Coronavirus live news: senator Chuck Grassley tests positive; airlines offer Covid testing

Matthew Weaver

Portugal has set up a taskforce to come up with vaccination strategy and hopes to start distributing shots as early as January, Reuters reports citing the health minister Marta Temido.

Temido said experts were working to decide which groups should get the vaccine first as well as distribution logistics from transport to storage.

“There’s a possibility one of the first vaccines will arrive in January,” Temido told reporters. “What we want is for the country to be prepared to ensure storage, distribution and safe use.”

Without elaborating, Temido said vaccines that could arrive in January were part of one of several agreements made between the European Commission and pharmaceutical companies.

Portugal has recorded a comparatively low 246,015 coronavirus cases and 3,623 deaths but, like most European countries, infections have been rising and are putting the health system under pressure.

A new record of 3,051 Covid patients were in hospital on Wednesday, with 432 in intensive care units – more than the first wave peak of 271 in April.

(This is Matthew Weaver taking over from Aamna while she takes a break).

Pfizer Inc on Tuesday updated its analysis of the safety profile of its Covid-19 vaccine seen during its large, late-stage trial, saying that 3.8% of participants experienced fatigue after receiving a second dose of the shot.

Reuters reports:

It said the updated analysis was based on 8,000 trial participants. Pfizer said in a previous analysis that 3.7% of 6,000 volunteers had experienced fatigue.

Pfizer also added that there was a second adverse event with a frequency of at least 2% in the trial. The US drugmaker said 2% of participants experienced headaches after the second shot.

Sweden has registered 96 new deaths among people diagnosed with Covid-19 on Wednesday, the highest for at least three months, Health Agency statistics showed, Reuters reports.

Sweden has recorded a total of 6,321 deaths, several times higher per capita than that of its Nordic neighbours but lower than some larger European countries such as Spain and the UK.

The German government will make every effort to ensure that retailers can keep their shops open in the course of the second wave of the pandemic, German economy minister Peter Altmaier said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

In a video statement at a retail congress, Altmaier said he hoped for catch-up effects for the current partial lockdown in December.

The European commission recommended on Wednesday the use of rapid Covid-19 antigen tests mostly on people already showing symptoms because it said the kits were deemed less accurate in detecting the virus in asymptomatic cases.

Reuters reports:

Rapid antigen kits are less precise than standard PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests, but can offer results in a few minutes, as opposed to days, in what could prove a crucial tool in fighting large outbreaks.

“Rapid antigen tests should be used within five days after the onset of symptoms or within seven days after exposure to a confirmed Covid-19 case,” the EU executive said in a non-binding recommendation to the 27 EU governments.

It also urged states to mutually recognise rapid tests and share their testing strategies “with the aim of aligning them as much as possible”.

EU governments have differing rules for antigen tests and many are reluctant to adopt common standards, according to an internal EU document seen by Reuters.

Philip Oltermann

Doctors in Switzerland say intensive care beds are at full capacity as the Alpine country continues to resist a second lockdown.

In a press statement on Tuesday, the Swiss Society for Intensive Medicine said all of the 876 certified ICU beds in Switzerland were occupied, advising vulnerable people to write down in a will whether they would like to receive life support in the event of a severe illness.

Andreas Stettbacher, surgeon general of the Swiss armed forces, said there were a further 240 non-certified beds that could offer intensive care for patients in need of specialised, complex care.

Of 22,211 available acute care beds, Stettbacher said, 16,889 were occupied.

While the wealthy Alpine country emerged almost unscathed from the first wave of the pandemic in the spring, per capita infections this month have been roughly double the average of the European Union.

While neighbouring Austria this week chose to head into a second hard lockdown with daytime curfews and school closures, Switzerland has so far resisted to reimpose restrictions it was quicker to lift than other European countries.

A recent article in Foreign Policy journal accuses politicians in the country of indulging the “widely held perception of Switzerland as a ‘special case’ – a unique country divorced from the world’s woes”.

Former Swiss president Ueli Maurer has asked citizens to be responsible and stick to lockdown rules, saying “Switzerland cannot afford a second lockdown”.

Pfizer had reported that its coronavirus vaccine has an efficacy of 95% effective and that it has passed its safety checks, according to further data from the firm.

PA Media reports:

The pharmaceutical giant and its partner BioNTech published interim results last week showing the jab could prevent more than 90% of people developing Covid-19.

That data was based on the first 94 volunteers to develop Covid-19, but further figures released on Wednesday are based on the first 170 cases of the virus in the clinical trial.

The vaccine has been tested on 43,500 people in six countries and no safety concerns have been raised.

Another jab, from US firm Moderna, was reported to have an efficacy of 94.5%.

We are still waiting for the results of the Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine study

Just in case you missed it, the Swiss Society of Intensive Care Medicine announced yesterday that its 876 adult intensive care beds are practically filled.

Science reporter Kai Kupferschmidt tweeted:

Philip Oltermann

Berlin police on Wednesday lunchtime revoked permission for a large protest against new coronavirus restrictions due to demonstrators refusing to wear masks, using water cannon to disperse crowds outside the Brandenburg Gate.

An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people had gathered in central Berlin, where the German parliament is due to vote on a new law designed to help enforce coronavirus restrictions and curb the spread of the pandemic.

Delegates of the far-right part Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) also took part in Wednesday’s protests. One MP, Hansjörg Müller, likened the new law to the Nazis’ 1933 Enabling Act, the cornerstone of Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power.

Neonazi groups were also present among the protests, where people waved placards likening the treatment of anti-maskers to that of German Jews during the Third Reich.

The upper and lower houses of the Bundestag will vote at noon on a revision of the Infektionsschutzgesetz or “infection protection law”, which hands the health ministry special powers to impose hygiene and social distancing rules if parliament agrees that the country is facing a serious epidemic.

Contrary to claims made by some protesters, today’s revision of the law is designed to hand back more control to parliament: it forces state parliaments to publicly justify restrictions and time-limit most of them for up to four weeks.

Opposition parties that include not just the AfD but also leftwing Die Linke and the pro-business FDP want the revised law to involve parliament even further and may vote against it in parliament today.

England’s deputy chief scientific adviser Dame Angela McLean said that the number of people testing positive for coronavirus in the community had risen steeply in September and October but had slowed down, PA reports:

She told a Downing Street briefing:

What you see is even before national restrictions were brought in, in the parts of the country where the amount of infections was already very high the progress of the epidemic had already flattened off, that’s the north west and Yorkshire and Humber.

Those also happen to include the parts of the country that were under tier 3 restrictions so that’s good news that some parts of the country have already flattened off.

Sweden’s high schools will be able to conduct more distance learning from next week to help control the pandemic, the government said on Wednesday.

Reuters reports:

Sweden has taken a mainly voluntary approach in ensuring social distancing during the pandemic and has kept most schools open, though high schools and universities switched to on-line classes during the spring.

But new cases of COVID-19 infection have hit record levels in recent days and the government has introduced tighter rules on public gatherings and doubled down on calls for citizens to avoid social contact.

The government said it would give high schools more flexibility in determining the extent to which they could switch to distance learning to further social distancing.

Anna Ekstrom, the education minister, told reporters:

The change means that high schools can switch, partly, to online and distance learning if it is necessary to avoid overcrowding on school premises.

We know from the spring that many students struggled with motivation while they were learning online or at a distance, and we know that it was particularly tough for students who need school most – those with special needs, who are at risk, or live in poverty.

Kim Willsher

France is preparing for a massive nationwide anti-Covid-19 vaccination programme as early as next year. The government says it is “in the starting blocks” to begin distributing any tested and available vaccine from January 2021 and has budgeted €1.5bn to buy the first available on the market.

For the moment, no vaccine has been approved but several are said to be nearing the end of testing. The French government says the vaccination campaign will be coordinated at European Union level and could begin in the most “optimist” scenario in the first quarter of next year.

“We’re preparing a campaign to be ready the moment a vaccine is approved by the European and national health authorities,” Gabriel Attal from the health ministry has said.

Jérôme Salomon, head of the French public health authority Santé Publique France, said the virus was making people psychologically as well as physically ill.

“The good news is the virus is slowing…but this epidemic is making people stressed and anxious,” Salomon said.

More than two weeks after a second national lockdown was introduced, Salomon claimed the number of people suffering from depression between the end of September and the beginning of November had doubled and was affecting all the population but particularly those in a “difficult financial situation, the vulnerable, the inactive and the young.

France’s lockdown is set to end on 1 December, but the government has warned that the easing of restrictions will be progressive and it may be extended. Ministers have already stated that shops and businesses are likely to be allowed to open on 1 December but that bars and restaurants will remain closed until at least the start of the Christmas holidays and possibly later.

A special Defence Council meeting took place Wednesday morning to discuss what shops and business should be allowed to open and when. Among the measures being considered are a return of the nightly curfew and whether to allow special authorisations for people to travel to see relatives at Christmas.

Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce how the lockdown will be progressively lifted in a nationwide address next week.

“Restrictions will continue after the end of lockdown,” Jean Castex said adding that lockdown easing would happen in stages.