January 26 coronavirus news

The UK is set to make an announcement later Tuesday regarding the use of hotel quarantine, according to vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi.

Travel to and from the UK has been largely limited since the country suspended its travel corridors on January 18. British media reports the UK government might impose a hotel quarantine on travelers coming from certain countries with known new variants.

Zahawi called hotel quarantine measures "the right thing to do" as the UK "vaccinates more of our population." He warned that the country needs "to be very careful" about imports of the Brazilian and South African variant.

Zahawi also addressed UK vacationers, saying it was "far too early" to "even speculate about the summer," adding that "there's still 37,000 people in hospital with Covid at the moment."

Some background: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday the idea of using hotels for UK arrivals for 10 days was “definitely” being “looked at.”

Speaking from a vaccination center in London, Johnson said: “We want to make sure that we protect our population, protect this country against reinfection from abroad. That idea of looking at hotels is certainly one thing we're actively now working on.” 

“We have to realize there is at least the theoretical risk of a new variant that is a vaccine-busting variant coming in, we've got to be able to keep that under control,” he added.

Quarantine hotels have been used as a pandemic control measure in several countries, including Australia.

The UK reported 22,195 new Covid-19 infections and 592 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test on Monday.

The total number of people in the UK who have died within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test stands at 98,531, the highest death toll in Europe.

According to government data, 6,573,570 people have received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, whilst 470,478 people have received the second dose.

More than 9% of people in the US state of West Virginia have received at least their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to data published Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationally, that number stands at less than 6%.

"We continue to lead the nation," Gov. Jim Justice said in a news conference Monday.

The governor's announcement comes amid continued struggles with vaccine rollouts across the US. States are still working to ramp up their administrations with the help of mass vaccination sites and volunteer vaccinators, while others say they're running out of supply and have appealed to the federal government for more doses.

West Virginia is second in the nation in terms of vaccines administered per capita and share of distributed doses that have been administered, according to CDC data, and has often led the nation in these metrics. The state has so far administered about 106% of the doses it has officially received, Justice said.

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Police in the Netherlands arrested 184 rioters nationwide on Monday night, according to the country's national broadcaster NOS.

Some of the fiercest clashes with police were in Rotterdam, where officers said 50 arrests were made. Police said in a statement Tuesday that a group of youths started gathering in south Rotterdam around 7:30 p.m. on Monday, and eventually totaled several hundred.

“Agents were bombarded with stones and fireworks, and the rioters were also destructive, looting various stores and committing arson,” according to police. Riot police deployed a water cannon, tear gas, and at one point an agent fired a “warning shot” after being “cornered by a number of rioters.”

It was the third night of confrontation with police in the Netherlands. A national, nightly curfew designed to reduce social contact came into effect in the country on Saturday. It runs from 9 p.m. to 4:30 a.m.

Several cities -- included Eindhoven, Nijmegen, and Roosendaal -- had instituted emergency orders on Monday to prevent people from entering city centers. The rules meant that no one was allowed to be in central areas between 5 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. without a legitimate reason. Ahead of Monday's demonstrations, Eindhoven municipality had tweeted a warning to residents that the city center had been declared "a safety risk area" and that police were "prepared and strict."

National police said earlier Monday that at least 250 were arrested at sometimes violent anti-lockdown protests on Sunday. Police had also used water cannon, dogs and riot police on horseback to disperse the protesters at those incidents.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Monday condemned the violence of anti-lockdown demonstrators over the weekend, calling their behavior “unacceptable.”

"Any normal person can only see this with horror. What are these people thinking?” Rutte said, as quoted by the Dutch public broadcaster NOS.

Rutte added that 99% of people in the country are sticking to the curfew.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn is throwing his support behind a possible export limit for vaccines manufactured within the European Union amid a growing row with AstraZeneca over a shortfall in supply to the bloc.

The EU was informed by AstraZeneca last week that vaccine deliveries to member states -- pending authorization -- would not arrive before the end of the first quarter of 2021, as originally forecast.

Spahn, speaking on German public broadcaster ZDF, said: “I can understand if during a complex production issue, there are production problems, but then everyone has to be affected fair and equal."

He continued that his position was not about putting the "EU first" but about making sure that Europe is getting its fair share.

"In my view [it] makes sense that we have an export limit, meaning that vaccines which leave the European Union, have a license so that we know what is being produced, what is leaving Europe, where it is leaving so that there is a fair distribution.”

Separately, European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides called for greater transparency regarding vaccine export from the European Union.

“We want clarity on transactions and full transparency concerning the export of vaccines from the EU," she tweeted late Monday. "In the future, all companies producing vaccines against covid-19 in the EU will have to provide early notification whenever they want to export vaccines to third countries. Humanitarian deliveries are of course not affected by this."

Earlier on Monday, Kyriakides said the pharmaceutical giant’s delays were “not acceptable.” 

“The European Union has pre-financed the development of the vaccine and its production and wants to see the return,” she also said, adding that the bloc wants to know how many doses the company has produced, and who they’ve been sold to. 

The AstraZeneca vaccine -- which has already been approved for emergency use by a number of countries including the UK and Brazil -- has been under review by the European Medicines Agency since January 12. The bloc has already fast-tracked the reviews for the Pfizer/BioNTech shot as well as the Moderna vaccine and both have been authorized for use.

Addressing the world's economic elite in Davos on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that "containing the coronavirus is the most pressing task for the international community."

In a speech to the World Economic Forum, Xi called for "closer solidarity and cooperation, more information sharing, and a stronger global response," as well as "international cooperation on Covid vaccines."

China has been praised for its "vaccine diplomacy," promising shots to developing countries and investing in vaccine candidates that do not require expensive cold storage to be effective. But as questions have been raised over the effectiveness of one of those vaccines, the country's state media has reacted aggressively, targeting not just critics but also other vaccines, in an apparent effort to tear down their reputation in the name of defending the Chinese shots.

Along with hyping reports of deaths allegedly related to vaccines -- a dangerous game that could undermine not only confidence in the Pfizer and Moderna candidates targeted by Chinese media, but all coronavirus shots -- China's propaganda organs have also pushed alternate theories about the origins of the pandemic itself, including a long-debunked claim that it began in a US army lab.

The leading US military germ lab, Fort Detrick briefly became a trending topic on Chinese social media after Hua's comments, which were heavily promoted online by the Communist Youth League, among other Party and state-backed accounts. Previously, Chinese officials have suggested -- without evidence -- that even if the pandemic did originate in Wuhan, the coronavirus could have been brought to the city by US soldiers taking part in the Military World Games in October 2019.

Beijing has also pushed the idea that the virus could have entered the country on frozen food or other goods, despite most outside researchers disputing claims that it could be easily spread this way.

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New Zealand is likely to keep its borders closed to visitors through the rest of the year, the country’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a news conference Tuesday.

Ardern said that in order for borders to reopen there needs to be confidence that vaccination prevents coronavirus spread or that enough of the population is vaccinated in the country.

Speaking about the travel bubble with Australia, Ardern said she expressed "disappointment" to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison over Monday’s decision to halt the program. She said if New Zealand enters into these travel bubbles, they need to be able to give residents confidence that borders will not be shut on short notice "when it may not be necessary."

Vaccines: New Zealand is hoping to start a mass vaccination program for the general population from "mid year" and the country’s medical regulation agency could give provisional approval for the Pfizer vaccine as soon as Wednesday, Ardern said.

Around the world, the vaccine rollout has shone a harsh light on global income disparities. Rich countries take the lion's share of inoculations, and poorer states scramble to have even the prospect of life after coronavirus.

The Middle East is a microcosm of that global problem.

While oil-rich Gulf Arab nations were among the first in the world to receive a vaccine, war-torn countries such as Yemen and Syria must contend with vague timelines and complex distribution plans for the rollout, despite being among the worst affected by the virus.

Gulf nations lead the way: The first Arab countries to begin vaccinating their citizens and residents were also the richest: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.

The UAE stands out. The country of almost 10 million, which has one of the highest GDPs per capita in the world, also has one of the highest vaccination rates globally. More than 2 million residents and citizens have already been vaccinated using the Pfizer/BioNTech shot and China's Sinopharm vaccine.

The Gulf state has already vaccinated more people than middle-income Jordan plans to inoculate in the first phase of its roll out. Lebanon, currently in the throes of a financial meltdown, has not yet had any vaccines delivered.

Conflict zones: Syria, already on its knees after almost a decade of civil war, is facing an economic crisis. The country's president, Bashar al-Assad, does not control all of its territory. The government in Damascus will rely on GAVI, the vaccine alliance that co-leads COVAX. Opposition groups in Syria's largely Kurdish northeast, and rebel-controlled northwest will do the same.

In war-torn Yemen, suffering a devastating humanitarian crisis, rival governments in the country's south and north appear to have only a vague notion of what the vaccine rollout will look like.

In Israel and the Palestinian territories, region-wide vaccine disparities also come into sharp focus. Israel's world-leading vaccination campaign, which is on course to meet the government's target of inoculating the entire country by the end of March, leaves at least 4.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza behind.

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Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler told police Sunday night that he used pepper spray on a man who had been harassing him about Covid-19 mask policies outside of a restaurant.

Police do not know the identity of the man who was sprayed and have so far received no complaints, they said. When asked about the rumored incident during a news conference Monday, Wheeler said, "I can tell you there was an incident, I filed a police report, and that's all I can tell you right now."

The mayor's office told CNN Monday evening that Wheeler does not have any further comment to make.

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Five people were arrested Tuesday after an "unauthorized" Australia Day protest in Sydney that breached health restrictions put in place to avoid the spread of Covid-19, New South Wales police said in a statement.

Australia's national day, observed January 26, regularly sees large protests around the country over concerns that the date inappropriately celebrates the mass dispossession of the country's Indigenous population.

Police said they worked with organizers to separate the crowd Tuesday into groups of fewer than 500 people in an effort to minimize health risks.

Four of those arrested were involved in a scuffle in which a police officer was allegedly assaulted, according to police. A 27-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man would be charged with failure to follow Covid-19 directions from police, among other charges, police said. Two other men were each issued with a 1,000 Australian dollar ($770) penalty and released.

One man who was not part of the gathering was charged with breach of the peace, the police statement added.

In Melbourne, two men were also detained during Australia Day protests for breaching the peace but were released without charge a short time later. "Police were pleased with the behaviour of those that attended," Melbourne police told CNN.