Patients were being treated in the back of ambulances in a Northern Ireland hospital car park on Tuesday, a health official said, a day after a warning that Covid-19 was putting healthcare under “unbearable pressuresâ€.
Northern Ireland has been in and out of some form of lockdown since mid-October when it was one of Europe’s worst Covid-19 hot spots. The most recent curbs were lifted last week, when all shops, restaurants and pubs serving food reopened.
While those measures slowed the spread of Covid-19, cases have risen in the last week and are at their highest in Mid and East Antrim, near Antrim Area hospital where Irish broadcaster RTÉ showed footage of ambulances lined up with their engines on to keep patients warm inside.
“We are providing care in the car park,†Wendy Magowan, medical director of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, which runs hospitals in the area, told BBC Radio Ulster.
They have varying degrees of ill patients. While I’ve been standing here I can see doctors and nurses going in and out of the back of ambulances. They are providing care and treatment in the back of ambulances.
Locals requiring urgent care at Antrim Area hospital and the northerly Causeway hospital were told earlier on Tuesday not to attend their emergency departments but to instead phone for advice on where to go.
The medical director of Northern Ireland’s ambulance service was quoted by the BBC as saying ambulances were queued to some degree outside all of the region’s emergency departments.
Ambulances at the entrance to the emergency department with patients awaiting to be admitted at Antrim Area hospital in Northern Ireland. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA
The heads of Northern Ireland’s six healthcare trusts warned on Monday of the very real risk of hospitals being overwhelmed in the event of a further Covid-19 spike in January.
Hospital capacity across the province stood at 104% on Tuesday, with non-Covid care restricted.
Northern Ireland health minister Robin Swann said he would propose new measures to the devolved government on Thursday.
The share of the Spanish population to have contracted coronavirus has nearly doubled to almost 10%, or about 4.7 million people, in the second wave of contagion since late summer, results from the latest stage of a nationwide antibody study showed.
More than 51,400 people were tested and surveyed across Spain in the second half of November for the prevalence study, which suggests the infections by far exceed the number of confirmed cases in Spain, of just over 1.75 million.
“One in 10 people living in Spain would have been infected … half during the first wave and the other half during this second epidemic wave,†said Raquel Yotti, director of Spain’s Carlos III health institute, which co-led the study.
Prevalence in Madrid was the highest of all Spanish regions, with 18.6% of the population testing positive for Covid-19 antibodies.
Previous results of the study – published in July after testing nearly 70,000 people in April-June – showed a prevalence rate of just over 5%.
Spain has been one of Europe’s hardest-hit countries by the pandemic, both in terms of contagion and the economic impact. A total of 48,401 people have died from the coronavirus, with the toll climbing by 388 over the last 24 hours.
Data from the health ministry also showed 10,328 new coronavirus cases were reported on Tuesday, bringing the total since the onset of the pandemic to 1,762,212 infections.
The infection rate measured over the previous 14 days is up for a second day in a row at nearly 199 cases per 100,000 people.
The government decided a second state of emergency in October with new restrictions such as night-time curfews to stem resurgent infections, which helped to reduce new cases to less than 200 per 100,000 people this month.
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Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
EU countries could begin inoculations as soon as this year, the head of the European commission said. This followed the decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to bring forward its possible approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by eight days to 21 December.
The US Food and Drug Administration raised no new concerns over data on Moderna vaccine in documents made public on Tuesday. It prepared the way for US authorisation of a second, easier-to-handle vaccine.
Germany, France, Italy and five other European states will coordinate the start of their Covid-19 vaccination campaigns, the countries’ health ministers said. The countries will promote “the coordination of the launch of the vaccination campaigns†and will rapidly share information on how it is proceeding, the statement said, along with other commitments on areas such as transparency.
Turkey has recorded 235 more deaths – its highest one-day tally since the pandemic began – bringing its total death toll to 16,881. According to the health ministry, Turkey also recorded 32,102 new cases, including asymptomatic ones, in the last 24 hours. For four months, Ankara only reported daily symptomatic cases but has reported all cases since 25 November.
The US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely†encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best. The White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines.
Germany had reportedly been pressuring EU authorities to speed up the approval of a vaccine. The chancellor Angela Merkel’s office and Germany’s health ministry want the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to bring forward the approval date for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to 23 December from 29 December, the German newspaper Bild said, citing unnamed sources.
The US has recorded 204,748 new cases and 1,766 more deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said, taking the respective cumulative totals to 16,317,892 and 300,032.
The US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely†encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best, the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said.
But the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines, she told reporters at a White House briefing.
McEnany said some career national security staff would have access to vaccines to ensure a continuity of government, along with a “very small group†of senior administration officials for the purpose of instilling public confidence.
French health authorities have reported 11,532 new infections over the past 24 hours – up from Monday’s 3,063 but largely stable from Sunday’s 11,533 – while the number of people hospitalised for the disease resumed its decline.
The number of people in France who have died rose by 790 to 59,072 from 371 on Monday. The cumulative number of cases in France now totals 2,391,447, the fifth-highest in the world.
British TV presenter Prue Leith, 80, received a coronavirus jab on Tuesday as the next phase of the UK’s vaccination campaign is rolled out.
The Great British Bake Off judge got vaccinated at a centre in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, a week after the NHS began a mass immunisation campaign. Leith said she was “thrilled to get itâ€, adding that she thought it was important for everyone to get vaccinated.
‘Everybody needs to have it’: Prue Leith receives Covid-19 vaccine – video
The US Food and Drug Administration has authorised emergency use of the first over-the-counter antigen test, which can be used at home.
The test by Ellume offers a nasal swab analyser that connects to a software application on users’ smartphone, and gives results in 20 minutes.
Anyone above the age of two, including those not showing symptoms, can take the test, the agency said.
The news follows authorisation last month of the first prescription Covid-19 test for home use, and last week of a non-prescription test system allowing a lab to process nasal samples collected at home.
The regulatory nods will help expand Americans’ access to testing, reduce the burden on laboratories and test supplies, and give more testing options, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Stephen Hahn said.
The agency, however, cautioned that like other antigen tests, a small percentage of results from the test may be false.
Ellume said it will be shipping more than 100,000 tests a day from next month, and plans to manufacture as well as deliver 20m tests to the US within the first half of 2021.
Turkey has recorded 235 more deaths – its highest one-day tally since the pandemic began – bringing its total death toll to 16,881.
According to the health ministry, Turkey also recorded 32,102 new cases, including asymptomatic ones, in the last 24 hours. For four months, Ankara only reported daily symptomatic cases but has reported all cases since 25 November.
The government has imposed weekday curfews and weekend lockdowns to curb the surge in cases. Turkey ranks third globally in the highest number of daily cases, behind the United States and Brazil.
Germany, France, Italy and five other European states will coordinate the start of their Covid-19 vaccination campaigns, the countries’ health ministers have said.
The countries will promote “the coordination of the launch of the vaccination campaigns†and will rapidly share information on how it is proceeding, the statement said, along with other commitments on areas such as transparency.
The statement was released by Italy and also signed by the health ministers of Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.
The German chancellor Angela Merkel has told conservative lawmakers she is worried about the trend in the country, according to sources at the meeting. She warned the lawmakers that January and February will be very tough months in Germany, with the number of patients in intensive care rising further.
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Mexico is considering vaccine sales pitches from five more pharmaceutical companies, including China’s Sinovac and US-based Moderna, after already approving Pfizer’s jab and ordering 34.4m doses, according to Reuters.
The offers, which Mexico’s government sought from the companies, account for at least 141 million vaccine doses, according to data provided by the foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard. Mexican health authorities would decide which of the proposed vaccines were needed, he said.
Mexico has already ordered 198m vaccine doses from other companies and the World Health Organization-backed Covax initiative, with Pfizer’s vaccine likely to be the first used in the country.
Among the new offers, Sinovac proposed 35m doses, for delivery beginning in January; Moderna would deliver 39m doses from April; German biotech firm CureVac offered another 35m doses, starting the same month; Novavax, in the US, proposed 10m doses beginning in June of 2021; and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit would deliver 22m vaccine doses, though the delivery date had yet to be determined.
The Russian makers of Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V also submitted a request to carry out clinical trials in Mexico, Ebrard said.
Mexico, a country of 125 million people, has 1,255,974 confirmed coronavirus cases and 114,298 related deaths, according to government data on Monday.
Spanish bars and restaurants are praying that coronavirus jabs can help restore their revenues by the end of next year, after the crisis wiped out 85,000 establishments.
The Spanish Hospitality Industry Association (HDE) pinned its hopes on vaccinations in its annual report, after a dismal year for the sector. Before the pandemic struck, Spain had the highest density of bars in the world with one for every 175 residents, according to a study by Nielsen consultants.
A protest in support of the hospitality industry in Pamplona, where bars and restaurants have been closed since October, except for outdoor areas. Photograph: Ãlvaro Barrientos/AP
But its tourism dependent economy is one of the worst-hit in Europe, with travel bans, lockdowns and night-time curfews battering the hospitality industry.
Sars-Cov-2 has infected more than 1.75 million Spaniards and killed more than 48,000. But since the country’s second pandemic state of emergency in October, including a raft of restrictions, new infections have fallen to less than 200 cases per 100,000 people, one of the lowest in Europe.
The government plans to start free vaccinations in January after regulatory authorities give their approval, and expects to have between 15 million and 20 million people vaccinated by May or June 2021.
“With clouds still in the air, I am confident that Easter will be a turning point,†Jose Luis Yzuel, HDE president, was quoted as saying by Reuters. He said he expected the summer season to at least “look like before†the pandemic.
“And at the end of the year [2021], this will have been just a bad dream,†he added.
Police in Ukraine have used teargas to clear anti-lockdown protesters from Maidan Square in the centre of the capital, Kiev.
Several thousand protesters, including many small business owners, had gathered to take part in a rally against new lockdown measures that will close businesses, gyms and schools from two weeks from 8 January.
Ukrainian policemen spray tear gas as tackle anti-lockdown protesters trying to set up camp in Maidan Square in Kiev. Photograph: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA
Police moved in to stop protesters erecting tents in Maidan (Freedom) Square, which six years ago was the scene of violent clashes that led to the downfall of the government. An AFP journalist saw ambulances heading towards the square and one injured activist being carried away from the crowd.
Kiev police said in a statement that 40 officers suffered chemical burns to their eyes and one policeman sustained an injury to his head. There have been no official figures on injuries among the protesters.
Ukraine has reported more than 909,000 coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, some 15,000 of them fatal.
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Anyone in Ireland who wants a Covid-19 vaccine should be able to get one by the middle of next year, the country’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, has said.
Inoculations among the most vulnerable of Ireland’s 4.9m population should start seven to 10 days after the EU’s drug regulator approves the first shot, Coveney said after the government approved a rollout plan.
That raised the prospect of the programme beginning before the end of the year after the bloc’s regulator on Tuesday brought forward a decision on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to 21 December. He told the national broadcaster RTÉ:
I think certainly by the middle of next year, we will be very hopeful that the vaccine will be available for anyone who wants it.
Last week, the government laid out who will receive vaccines first, prioritising elderly care home residents, the over-65s and healthcare workers in the initial phase.
Ireland currently has the lowest incidence rate in the European Union after it moved early to temporarily shut shops, bars and restaurants that, unlike much of Europe, are set to largely remain open for the whole of December.
The prime minister, Micheál Martin, has said ministers may need to reimpose some restrictions in January. Cases are beginning to rise slowly, ahead of people being allowed to travel throughout the country again from Friday and mix with a small number of other households until 6 January.
