UK to remove all testing for vaccinated travellers
The UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has confirmed that post-arrival testing requirements will be lifted for travel to the UK from 4am on 11 February, ahead of the half-term break for schools in the country.
All fully vaccinated people will have to do is verify their status via a passenger locator form.
He told the House of Commons:
Our international travel regime will also now be liberalised as part of our efforts to ensure that 2022 is the year that restrictions on travel, lockdowns and limits on people’s lives are fully placed in the past.
We promised we wouldn’t keep these measures in place a day longer than was necessary. It’s obvious to me now that border testing for vaccinated travellers has now outlived its usefulness. We’re therefore scrapping all travel tests for vaccinated people, not only making travel much easier but also saving about £100 per family on visits abroad, providing certainty to passengers, carriers and the tourist sector for the spring and summer seasons.
Shapps added that from 11 February, passengers who don’t qualify as fully vaccinated won’t have to self-isolate or do a day eight test, but instead must show proof of a certified test prior to departure and take a PCR test on arrival.
He added that under-18s will continue to be treated as eligible, fully vaccinated passengers, meaning they won’t face any tests at the UK border. From 3 February, 12-15 year olds in England will also be able to prove vaccination status on the NHS pass for international outbound travel.
Vaccine certificates will also be recognised from 16 further nations, including China and Mexico, he added.
He noted that a third booster vaccine may be required for entry into many countries by the summer.
That’s it from me, Samantha Lock, for today’s Covid blog. Please join us a little later for a new live feed where we will continue to cover the coronavirus crisis.
Here is a comprehensive rundown of all the latest Covid developments:
Europe:
Italy said that the Omicron wave had peaked in the country as case numbers begin to fall.
TheUKannounced plans to end testing rules for all doubly vaccinated travellers from 11 February.
Rules requiring a vaccine passport to enter hospitality businesses and take public transport came into force in France.
The European Union’s drug regulator is set to decide whether to approve Pfizer’s Covid-19 pill at the end of this month, before doing a final review of Merck’s similar but less effective drug in February, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
Fully vaccinated travellers arriving in Britain will no longer have to take a Covid-19 test, while Germany extended its current pandemic measures.
Norway will end its system of mandatory quarantines for non-vaccinated travellers and close contacts of infected persons, replacing it instead with a daily test regime.
Asia:
Covid-related deaths surged in Australia and authorities warned numbers could rise further when schools return from holidays next week.
Japan announced plans to extend coronavirus restrictions beyond the current 9pm curfew in a bid to tackle the spread of Omicron. The country is poised to double the number of regions subject to restrictions such as shortened restaurant opening hours in order to rein in a record surge in cases.
Organisers of next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics slightly eased the strict Covid-19 requirements for participants.
One of China’s longest lockdowns in the northern city of X’ian comes to an end after its 13 million residents were confined to their homes on December 22.
Middle East:
Israel’s health minister said he did not think Israel will offer a fourth Covid-19 vaccine dose to most people after the government made it available to over 60s and other high-risk groups.
United States:
The US advised against travel to 15 countries and territories.
Medical developments:
A third booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine made by AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson increases antibody levels significantly in those who have previously received two doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac shot, a study has found.
Omicron can survive longer than earlier versions of the coronavirus on plastic surfaces and human skin, Japanese researchers found in laboratory tests.
British scientists will begin testing Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’ antiviral pill molnupiravir as a possible treatment for patients hospitalised with Covid-19.
The US Food and Drug Administration is likely to restrict the use of Covid-19 antibody treatments from Regeneron and Eli Lilly as they are ineffective against Omicron, the Washington Post reported.
World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a press conference in which he warned that conditions remain ideal for more coronavirus variants to emerge and said it was dangerous to assume Omicron was the last one, but added that the acute phase of the pandemic could end this year if some key targets were met.
Germany has extended its current pandemic measures as the experts panel appointed by the government warned the Omicron variant could bring critical infrastructure in Europe’s biggest economy to a breaking point.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he had agreed with the heads of the federal states to extend restrictions such as limiting private gatherings to 10 ten people and requiring proof of booster vaccination or a negative test at restaurants.
“Now it’s time to stay on course,” said Scholz after a meeting on Monday, Reuters reports.
Pedestrians cross the Heinrich-Heine-Allee in the city center of Duesseldorf, Germany, on 20 January. Photograph: Sascha Steinbach/EPA
The government will reconsider relaxing or tightening the measures in case of a very steep rise or decline in infection numbers, Scholz added.
Germany on Monday reported 63,393 new Covid-19 cases, an 86% jump from a week ago, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said earlier this month he expected the infection wave to peak in mid-February.
Israeli health minister says fourth Covid vaccine unlikely for most people
Israel’s health minister said on Monday he did not think Israel will offer a fourth Covid-19 vaccine dose to most people after the government made it available to over 60s and other high-risk groups.
Israel has been administering the fourth dose to most vulnerable groups - such as the elderly, those with weakened immune systems and health workers - as Omicron surged. Other countries have made the second booster available as well.
Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz told Israel Radio:
We took this step, we weighed it seriously, it wasn’t a simple decision, but it’s good that we did,” said of offering a fourth shot to those groups.
But regarding the entire population, I don’t think we will go there.”
A government advisory panel has been discussing vaccine policy and there has not been a final decision about whether to expand the campaign.
The Health Ministry said on Sunday that a fourth dose of Covid-19 vaccine given to people over 60 in Israel made them three times more resistant to serious illness than thrice-vaccinated people in the same age group.
It also said the fourth dose made people over 60 twice as resistant to infection than those in the age group who received three shots of the vaccine.
A preliminary study published by Israel’s Sheba medical centre last Monday found that the fourth shot increases antibodies to even higher levels than the third but “probably” not to the point that it could completely fend off the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Hello it’s Samantha Lock back with you on the blog.
As I’m reporting to you from Sydney here’s a snapshot of how Covid is unfolding across Australia.
Victoria has recorded 29 Covid deaths and 14,836 new cases while NSW recorded 29 deaths and 18,512 cases, with current restrictions to continue for another month.
Meanwhile, some experts are saying the worst of the pandemic may be over in the country as Omicron peaks.
Here are all the main coronavirus-related developments from around the world today:
Italy said that the Omicron wave had peaked in the country as case numbers begin to fall.
Japan announced plans to extend coronavirus restrictions beyond the current 9pm curfew in a bid to tackle the spread of Omicron.
TheUKannounced plans to end testing rules for all doubly vaccinated travellers from 11 February.
Rules requiring a vaccine passport to enter hospitality businesses and take public transport came into force in France.
World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a press conference in which he warned that conditions remain ideal for more coronavirus variants to emerge and said it was dangerous to assume Omicron was the last one, but added that the acute phase of the pandemic could end this year if some key targets were met.
We’re pausing the blog for a while. You can follow the latest happenings in UK politics, including some coronavirus-related news, over on our live blog.
The UK transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has posted on Twitter about the removal of all testing measures, specifying that these apply for eligible fully vaccinated arrivals in England from 4am on 11 February.
His tweet said the measures applied to England. However, in the Commons he said they applied to the UK. He later clarified that the move is UK-wide, so this entry has now been changed
TRAVEL UPDATE ✈️
We are removing ALL testing measures for eligible fully vaccinated arrivals to England from 4am on 11 Feb✅
These changes have been made possible by the success of our vaccine & booster rollout 💉 (1/4)
Italy reported 77,696 Covid-19 related cases on Monday, against 138,860 the day before, while the number of deaths rose to 352 from 227, according to official health data.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 – not including those in intensive care – stood at 19,862 on Monday, increasing from 19,627 a day earlier.
There were 101 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 132 on Sunday. The total number of intensive care patients increased to 1,685, unchanged from the day before.
UK to remove all testing for vaccinated travellers
The UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has confirmed that post-arrival testing requirements will be lifted for travel to the UK from 4am on 11 February, ahead of the half-term break for schools in the country.
All fully vaccinated people will have to do is verify their status via a passenger locator form.
He told the House of Commons:
Our international travel regime will also now be liberalised as part of our efforts to ensure that 2022 is the year that restrictions on travel, lockdowns and limits on people’s lives are fully placed in the past.
We promised we wouldn’t keep these measures in place a day longer than was necessary. It’s obvious to me now that border testing for vaccinated travellers has now outlived its usefulness. We’re therefore scrapping all travel tests for vaccinated people, not only making travel much easier but also saving about £100 per family on visits abroad, providing certainty to passengers, carriers and the tourist sector for the spring and summer seasons.
Shapps added that from 11 February, passengers who don’t qualify as fully vaccinated won’t have to self-isolate or do a day eight test, but instead must show proof of a certified test prior to departure and take a PCR test on arrival.
He added that under-18s will continue to be treated as eligible, fully vaccinated passengers, meaning they won’t face any tests at the UK border. From 3 February, 12-15 year olds in England will also be able to prove vaccination status on the NHS pass for international outbound travel.
Vaccine certificates will also be recognised from 16 further nations, including China and Mexico, he added.
He noted that a third booster vaccine may be required for entry into many countries by the summer.
An influential consumer advocacy group is pressing Pfizer Inc to supply more of its new Covid-19 pill Paxlovid to developing countries this year, concerned that access to the treatment will mirror inequalities in vaccines.
Reuters reports:
Public Citizen sent a letter to Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla on Monday, asking the drugmaker to set aside at least two-thirds of its supply this year for developing countries at a reasonable price.
Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, said the letter was the opening salvo of what he expects will be a year-long campaign by the group.
“This is going to be one of the top access to medicines issues of the coming year. It’s going to be a tremendously discouraging repeat of vaccine inequity, at least initially, and many of us will be working to mitigate that,” Maybarduk said.
Pfizer’s Paxlovid is expected to be a key tool in treating Covid-19 after a clinical trial showed that it reduced hospitalisations in high-risk patients by around 90%. The results were significantly better than those from a clinical trial of Merck Inc’s rival oral antiviral Molnupiravir.
But supply of Paxlovid is extremely limited in the short term. Pfizer has said it can produce 120 million courses of treatment this year, but that falls well short of the company’s estimate of the 2022 market for antiviral pills of 250 million people globally.
The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said the Covid pandemic has proven that health is “an international issue” and called for a paradigm shift in the way it is funded, Peter Beaumont reports.
The head of the World Health Organization has warned member countries that the UN’s global health body is being “set up to fail” without a “paradigm shift” in the way that it is funded and supported.
In stark language delivered to the WHO’s executive board, the organisation’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 5.5 million lives, had underlined the need to strengthen health systems as well as pandemic preparedness plans.
Addressing the specific issue of Covid-19, Tedros also cautioned that conditions remained ideal for more variants to emerge. He said it was dangerous for countries to assume Omicron is the last variant or that “we are in the endgame”.
There are different scenarios for how the pandemic could play out and how the acute phase could end,” he said.
“But it’s dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame,” he added. “On the contrary, globally, the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.”
He insisted, however, that “we can end Covid-19 as a global health emergency, and we can do it this year,” by reaching goals such as the WHO’s target to vaccinate 70% of the population of each country by the middle of this year, with a focus on people who are at the highest risk of Covid-19.
“It’s true that we will be living with Covid for the foreseeable future and that we will need to learn to manage it through a sustained and integrated system for acute respiratory diseases” to help prepare for future pandemics, he said.
“But learning to live with Covid cannot mean that we give this virus a free ride. It cannot mean that we accept almost 50,000 deaths a week from a preventable and treatable disease.”
A very quick snap from Reuters here: Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican US vice-presidential candidate and former Alaska governor, has tested positive for Covid, just as she was due to go to trial against The New York Times, which she accused of defamation.
Palin’s positive test was announced by US district judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, who is presiding over the case. Rakoff added: “She is, of course, unvaccinated.”
Rakoff said Palin’s positive test came from an at-home test whose reliability was lower than tests administered at the courthouse and required for the trial.
He said she would be retested on Monday morning, with the results determining whether the trial could proceed the same day or would be delayed.
Palin, 57, has accused the Times and its former editorial page editor James Bennet of damaging her reputation in a 14 June 2017 editorial linking her to a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona that killed six people and wounded the US Representative Gabby Giffords.
The Omicron wave pushed UK business growth to an 11-year-low in January, dealing a particularly heavy blow to consumer-facing businesses in hospitality, travel and leisure, our economics editor Larry Elliot reports.
The UK economy grew at its slowest pace in almost a year in January as hospitality, leisure and travel businesses felt the impact of the Omicronvariant.
The monthly flash PMI (purchasing managers’ index) estimate of activity from IHS Markit and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply reported a two-speed recovery with an easing of supply-chain bottlenecks for manufacturing offset by weakness in consumer-facing service companies.
Service sector growth eased for a third month, according to the survey, amid reports from businesses of a loss of momentum caused by pandemic disruptions and very subdued demand.
Amid widespread reports of severe cost pressures, the IHS Markit/Cips measure of output fell from 53.6 to 53.4 in January – its lowest level in 11 months. Any finding above 50 denotes that the economy is expanding rather than contracting.
Chris Williamson, IHS Markit’s chief business economist, said:
A resilient rate of economic growth in the UK during January masks wide variations across different sectors. Consumer-facing businesses have been hit hard by Omicron, and manufacturers have reported a further worrying weakening of order book growth but other business sectors have remained encouragingly robust.
Looking ahead, while the Omicron wave meant the hospitality sector has sunk into a third steep downturn, these restrictions are now easing, meaning this downturn should be brief. Many business and financial services companies have, meanwhile, been far less affected by Omicron and saw business growth accelerate at the start of the year.
Good afternoon from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, taking over for the next hour while Rachel grabs some lunch. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Kenya and Mauritania have received nearly 2m new doses of Covid-19 vaccines from the US through the Covax programme, which distributes vaccines to lower-income countries.
AFP reports:
Kenya, which has a population of nearly 54 million, got 1,368,900 Pfizer doses, while Mauritania, with 4.65 million people, was sent 100,620 Pfizer doses and 504,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The shipments left last week and were scheduled to arrive on Monday, a White House official said.
The UK government should drop the requirement for frontline social care and health staff to be vaccinated against coronavirus to curb “paralysing” staff shortages, a social care boss has warned.
PA reports:
The Homecare Association said “further serious harm” is likely to come to older and disabled people and their families if between 15 and 20% of home care staff cannot work because they are unvaccinated.
It said the government has “seriously misjudged” the balance between the mitigated risk of infection and the risk of people going without vital care. It is concerned that the safety and wellbeing of older and disabled people will be “dangerously compromised”.
The association is calling for the government to withdraw the regulations now – before employers start serving notice on unvaccinated employees.
Two vaccine doses for care home staff in England have been mandatory as a condition of deployment since November. The deadline for these workers to have their first vaccine doses is 3 February, and they must be double jabbed before the policy kicks in on 1 April.
