Here are the coronavirus headlines for Wednesday, February 9, as travel restrictions in a number of popular tourist destinations have been relaxed in time for the half term break later this month.
France, Portugal, Greece and Spain have each updated their entry requirements for fully-vaccinated travellers, with changes coming into effect in time for February 21, when most schools in Wales will be on half term.
Vaccinated tourists travelling to Portugal will no longer need to provide a negative test result to enter, although unvaccinated passengers will.
Greece has also dropped pre-departure test requirements for fully-vaccinated arrivals. However, as with many other EU states, it will require arrivals that have had their second jab more than 270 days ago to have had a booster.
France also announced it would soon drop its requirement of a negative Covid test for vaccinated travellers from outside the EU, as daily infection numbers continue to fall.
Meanwhile, Spain is scrapping a mandate to wear masks outdoors, as infection rates drop and hospitals report lower admissions.
Mask-wearing will not be necessary outside from Thursday, government spokeswoman Isabel Rodriguez said after a weekly cabinet meeting.
The rule change includes children at school during their breaks outside and between classes.
However, masks remain mandatory in indoor public spaces, including public transport, and when people are unable to keep a safe distance of 1.5 metres between them. Mask wearing is one of the restrictions being monitored ahead of the three-weekly review in Wales on Friday.
Travel firm Tui has said UK customers’ holiday bookings this summer are nearly a fifth higher than before the pandemic, with a rise in long-haul trips to the Caribbean and Cape Verde thanks in part to less strict Covid rules.
The travel firm has had a total of 6m bookings for this winter and the summer. In November and December, bookings were affected by the spread of the Omicron variant and fresh Covid-19 restrictions, but Omicron is no longer an issue, its chief executive, Fritz Joussen, said.
Holiday bookings have picked up since the start of the new year, as people grew more confident about travelling and the government relaxed testing requirements for travellers. UK summer bookings are up 19% on the summer of 2019 and Tui expects summer bookings overall to be close to pre-pandemic levels.
Joussen said many UK households had accumulated high savings during the pandemic and were eager to travel. Long-haul destinations such as the Caribbean and Cape Verde were popular, he said, and customers were buying more upmarket holiday packages as they wanted to treat themselves after two years of the pandemic.
“People are selecting holidays that are more expensive. Rather than going to the Canaries, they are going to the Caribbean,” he said.
Hamsters can transmit Covid to humans, data suggests
Data from Hong Kong has suggested that pet hamsters can transmit Covid to humans and are the likely source of a recent outbreak of the Delta variant.
The research confirms fears that a pet shop was the source of a recent Covid outbreak in the city, which has seen at least 50 people infected and led to the culling of more than 2,200 hamsters.
However, virologists emphasised that, although the pet trade could provide a route for viral spread, existing pet hamsters are unlikely to pose a threat to their owners and should not be harmed.
Many animals are susceptible to catching Covid from humans, but until now, only one – the mink – has proved capable of transmitting it in the opposite direction.
The concerns first appeared when a 23-year-old worker at the Little Boss pet shop in Hong Kong tested positive for Covid on January 15 – the city’s first Delta variant diagnosis for more than three months. A woman who visited the pet shop was also infected, and other members of her family tested positive in the days that followed.
In response, public health officials swabbed hundreds of rodents at the pet shop and at the warehouse supplying it. Viral genetic material or antibodies were detected in 15 of the 28 Syrian hamsters, but in none of the dwarf hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits or chinchillas tested. None of the hamsters had overt symptoms.
After coronavirus was detected in the hamsters, Professor Leo Poon, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, and his colleagues undertook further viral genome sequencing, which revealed that the hamsters were all infected with the Delta variant, and that their viruses were closely related. The nature of the mutations contained within these viruses suggested that transmission had been going on for some time – possibly since mid-November. The hamsters were imported from a supplier in the Netherlands during December and January.
Meanwhile, analysis of samples from the pet shop worker and the infected customer suggested that their viruses were closely related to the hamster viruses, but that they were unlikely to have transmitted the infection to each other.
Leak suggests 18 more firms given 'VIP lane' treatment for PPE contracts
A further 18 companies were given so-called "VIP lane" access in the rush to supply the UK with an adequate amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the first Covid-19 wave, according to a campaign group.
The Good Law Project said it had been leaked information which suggested the additional firms, which are on top of the 50 acknowledged by the Government, were awarded contracts worth almost £1 billion without competition.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner called for ministers to "come clean" and declare whether they had "misled Parliament" over the additional 18 contracts that Good Law says it has uncovered.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) admitted it had failed to mention in its official VIP lane list one of the extra firms that the Good Law cited as benefiting from fast-track treatment, but denied that the other 17 had been part of the scheme.
It comes after the High Court last month ruled that the Government's use of a so-called "VIP lane" to award millions of pounds' worth of contracts for protective gear was unlawful.
And last week, the Department for Health and Social Care's (DHSC) annual accounts stated that £8.7 billion spent on PPE during the pandemic had been written off, with some £673 million worth of equipment found to be totally unusable.
Declaring that it had discovered a further £984 million in VIP lane agreements, Good Law claimed PPE contracts worth £173 million had been awarded to Chinese suppliers which have been "linked to the Uighur human rights abuses in Xinjiang", while another £96 million deal was agreed with a firm that "operated out of a hotel room in Beijing".
The not-for-profit group claimed a Hong Kong-based firm was handed a £25 million contract in June 2020, but the details of the agreement with the UK Government has yet to be disclosed.
Jo Maugham, director of the project, said: "The Department of Health's annual report revealed that of every £13 we spent on PPE, £10 was wasted.
"How long must hard-working taxpayers carry the heavy burden of this Government's waste and sleaze?"
Labour's Ms Rayner said: "We already know in a minister's own words that the Government was 'paying dramatically over the odds' for contracts that lined the pockets of Tory donors and cronies.
"Today's revelation suggests that the so called 'VIP lane' for the politically connected was even bigger than they have admitted.
"They must now come clean and tell us the truth about these new contracts, and if ministers have misled Parliament, there must be consequences."
Some of the suppliers may not have been aware they were in the "VIP lane" for PPE deals, Good Law said, and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing.
The contracts were agreed when the UK was in a desperate scramble to procure PPE for healthcare workers during the first coronavirus lockdown in spring 2020, with reports that some frontline staff were wearing bin bags due to a shortage of medical gowns.
Officials at DHSC said there had been an "accidental omission" when the High Priority Lane list was published in November, and that it would be updated "shortly" to include Technicare Ltd T/A Blyth Group, which appears on the Good Law's leaked listing.
But the Whitehall department said the remaining 17 companies were not referred by the fast-track route.
A spokesman for DHSC said: "It is inaccurate to claim that all of these companies were referred by the High Priority Lane route.
"The purpose of the High Priority Lane was to efficiently prioritise credible offers of PPE, and our efforts have helped deliver over 17.5 billion items of PPE to the frontline to protect healthcare workers during the pandemic."
Rush hour traffic jams plummet
Road congestion during traditional peak travel times was more than a third lighter last year than pre-pandemic levels, according to new research.
Analysis of 25 UK towns and cities by location technology firm TomTom found that traffic jams in the morning and evening rush hours during 2021 eased by 35 per cent compared with 2019.
It found that in Cardiff it was down by 40%, while it was 53% down in Reading, 52% in Southampton, 45% in Coventry and 43% in Stoke-on-Trent.
TomTom attributed the decline in congestion to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the growth in online shopping.
The company's traffic expert Andy Marchant said that "2021 was the year in which the UK's new working habits came to the fore: home offices become standard and flexible work hours allowed many commuters to step out of rush hours".
He added: "As a result, peak hours have decreased in all 25 UK cities included in the index.
"However, with the Government set to publish a plan on how the UK can 'learn to live with Covid as a country' by spring, traffic levels will likely increase as British citizens start returning to offices as part of their new working patterns."
TomTom found that the UK was home to five of the world's 100 most congested towns and cities last year - Edinburgh (44th place), London (55th), Hull (60th), Brighton and Hove (64th) and Bournemouth (99th).
Road journeys in the Scottish capital took an average of 35 per cent longer than if vehicles could move freely.
Mr Marchant warned that better traffic management can only improve the flow of vehicles by "up to 10 per cent".
Traditional congestion peaks can only be permanently stopped by more people changing how they travel, he explained.
"Cycling, public transport and other modes of transport must take a larger share in transportation," Mr Marchant said.
"Such a redirection requires greater collaboration between UK city planners, policy makers, employers, and drivers - and it takes time."
15,000 new health workers in England by end of March
The UK Health Secretary has pledged to recruit 15,000 new health workers in England by the end of March as the Government warned the NHS waiting list in England will not start to fall for another two years and could even double in size.
Sajid Javid, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said the NHS aimed "to recruit 10,000 more nurses from overseas and 5,000 more healthcare support workers by the end of March" to increase capacity.
Mr Javid earlier set out in the Commons how the NHS would tackle the backlog built up during the Covid-19 pandemic, including new targets for reducing long waits and getting people checked for illnesses more quickly.
Among the ambitions are:
- The NHS will "eliminate" waits of over 18 months by April 2023, and waits over 65 weeks by March 2024.
- Waits of longer than a year will end by March 2025.
- No-one will wait longer than two years for treatment by this July.
- Some 95% of patients needing a diagnostic test will receive it within six weeks by March 2025. This target already exists but is not being met.
- By March 2024, 75% of patients who have been urgently referred by their GP for suspected cancer will be diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days.
- By March next year, people should wait no more than 62 days between an urgent referral for suspected cancer and the start of treatment. This target already exists but is not being met. The new aim is to return the number of people being seen to pre-pandemic levels.
About six million people in England are on the NHS waiting list for treatment, including hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and tests.
According to the plan, if all 10 million people estimated to have stayed away during the pandemic came forward for treatment, and activity was not increased above pre-pandemic levels, the waiting list could hit 14 million.
Protests threaten trade border between Canada and US
Canadian politicians have expressed increasing worry about the economic effects of disruptive demonstrations after the busiest border crossing between the US and Canada became partially blocked by truckers protesting vaccine mandates.
The blockade at the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, prevented traffic from entering Canada while some US-bound traffic was still moving, public safety minister Marco Mendicino said, calling the bridge "one of the most important border crossings in the world". It carries 25% of all trade between Canada and the US.
Canadian transport minister Omar Alghabra said such blockades will have serious implications on the economy and supply chains.
"I've already heard from automakers and food grocers. This is really a serious cause for concern," he said. "Most Canadians understand there is a difference between being tired and fatigued with the pandemic and crossing into some other universe."
Speaking in an emergency debate late on Monday in Parliament, prime minister Justin Trudeau said the protesters are "trying to blockade our economy, our democracy".
Auto parts and other goods were still flowing across the border on Tuesday evening, despite the bridge delays.
But trucks had to travel almost 70 miles north to the Blue Water Bridge connecting Sarnia, Ontario, to Port Huron, Michigan. Authorities at that bridge reported a nearly three-hour delay for trucks to cross. In total, the trip will take more than five hours longer than normal.
Protesters also closed another important US-Canada border crossing in Coutts, Alberta.
The daily demonstrations staged by the so-called Freedom Truck Convoy are centred in Ottawa, where demonstrators have used hundreds of parked trucks to paralyse parts of the capital for more than 10 days. Protesters have said they will not leave until all vaccine mandates and Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
Protest organisers have been calling for weeks for the removal of Mr Trudeau's government, although most of the restrictive measures were put in place by provincial governments.
On Tuesday, the organisers withdrew an unlawful demand that the nation's governor general, the representative of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, force federal and provincial governments to lift all Covid-19 restrictions, including vaccine mandates. They now say they support Canada's constitution and the democratic process.
Francois Laporte, the president of Teamsters Canada, which represents over 55,000 drivers, including 15,000 long-haul truckers, said the protests do not represent the industry in which 90% of drivers are vaccinated.
The Freedom Convoy "and the despicable display of hate led by the political Right and shamefully encouraged by elected conservative politicians does not reflect the values of Teamsters Canada, nor the vast majority of our members," Mr Laporte said in a statement.
Ottawa's city manager said all tow-truck companies on contract with the city have refused to haul away the big rigs.
New Zealand convoy protesters block streets near Parliament
Hundreds of people protesting against vaccine and mask mandates have driven in convoy to New Zealand's capital and converged outside the parliament as politicians reconvened after a summer break.
The mostly unmasked protesters had driven from around the country, and their vehicles clogged the central Wellington streets for hours as they got out to meet and speak on parliament's forecourt.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern elected not to meet them as she delivered a speech to politicians outlining her priorities for the year.
Among the protesters' grievances is the requirement in New Zealand that certain workers get vaccinated against coronavirus, including teachers, doctors, nurses, police and military personnel.
Many protesters also oppose mask mandates - such as those in stores - and champion the ideal of more "freedom".
New Zealand was spared the worst of the pandemic after it closed its borders and implemented strict lockdowns, limiting the spread of the virus.
The nation has reported just 53 virus deaths among its population of five million.
But some have grown weary of the restrictions. Ms Ardern last week said the country would end its quarantine requirements for incoming travellers in stages as it reopened its borders.
With about 77% of New Zealanders fully vaccinated, Ms Ardern has also promised she will not impose more lockdowns.
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