December 21 coronavirus news

China aims to inoculate 50 million people with homegrown Covid-19 vaccines ahead of February’s Lunar New Year celebrations.

Tao Lina, a vaccination expert formerly with the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention, confirmed the target to CNN on Monday after reviewing a transcript of a government conference call on December 15, where the mass vaccination rollout plan was discussed.

Tao added that implementation will depend on conditions on the ground.

Chinese authorities have said their first step will be to vaccinate essential workers such as medical and disease control professionals, customs and border inspection workers, and people in the food industry, according to health officials who attended a press conference Saturday on the country’s vaccination plan.

Since July, China has administered more than a million doses of domestically produced vaccines to people considered “high-risk” groups under an emergency use program. Officials say they have found no serious adverse reactions so far.

Currently, five vaccines developed by Chinese companies are going through the final phase of clinical trials in more than a dozen countries around the world.

Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to know in the next few days if there's a concern that the coronavirus vaccines might not work against a mutated variant of the virus that's rapidly spreading in parts of England, according to the institute's top vaccine researcher.

The Walter Reed scientists still expect the vaccine will be effective against this new variant, said Dr. Nelson Michael, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

On Thursday, the Walter Reed team started examining genetic sequences of the new UK variant posted online by British researchers.

They will do a computer analysis as a first step.

"The computer analysis will allow us to gauge how much concern we should have," Michael said. "Other teams around the world are doing this analysis, too."

If the computer analysis shows there's a concern, then studies would need to be done in the laboratory and in animals to more definitively determine if the vaccine will work on this variant.

Read more about the reaction to the variant here.

US President Donald Trump will sign the coronavirus relief package once it reaches his desk, according to White House spokesman Ben Williamson.

“President Trump has pushed hard for months to send Americans badly needed financial relief. We look forward to Congress sending a bill to his desk imminently for signature,” Williamson said.

US Congressional leaders announced Sunday night that they had secured a deal for a sweeping $900 billion rescue package to deliver much-needed relief for small businesses, unemployed Americans and health care workers while bolstering vaccine distribution.

The announcement follows policy disputes and partisan finger-pointing between Democrats and Republicans that fueled uncertainty over whether lawmakers would manage to close out a deal or whether talks would collapse with lawmakers soon set to leave Washington for the holidays and the end of the 116th Congress in sight.

Canada says it will ban most passenger travel from the United Kingdom beginning midnight Sunday.

That ban will last at least 72 hours. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed the news in a tweet Sunday night local time, saying it was being done to protect Canadians across the country. 

In a statement, the Public Health Agency of Canada says that although more data on the Covid-19 variant is still needed, “the decision was made to suspend entry into Canada of all commercial and private passenger flights from the United Kingdom for 72 hours.” 

Trudeau convened a meeting of Canada’s cabinet level ‘Incident Response Group’ Sunday afternoon to discuss the new variant of Covid-19. The ministers of health, transport, public safety, and foreign affairs were all in attendance. 

What's happening in Canada: Canada has been dealing with a surge in daily cases and a troubling increase in hospitalizations and deaths. Canada’s Public Health Agency says this second wave is now worse than the first with cases and hospitalizations continuing to outpace the first wave’s peak. 

The province of Quebec said it would begin a lockdown Christmas Day after targeted lockdowns and restrictions failed to curb rising case counts. 

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, is also considering a full lockdown after targeted closures failed to bring down infection rates in Toronto and its suburbs. 

Canada has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and started distribution a week ago. Public health officials say they will be begin distributing the Moderna vaccine as soon as it is approved. Health Canada, the national regulator, said it continues to review Moderna’s data and approval is expected within days. 

Canada has reported more than 511,000 coronavirus cases and more than 14,000 deaths.

Two cases of the new Covid-19 variation detected in the United Kingdom have been found in managed quarantine facilities in Sydney, Australia, according to health authorities.

New South Wales Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said Monday that the cases had been identified in returning travelers from the UK while they were in state-imposed quarantine.

Australia requires all international arrivals -- with a few exceptions -- to undergo 14 days of state-run hotel quarantine.

Dr Chant said that the new UK strain is not responsible for an emerging cluster of Covid-19 in Sydney’s north. That cluster is now up to 83 cases, rising by 15 new cases detected Sunday.

Australia has reported more than 28,000 coronavirus cases and 908 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally.

The United Kingdom has detected a new variation of Covid-19 that England's chief medical officer says is more contagious than previous variants.

Professor Chris Whitty says “urgent work” is underway to rule out if the new strain, prevalent in the south east of England, can cause a higher mortality rate. 

“There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments although urgent work is underway to confirm this,” he said in a statement.

Here's what else we know.

What we know about the variant:

Where it's been detected:

What other countries are doing in response:

A growing list of countries have issued travel restrictions following the United Kingdom's announcement that it is battling a new Covid-19 variation.

At least 20 countries have banned travel to or from the UK, while other countries have imposed additional restrictions on travelers from the UK.

Here are some of the latest countries to bring in restrictions: