Coronavirus live news: US may begin vaccinations before Christmas; Vietnam sees first case in three months

Russia has reported a record 569 deaths linked to Covid-19 today, bringing the official death toll to 40,464.

Authorities also reported 26,402 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, including 6,524 in the capital Moscow, bringing the national cumulative tally to 2,322,056.

Thanks to regular reader Scott Lafferty, who has been in touch to remind us that the Netherlands has today finally made face masks mandatory in indoor public spaces.

Face masks will be compulsory in all public buildings, shops, and stations from tomorrow as the coronavirus law comes into effect, and people who refuse to wear one face a fine of €95, reports Dutch News.

The Netherlands is one of the last countries in Europe to impose the wearing of masks following pressure from the public and MPs, but the Dutch health institute RIVM, which advises the government, still maintains that face masks do not significantly lower the risk of infection.

it seems unclear how the mandatory measure will be implemented, however. Retail chains, such as Ahold, which includes the largest Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn, Etos and Gall & Gall, have already said they will ‘inform customers about the obligation but not refuse non-wearers’. The chain said they won’t ask anyone why they are not wearing a mask, as it could be for a medical reason and they don’t want to intrude on anyone’s privacy.

In other news, thanks to this reader, and writing this post, I now know what winkelwagentje means in Dutch.

In the UK the British prime minister is facing a difficult day – he is trying to get a vote passed in the House of Commons today that would leave much of the country still facing severe restrictions.

But the opposition leader, Keir Starmer, has decided to break with the government in a vote on Covid restrictions for the first time – while at the same time the government is scrambling to contain a Tory rebellion by unveiling a multimillion-pound fund for pubs, write my colleagues Jessica Elgot, Peter Walker and Rajeev Syal.

They say:

The prime minister is to announce new one-off discretionary funding paid to councils for “wet” pubs and bars which cannot open under the strictest new tier restrictions for England, the Guardian understands.

But the Labour party is understood to believe that support for the hospitality sector must go further, and will abstain in Tuesday’s Commons vote on the tiers system, which is due to replace lockdown rules from Wednesday and put 99% of the country into tiers 2 and 3. The vote is still expected to pass.

Though Boris Johnson will hope to win around some rebels with the new funding, lockdown-sceptic MPs were expressing anger on Monday night at the publication of an impact assessment of the economic and health costs of the stricter tier system.

I’m Alexandra Topping and I’ve be at the helm of the global liveblog for the next few hours. As ever, we love to hear from readers all over the globe. Please do get in touch on alexandra.topping@theguardian.com or I’m @LexyTopping on Twitter and my DMs are open.

Here are the key global developments from the last few hours:

• Dr Scott Atlas has resigned as special adviser to President Donald Trump, a White House official said on Monday, after a controversial four months during which he clashed repeatedly with other members of the coronavirus task force. “I am writing to resign from my position as special advisor to the president of the United States,” Atlas said in a letter to Trump dated 1 December, according to Fox News, which first reported his resignation.
• US health secretary Alex Azar said Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine could be authorised and shipped within days of a 10 December meeting of outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration tasked with reviewing trial data and recommending whether it warrants approval.
• China has provided North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his family with an experimental coronavirus vaccine, a US analyst said on Tuesday, citing two unidentified Japanese intelligence sources. Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said the Kims and several senior North Korean officials had been vaccinated. It was unclear which company had supplied its drug candidate to the Kims and whether it had proven to be safe, he added.
• WHO says ‘will do everything’ to find Covid-19 origins. The World Health Organization insisted Monday it would do everything possible to find the animal origins of Covid-19, insisting that knowledge was vital to preventing future outbreaks. “We want to know the origin and we will do everything to know the origin,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
• Vietnam reported its first local transmission of Covid-19 in nearly three months on Monday, with officials scrambling to prevent a wider outbreak in the country’s most populous city.
• The cases were detected in a 70-year-old who had travelled from Melbourne in Australia, and a sailor repatriated from Italy. Both Samoan citizens arrived in Apia on a repatriation flight on 13 November, and subsequently tested positive for the novel coronavirus. But further examination of their cases has found they were both historical: the sailor had the virus in May and the Australian-based man in August.
• Anies Baswedan, the governor of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, said on Tuesday he had tested positive for Covid-19, as the world’s fourth most populous country struggles to contain a spike in the number of infections. The 51-year-old governor of south-east Asia’s biggest city is among a number of politicians and officials to contract the virus. Indonesia’s transportation and religious affairs ministers have previously been treated for the virus.
• US may begin vaccinations before Christmas. After a Thanksgiving weekend when the number of people traveling through US airports reached its highest since mid-March, a top government official said on Monday some Americans could begin receiving coronavirus vaccinations before Christmas.
• UN tourism body urges uniformity in virus travel rules. The World Tourism Organization called Monday for the standardisation of traveller health checks and the establishment of air corridors to ease international travel during the pandemic. The call came at a conference in Spain’s Canary Islands as the global tourism industry reels from a year in which travel restrictions to slow the coronavirus pandemic have decimated the sector.
• Japan cancels Yamanashi contest after eight speed skaters get coronavirus. The Japan Skating Federation has decided to cancel a competition this month in Yamanashi prefecture, west of the capital Tokyo, after eight speed skaters were confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus. The federation will cancel the event, set to run from Friday to Sunday, to ensure the safety of athletes and others involved, it said on Monday.
• Los Angeles shuts down Covid testing site to allow film shooting. Los Angeles, which on Tuesday entered stay-at-home order, has shut down a “heavily visited” testing site in order to allow a film shoot to happen there, Deadline reports.
• Three more members of the touring Pakistan cricket party have returned positive tests to Covid-19, according to New Zealand’s health ministry. In a significant setback to the Pakistan’s hopes of a competitive series against the Black Caps, the latest cases mean 10 of the 53-strong group have tested positive for coronavirus since arriving in New Zealand last month.

With more than 530,000 infections and nearly 17,000 deaths, the country has the highest tallies in Southeast Asia, though some health experts say limited testing and contact tracing is masking a far higher caseload.

Jakarta, a bustling megacity, has also recorded new record highs in infections over the past month, with an average of around 1,240 cases per day in the past week. Unlike some neighbouring countries, Indonesia has not brought in strict national lockdowns but opted for local curbs.

Since October, Jakarta’s governor has relaxed curbs to reinstate “large-scale social restrictions,” which means malls and restaurants can operate though with shorter hours.

Some health experts and officials have linked the recent spike in cases to mass gatherings in an around the capital.

This has included thousands joining street protests against a new job creation law and large gatherings, often with little social distancing, to mark the return from exile of controversial Islamic cleric Rizieq Shihab.

More on Jakarta’s governor testing positive for coronavirus now, from Reuters:

Anies Baswedan, the governor of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, said on Tuesday he had tested positive for Covid-19, as the world’s fourth most populous country struggles to contain a spike in the number of infections.

The 51-year-old governor of Southeast Asia’s biggest city is among a number of politicians and officials to contract the virus. Indonesia’s transportation and religious affairs ministers have previously been treated for the virus.

In a video posted on his Instagram account, the governor said he was currently asymptomatic and would self-isolate.

“I would like to remind everyone that Covid is still around and can come to anyone,” he said.

His deputy, Ahmad Riza Patria, also tested positive to the virus on Sunday, according to the city’s website. Indonesia, a country of 270 million people, has posted three days of record-high case numbers in the past week.

The subway system serving the US capital region may be forced to make devastating cuts in 2021, including ending weekend services, closing 19 stations and shrinking weekday operations if Congress does not approve additional assistance, Reuters reports.

The transit system’s proposed budget, which was made public late Monday, is set to be presented Friday and projects total ridership will rise to just 34% of pre-Covid-19 levels for its budget year that starts July 1.

The proposal calls for preserving “affordable bare bones service network to sustain essential travel and support the region*s recovery” even as it projects revenue declining by more than $500 million.

It also proposes dramatically cutting bus services, from 60 routes to 41. Thousands of Washington-area workers rely on buses and trains to get to jobs throughout the region and many students use the system to attend school.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) serves a region of about 6 million people and last year had 182 million rail riders, but like many public transit systems in the United States, has seen demand plummet because of the coronavirus pandemic. WMATA, which is already cutting 1,400 jobs, projects it will need to cut another 2,400 jobs to meet next year’s budget.

In April, Congress approved $25 billion for US public transit systems, including $1.02 billion for the Washington area systems, including about $775 million for WMATA.

Much of the US transportation sector has been battered by Covid-19 as millions of workers stay home rather than commute to urban centres and tourism remains sharply lower.

Earlier this month, New York City warned it could cut subway and bus service by up to 40% and commuter train service by 50% as it seeks $12 billion in emergency funding.

Los Angeles, which on Tuesday entered stay-at-home order, has shut down a “heavily visited” testing site in order to allow a film shoot to happen there, Deadline reports.

Deadline:

The kiosk at downtown LA’s Union Station will be shuttered on Tuesday so the She’s All That remake can use the iconic terminal as a location.

Despite the hundreds of people who use the South Patio located COVID-19 testing site at well-trafficked Union Station, the Miramax pic was granted a permit by FilmLA, Deadline has confirmed. With exterior shots and interior scenes at the terminal. there is estimated to be a total cast and crew size of around 170 at Union Station tomorrow.