Top story: UK got in early, AstraZeneca tells EU
Hello, Warren Murray here as we bat on into day three.
A hotel quarantine system targeted at arrivals from high-risk countries is to be announced today by the home secretary, Priti Patel. It comes after Boris Johnson said that as prime minister he was “deeply sorry” for the 100,000 Covid-19 deaths in Britain, while rejecting the idea of blanket hotel quarantine for everyone coming to the UK. Labour is warning that the country-by-country quarantine policy is “half-baked” and will leave the UK’s vaccination programme vulnerable to as-yet-unknown strains of coronavirus.
AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, has insisted the UK will come first for its locally produced vaccines as he rejected calls to divert doses to the European Union. Problems at the company’s Belgian plant are causing a shortfall of deliveries for the continent. Soriot said: “The UK agreement was reached in June, three months before the European one. As you could imagine, the UK government said the supply coming out of the UK supply chain would go for the UK first. Basically, that’s how it is.” There is particular frustration in France where its historic Pasteur Institute has failed to produce a working vaccine. Read further coronavirus developments at our global live blog.
So we’re agreed then – The biggest ever opinion poll on climate change has found two-thirds of people accept it is a “global emergency”. The UN survey gives politicians across the world a clear mandate to take major action. It questioned 1.2 million people in 50 countries, many of them young people, who show the greatest concern: 69% aged 14-18 say there is a climate emergency and 58% of those over 60 agree, suggesting there is not a huge generational divide. Even when climate action requires significant change in a country, majorities still back it. In nations where fossil fuels are a major source of emissions, people strongly support renewable energy, including the US (65% in favour), Australia (76%) and Russia (51%). The highest proportions of people saying there is a climate emergency are in the UK and Italy, both at 81%. Australia was at 72%; the US and Russia at 65%; and India at 59%. Even the lowest proportion, in Moldova, was 50%.
Midweek catch-up
> Protesters claim they have dug and are ready to occupy a 100ft secret tunnel network under Euston Square Gardens, a small London park they say is at risk from the HS2 line development.
HS2 Rebellion said it expected protesters to face eviction attempts from the site from Wednesday morning but “tree protectors” believed they could hold out for several weeks during court appeals.
> Forty-five Republican senators have tried unsuccessfully to cancel the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, signalling an uphill battle for Democrats to get the 67 senators needed for conviction on a two-thirds majority vote.
> There are calls for fresh protests in Russia where a woman kicked to the ground by police has become a symbol of activism in support of Alexei Navalny, the detained opposition leader.
> Private rents in some of the UK’s biggest city centres have fallen by up to 12% in a year while rising sharply in northern England as tenants opt out of urban life, Rightmove says. Durham, Keighley in West Yorkshire, and Wigan in Greater Manchester are among areas in greatest demand, according to its survey.
> City mayors representing more than 17 million people across the UK are urging Boris Johnson to commit to tougher clean-air targets after a coroner ruled that Ella Kissi-Debrah, 9, died because of illegal levels of air pollution.
Smells off – After recovering from Covid-19, beer sommelier Maggie Cubbler could still taste a beer. She was relieved at first, but then “I started noticing that many things started smelling terrible – like absolutely revolting – and one of them was beer”. After losing her senses of smell and taste, food and wine writer Suriya Bala has only partly got them back.
More than half of people with Covid-19 experience loss of smell or taste. Two-thirds recover within six to eight weeks, but others find no improvement months down the line. Prof Barry Smith, of the Global Consortium of Chemosensory Research says smell retraining exercises can help: “Finding more and more ‘safe’ food ingredients, without a distorted smell, and repeatedly sniffing them will improve discrimination and may help to reset and regularise one’s sense of smell.”
Winning tale – Monique Roffey has won the £30,000 Costa book of the year award for her sixth novel, The Mermaid of Black Conch. Suzannah Lipscomb, the historian and broadcaster who chaired the judges, said the novel was “utterly original – unlike anything we’ve ever read – and feels like a classic in the making from a writer at the height of her powers”.
Based on a legend from the Taino, an indigenous people of the Caribbean, the novel is a dark love story about fisherman David and Aycayia, a beautiful woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid, who has swum the Caribbean for centuries. The late Irish poet Eavan Boland’s final collection The Historians, and the children’s author Natasha Farrant’s Voyage of the Sparrowhawk, had also been in the running for the overall prize.
Today in Focus podcast: Filipinas trapped by the pandemic
Journalist Corinne Redfern discusses the impact the pandemic has had on Filipino women trapped overseas, including Mimi (not her real name) who works for a wealthy family in London for just £5 an hour.
Filipinas trapped by the pandemic
Lunchtime read: Appetite for destruction
The artist Michael Landy caused a sensation by shredding all his possessions: car, toothbrush, love letters, even his dad’s old sheepskin coat. Two decades on, Charlotte Higgins asks: does the former YBA have any regrets?
Sport
Manchester City became the ninth team to top the Premier League this season after Ilkay Gündogan turned on the style in a 5-0 rout of West Brom at the Hawthorns. Nicolas Pépé, Bukayo Saka and Alexandre Lacazette scored as Arsenal avenged their FA Cup defeat to Southampton with a 3-1 comeback win at St Mary’s. West Ham went fourth after a Tomas Soucek double and one goal from Michael Dawson completed a comeback in a 3-2 win over Crystal Palace. Jack Harrison’s nonchalant finish gave Leeds a 2-1 victory at St James’ Park to leave Newcastle winless in 11 and on a run of six straight defeats. Thomas Tuchel will sit in the dugout rather than watch from the stands when he takes charge of his first Chelsea game on Wednesday, signalling the German’s desire to make an immediate impact after his appointment as manager.
The basketball world remains in a state of mourning over Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and the other seven people who climbed aboard a helicopter on a Sunday morning one year ago. Rafael Nadal has responded to criticism of his silence on the ongoing imbroglio over Australian Open quarantine conditions with a veiled swipe at Novak Djokovic. England have been dealt yet another blow before their Six Nations title defence with Sam Underhill the latest frontline forward to withdraw from Eddie Jones’s squad. And a tongue-in-cheek promotional video has launched the Finnish town of Lapland’s “bid” to host the 2032 Olympics, seeking to highlight alarming climate variations affecting the region.
Business
Some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies face having their credit rating downgraded because of increasing competition from renewable energy. Credit agency S&P said multinationals such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell could all have their rating reduced because the boom in renewables was reducing profitability and making prices more volatile. The pound rose 0.1% overnight to $1.3735, its highest level since May 2018, while it’s also up against the euro at €1.129.
The papers
“I’m deeply sorry: PM faces questions over death toll” – Boris Johnson’s head is bowed on the front page of our Guardian today, after the UK recorded 100,000 coronavirus deaths. The Express expands on that with “I’m deeply sorry for every life lost” and carries the PM’s assurance that “lessons will be learned”. The Metro’s headline is the same and so is the Telegraph’s. The Mail prepends: “I was prime minister. I take full responsibility”.
The Times memorialises some of the victims with a composite picture and the headline “100,000 deaths” while the i counts every last one: “100,162”, pointing out that Britain is the first country in Europe with so many deaths.
“We will remember them” – that’s the Sun. Johnson only gets a puff box at the top of the Mirror’s front page – the main picture is a schoolboy putting pencil to paper, illustrating the splash story: “£1million gift to help kids learn”, about a donation from the National Education Union that kicks off the paper’s campaign to provide families with home-schooling needs. Back to business with the FT: “Emergency stimulus fuels record $400bn company funding frenzy” – it says capital markets have been roused by central banks’ pandemic interventions.
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