Headlines
• EU authorises Moderna’s vaccine
• UK lockdown due to expire on 31 March
• UK car registrations fall 29% for the year 2020
• Met police instructed to enforce lockdown rules more strictly
World news
• The UK’s new lockdown regulations voted into law today are not due to expire until 31 March.
• Members of the WHO team due to investigate the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan were denied entry to China due to a lack of visa clearances.
• The Netherlands began vaccinating its citizens today, 10 days after its European neighbours.
• Ambulance workers in Los Angeles County have been told not to transport hospital patients that have extremely low chances of survival.
• Germany is extending its nationwide lockdown until the end of the month and is introducing new tougher restrictions.
• In Israel, more than 15% of the population, including half of all those aged over 60, have had a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech.
• New car registrations in the UK fell to their lowest level since 1992. Approximately 1.63m new cars were registered in 2020, compared with 2.3 million in 2019 – a decline of 29%.
• In London, Metropolitan Police officers have been told to enforce Covid-19 regulations more strictly during the latest lockdown. Under the new instructions, people who attend large gatherings will be fined along with organisers, while those not wearing face coverings without good excuse will also be targeted.
• The EU today authorised emergency use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine.
• Residents of South Africa are to be banned from entering Denmark over fears of the spread of a new strain of coronavirus.
• 1.1m, or one in 50 people in private households in England are estimated to have had the coronavirus in the week ending 2 January.
• Mexico will vaccinate its frontline medical workers before the elderly once it has approved the Chinese CanSino vaccine.
• A-levels and GCSE exams in England will not go ahead this year, with teachers assessing students’ grades instead.
