Staying with the UK for the moment, Boris Johnson has come under fresh pressure over the Jimmy Savile smear he aimed at Keir Starmer after the Labour leader had to be rescued by police from a mob of anti-vaxxers near parliament.
Starmer faced baseless allegations of “protecting paedophiles” and chants about the sex offender from protesters before being bundled into a police car for protection, the Press Association reported.
Johnson tweeted that the “behaviour directed” at the Labour leader was “absolutely disgraceful” but did not address the nature of the abuse.
Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson)
The behaviour directed at the Leader of the Opposition tonight is absolutely disgraceful. All forms of harassment of our elected representatives are completely unacceptable.
Officers stepped in to protect the opposition leader as the group, some protesting against Covid measures, followed him from outside Scotland Yard.
On at least two videos posted to social media, a man and a woman were heard shouting about Savile to the Labour leader, as he walked with the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy.
At least one person was heard repeatedly shouting about “protecting paedophiles”.
Last week, an under-pressure Johnson accused Starmer of having “used his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile” while director of public prosecutions (DPP).
Keir Starmer being taken away in a police car after being confronted by conspiracy theorists. Photograph: Conor Noon/PA
In the UK, MPs from all sides angrily rounded on Boris Johnson and accused him of whipping up political poison after the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, was set upon by protesters who accused him of protecting the paedophile Jimmy Savile.
Johnson provoked widespread fury last week when he suggested Starmer had protected Savile during his time as director of public prosecutions. The comments drew criticism from two former Tory chief whips and prompted the resignation of a long-serving aide.
On Monday, Starmer and the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, had to be bundled into a police car after anti-vax protesters surrounded him near parliament with shouts of “traitor” and “Jimmy Savile”. One witness said a protester carried a hangman’s noose prop, which another protester had joked was for Starmer.
Anti-vax protesters shouting Savile slurs target Keir Starmer – video
Lammy said it was “no surprise the conspiracy theorist thugs who harassed Keir Starmer and I repeated slurs we heard from Boris Johnson last week at the dispatch box. Intimidation, harassment and lies have no place in our democracy. And they won’t ever stop me doing my job.”
The former chief whip Julian Smith, who has called on Johnson to apologise, described the events as appalling. “It is really important for our democracy and for his security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full.”
The German government is working on plans to relax coronavirus restrictions after the peak in new cases has passed, most likely by the end of February.
Unlike some of its European neighbours, Germany still has many pandemic restrictions in place that exclude unvaccinated people from restaurants, public venues and some stores.
“Perspectives for opening are being developed,” government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann told reporters. She said the measures would be discussed at a meeting of federal and state officials on 16 February, but would only take effect when authorities can be sure that Germany’s health system won’t be overwhelmed.
“According to experts, that could be by mid-to-end February,” she said.
Germany has seen a sharp spike in newly confirmed cases in recent weeks due to the omicron variant.
Pharmacists in the country are scheduled to begin offering vaccinations Tuesday, after parliament changed the rules so that they, dentists and vets could also administer the shoots.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday advised against travel to six countries including Japan, Cuba, Libya, Armenia, Oman and the Democratic Republic of Congo over Covid cases.
The CDC now lists more than 130 countries and territories with Covid cases as “Level Four: Very High.”
It lists just over 50 countries as “Level Three: High,” discouraging non-essential travel by unvaccinated Americans.
Protesters against Covid vaccine mandates for truckers have defied government calls for them to end an 11-day occupation of Canada’s capital, a day after the city’s mayor declared a state of emergency and promised to “get the city back”.
Ottawa police have described the protest as a “siege” on the city, where hundreds of trucks and cars have blockaded the downtown areas. On Sunday, Mayor Jim Watson warned that officials were “losing this battle”, and a civil class-action lawsuit was filed against protesters over the incessant horn blasting and disruption to daily life.
But on Monday morning a 10am deadline – which asked protesters to leave of their own volition or face damages of nearly C$10m (US$7.9m) – came and went with no sign that an end to the protest was at hand.
Dozens of big-rig trucks, RVs and pickups remained parked in front of Parliament Hill and nearby streets, and protesters showed no signs of leaving.
Hello. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest Covid news throughout the next few hours.
Let’s start with the news that, in the US, the governors of New Jersey and Delaware have said their states would lift school mask mandates in the coming weeks.
The change signals a desire by at least some Democratic state governors, including New Jersey’s Phil Murphy and Delaware’s John Carney, to take their states off emergency footing and shift toward policies that treat the virus as part of normal life.
By no longer requiring students, teachers and administrators to wear masks in schools to wear masks, the governors are also seeking to blunt one of the most divisive issues of the pandemic, Reuters reported.
Republican leaders in some states, including Florida and Texas, have banned mask mandates in schools, while Democrats have generally encouraged the policy to help stall new infection.
In New Jersey, where the number of new cases have decreased over the past two weeks, Governor Murphy announced the state would lift its school mask mandate on 7 March.
The anti-vaccine parents of a boy in need of a blood transfusion, before undergoing a delicate heart surgery, have refused to receive blood for their child from Covid-vaccinated donors. The couple, both from Modena, in the North of Italy, informed the Bologna’s Sant’Orsola Hospital that they were “adamant that our child will only get unvaccinated blood”.
A judge’s ruling is expected by Tuesday, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Meanwhile, in just 1 month, five unvaccinated members of a family from Enna, in Sicily, have died after contracting COVID-19. The victims are the 80-year-old father, who died at the end of December at home, shortly after the arrival of an ambulance, followed by the 78-year-old mother. Their 50-year-old son and his two sisters aged 55 and 52, died a few weeks later, in a hospital in Enna where the rest of the family had been admitted.
France reported on Monday that there are 3,622 patients in intensive care units with coronavirus, an increase by 45 as of yesterday.
The country has also reported a total of 105,520 coronavirus deaths in hospital.
Sweden will lift its travel restrictions for foreign nationals travelling to Sweden from Nordic countries and the rest of the European Union and European Economic Area from Wednesday, the Swedish government has announced.
The travel bans, which were introduced to slow the spread of the coronavirus, will be lifted on the same day that Sweden is due to lift pandemic restrictions that had been extended last month.
On Monday, the UK recorded a further 57,623 coronavirus cases and 45 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
These figures brings the total number of coronavirus deaths within 28 days of a positive test to be 158,363, while there as been a total of 17,866,632 total cases.
Italy has recorded a further 326 coronavirus deaths and 41,247 new cases. This brings the total death toll to over 149,000.
The number of positive Covid-19 cases in the English Premier League, the most watched sports league in the world, has doubled in a week, but with a far higher number of tests being carried out, PA Media reports.
The league announced on Monday there were 22 positive results returned from tests on 6,685 players and staff at the top-flight football clubs between 31 January and 6 February.
That was a 100 per cent increase on the previous week, however, only 1,947 players and staff were tested then, with some stars benefiting from a winter break while others were away on international duty outside Europe.
In a boost to encourage vaccination uptake, a children’s vaccination centre in the Philippines has enlisted entertainers dressed as Ironman, Captain America and other characters as part of its coronavirus inoculation campaign.
Artists made swords and models from balloons as “superheroes” posed for pictures with children age 5 to 11 after they received their shots in the capital Manila.
The Philippines has vaccinated about half of its 110-million population, but many areas outside urban centres are still lagging far behind, complicating efforts to suppress fresh outbreaks of the novel coronavirus.
“He’s been at home for two years so he needs to go out and meet his friends, his classmates,” said Marissa Say after her son received a vaccine.
“After he completes all doses we can at least somehow feel safe and relaxed and he could go back to his normal life.”
Parent Bernadette Cruz said child vaccinations will help the country get on with life.
“It’s very important for me to have my child vaccinated because it will help to have herd immunity in our country and it will help our current pandemic become endemic much faster,” she said.
Philippines Quezon City Covid 19 Vaccination Children. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock
The mayor of Canada’s capital has declared a state of emergency, AP reports, as protesters opposed to Covid-19 restrictions continued to paralyse Ottawa’s downtown. Jim Watson said the declaration highlighted the need for support from other jurisdictions and levels of government. It gives the city some additional powers around procurement and how it delivers services, which could help purchase equipment required by frontline workers and first responders.
The prime minister of Papua New Guinea tested positive for Covid arriving in Beijing last week for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. James Marape was immediately given medical treatment, missed Friday’s ceremony and returned home on Sunday night, according to a Chineseforeign ministry spokesperson.
An Oxford scientist who worked on the AstraZeneca vaccine has accused scientists and politicians of having “probably killed hundreds of thousands of people” by damaging its reputation. Prof John Bell told the BBC: “They have damaged the reputation of the vaccine in a way that echoes around the rest of the world.”Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said Omicron has caused “really high levels of staff absence” – and that the problem is ongoing. She said that most recently around 70,000 staff had been absent across the NHS – 40% of whom were absent as a result of either Omicron of coronavirus measures.
Sajid Javid, the UK health secretary, has said he believes the NHS waiting list is going to grow even more due to 8-9 million people who have stayed away during the pandemic. Speaking on Sky News, he urged those who have stayed away to “please come forward”. He said “it’s hard to know” how long it’s going to take for the NHS to recover following Covid.
Nigeria has received 2m doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine from Finland, Greece and Slovenia, with more EU donations set to arrive in the coming weeks, government officials said on Monday.
Russia has reported 171,905 new coronavirus cases in the pat 24 hours, and a further 609 deaths. Since the start of the pandemic, the country has now seen over 12.6 million cases and 329,000 deaths.
Nigeria has received 2 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine from Finland, Greece and Slovenia, with more EU donations set to arrive in the coming weeks, government officials said on Monday. The vaccines are currently in a cold room at the airport of the west African nation’s capital, Abuja.
“This batch of vaccines will expire in August 2023. So we have that ample time to administer before that time,” Faisal Shuaib, executive director of Nigeria’s National Primary Health Care Development Agency, told reporters at an airport news conference.
According to Our World in Data, as of 7 February, just 2.6% of Nigeria’s population has been fully vaccinated, compared to 53.9% of the world’s population.
A man receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine during a mass vaccination exercise at Wuse market in Abuja. Picture taken January 26, 2022. Photograph: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
Russia has reported 171,905 new coronavirus cases in the pat 24 hours, and a further 609 deaths.
Since the start of the pandemic, the country has now seen over 12.6 million cases and 329,000 deaths.
Amid the rising coronavirus cases seen in Hong Kong, Reuters has reported that many of its residents have began to crowd supermarkets in an effort to stock up on food and other necessities, having spoken to some residents involved. The city reported a record 614 coronavirus cases on Monday.
Reuters reports:
At a fresh food market in Tin Shui Wai, in the city’s northern New Territories, vendors said there would be no vegetables in coming days, prompting customers to buy up produce.
“Of course you have to buy. There will be no vegetables from tomorrow. The trucks can’t come here … so the vegetables are very, very pricey,” said a 50-year-old woman surnamed Chow.
John Chan, a vegetable vendor, said the disruptions had seen supply drop by 30%, including for products such as Chinese flowering cabbage. He cautioned that hundreds of kilograms of vegetables due to arrive on Tuesday may not be able to arrive.
“I still don’t know if they can cross the border. If there is none, the prices will further increase or we have nothing to sell.”
Shelves stocking vegetables, tissues and cup noodles were bare at several supermarkets across the former British colony with customers stocking up over concerns that products would be even harder to get in the coming days.
Chow Lai Sheng, a 60-year old janitor, said she bought four toilet rolls as well as instant noodles and canned food.
“The Covid situation is severe. And there are no veggies, so I stockpile a bit,” she said.
The prime minister of Papua New Guinea tested positive for Covid arriving in Beijing last week for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. James Marape was immediately given medical treatment, missed Friday’s ceremony and returned home on Sunday night, according to a Chineseforeign ministry spokesperson.
Northern Ireland has reported a significant increase in young people in mental health crisis seeking hospital help during the pandemic. Referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) from hospital emergency departments went up by 24% between 2019-20 and 2020-21, reports the BBC.
Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said Omicron has caused “really high levels of staff absence” – and that the problem is ongoing. She said that most recently around 70,000 staff had been absent across the NHS – 40% of whom were absent as a result of either Omicron of coronavirus measures.
An Oxford scientist who worked on the AstraZeneca vaccine has accused scientists and politicians of having “probably killed hundreds of thousands of people” by damaging its reputation. Prof John Bell told the BBC: “They have damaged the reputation of the vaccine in a way that echoes around the rest of the world.”
Sajid Javid, the UK health secretary, has said he believes the NHS waiting list is going to grow even more due to 8-9 million people who have stayed away during the pandemic. Speaking on Sky News, he urged those who have stayed away to “please come forward”. He said “it’s hard to know” how long it’s going to take for the NHS to recover following Covid.
The mayor of Canada’s capital has declared a state of emergency, AP reports, as protesters opposed to Covid-19 restrictions continued to paralyse Ottawa’s downtown. Jim Watson said the declaration highlighted the need for support from other jurisdictions and levels of government. It gives the city some additional powers around procurement and how it delivers services, which could help purchase equipment required by frontline workers and first responders.
Handing over the blog to Tobi Thomas now. Thanks for reading.
Good morning, I’m taking over the coronavirus live blog from my colleague from now, if you would like to get in touch please do email tobi.thoma@theguardian.com. Thank you!
