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Theatre impresario Andrew Lloyd-Webber on Thursday joined legal action against the UK government ultimately aimed at bringing back crowds to theatres and cinema halls.

He joined senior figures from Britain’s entertainment sector and live music trade body Live to force the release of data from a project testing the safe return of mass events.

High-profile events such as football’s FA Cup final and music’s BRIT Awards ceremony have formed part of the Events Research Programme, which scraps social distancing if participants test negative before entry.

Lloyd-Webber, whose hits have played in London’s West End theatre district and Broadway in New York, said: “We must see the data that is being used to strangle our industry so unfairly.”

Finnish football fans returning from Russia after Euro 2020 matches have caused a spike in their country’s daily coronavirus cases, Finnish health authorities said on Thursday.

The Finnish national team suffered two defeats in St. Petersburg this month and nearly 100 infections have since been recorded at two border crossings, mostly among returning fans, authorities said.
The total of daily new cases has since risen from around 50 to over 100, according to official data.

“These are people who have been at the games. Clearly, it has spread surprisingly well there, considering that Finns have mostly interacted with each other but contracted the virus in just a few days,” Risto Pietikainen, chief physician for the hospital district covering the main crossing point, told Reuters.

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare said almost 100 infections had been diagnosed among Finns who had traveled to St Petersburg and the number was likely to grow.

Mika Salminen, head of security at the health institute, said a majority of those who contracted Covid in St Petersburg were football fans.

San Francisco authorities are the latest US municipality to mandate Covid vaccination for all of its 35,000 of its employees, with those refusing to risk their jobs.

But the requirement would only take effect once a Covid vaccine receives full authorisation from US regulators, as they are currently only approved for emergency use due to a lack of longterm safety data.

“With those two things in mind — the safety of our employees and the safety of the public we serve — we made this decision. We believe this step is a simple one to take. It’s safe, it’s very effective, and it’s going to guarantee the safety of all,” claimed Carol Isen, San Francisco’s director of human resources, according to the New York Times.

San Francisco has one of the highest vaccination rates of any major US city, with 80% of residents 12 and older having received at least one dose and 70 percent fully vaccinated, mayor London Breed said this month.

A public health group that manages the UN-backed vaccine sharing program is cutting back its supply forecast for this year by more than 100 million doses.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, said it now projects that the Covax program can supply just under 1.9 billion doses this year – including about 1.5 billion provided for free to 92 poor countries – down from original targets of more than 2 billion doses.

The shortfall has been blamed on the Serum Institute of India, a pivotal producer of vaccines for Covax, has reverted supplies to people in India, as its government scrambled to fight a spike in infections, AP reports.

So far, Covax has only distributed about 90 million doses, far short of its original plans.
Uncertainties remain in the new supply forecast, including when large-scale exports of vaccines will resume from the Serum Institute; regulatory processes for candidate vaccines such as one from Novavax, another key potential supplier; and when countries actually donate doses.

The World Health Organization has repeatedly urged wealthy countries to do more to release stockpiles of, or rights to, vaccines to offset unequal access to coronavirus shots

The five million residents of Australia’s largest city, Sydney, are now subject to renewed restrictions after a cluster of cases grew to 49.

The New York Times there is now a travel ban and a return to mandatory mask-wearing – with residents being asked to work from home, where gatherings are now limited to five people – after at least one state government minister was among those infected.

The stay-at-home orders come at the start of winter break for schools, forcing tens of thousands of families to cancel travel plans.

Joe Biden has warned that the Delta variant Covid-19 strain is “more contagious, it’s deadlier, and it’s spreading quickly around the world” as he urged unvaccinated people to get the vaccine.

In a tweet Biden said the Delta variant, which could become the dominant strain in the US within two to three weeks, leaves “young, unvaccinated people more vulnerable than ever”.

Read more in our US live blog:

Spain will lift capacity restrictions in professional football and basketball games from the next season, the health minister, Carolina Darias, has said, paving the way for a return to full stadiums in La Liga.

Reuters reports that grounds in the top two divisions have mostly lain empty since the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in March 2020, although a small number of top-flight clubs such as Valencia and Celta Vigo welcomed supporters back in the final two rounds of games, albeit with limited capacity and strict social distancing rules.

The government’s decision means local authorities will decide whether fans can attend matches and in what numbers. La Liga president, Javier Tebas, said earlier this month stadiums would be at 70% capacity from the start of the campaign, although the central government’s announcement means clubs in regions with low virus incidence could have full stadiums.

Spain has played in front of more than 12,000 fans in group games at Euro 2020 in Seville after supporters were also let in for pre-tournament friendlies against Portugal and Lithuania.

The national team will count on an even bigger crowd when it meets Croatia in a last-16 game at Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium, which has hosted about 24,000 fans for Denmark’s group games.

An influential cleric in Indonesia has been sentenced to another four years in prison for concealing information about his coronavirus test result.

AP reports that a three-judge panel at East Jakarta district court, which was under heavy police and military guard, ruled that Rizieq Shihab had lied about his Covid-19 test result, which made contact tracing more difficult.

Shihab has been detained since 13 December. The judges ordered the time he has already served to be deducted from his sentence.

Authorities blocked streets leading to the court as thousands of Shihab’s supporters tried to stage a rally to demand his release. Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse followers who tried to approach the court. Hundreds who refused to leave were detained.

Shihab has been facing a series of criminal trials since returning from a three-year exile in Saudi Arabia last November. Judges at the same court on 27 May sentenced him to eight months in prison for violating health protocols by holding a religious gathering and the wedding of his daughter, both attended by thousands of supporters during the coronavirus outbreak. He was also fined 20m rupiah ($1,400, £995) for a mass gathering in West Java.

After the gatherings, he was treated at Ummi Hospital in Bogor, a city just outside the capital, Jakarta, for Covid-19, but hospital officials kept his condition secret. Shihab’s presence at gatherings attracted large crowds, with many ignoring physical distancing.

He said he rejected the verdict and would appeal. During the trial, he said he was worried that revealing he was ill would be “politicised” by his opponents and claimed he said he was the victim of political persecution.

The French prime minister, Jean Castex, has urged more people in the country to get their first Covid vaccine dose, acknowledging that fewer people are signing up for slots as the summer holidays approach.

“We’re vaccinating 200,000 people a day” with an initial jab, Castex said during a visit to the Landes department of southwest France, where the more contagious Delta variant of the virus now accounts for 70% of all new cases.

“That’s not enough,” he said, after initial doses peaked at nearly 500,000 a day last month. “We’ve done much better, and we have to do much better.”

The government wants 35 million people to be completely vaccinated with the two doses by end-August, or more than half of the French population, up from the current 28%, amid serious and longstanding scepticism in France.

Castex also issued a “solemn appeal” to health workers in particular to get the jab, as many are refusing. “It’s imperative that all care workers and retirement home staff be vaccinated, let’s say between now and end-August,” Castex said.

“If not, we will obviously have to do what’s necessary,” he said, though he declined to specify if the vaccines would be required for them to continue working.

Nationwide, the Delta variant now accounts for about 10% of all new cases, up from just 2% to 4% last week.