Total Covid-19 cases
View charts and mapsConfirmed
84,071,747Deaths
1,821,060East Java governor tests positive for Covid-19
George Russell
The governor of Indonesia’s populous province of East Java has tested positive for Covid-19 and is self-isolating, she announced at the weekend.
Khofifah Indar Parawansa said she had no symptoms but tested positive on Saturday after a regular weekly swab.
“Currently, I am undergoing independent isolation,” she wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “I can still coordinate all government tasks.”
Ms Khofifah said she would stay at her home in Surabaya, the capital of the rugged province of nearly 40m people.
“To all people of East Java, I beg you to adhere to health protocols,” she added. “Never underestimate this virus.”
South Korea infections top 1,000 despite curbs
Song Jung-a
South Korea’s daily coronavirus infections climbed back above 1,000 on Monday, despite tighter restrictions on small social gatherings as the country tackles its worst outbreak since the pandemic began.
The country on Monday reported 1,020 new Covid-19 cases, raising the total caseload to 64,264, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The death toll increased by 19 to 981.
There were 126 new cases linked to a prison in eastern Seoul, bringing the total there to 1,084.
Health authorities have extended the second highest level of distancing rules for the Seoul metropolitan area for two more weeks and expanded a ban on private gatherings of more than four people for the whole country.
About 40 per cent of recent cases have been linked to small gatherings.
Officials are also tightening restrictions on the entry of foreigners as the country has reported 10 cases of a more infectious coronavirus variant first reported in Britain.
Starting Friday, foreigners arriving at South Korean airports will be required to present negative results of virus tests taken within 72 hours prior to their departure
Prime minister Chung Sye-kyun on Monday vowed to overcome the country’s health crisis and stabilise people’s livelihoods this year.
Health minister Kwon Deok-cheol said on Saturday that the next few months will be the “last hurdle”, given the country’s plans to begin vaccinations in February.
Indonesia plans to vaccinate 81.5m people
George Russell
Indonesia plans to vaccinate 81.5m people against Covid-19 in the next 15 months, state media reported the health ministry as saying on Sunday.
Vaccination programme spokeswoman Siti Nadia Tarmizi told the Antara news agency that the country would implement inoculations in stages from this month until March 2022.
She said the initial period from January to April would prioritise 1.3m health workers and
17.4m public officials in all 34 provinces.
She said the duration meant that social distancing and hygiene protocols would need to be maintained until the end of the vaccination period.
Australia’s New South Wales calls on residents to get tested
Wearing masks in public places became mandatory in New South Wales on Sunday
Alice Woodhouse
The Australian state of New South Wales has urged residents to meet a target of 50,000 people a day as it seeks to contain a series of outbreaks of coronavirus.
John Barilaro, acting NSW premier, called on residents to get tested for coronavirus following outbreaks in the state over the past few weeks.
More than 22,000 people were tested for the virus on Sunday. Mr Barilaro called on residents of western Sydney and the state as a whole to get tested, adding that he wanted to get the daily testing figure up to 50,000.
“It is important that we keep that testing regime up,” he said.
NSW reported no new local cases on Monday, however, the first time it recorded no local infections since mid-December. Two infections were found overnight and will be added to the tally on Tuesday.
Mr Barilaro said health authorities had pinpointed the origin of the clusters, which would allow contact tracers to do their jobs effectively.
Health officials have called for anyone who visited an off licence in Sydney that is linked to a cluster of coronavirus cases to get tested and self-isolate for 14 days, even if their visit to the shop was brief.
Mask wearing in public places, such as shopping malls, became mandatory in NSW on Sunday.
Singapore probes marine personnel infections
George Russell
Singapore officials are investigating how a marine surveyor and a harbour pilot contracted Covid-19, suspecting they might have shared meals on board a vessel in violation of protocols.
The surveyor tested positive on December 30 and the pilot the following day. The health ministry said contact tracing is underway to prevent the cluster from spreading.
“Preliminary investigations reveal that the marine surveyor, like the marine service engineer who tested positive [in] November 2020, consumed food provided by or with the crew on board the ships, which was against a precautionary measure,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said the surveyor’s employer, Lloyd’s Register Singapore, has suspended all its shipboard survey and audit activities and would test all its marine surveyors for Covid-19.
The November case prompted the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore to halt the engineer’s employer, Master Systems Marine, from sending any of its personnel to work on board ships.
“This will continue until the company can demonstrate that its employees will adhere to safe management measures on board ships,” the health ministry said.
Chicago mayor calls on US to deliver more vaccines
George Russell
The mayor of Chicago on Sunday called for more vaccines to be delivered, saying it would take nearly 18 months to inoculate the entire city at the current rate of supply.
Lori Lightfoot, the Democratic mayor, said the city had already distributed more than 95 per cent of the vaccine doses it has received.
However, she added that the federal government’s distribution rate meant it would take 71 weeks — nearly one and a half years — to fully vaccinate the city’s inhabitants.
“We need more vaccine. Now,” Ms Lightfoot wrote on Twitter.
The mayor said the city had been preparing a rollout of vaccines since the pandemic started.
City officials said they expected a limited supply at the beginning, and that healthcare workers would be priority recipients.
Australian doctors in call to cancel cricket match
Jamie Smyth
Australian doctors have called on authorities to reverse their decision to allow Sydney’s traditional New Year’s international cricket match to go ahead with almost 20,000 spectators present due to the threat posed by an outbreak of Covid-19.
The Australian Medical Association warned on Monday the game between Australia and India was “an unnecessary risk” to health following a fresh outbreak of the virus in the state of New South Wales shortly before Christmas.
More than 150 locally transmitted infections have been reported by authorities in the Greater Sydney region since the December 3 outbreak, which has dashed hopes that NSW could follow most other Australian states in eliminating the virus outside of hotel quarantine.
“The safe thing to do is to say we’re in a health emergency, it's time to make decisions on the basis of health, rather than economy and sport, and it's just the wrong decision and we're certainly calling on the New South Wales government to re-look at this question,” Omar Khorshid, head of the AMA, told ABC, Australia’s national broadcaster.
Several senior doctors and epidemiologists have warned about the potential of the cricket match to become a Covid-19 “super-spreading” event. However, the NSW state government reiterated its support for the cricket match on Monday, noting it had put in place measures to manage the risk.
Australia’s Mitchell Starc drops a catch during the match against India in Melbourne on December 29
The call by the AMA follows a direction issued by NSW authorities this week for about 2,000 people to self-isolate and get tested following detection of a Covid-19 case at an off-licence in a Sydney suburb, which they visited.
Two new infections were identified late on Sunday which are linked to this cluster in Berala, although there were no further cases reported linked to a separate outbreak in Sydney’s northern beaches area.
Victoria reported three new locally transmitted cases of Covid-19 on Monday, which authorities believe are linked to the December 3 outbreak in Sydney.
All other Australian states and territories have gone at least 28 days without any local transmission of the virus.
Australia’s decision early in the pandemic to close its international borders and impose strict lockdowns has been praised by health experts for limiting the number of fatalities to 909, a fraction of the death toll in the UK, US and smaller European countries such as Belgium.
Japan manufacturing PMI stabilises in December
Alice Woodhouse
Operating conditions at Japanese factories stabilised in the final month of 2020, snapping a 19-month run of declines, as manufacturing showed a gradual recovery from the pandemic.
The au Jibun Bank Japan manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to 50 in December, from 49 in the previous month.
The 50-point level marks no change while figures below that show worsening conditions.
The December figure was the highest reading since April 2019.
Output levels stabilised and orders for manufactured goods rose. However, companies surveyed noted that a third wave of coronavirus infections had dragged down production.
"Buoyed by improved operating conditions, Japanese manufacturing firms increased employment levels for the first time since February, albeit only fractionally,” said Usamah Bhatti, economist at IHS Markit.
“Nevertheless, ongoing issues of an ageing population have continued to hold back Japanese manufacturing employment, as firms … continued to report retirements.”
Muted celebration for world’s oldest person
A Japanese woman believed to be the world’s oldest person celebrated her 118th birthday at the weekend without visits from relatives due to coronavirus restrictions.
NHK News reported that Kane Tanaka was in good health, eats three times a day and exercises, adding that she has “almost no chance” of getting together with family due to measures against Covid-19.
Ms Tanaka lives in a care facility in Fukuoka, south-western Japan.
She celebrated her birthday on Saturday by clapping her hands and said she plans to stay healthy until she is 120, NHK said.
Singapore GDP shrinks 5.8% in 2020
Cranes at Singapore’s port. The export-driven economy was hit by a fall in demand
Alice Woodhouse
Singapore’s economy contracted by 5.8 per cent in 2020 as conditions improved in the final three months of the year, according to an advance estimate.
The country’s gross domestic product grew 2.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter in the three months to the end of December, government estimates showed.
However, on a year-on-year basis, GDP fell by 3.8 per cent during the period, against a 5.6 per cent drop in the previous quarter.
Singapore was forced to impose a strict lockdown in April 2020 to control the spread of coronavirus. This has gradually been eased after outbreaks in migrant worker dormitories were brought under control.
The export-driven economy was hit by a fall in demand as governments around the world forced businesses to close and citizens to stay at home to halt the pandemic.
Ireland records end-of-year manufacturing boom
George Russell
The Irish manufacturing sector saw a boost to business in December as firms prepared for the end of the Brexit transition period, according to purchasing managers data released on Monday.
New orders and output both rose at the fastest rates since July, after the country’s coronavirus lockdown ended, and purchasing accelerated as firms sought to expand inventories to guard against a potential hard Brexit.
The headline AIB Ireland Manufacturing PMI rose sharply to 57.2 in December from 52.2 in November. The figure is a composite single-figure indicator of manufacturing performance derived from indicators for new orders, output, employment, suppliers’ delivery times and stocks of purchases. A reading above 50.0 indicates improvement.
It was the sixth overall improvement in the past seven months and the 5-point rise was the third-largest on record. Manufacturers ramped up purchasing operations at the end of 2020 both to support current workloads and to build stocks for 2021 as the Brexit transition period ends.
Suppliers’ delivery times lengthened to one of the greatest extents in the survey history. “Stockpiling ahead of the end of the Brexit transition period was one factor behind the sharp rise in the index,” said Oliver Mangan, AIB chief economist.
“Companies remain optimistic about the 12-month outlook for production, no doubt hopeful that the recent positive news on Covid-19 vaccines will help bring about an improvement in economic conditions over the course of 2021,” he added.
Asia-Pacific stocks gain on year’s first trading day
Alice Woodhouse
Stocks in Asia-Pacific rose on the first trading day of 2021, while bitcoin climbed to almost $35,000.
Japan’s Topix added 0.3 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.5 per cent.
A flurry of reports on the state of Asia’s manufacturing sector later in the morning will provide clues on the effects of the pandemic on the region’s factories.
The moves in Asia came after the S&P 500 closed at a record high on the last trading day of 2020. S&P 500 futures were down 0.1 per cent on Monday.
Bitcoin’s rally sustained, with the cryptocurrency touching a high of $34,800 on Sunday.
UK restaurant slump cost 30,000 jobs, says retail body
George Russell
UK restaurants and casual dining outlets shed nearly 30,000 jobs last year as the economic impact of Covid-19 took its toll, according to a retailers’ group.
End-of-year figures compiled by the Centre for Retail Research show that during the 2020 calendar year, about 1,600 eateries closed down, resulting in the loss of 29,684 jobs.
That figure is 163 per cent higher than the 11,280 jobs lost during 2019.
The group reported 1,621 outlet closures, up from 922 in 2019, with “significant reductions” at Pizza Express, SSP Group, Casual Dining Group/The Big Table, The Restaurant Group, M&B, Harvester Beefeater and Pret a Manger.
The UK food and beverage sector was hit hard by lockdowns and social distancing.
Centre for Retail Research director Joshua Bamfield said Covid-19 exacerbated an existing crisis following rapid growth between 2014 and 2017.
“The need to cut costs caused by over-expansion, increased competition and weak consumer demand produced a crisis in the industry before the pandemic,” he said.
Saudis lift some curbs related to virus variant
George Russell
Saudi Arabia on Sunday lifted some restrictions on travel into the country that were imposed to prevent the B.1.1.7 variant of coronavirus from spreading, official media reported.
Non-citizens arriving from the UK and South Africa, the countries on which restrictions had been imposed last month, would be able to enter if they had spent the previous 14 days in a third country, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
They would also have to provide a negative result from a polymerase chain reaction test for Covid-19, the agency added.
Saudi citizens arriving from countries where the new coronavirus variant has spread would be required to home quarantine for 14 days after arrival, SPA reported.
Tokyo restaurants face calls for early closing
People dine at a restaurant in the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo
Robin Harding
Restaurants in Tokyo are facing calls to close at 8pm as Japan tries to control rising Covid-19 cases without imposing a crippling cost on the economy.
Governors from the capital and its three surrounding prefectures met with economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura on Sunday to discuss tighter measures, including the possibility of a fresh state of emergency declaration under national law.
Tokyo reported 816 new coronavirus cases on Sunday out of a nationwide total of 3,149 as the outbreak in the capital continues to grow.
Prime minister Yoshihide Suga has been reluctant to seek tough lockdown measures, with schools expected to reopen as usual after the New Year break, but he is likely to extend the suspension of a domestic tourism campaign beyond January 11.
Philippine troops seal off Malaysia border
George Russell
The Philippines has deployed soldiers on the archipelago’s southernmost maritime border to help stave off a surge of coronavirus cases in the adjacent Malaysian state of Sabah, state media reported at the weekend.
A regional commander told the official Philippine News Agency that the army’s Western Mindanao Command has sent troops to Sulu province, a group of islands separating the Sulu Sea from the Celebes Sea.
“We are maximising our capabilities to keep the contagion offshore,” Lieutenant General Corleto Vinluan, the Western Mindanao commander, told the agency.
He said his soldiers would help the provincial government implement a lockdown from Monday until January 17 in a bid to prevent the entry of people from Sabah.
There is a thriving maritime trade for food and other products between Sulu and Sabah, the agency said.
Crisis managing the travel industry through Covid-19
Alice Hancock
The best way to run international travel policy is to approach it like a business, according to Gloria Guevara, chief executive and president of the World Travel and Tourism Council.
A national or international agreement, she said, is “what a corporation would call a business plan with your goals and your KPIs”.
Providing that clarity has never been so consequential for the global travel industry, which because of the coronavirus pandemic has suffered record losses this year.
Read more here
Australian manufacturing ends 2020 on a high
A worker pours molten iron at IXL Manufacturing’s plant in Geelong
George Russell
Australian manufacturing continued to recover in December at one of the strongest rates seen over the past three years, according to purchasing managers’ index data released on Monday.
But the headline reading from the IHS Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index edged down to 55.7 in December from November’s 35-month high of 55.8.
A reading above 50 means growth in sector activity, while a reading below 50 means contraction.
Supply chain delays limited companies’ abilities to buy sufficient quantities of inputs, the survey found.
Higher output reflected rising demand as the economy showed further signs of lifting from Covid-19 lockdowns. New orders showed the largest gain since November 2018.
“Australia’s manufacturers ended 2020 on a strong note, reporting one of the strongest upturns in production since 2018 as order books continued to recover,” said Chris Williamson, IHS chief business economist.
Covid-19 rules pose threats to media freedoms
George Russell
The Covid-19 pandemic has amplified the threats to freely reported, independent, diverse and reliable journalism, according to a Paris-based advocacy group for reporters.
There is a correlation between suppression of media freedom in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and a country’s ranking in the annual World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Sans Frontières.
The 2020 edition evaluates conditions for journalists in 180 countries and territories. Norway, Finland and Denmark were adjudged the three most free nations.
The highest-ranked non-European country was Jamaica in sixth spot, while the top-ranked Asian country was South Korea in 42nd place. New Zealand (9th), Samoa (21st) and Australia (26th) were the most liberal Pacific nations.
Both China (staying in 177th place) and Iran (down three notches at 173rd) censored their major coronavirus outbreaks extensively, RSF said. In Iraq (down six at 162nd), the authorities stripped Reuters of its licence for three months after it published a story questioning official coronavirus figures.
RSF noted that Hungary (down two at 89th) passed a “coronavirus” law with penalties of up to five years in prison for false information, which RSF described as “a completely disproportionate and coercive measure”.
“The coronavirus pandemic illustrates the negative factors threatening the right to reliable information, and is itself an exacerbating factor,” said RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire.
“The public health crisis provides authoritarian governments with an opportunity ... to take advantage of the fact that politics are on hold, the public is stunned and protests are out of the question, in order to impose measures that would be impossible in normal times,” Mr Deloire added.
US breaks records for new cases as jabs fall short
George Russell
The US broke records for new daily coronavirus cases over the weekend, as a leading tracker of the pandemic on Sunday urged caution over data “oscillations”.
On Saturday, health departments registered more than 277,000 infections, the highest number yet of cases recorded in a single day.
The figure put the seven-day rolling average above 200,000 a day.
The hardest-hit country in the world, the US has detected more than 20.4m cases and more than 340,000 deaths.
Seven states did not report any data on Saturday, while nine others did not update their figures, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
“We believe that holiday reporting is still causing major oscillations in the data,” the CTP wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “Please use caution in interpreting the numbers.”
Nevertheless, infections have been surging since the Thanksgiving holiday in November.
Top US government virologist Anthony Fauci warned after Christmas that the worst of the pandemic may be yet to come.
More than 4.2m Americans have already received their first vaccine doses, falling short of the 20m inoculations that president Donald Trump promised by the end of 2020.
Pope criticises ‘thoughtless’ lockdown violators
Pope Francis delivers his Angelus blessing from the Apostolic Library
George Russell
Pope Francis criticised lockdown violators in his Sunday blessing, saying they had no thought for others suffering the consequences of the pandemic.
The Roman Catholic leader said the pandemic would ease only “if we work together for the common good, putting the weakest and most disadvantaged at the centre”.
He said he had been saddened to read in the newspapers that some people chose to ignore lockdown rules in order to “have a good vacation”.
The pope gave his traditional Angelus blessing in a video address from the library of the apostolic palace in the Vatican.
It is normally given from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square but was moved indoors to prevent crowds gathering.
“We do not know what 2021 will bring, but what each of us and all of us together can do, is to commit to taking care of each other and of creation, our common home,” the pope said.
India approves two locally manufactured vaccines
George Russell
India’s pharmaceuticals regulator on Sunday approved two locally made coronavirus vaccines for emergency use as the country recorded 20,000 new daily infections at the weekend.
The office of the Drug Controller General of India said both Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin have been granted permission for “restricted use”. Covishield was developed by Oxford university and AstraZeneca.
VG Somani, the controller general of drugs, said the agency's expert committee met on January 1-2 to discuss the approval applications. It was approved for emergency use “in the public interest”, he added.
“We’ll never approve anything if there is slightest of safety concern,” Mr Somani told a media briefing. “The vaccines are 100 per cent safe.”
SII chief executive Adar Poonawalla said the company had applied for emergency use authorisation on December 7.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said the approvals were a “decisive turning point to strengthen a spirited fight” against the pandemic. “Congratulations to our hardworking scientists and innovators,” he added.
Home affairs minister G Kishan Reddy described the emergency use authorisations as a “huge moment in the pharmaceutical history of our nation”.
India reported 18,177 new cases of the disease on Sunday, ministry of health and family welfare data showed.
The country has detected more than 10.3m cases since the pandemic began.
Officials also reported 217 Covid-related deaths on Sunday, bringing the official total to 149,435.
How the pandemic will change the City office
Daniel Thomas
The British office market is having one of its “Road Runner” moments. Like the coyote in the cartoon, it is still running forward despite having left the edge of the cliff some time before.
The vast Covid-19 economic stimulus this year has helped keep returns going for the sector, with central bank programmes pushing European bond yields into negative territory.
Agents Savills reckons the average spread between them and rental yields on prime European offices is now about 3.25 percentage points, well above historical average.
Read more here
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Defaults by US oil and gas producers are set to outstrip all other sectors again in 2021 as an industry battered by this year’s price crash faces yet more pain, according to a forecast from the Fitch rating agency. The US oil industry was thrown into turmoil in 2020 after the Covid-19 pandemic crippled global demand.
Regional governments in China are evading borrowing limits by transferring assets on to the books of local investment companies to lower debt-to-asset ratios. The practice allows local government finance vehicles to raise more money for infrastructure and other projects to boost the economy in the wake of the pandemic.
New Zealand officials on Sunday confirmed that six positive Covid-19 cases have been found to match the recently identified B.1.1.7 variant. Five travelled from the UK and one from South Africa, arriving in New Zealand from December 13-25. All were detected through routine testing and transferred to quarantine.
Iran and Russia are seeking to cooperate on producing the Sputnik V vaccine, Russian media reported at the weekend. Iran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, told Sunday’s Izvestia newspaper that Russian president Vladimir Putin had discussed a collaboration with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani.
US electric carmaker Tesla said at the weekend that it had delivered 180,570 vehicles during the fourth quarter of 2020, ahead of the 174,000 analysts had expected, and suggesting it was firing on all cylinders at the end of a year in which the global automobile industry suffered a sharp contraction in sales due to the pandemic.
Singapore Airlines announced that from Monday it would refuse to board people with a travel history that included South Africa within the previous 14 days, with the exception of Singapore citizens and permanent residents. They would not be allowed to enter or transit through Singapore because of concerns over the B.1.1.7 variant.
A Ukraine-based drugmaker has sought to license Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, state media reported at the weekend. The Biolek pharmaceutical company, based in Kharkiv, would manufacture the Covid-19 vaccine, Tass reported. Ukraine has so far recorded 1,069,517 coronavirus cases and 18,731 deaths, according to official data.
European airlines are stepping up pressure on airports to slash landing charges, leading to warnings of a race to the bottom in an industry decimated by the pandemic. Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet are among carriers pushing for discounted fees as they decide where to fly when passengers return in significant numbers.
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