Health News at Your Fingertips

That’s the end of our global coronavirus blog for today. Please follow developments in Australia here:

Saudi Arabia has extended a ban on people entering by air, sea and land for another week, amid fears about new coronavirus variants.

Its interior ministry said it was assessing the current situation, and that non-citizens were still being allowed to leave, and entry is permitted in “exceptional cases”.

Brazil’s vice president Hamilton Mourão has tested positive for Covid-19, on the day the country’s death toll has risen by 344 to 191,139.

His office said he had tested positive on Sunday and would self-isolate at his official residence. Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro tested positive for the virus in July and recovered.

Health ministry officials also reported 18,479 new cases, as nearly 7.5 million people in Brazil have had the virus.

Here’s a summary of this evening’s key events.

• Hospitals in England have been told to free up beds, due to the growing number of coronavirus patients. NHS England has said the entire health service will have to stay on the highest level of alert until at least the end of March. 70,572 people have now died from Covid-19 in the UK.
• Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the US coronavirus taskforce said that he believes the Covid-19 variant detected in the UK must be taken “very seriously” but is not likely to cause more serious illness or be resistant to vaccines. More countries have reported citizens tested positive for it, including Jordan, Canada and Norway.
• Hundreds of British tourists quarantining in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier fled in the night, rather than finishing their period of self isolation. About 200 of the 420 tourists in the luxury Alpine resort left under the cover of darkness.
• The death toll in France’s hospitals and care homes has risen by 173 since Saturday. A total of 62,746 have now died from the virus in the country. Confirmed cases have also risen by 8,822 over the last 24 hours.
• South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, called an emergency meeting of the country’s national coronavirus command council, amid a rise that has taken the country to 1 million confirmed cases.
• Italy’s health ministry has confirmed another 298 people have died from Covid-19, bringing the total to 71,925, the highest in Europe and fifth highest in the world.
• The first delivery of a Covid-19 vaccine to Turkey has been delayed because of a coronavirus outbreak in Beijing customs, the country’s health minister has said.
• European countries launched a massive vaccination drive on Sunday with elderly people and medics lining up to take the first shots to see off the pandemic that has claimed more than 1.7 million lives worldwide.

The UK’s coronavirus vaccination programme continued over the festive period, the Press Association has clarified.

NHS England said people got jabs on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Sunday, as the latest figures show 70,572 people in the UK have died from Covid-19. The number is likely to rise further on Tuesday, as authorities in both Scotland and Northern Ireland have not released data over the festive period.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the US coronavirus taskforce said that he believes the Covid-19 variant detected in the UK must be taken “very seriously” but is not likely to cause more serious illness or be resistant to vaccines.

He said: “Does it make someone more ill? Is it [a] more serious virus in the sense of virulence? And the answer is, it doesn’t appear to be that way.”

Fauci backed the decision by US officials for people entering the US to require negative Covid tests. He told CNN’s State of the Union that the worst for the US was still yet to come in the pandemic.

Lebanon will get its first delivery of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine in February, its health ministry has said.

“Lebanon will receive the vaccine in mid-February in instalments,” it said in a statement. “It will cover 15% of the population.”

The ministry said it would later secure “additional vaccines” to cover another 20% of the population. 1,394 people have died in the country since its first cases in February.

Its government allowed nightclubs and bars to reopen ahead of the Christmas holidays, despite criticism from doctors who said bed occupancy in intensive care units was already running critically low. The country is currently grappling with its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The death toll in France’s hospitals and care homes has risen by 173 since Saturday. A total of 62,746 have now died from the virus in the country.

Confirmed cases have also risen by 8,822 over the last 24 hours, more than 3,000 higher than the rise on Saturday.

The first delivery of Sinovac’s Covid-19 vaccine to Turkey has been delayed because of a coronavirus outbreak in Beijing customs, the country’s health minister has said.

Fahrettin Koca said the shipment would be a day or two late, after a member of staff was confirmed as having the virus. Turkey has agreed to buy 50 million doses of the firm’s vaccine, and 3 million were due to arrive on Monday.