Covid news live: Boris Johnson to face MPs over lockdown party claims; Germany sets new daily record with 80,430 cases

Novak Djokovic has blamed his agent for an “administrative mistake” when declaring he had not travelled in the two weeks before his flight to Australia and acknowledged an “error of judgment” by not isolating after he tested positive for Covid.

The world No 1 released a statement on Wednesday in a bid to address what he called “continuing misinformation” about his activities in December before he came to Australia in a bid to retain his Australian Open crown.

But Djokovic’s statement, posted to Instagram, did not address reports by Der Spiegel claiming apparent anomalies with his 16 December PCR test result. The reporting has raised questions about the positive Covid diagnosis that forms the basis of his exemption to travel to Australia.

Wednesday’s statement claims he wasn’t notified of his positive result until 17 December despite Djokovic’s affidavit to the federal circuit court that he was both “tested and diagnosed” on 16 December.

Read the full story here.

Related: Novak Djokovic blames agent for Australian paperwork ‘mistake’ and admits not isolating after positive Covid result

India is reporting almost 200,000 new Covid infections in a single day.

The Asian nation recorded 194,720 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, the most since late May, health ministry data shows.

Another 442 deaths were also reported.

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan has written to chief secretaries of all states to take immediate measures to ensure optimal availability of medical oxygen at health facilities, the Times of India reports.

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People wait for a health checkup at Gangasagar transit camp in Kolkata , India. Photograph: Debajyoti Chakraborty/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

The origin of the Omicron outbreak in Tianjin, China is eluding authorities, who have warned of the need to prepare for a “worst case scenario”.

Health officials are investigating how the new strain of Covid-19 arrived in the city after genomic sequencing showed the current cases had a different source to earlier imported cases.

China’s first imported cases of Omicron arrived in Tianjin in early December, but Zhang Ying, deputy director of Tianjin’s CDC told state media on Monday they did not match the source of the current cases.

We cannot directly rule out that the virus is imported directly, because the spread of virus is not only through humans, but it can be spread via objects or environmental [contamination].

We are still investigating other possibilities for the virus to be imported to Tianjin directly…There is another option – would it be possible that it is not imported but came from other areas [in China] and spread to Tianjin? We are tracing this simultaneously and we have found some clues already.”

China has frequently attributed infections to imported cold chain goods, despite it being generally considered a slim chance of infecting people by international scientists.

Tianjin today launched a second round of testing among the population of 14 million. The first round detected 77 cases among the first 7.9 million tests.

Germany has reported more than 80,000 new daily Covid-19 infections, marking a new daily record.

A total of 80,430 coronavirus cases and 384 deaths were recorded for Tuesday, according to figures from the Robert Koch Institute.

In Norway, the country also set a new daily record with 9,622 new infections registered in the last 24 hours, This is 3,000 cases more than the average of the previous seven days (6,622), local media reports.

And a big thank you to very alert reader Francisco Javier Torres Tobar who brought these figures to my attention.

Indonesia has kicked off its Covid-19 booster campaign for the general public on Wednesday, prioritising third shots for the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.

The government hopes to provide 21m booster shots in January to people who received their second jabs at least six months ago. Some 117 million people in Indonesia have already received two doses of the vaccine. The Moderna vaccine was provided as a booster for healthcare workers in July last year.

President Joko Widodo said:

“This effort is important to increase the immunity of society, considering the Covid-19 virus keeps mutating.”

Indonesia has reported more than 4.2 million cases and more than 144,000 deaths since the pandemic began.

Indonesia’s Food and Drug Authority on Monday approved emergency-use authorisation for the Sinovac, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Zifivax vaccines, all of which will be used as booster shots. Several other vaccines are also being examined for emergency-use authorisation.

New Zealand’s navy has conducted an unusual mercy mission to retrieve two people stranded in Singapore for 18 months due to Covid-19.

A medical condition meant the two could not fly to New Zealand, and their shrinking bank balance made staying in Singapore difficult.

According to documents released under the Official Information Act, the mission occurred after an adviser to New Zealand’s high commission to Singapore interceded on the pair’s behalf, saying their position was “very unique” and he feared “their situation could turn into one that is even worse”.

The couple, whose case was first reported by Stuff, received a special exemption to travel on board the HMNZS Canterbury, which was being refurbished in Singapore at the time. The ship left Singapore in November 2021. The journey took 19 days, meaning the couple did not need to quarantine upon arrival in New Zealand.

Read the full story here.

Related: New Zealand navy rescues duo stuck in Singapore for 18 months

Colombia is set to reduce the waiting period for a Covid-19 booster vaccine from six to four months, president Ivan Duque has said.

The country previously mandated that people wait six months for their booster shots after completing their initial vaccinations.

Duque made the announcement in a video message that he later uploaded to Twitter.

Everyone aged 18 and over who has had both doses, or one dose in cases like Janssen, can now have their booster doses after four months instead of six.”

Those who are infected with Covid-19 are now able to have their vaccines 30 days after their isolation ends, rather than six months after, Duque added.

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A man walks past a Covid-19 vaccination station in Bogota, Colombia. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AFP/Getty Images

Colombia has also reduced quarantine times for those who test positive and show symptoms, regardless of vaccination status, to seven days, from 14 days previously.

Similarly, unvaccinated people who have been in contact with an infected person must isolate for seven days, Duque said.

However, those who have been vaccinated and have had contact with an infected person who do not show symptoms will not have to isolate, though they should continue to use masks and observe sanitary measures, he said.

Colombia has so far recorded more than 5.3 million coronavirus infections and 130,460 deaths, according to government figures.

The Chinese city of Tianjin has started a new round of Covid-19 testing today among its 14 million residents to block the spread of Omicron.

Tianjin reported 33 domestically transmitted coronavirus infections with confirmed symptoms for Tuesday, up from 10 a day earlier, national data showed.

The city ordered a half-day off for employees at companies and other institutions on Wednesday and required them to remain at home to comply with the city’s second round of mass testing, the local government said in a statement, Reuters reports.

In the central city of Anyang, where Omicron has also been detected in the community, local symptomatic cases number surged to 65 on Tuesday from just two a day earlier.

The two cities have restricted residents’ movement within the cities and made it harder for people to leave town as mass testing campaigns are ongoing.

Including infections in Tianjin and Anyang, mainland China reported a total of 166 local symptomatic cases for Tuesday, more than 110 a day earlier. There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll at 4,636.

Quebec, Canada’s second-most populous province, has announced plans to impose a ‘health tax’ on residents who refuse to get the Covid-19 vaccination for non-medical reasons.

Premier François Legault announced the new “contribution” for the unvaccinated on Tuesday, adding that it will apply “in the next few weeks”.

“A health contribution will be charged to all adults that don’t want to get vaccinated,” he said. “Those who refuse to get the shot bring a financial burden to hospital staff and Quebecers. The 10% of the population can’t burden the 90%.”

Read the full story here.

Related: Quebec plans to impose a ‘health contribution’ tax on the unvaccinated

World Health Organization experts have warned that repeating booster doses of the original Covid vaccines is not a viable strategy against emerging variants.

the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-Co-VAC) said:

A vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable.

Covid-19 vaccines that have high impact on prevention of infection and transmission, in addition to the prevention of severe disease and death, are needed and should be developed.”

The group said there could be a need to update the existing vaccines to better target emerging Covid variants such as Omicron and called for the development of new jabs that not only protect people who contract Covid against falling seriously ill but also better prevent people from catching the virus in the first place.

It also suggested that vaccine developers should strive to create jabs that “elicit immune responses that are broad, strong, and long-lasting in order to reduce the need for successive booster doses”.

Until new vaccines have been developed, the group said, “the composition of current Covid-19 vaccines may need to be updated”.

According to the WHO, 331 candidate vaccines are currently being worked on around the world.

Hello it’s Samantha Lock back with you on the blog, ready to take you through all the Covid news this Wednesday.

Let’s dive right in with the news that World Health Organization experts have warned that repeating booster doses of the original Covid vaccines is not a viable strategy against emerging variants.

“A vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable,” the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-Co-VAC) said.

The group said there could be a need to update the existing vaccines to better target emerging Covid variants such as Omicron. According to the WHO, 331 candidate vaccines are currently being worked on around the world.

Over in Quebec, Canada’s second-most populous province, has announced plans to impose a ‘health tax’ on residents who refuse to get the Covid-19 vaccination for non-medical reasons.

Premier François Legault announced the new “contribution” for the unvaccinated on Tuesday, adding that it will apply “in the next few weeks”.

“A health contribution will be charged to all adults that don’t want to get vaccinated,” he said. “Those who refuse to get the shot bring a financial burden to hospital staff and Quebecers. The 10% of the population can’t burden the 90%.”

Here’s a quick summary of all the latest developments:

• People in NSW, Australia are to report all positive rapid antigen test (RAT) or face a $1,000 fine.
• German police have drawn criticism for using an app to trace Covid contacts from bars and restaurants.
• Bolivia’s vice president and six cabinet ministers are in isolation after testing positive for the coronavirus, the government said Tuesday.
• UK former health secretary Matt Hancock tests positive for Covid after contracting the virus for a second time.
• About three-quarters of teachers in France plan to strike on Thursday to protest against the government’s shifting rules on Covid forcing the closure of half the country’s primary schools, a union has warned.
• France’s health ministry is expected to announce a record of more than 350,000 new Covid infections over a 24-hour period, according to the health minister, Olivier Véran.
• Novak Djokovic’s defence of his Australian Open title remains in doubt after reports that he might have given misleading information to Australian immigration officials. Immigration Minister Alex Hawke is still considering whether to cancel Djokovic’s visa.
• Sweden announced a record 70,641 new Covid cases since Friday. It also said there were a 54 new deaths from Covid.
• The US recorded a record number of hospitalisations due to Covid-19, as the daily infection rate soared to more than 1.35m. There were 145,982 people hospitalised with coronavirus on Monday, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.
• More than half of people in Europe could contract the Omicron in the next two months if infections continue at current rates, the World Health Organization has warned.
• The WHO also warned that it is too too soon to treat Omicron as a flu-like endemic illness. Senior emergency officer for Europe, Catherine Smallwood, said: “We still have a huge amount of uncertainty and a virus that is evolving quite quickly, imposing new challenges. We are certainly not at the point where we are able to call it endemic.
• The central Chinese city of Anyang has ordered five million people to begin home confinement in a new lockdown to curb the spread of Omicron variant.