Headlines
• The German economy shrank 5% in 2020
• National Express reports over-65 bookings up 185%
• Vaccines in England available through pharmacies
• 4.5m on England’s hospital waiting lists
• Norwegian airline cuts over 1,000 jobs at Gatwick
World news
• The German economy shrank by 5% last year as the Covid-19 pandemic took its toll, according to official figures. This was better than analyst had predicted and better than the contraction seen in 2009.
• Case rates have fallen in most regions of England, according to the latest weekly surveillance report from Public Health England (PHE). In London, which continues to have the highest rate of any region, the rate of new cases was 864.9 per 100,000 people in the week to 10 January, down from 1,043.9 in the previous week.
The other regions recording a week-on-week fall are the East Midlands, eastern, north-east and south-east England and Yorkshire & the Humber.
However, north-west and south-west England, along with the West Midlands recorded a week-on-week increase.
• The data published by NHS England showed the scale of the impact from dealing with Covid-19 on key hospital services. The data published today showed: • Nearly 90,000 patients – one in four – admitted to hospital via A&E waited more than four hours for a bed to be found, including a record 3,745 who waited more than 12 hours.
• There was a record 4.46m on the waiting list for routine treatment, including knee and hip operations. More than 192,000 have waited more than one year – in February 2020 the figure stood at 1,600.
• Staff have had to be redeployed into critical care after rising Covid-19 cases forced hospitals to increase the number of intensive care beds by a quarter since November.
• Birmingham, one of England's largest hospital trusts has temporarily suspended kidney transplants due to Covid-19 pressures.
• More than 5,000 patients waited longer than an hour to be handed over from ambulance teams to A&E staff at hospitals in England last week, according to figures from NHS England.
• Regulations requiring arrivals to England to show proof of a negative test will still come into force on Friday as planned, but there will be a “grace period in terms of fines being administered over the weekend” said Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins.
• Twenty of Europe’s biggest football clubs lost more than €1bn in revenue over the past year, while almost 10% has been knocked off players’ average values as the game struggles with the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a study by the market analyst KPMG.
• Coronavirus restrictions have been extended in Moscow for another week.
• England’s high street pharmacies will begin rolling out Covid-19 vaccines. Boots and Superdrug branches will be among the six stores across England able to administer the jabs from today.
• From Thursday, Japan is set to expand its state of emergency in greater Tokyo to seven more regions including major cities Osaka and Kyoto, and also to tighten border restrictions.
Company news
Travel
• National Express – The company’s coach holiday businesses says bookings made by those 65 and over have increased by 185% in the last fortnight compared to last year.
• Norwegian – Airline Norwegian says it has axed its long-haul network due to the “profound” impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the aviation industry. The move will lead to the loss of 1,100 pilot and cabin crew jobs based at Gatwick Airport.
