicron variant is the “most likely scenario.”

Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Bourla said Pfizer and partner BioNTech SE are working on both an Omicron-targeted vaccine variant as well as a shot that would include both the previous vaccine as well as vaccine targeted at the Omicron variant, Reuters reports.

Bourla said the company could be ready to file for approval for a redesigned vaccine and start producing it as soon as March.

People who have recovered from Covid in Germany will in future only be able to prove their status digitally with a QR code, the health ministers of the country’s federal states decided on Monday.

The government’s health minister Karl Lauterbach has promised to implement this promptly, according to Saxony-Anhalt’s health minister and current chairwoman of the conference of health ministers Petra Grimm-Benne.

The federal ministry of health is to create a corresponding legal basis “with which the obligation to exclusively present a digitally readable health record” becomes possible for access controls, for example for events or in restaurants. People would be able to store the relevant evidence in the country’s Covid warning app, the German press agency DPA reports.

At their first regular conference this year, the health ministers also discussed a possible fourth vaccine as is currently being distributed in the Israeli population. Grimm-Benne said further scientific research was necessary before a decision can be made.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Americans should be able to order free, rapid Covid tests through a federal web site later this month.

The White House is working closely with test manufacturers and expects to have all procurement contracts signed in the next two weeks, Reuters reports.

The White House has pledged to make 500 million rapid, Covid tests available to all Americans in January.

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10 Jan 202214.36 EST

Denis Campbell

The Covid 19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign have described Boris Johnson’s private secretary inviting over 100 Downing Street officials to a gathering in Number 10’s back garden while the UK was still in lockdown as “truly beyond belief”.

Hannah Brady, a spokesperson for the group, said:

My Dad died just four days before this email was sent out; he was only 55 and was a fit and healthy key worker. I’ve missed him every day since. Just like the rest of the country, my family had done everything we could to keep him and others safe during the lockdown.

Those days will stay with me for the rest of my life, just like the families of the 353 people that died that day. My family couldn’t even get a hug from our friends. To think that whilst it was happening Boris Johnson was making the ‘most of the weather’ and throwing a party for 100 people, is truly beyond belief.

Brady was one of five families involved in the campaign who met the prime minister last September.

She added:

At the time, everyone would have known that going to a party was wrong, so how can those running the country have thought it was OK? Could there be a more disgraceful example of ‘one rule for them, and another rule for the rest of us’?

To make matters worse, in September last year I sat in that same garden, looked the prime minister in the eyes and told him how my dad had died. He told me he had ‘done everything he could’ to protect my Dad, knowing that he had partied in that same spot the very day that Dad’s death certificate was signed. It makes me feel sick to think about it.

The small number of people in Italy’s population who refuse to be vaccinated against Covid-19 are largely responsible for the continued health crisis, prime minister Mario Draghi said on Monday.

The government last week made vaccinations mandatory for everyone aged 50 and over, one of very few European countries to take such a step, in an attempt to ease pressure on hospitals as new cases surge, Reuters reports.

Draghi told a news conference:

We must never lose sight of the fact that most of the problems we have today are because there are non-vaccinated people.

For the umpteenth time, I invite all those Italians who are not yet vaccinated to do so, and to get the third shot.

Health minister Roberto Speranza said 89.4% of all those aged 12 and over had received at least one vaccine dose, adding that the unvaccinated accounted for two-thirds of all the Covid patients in intensive care units.

Latest data released on Monday showed there were 1,606 people in intensive care with the virus, while the country reported 101,762 new cases and 227 additional deaths over the past 24 hours.

On Monday, unvaccinated people were banned from entering bars and restaurants and from using public transport, in a further tightening of restrictions for this part of the population.

Only those who have recently recovered from Covid will be exempted from the new rule.

10 Jan 202214.08 EST

Jedidajah Otte

Hello, I’m Jedidajah Otte and I’ll be taking over for the next few hours. If there’s anything you’d like to flag, feel free to get in touch, I’m on Twitter @JedySays or you can email me.

Latest coronavirus-related headlines and developments from around the world include:

• One of the UK prime minister’s top officials invited staff to “socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden” during May of the first lockdown. The email, from Martin Reynolds, the principal private secretary to Boris Johnson, invited just over 100 employees in No 10 at a time when social mixing was banned.
• A new record has been set for the number of people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 in the US, with 132,646 currently on wards, according to Reuters. The latest figure, which comes as the highly contagious Omicron strain spreads across the country, surpassed the record of 132,051 set in January last year.
• Pfizer is already manufacturing a Covid vaccine targeting the Omicron variant, which it expects to be ready to distribute by June, its chief executive, Albert Bourla, has said. “This vaccine will be ready in March,” Bourla told CNBC. “We [are] already starting manufacturing some of these quantities at risk.”
• Moderna has announced it expects record sales of about $18.5bn (£13.6bn) in contracts for its Covid vaccine in 2022. The US vaccine maker said it could also make about $3.5bn from potential additional purchases, including booster candidates updated for variants. The company in November said its sales could be in the range of $17bn to $22bn in 2022, according to Reuters.
• Novak Djokovic’s brother reportedly ended a press conference after questions about why the tennis ace appeared in public in Belgrade a day after he had tested positive for Covid-19. Djokovic has said he had Covid in December to justify an exemption allowing him to visit Australia for the Australian Open without taking a Covid vaccine.
• Emmanuel Macron has condemned protesters on the French overseas territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon who pelted an MP with seaweed and dirt during a protest against vaccine passes. Stephane Claireaux, an MP from from Macron’s ruling party, was confronted on Sunday at his home on the windswept territory off the Canadian island of Newfoundland.
• Stricter pandemic measures are to be introduced in Sweden in response to a rising number of Covid cases and pressure on hospitals, the prime minister has said. “The situation has deteriorated, without doubt. The level of infections in Sweden is at a historically high level,” Magdalena Andersson told a news conference, according to Reuters.
• The prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, has called for European officials to consider ditching detailed pandemic tracking for Covid in favour of a flu-like monitoring system. The change would mean treating Covid-19 as an “endemic illness” rather than a pandemic, Sánchez said on Monday. He pointed out that deaths as a proportion of recorded cases has fallen since the pandemic began.

Interested to read about what happened earlier? Take a look at our last summary of headlines, posted eight hours ago.

That’s it from me, Damien Gayle, for today. Ciao!

10 Jan 202213.41 EST

Rowena Mason

One of the UK prime minister’s top officials invited staff to “socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden” during May of the first lockdown, a leaked email shows, writes Rowena Mason, the Guardian’s deputy political editor.

The email, from Martin Reynolds, the principal private secretary to Boris Johnson, invited just over 100 employees in No 10 at a time when social mixing was banned apart from with one other person from another household outdoors.

According to ITV News, it said: “Hi all, after what has been an incredibly busy period it would be nice to make the most of the lovely weather and have some socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden this evening. Please join us from 6pm and bring your own booze!”

Omicron has become the dominant strain of coronavirus in the Czech Republic, the country’s public health institute has said.

According to the institute, Omicron had accounted for more than 50% of positive tests as of 8 January, with samples from mainly big cities on 9 January showing 79% of Covid-19 cases were the Omicron variant, Reuters reports.

So far the pick-up in Omicron cases has not raised daily infection numbers significantly and the number of hospitalised people continues to decline as the previous wave of infections recedes. There were 2,229 people in hospital on Sunday, down form more than 7,000 in early December.

In an effort to reduce the impact of rising numbers having to self-isolate, the government has been planning to allow people in critical professions, including the emergency services and workers in the health and energy sectors, to continue to work work even after a positive lateral flow test.

It has also cut the length of quarantine and isolation to five days for people without symptoms.