In this Jan 25, 2021 photo, the front page of the Evening Standard newspaper leads with the story that the government is contemplating making it compulsory that all visitors to the UK will have to quarantine in a hotel. Outside Victoria train station in central London. (PHOTO / AFP)

MOSCOW / LONDON / PARIS / LISBON / BRASILIA / ADDIS ABABA / ROME / BUENOS AIRES / BOGOTA / JUBA / RABAT / SANTIAGO / KIEV / PRAGUE / VALLETTA / BARCELONA / BERLIN / MADRID / TBILISI / STOCKHOLM - Britain said it would bring in tighter border controls from Feb 15 to help guard the country against new variants of COVID-19, requiring hotel quarantine in England for those arriving from the most high risk countries.

“We’re setting up a new system of hotel quarantine for UK and Irish residents who have been in red list countries in the last ten days,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Tuesday.

Arrivals will have to quarantine in assigned hotels which they will book before departure and pay 1,750 pounds per traveller. Security would be present at the hotels. 

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced fines of between 5,000 pounds (about US$6,890) and 10,000 pounds for failing to quarantine in a designated hotel

Travellers arriving in England face fines and up to 10 years in prison if they flout rules as part of the hotel quarantine policy, Hancock said.

Hancock announced fines of between 5,000 pounds (about US$6,890) and 10,000 pounds for failing to quarantine in a designated hotel.

The UK’s plan for “surge testing” to detect and suppress new variants of coronavirus is unlikely to work unless it is done on a larger scale, a scientific adviser to the government said earlier.

Mike Tildesley, an academic at the University of Warwick who advises Boris Johnson’s government on pandemic modeling, said authorities should “cast their net slightly wider” to pick up cases and make sure people with the virus are staying home.

The British government on Monday reported 14,104 new cases and another 333 deaths, taking the tally to 3,959,784 and the toll to 112,798, according to official figures.

The proportion of COVID-19 deaths in England and Wales climbed to a record in the last week of January despite the severe lockdown. Almost 46 percent of total deaths in the week to Jan 29 were linked to the virus, the Office for National Statistics said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that he was confident that both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines helped prevent death and grave illness, and that medicine was slowly gaining the upper hand over the novel coronavirus.

Hancock said that more than 12.2 million people, which is one in four of all adults in Britain, have been vaccinated two months after the rollout officially started in the country, adding that more ethan 12.2 million in total 

WHO

AstraZeneca Plc’s COVID-19 vaccine is worth using in areas hit by mutated strains of the virus, WHO officials and partners said, countering concerns about reduced effectiveness that arose in a recent test. 

Experts from the WHO met on Monday to review the efficacy of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19, after a study showed it was less effective against a new variant, according to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

At Monday's WHO press briefing, Tedros said although the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is one of the several that have been shown to be effective in preventing severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, the emergence of new variants of the virus has raised concerns about their potential impacts on the efficacy of vaccines.

He said that the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) has met to review the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and discuss these new developments. Tedros noted that he will meet with the chair of SAGE on Tuesday to discuss its recommendations.

Also at the briefing, Kate O'Brien, director of the Department for Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals at the WHO, said SAGE had met with investigators from the trials being conducted in Britain and Brazil, as well as AstraZeneca and investigators from South African trials.

In looking at evidence on the AstraZeneca vaccine across a number of trials, it is very clear that it has efficacy against severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths among different variants, said Dr. O'Brien, while admitting that "there are some indications of reduction in the efficacy, some more some less, depending on which variant, which population, and also the neutralizing antibody responses."

"But we also have evidence that there is the likelihood that the retention of meaningful impact against severe disease is a very plausible scenario for the product against the B.1.351 variant," she added.

Brien also noted that "we really have to sort of sail a steady ship, based on the preponderance of evidence and not lurch from one particular report or another report."

Russia

Russia reported 15,019 new COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, taking the national tally to 3,998,216, the country's official monitoring and response center said Tuesday.

Russia’s death toll from COVID-19 in 2020 was nearly three times the level previously reported by the government, and the disease accounted for half of all excess deaths last year, according to official data.

The Federal Statistics Service reported 44,435 deaths linked to COVID-19 in December in a statement Monday, lifting the full-year total to 162,429. That’s almost triple the 57,555 COVID-19 deaths in 2020 reported by the government’s virus response center.

In total, 2,124,479 Russians died in 2020, nearly 324,000 more than the previous year, according to the statistics service. Deaths in December were 63 percent higher than in the same month in 2019.

The data demonstrate that the fallout from the novel coronavirus has been far worse than officials initially reported, even as President Vladimir Putin resisted locking down the country during the second, more severe wave of infections that started in the fall. Only the US, Brazil and Mexico have reported higher epidemic death totals so far.

READ MORE: Virus: Prague to recommend use of Lilly, Regeneron therapies

This file illustration photo taken on Nov 17, 2020 shows vials with COVID-19 Vaccine stickers attached and syringes, with the logo of the University of Oxford and its partner British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. (PHOTO / AFP)

Global tally 

Coronavirus cases worldwide exceeded 106.4 million while the global death toll topped 2.32 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

UN

A high-level UN official said on Monday that the COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the key role social development plays in protecting people's lives.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the key role social development plays in protecting people's lives and livelihoods, as well as the planet," Munir Akram, Pakistan's UN ambassador and the president of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), told the in-person opening session of the Commission for Social Development held at the UN headquarters in New York.

US

A US official told a World Health Organization meeting on Tuesday it would shift its status from observer to participant in a program to boost COVID-19 testing, diagnostics and vaccines as it joins global efforts to respond to the pandemic.

“We want to underscore the commitment of the United States to multilateralism and our common cause to respond this pandemic and improve global public health,” Colin L. McIff, Acting Director at the Office of Global Affairs in the US Department of Health and Human Services, said at a WHO virtual meeting.

The US has so far reported over 27 million confirmed cases and more than 465,000 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

More than 2.93 million children in the country have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, according to the latest data of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association.

About 117,500 new child COVID-19 cases were reported last week ending Feb 4, according to the AAP.

Over the two weeks from Jan 21 to Feb 4, there were 257,680 new child COVID-19 cases reported across the country, a 10 percent increase, according to the AAP.

In a separate development, Representative Ron Wright, a Texas Republican, 67, died Sunday after battling cancer and COVID-19, becoming the first sitting US lawmaker to pass away after testing positive for the coronavirus.

Meanwhie, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will quarantine for 14 days after a member of his security detail tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.

The director of the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention suggested that testing people for the coronavirus before US domestic flights could help reduce transmission, as she urged state and local leaders to maintain steps to limit COVID-19’s spread.

The ineffective implementation of social distancing and the premature release of sailors from quarantine were the primary causes of increased COVID-19 infections onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier last year, a Pentagon watchdog has found.

The coronavirus variant first detected in the United Kingdom is spreading rapidly across the United States, new research suggests, adding concern to resurgence of the pandemic in the country.

READ MORE: Brazil COVID-19 outbreak shows signs of slowing

Ireland

A total of 230,776 doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in Ireland as of Feb. 5, said the country's Department of Health on Monday.

Of all the people who have been inoculated, 151,212 people have received their first dose while 79,554 people received their second, said the department in a statement.

Albania

COVID-19 patients, whose number has increased over the past two weeks in Albania, have already filled up 78 percent of the capacities of the country's four dedicated hospitals in the capital Tirana, Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu said here on Monday.

During an online press conference, Manastirliu said that the number of infections has increased mainly because of the citizens' non-compliance with the COVID-19 measures during the year-end holidays and also due to the presence of new variants of the virus.

France

Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Tuesday the COVID-19 situation was currently stable in France and that the government was right to have decided against imposing a new national lockdown.

Veran also told France Info radio that “it is possible and indeed preferable” that France will not have to be locked down again. 

Ukraine will be included primarily in the supply of COVID-19 vaccines as part of the global COVAX initiative, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his online speech at the opening of the all-Ukrainian forum "Ukraine 30. Coronavirus: Challenges and Answers" in Kiev on Monday.

"Last week, COVAX published its forecast for the distribution of vaccines among the countries participating in this initiative, and together with UNICEF and other organizations, we will work to distribute these vaccines as soon as possible. And Ukraine is one of the countries that will be included in the first deployment wave of the COVAX initiative to vaccinate health workers, seniors, those who are directly in touch with COVID-19 patients," the WHO head said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s plan to roll out a China's Sinovac vaccine from next month faces possible delay because of regulatory hold-ups, according to a letter written by the importer, in a further risk to the country’s slow-moving vaccination program.

In the Feb 3 letter, seen by Reuters, the importer, a partner of vaccine developer Sinovac Biotech, asked Ukrainian authorities to be allowed to delay the first shipments of its COVID-19 vaccines to April.

Germany

Germany needs to keep lockdown restrictions in place for the time being, according to Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller.

Chancellor Angela Merkel will told talks Wednesday with Mueller and the other 15 state premiers, and they’ve indicated they’re likely to extend current curbs until at least the end of this month. Officials should nonetheless prepare for an eventual loosening of the restrictions, with schools and daycare centers given priority, Mueller said.

Merkel criticized Economy Minister Peter Altmaier over delays in the payment of aid to help companies weather the pandemic, Bild-Zeitung reported.

Germany is planning to spend nearly 9 billion euros (US$10.9 billion) this year to buy up to 635.1 million COVID-19 vaccines as part of the European Union’s procurement scheme and national deals, according to a finance ministry document

Citing people close to the Christian Democratic Union party, the newspaper reported that Merkel told a meeting of party leaders that she couldn’t understand why the Finance Ministry and the Economy Ministry haven’t managed to provide the support the government promised.

The German government is pressing for a further reduction of the new COVID-19 infection figures. "The second wave of the pandemic has been broken, but of course it is not over yet," government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said on Monday.

The recent development with regards to new infections and occupied intensive care units was positive. However, the goal of achieving a maximum incidence of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days in Germany had not yet been reached, according to Seibert.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 3,379 to 2,291,924, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Tuesday. The reported death toll rose by 481 to 62,156.

Germany is planning to spend nearly 9 billion euros (US$10.9 billion) this year to buy up to 635.1 million COVID-19 vaccines as part of the European Union’s procurement scheme and national deals, a finance ministry document seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday.

A senior member of Merkel’s conservative bloc took a swipe at the chancellor’s vaccine strategy, calling for Germany to purchase shots at the national level because the EU is too slow.

Spain

Spain’s government announced on Tuesday it had extended controls along its 1,200-kilometer border with Portugal until March 1, as both countries try to rein in a surge in coronavirus infections and deaths.

Figures published by Spain's Ministry of Health on Monday showed a significant drop in the number of new cases, indicating that the third coronavirus wave has already peaked in the country.

According to the ministry, 47,095 fresh infections were recorded in the 72 hours between Friday noon and 2 pm on Monday.

The respective figures recorded in the same period a week earlier was 79,686, and two weeks earlier, 93,822.

In total, Spain has registered 2,989,085 confirmed since the start of the pandemic.

A further 909 deaths were reported over the weekend, bringing the death toll to 62,795.

Hungary

Hungary will start vaccinating people suffering no chronic diseases with Russia’s Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine soon, the surgeon general said on Tuesday, becoming the first EUn country to use it.

Cecilia Muller said the first 2,800 doses of Sputnik would be given to those who have registered for inoculations, and that as Hungary was striving for “maximum safety” those who have a chronic disease will not get the shot.

Hungary’s drug regulator granted the shot emergency use approval rather than waiting for the EU’s European Medicines Agency (EMA) to give it the go-ahead.

Hungary has also granted approval to Chinese company Sinopharm’s vaccine.

The country of around 10 million people is scheduled to receive 600,000 doses of Sputnik and another half a million doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine this month, potentially allowing it to speed up its inoculation program despite delays in Western vaccine deliveries.

Hungary will also start using AstraZeneca vaccine this week to inoculate people aged between 18 and 60 who are suffering from chronic diseases.

The Dutch government has extended the nighttime curfew that has been in force since Jan. 23 until March 3 in a bid to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus.

"This is necessary because new, more contagious variants of coronavirus are gaining ground in the Netherlands, which could lead to a new wave of infections," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stated at a press conference here.

Although the COVID-19 infection figures show a decline in the Netherlands, the number of cases of the coronavirus variant that was first identified in the UK is on the rise in the country. The restrictive measures announced on Feb. 2 remain in force, such as the closure of non-essential shops, bars and restaurants.

Bosnia and Herzegovina 

Republika Srpska (RS), one of the two entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), has ordered vaccines from Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinopharm, Minister of Health and Social Welfare of RS Alen Seranic said Monday.

RS institutions have been following all the scientific effects and references of vaccines from all producers, including China, and the efficiency, quality and safety of vaccines are the three criteria that all vaccines entering RS must fulfill, Seranic told Xinhua in an interview.

"Based on other countries' experiences where Chinese vaccine is already approved, we decided that we also need to acquire a certain number of vaccines from China," said Seranic.

Bulgaria

Bulgaria's Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev has tested positive for COVID-19, the government said in a statement on Monday evening.

Donchev, who is one of the country's four deputy prime ministers, tested positive in a routine check early on Monday, the statement said.

He is in good condition and without symptoms, the statement added.

At least three cabinet members have already tested positive for COVID-19 -- Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in October 2020, Minister of Youth and Sports Krasen Kralev in August 2020, and Finance Minister Kiril Ananiev on Jan. 20, 2021.

Portugal

Portugal's Directorate-General for Health (DGS) said on Monday that vaccinations for those aged 65 and over in Portugal should not be delayed.

"Under no circumstances should the vaccination of a person aged 65 or over be delayed," the government health agency said on its official website.

The DGS also said it will administer the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to people older than 65 only if that is the only vaccine available.

Mexico

The next delivery of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine will reach Mexico on Feb 15, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said on Tuesday.

Separately, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard in a tweet said that 491,400 doses of the Pfizer vaccine would be sent in the week beginning Feb 15.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday stressed he was working to ensure more COVID-19 vaccine shipments, as his government faced mounting criticism that its inoculation program is too slow and riddled with problems.

Lopez Obradorsaid he would not wear a face mask after his recovery from COVID-19, in spite of widespread support from top officials and the public for the measure.

In his first news conference since testing positive for COVID-19 on Jan 24, Lopez Obrador brushed aside repeated questions from reporters about whether he would wear a mask to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.

“No, no,” the president said. “Additionally, according to what the doctors say, now I’m not contagious.”

A passenger wearing a face mask rides on a tram during a cold day in Moscow on Feb 8, 2020, amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)

Ecuador 

Ecuador on Monday reported 325 new COVID-19 cases and one related death, raising the total number of infections to 258,607 and the death toll to 10,319.

According to the Ministry of Health, the nationwide death toll may be over 15,000 since another 4,694 deaths were likely caused by COVID-19 but not verified.

Medical experts worry there may be a spike in infections over the next three or four weeks as general elections on Sunday saw long lines of voters standing close together without social distancing.

In addition, the country is preparing for Carnival celebrations on Feb. 13-16, which could also increase infections.

Chile

Chile recorded 3,464 COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, for a total of 755,350 cases, with 82 deaths registered in the same period, bringing the death toll to 19,056, the Health Ministry reported on Monday.

Of the new cases, 2,191 people were symptomatic, while 1,099 were asymptomatic.

The South American country has initiated its mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19. According to data provided by the Department of Statistics and Health Information, 651,266 people had been vaccinated by midday on Monday. 

Argentina

Argentine Health Minister Gines Gonzalez Garcia confirmed on Monday the first cases in the country of the novel coronavirus variants detected in Brazil.

The official indicated that the P. 1 variant was detected in two samples and the P. 2 variant in two other samples recently, with all travelers coming from Brazil.

"These findings highlight the importance of active genomic and epidemiological surveillance in order to monitor the introduction of these variants into our country," Gonzalez Garcia said.

Argentina confirmed on Jan. 16 the first case of a person carrying the COVID-19 variant detected in the United Kingdom.

Argentina confirmed 1,980,347 infections and 49,171 deaths by Sunday, as it extended its social, preventive and mandatory distancing measures until Feb. 28. 

Cuba

Cuba on Monday reported 653 COVID-19 infections, a slightly lower figure than the first week of February, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 33,484, the Ministry of Public Health said.

"We must await the evolution of the disease in the coming days, but the control measures implemented should begin to show certain favorable signs," Francisco Duran, the ministry's national director of hygiene and epidemiology, said during his daily conference.

Algeria 

Algeria on Monday reported 225 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total infections in the North African country to 109,313.

The death toll from the virus in Algeria rose to 2,918 after four new fatalities were added, said the Algerian Ministry of Health in a statement.

Meanwhile, 179 patients recovered from the disease, bringing the total number of recoveries in the country to 74,931, the ministry statement added.

The official APS news agency reported on Monday that the vaccination for those over 65 will begin on Tuesday. Algeria started the vaccination operation in the whole country at the end of January.

Morocco

Morocco's total number of COVID-19 cases rose to 475,589 on Monday after 234 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Health, the death toll mounted to 8,408 as 14 COVID-19 patients died in the last 24 hours.

The total number of recoveries from COVID-19 in Morocco increased to 454,997 after 493 new ones were added, while 585 people are in intensive care units, the statement said.

Meanwhile, 550,149 people have been vaccinated so far against COVID-19 in the country.

South Africa

South Africa will start its immunisation campaign with Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine after data showed AstraZeneca’s shot offered minimal protection against mild-to-moderate illness from the dominant local virus variant.

The country, which has recorded the most coronavirus infections in Africa and more than 46,000 deaths, had planned to start offering healthcare workers the AstraZeneca jabs soon but put that plan on hold on Sunday.

A government factsheet published on Monday said the J&J vaccine would be offered from mid-February. A senior health official said J&J had agreed to speed up deliveries so the first doses would become available around the end of the week.

“Our vaccine rollout plan has not changed, except that we will begin with the Johnson & Johnson instead of the AstraZeneca vaccine,” the factsheet said.

Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) on Monday evening reported 656 new COVID-19 cases over the last 24 hours, taking the national count to 142,994.

The ministry also said the COVID-19 death toll stood at 2,156, including eight new fatalities recorded over the same period.

With 137 more recoveries registered, the total number came to 125,756, said the ministry.

Ethiopia, Africa's second-most populous nation, is one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic in Africa, after South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.

Georgia

Georgia on Tuesday reported 829 new COVID-19 cases, taking its tally to 263,057, according to the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC).

Data from the NCDC showed that another 566 patients have recovered in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 254,916.

Meanwhile, eight more people have died in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 3,306.

Sweden

Sweden plans to restrict the number of passengers on long-distance trains and buses in an effort to prevent a pick-up in new COVID-19 cases and the spread of mutations of the virus that could be more infectious, the government said on Tuesday.

Starting from Feb 14, trains and buses will only be allowed to run at half capacity if the journey is longer than 150 kilometers, the government said. The curb will be in place through the end of May.

Exceptions will be made for people who have already bought tickets.

The country of 10 million has had 596,174 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 12,188 deaths, a rate per capita is many times higher than its Nordic neighbours, but lower than several European countries that opted for lockdowns.

Around 300,000 individuals have now been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Sweden, the Public Health Agency said Tuesday.

Belarus

Belarus reported 561 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing its tally to 260,060, according to the health ministry.

The death toll went up by nine to 1,801, the ministry said.

AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca’s Chief Executive said on Tuesday that the results of a study showing its COVID-19 vaccine had little effect against mild disease were concerning but stressed that it should work against severe forms.

“It is of course a concern,” Pascal Soriot said of the study at a World Health Organization meeting. “Having said that the patients in the study were patients with mild disease and we believe the vaccine should still protect against severe disease.”

Dermapharm

Dermapharm aims to start making the COVID-19 vaccine from BioNTech and US partner Pfizer at a second site in Germany in May, its chief executive said, as part of efforts to ramp up production to meet demand.

The German drugmaker has been producing the shot at its factory in Brehna in eastern Germany since October and is in the process of converting a second site in Reinbek near Hamburg, Hans-Georg Feldmeier told Reuters in an interview.

“We are trying to start in May,” he said. “The big advantage is that we can transfer our know-how from one site to the other. That also shortens the time.”

Dermapharm made a “significant share” of the 50 million doses produced in 2020 and is doubling its production capacity to help deliver 75 million extra doses to the European Union in the second quarter, Feldmeier said.