Coronavirus live: struggle to quash Sydney cluster with six new cases; Brazil’s fifth day of more than 1,000 deaths

Indonesian authorities began the biggest ever vaccination drive in Jakarta on Thursday, aiming to reach 7.9 million people – more than 75% of the population. The first stage aims to vaccinate 60,000 of the city’s 131,000 health workers and a small number of public officials.

Indonesia has procured or ordered a number of different vaccines, including China’s CoronaVac, becoming the first country outside of China to approve it for general use. The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) has also issued a fatwa that declares the Chinese vaccine as halal and acceptable for Muslims to use, the Jakarta Post reported.

Jakarta has reported record high daily totals of new cases recently, and is preparing for a worsening disaster – health facilities are overwhelmed, burial plots are running out – and the country has been hit by a run of disasters including a plane crash and earthquakes.

In Australia, New South Wales has recorded six new cases of community transmission in the 24 hours until 8pm on Saturday.

All six are close contacts of a person from western Sydney who tested positive yesterday.

A staff member who worked at Concord Repatriation General hospital is one of today’s new cases. They are now in isolation. They worked three shifts in the cardiology and radiology wards while potentially infectious on 12, 13 and 14 January. The person’s role involves minimal contact with patients, and they wore a face mask during each shift.

It also issued new public health alerts – details available here.

There were also three cases of Covid-19 recorded in returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

NSW’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, wants more residents to be tested after six new cases of community transmission were recorded in the state. The state conducted 12,700 tests over the past 24 hours.

“That is a decline among testing levels,” Chant said. “It is critical that we get those testing rates up very high.”

She especially called on more testing in Bankstown, Lidcombe, Auburn, Berala and Wentworthville.

In the United States Joe Biden’s team has flagged a raft of executive orders to be issued by the new president immediately he’s in office, including several relating to the US Covid-19 epidemic.

In a memo to senior staff, incoming chief of staff Ron Klain said Biden would sign orders related to the outbreak aimed at reopening schools and businesses and expanding virus testing. He would mandate mask-wearing on federal property and during interstate travel, and the following day, Friday, will act to provide economic relief to those suffering the economic costs of the pandemic.

Hello, this is our continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. You can catch up on the previous blog here.

I’m over in Twitter @heldavidson, please feel free to send me thoughts and news tips.

Top story: Brazil recorded 61,567 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and 1,050 further deaths, marking the fifth consecutive day with more than 1,000 fatalities, the health ministry said on Saturday.

The South American country has now registered 8,455,059 cases since the pandemic began, and the official death toll has risen to 209,296, according to ministry data. It is the world’s third worst outbreak outside the US and India.

Other key developments at a glance:

• It took just six weeks for the world to report the most recent 500,000 deaths from Covid-19, after death rates began to rise sharply in November 2020 in both Europe and North America, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
• Brazil marked the fifth consecutive day with more than 1,000 fatalities, as it recorded 61,567 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and 1,050 further deaths.
• The Australian state of Victoria recorded another day of zero cases on Saturday. Victoria has recorded its 11th consecutive day of zero locally acquired cases of Covid-19, out of just over 11,000 tests.
• New South Wales recorded six new cases of community transmission in the 24 hours until 8pm on Saturday.
• The UK government posted the third-highest daily death toll from coronavirus on Saturday, but the number of new infections dropped to its lowest level this year.
• Denmark has registered its first case of infection with a more transmissible coronavirus variant, first found in South Africa, known as B.1.351/501Y.
• France on Saturday implemented a 6pm curfew intended to help stem the spread of infections, after the country’s death toll rose to over 70,000, the seventh highest death toll in the world.
• Slovakia is planning another large-scale testing and quarantine push to combat a serious rise in coronavirus infections, health minister Marek Krajci said on Saturday.
• Italy forecasts its debt to soar to a new post-war record level of 158.5% of gross domestic output (GDP) this year, surpassing the 155.6% goal it set in September.
• Another coronavirus variant is likely to be in the UK already despite the imposition of a travel ban from affected countries. Prof John Edmunds, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said he would find it unusual if the second of two new variants from Brazil was not already present, although it has not yet been detected.
• India has begun one of the world’s biggest Covid-19 vaccination programmes, the first major developing country to roll out the vaccine and marking the beginning of an effort to immunise more than 1.3 billion people. The first dose was administered to a health worker at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the capital, New Delhi.
• Suicides rose in Japan in the second wave of the country’s Covid pandemic, particularly among women and children, despite having fallen in the first wave, a survey has found. The July to October suicide rate was up 16% on the same period a year earlier, according to a study by researchers at Hong Kong University and Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology.