Health News at Your Fingertips

Algeria has reported its first case of the BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron strain of the virus, according Reuters, citing Ennahar TV.

Last week, the health ministry in Denmark said the BA.2 variant was more contagious than original strain of Omicron.

Iran has announced that the number of its new cases has almost doubled in the last 24 hours from 11,731 on Saturday to 21,996 on Sunday.

Iran is the grip of a fourth wave of the virus as the highly infectious Omicron variant take hold. Iran’s health ministry also announced a further 44 new Covid deaths.

Officials in Beijing have sealed off residential communities in the city’s northern district after two new Covid cases were found, AP reports.

Residents in the Anzhenli neighbourhood in Chaoyang district were sealed off on Saturday, and will not be allowed to leave their compound.

Beijing is on high alert as it prepares to host the Olympic Games opening on Friday.

While the cases are low compared with other countries in the region, China has double down on its “zero-tolerance” policy, which includes breaking the chain of transmission as soon as it is found.

The city is also setting up 19 points in the area to test residents every day until Friday, officials said at a briefing on the pandemic, according to state-backed Beijing News.

Here’s a roundup of the latest developments:

• The Winter Olympics, which begin in five days in Beijing, have been hit by 34 new infections among athletes and officials. Poland’s short track medal hopeful Natalia Maliszewska is among those who tested positive. Meanwhile, the city of Beijing has reported 20 new cases – its highest for 18 months.
• The UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said it is the government’s “intention to publish the full report” into alleged lockdown breaking parties in Downing Street. She also admitted: “It is a bit of a mess that we have the police investigation alongside the Sue Gray report”.
• The NHS has announced it will begin offering vaccinations to children aged between five and 11 who are most at risk from the virus. Children in the cohort who were in a clinical risk group or who live with someone who is immunosuppressed would be able to get a first jab, in line with advice issued last month by the Joint Committee on Vaccine and Immunisation.
• Germany has reported 118,970 new infections, a 39% increase on last week’s figures. It also reported that a further 59 people died after testing positive for the virus.
• Russia has reported a record 121,228 new daily cases of the virus. The government’s coronavirus taskforce also reported 617 deaths in the last 24 hours.
• Voting in under way in Portugal in a parliamentary election marred by fears of a low turnout due to record coronavirus infections. The government has allowed those infected to leave isolation and cast ballots in person, recommending that they do so in the last hour before polling stations close at 7pm.
• New cases in South Korea’s have hit a record 17,532 as the highly infectious Omicron variant spreads. The daily count broke the record for the sixth consecutive day, risiing from 8,570 on Tuesday.

The UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has stopped short of the government’s previous commitment to publish the full report into alleged lockdown breaking parties.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday Morning show, she said: “It is our intention to publish the full report.”

She also admitted: “It is a bit of a mess that we have the police investigation alongside the Sue Gray report”.

Asked if Boris Johnson should resign if it emerges he lied to parliament, Truss said: “I’m not going to answer hypothetical questions. The future of the prime minister is assured.”

New cases in South Korea’s have hit a record 17,532 as the highly infectious Omicron variant spreads, the Yonap news agency reports.

The country reported 17,532 new infections, including 17,303 local cases, raising the total caseload to 828,637, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said.

The daily count broke the record for the sixth consecutive day, spiking from 8,570 on Tuesday.

Authorities had earlier said Saturday’s tally reached 17,542 but corrected the figure to 17,526, citing erroneous reporting.

Polling has begun in Portugal in a parliamentary election marred by fears of a low turnout due to record coronavirus infections, Reuters reports.

At the University of Lisbon, staff outnumbered mostly elderly voters, with signs on the walls asking people to wear a mask, observe social distancing and to use their own pen.

Some even wore gloves for extra protection.

“I have been vaccinated, and I haven’t had Covid yet … But I felt very safe,” said Maria Odete, 73, adding that the election race appeared too close to produce a stable government capable of bringing positive change.

The government has allowed those infected to leave isolation and cast ballots in person, recommending that they do so in the last hour before polling stations close at 7pm.

More than a tenth of Portugal’s 10 million people are estimated to be isolating because of Covid. As in many European countries, infections have spiked lately, stoked by the Omicron variant, although widespread vaccination has kept deaths and hospitalisations lower than in earlier waves.

The election is wide open as the centre-left ruling Socialists have lost much of their lead in opinion polls to the main opposition party, the centre-right Social Democrats, and neither is likely to win a stable majority.

Low turnout could make projections unreliable, analysts say. Abstention was already record at 51% in the 2019 general election before the pandemic.

Ed Davey has accused the Metropolitan police of “undermining” the public’s trust over the Sue Gray report into Downing Street lockdown parties.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Morning show, the leader of the Liberal Democrats said:

I have huge respect for rank-and-file police officers who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.

For them to do their job, the public have to have trust and confidence in them. But the way the Met has handled this, I think, is undermining that.

Labour’s Lisa Nandy said Gray’s report should be published “in full” this week. She told the programme:

If (Boris Johnson) won’t put an end to this circus and this stasis in government … then that report has to come out in full so that the people can judge for themselves.

Taiwan’s vice president, William Lai, used his final day in the US to repeat an accusation that China blocked the island from obtaining vaccines last year, Reuters reports.

Last May, the Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen accused China of blocking a deal with Germany’s BioNTech SE for vaccines, after Beijing offered the shots to the island via a Chinese company just as Taiwan was dealing with a rise in domestic infections.

Beijing has denied trying to stop Taiwan getting vaccines, and also offered Chinese-developed shots which the island rejected, citing safety concerns.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory.

Less than two weeks after Tsai’s comments, Senator Tammy Duckworth, visiting Taipei with two other US lawmakers, said the US would donate vaccine doses to Taiwan.

Speaking to the Illinois Democrat during a stopover in San Francisco while on the way back to Taiwan from Honduras, Lai offered his thanks.

Lai said he was “especially grateful to her last year when Taiwan was unable to obtain vaccines due to the China factor”, Taiwan’s presidential office said, citing the de facto US ambassador to Washington Hsiao Bi-khim, who is accompanying Lai.

In Beijing, China’s foreign ministry said Lai’s accusation was “total fiction”, calling it a “malicious slandering and smearing of the true face of the mainland”.

Taiwan eventually began receiving the BioNTech vaccines, jointly developed with Pfizer, in September.

Thailand has reported a further 8,444 new Covid cases and 12 deaths from the virus.

Cambodia has reported a further 57 cases.

Beijing recorded its highest number of new Covid-19 cases for a year and a half on Sunday, as the Chinese capital gears up to host the Winter Olympics, AFP reports.

China will hold the Games in a strict “closed-loop” bubble as part of its zero-Covid strategy of targeted lockdowns, border restrictions and lengthy quarantines.

The approach has helped the world’s second-largest economy keep new infections far lower than many other countries, but it is battling local outbreaks in several cities as well as in the Olympic bubble.

The upcoming lunar new year – China’s biggest national holiday – presents a further challenge as millions of people return to their hometowns and mingle with family and friends.

Beijing’s tally of 20 new cases on Sunday was the city’s highest since June 2020, according to the National Health Commission (NHC).

City authorities have locked down some housing compounds, while officials in Fengtai district – where most of Sunday’s infections were detected – have begun testing about 2 million people for the virus.

The Olympics bubble separates everyone involved in the Games from the wider Chinese population to curb the risk of infections leaking out.

The estimated 60,000 people inside the bubble are subject to daily testing.

On Sunday, organisers reported 34 new cases related to the Games, bringing the total to more than 200 since the bubble was sealed on 4 January.

Russia reported a record 121,228 new daily cases of the virus. This is up from Saturday’s total of 113,122. The government coronavirus taskforce also reported 617 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Germany’s Robert Koch Institute has reported 118,970 new infections, a 39% increase on last week’s figures. It also reported that a further 59 people died after testing positive for the virus.

Welcome to a Sunday edition of our coronavirus live blog.

The Winter Olympics in Beijing have been hit by 34 new infections among athletes and officials.

Poland’s short track medal hopeful Natalia Maliszewska is among those who tested positive.

Of the total infections, 23 were among new airport arrivals, while 11 were people already in the “closed loop” bubble that separates event personnel from the public in an effort to curb the spread of infections.

Maliszewska is the eighth Polish athlete to have tested positive and has gone into isolation, the Polish Olympic Committee said on Sunday. She joins infected fellow speedskaters Natalia Czerwonka, Magdalena Czyszczoń and Marek Kania in isolation.

Beijing Games organisers have warned of more cases in coming days as the Chinese capital enforces stringent measures, restricting movement and contact of any Games participant with the local population.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the NHS has announced it will begin offering vaccinations to children aged between five and 11 who are most at risk from the virus.

Britain has been slower than some other countries in offering the shots to five- to 11-year-olds, and is not planning to vaccinate the age group more broadly unlike countries such as the US and Israel.

NHS England said children in the cohort who were in a clinical risk group or who live with someone who is immunosuppressed would be able to get a first jab, in line with advice issued last month by the Joint Committee on Vaccine and Immunisation.