Coronavirus live news: half a million under lockdown in Beijing; new curbs as Malaysia hits ‘breaking point’ | World news

Production of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine will total 4m doses over the next 30 days, the director of the Gamaleya Institute, which developed the vaccine, has said, according to the RIA news agency.

Separately, Reuters reports that Russia’s sovereign wealth fund says Palestine’s health ministry has registered the vaccine for domestic use. The first shipment of the shot is expected to arrive next month, with all deliveries expected in the first quarter of this year, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is responsible for marketing the vaccine abroad, said. It did not disclose how many doses would be shipped to Palestine.

Malaysia will impose strict new curbs in more than half the country to fight a coronavirus surge, the prime minister said on Monday, warning that the healthcare system was at “breaking point”.

It joins other Asian nations, from Japan to Australia, that kept their outbreaks under control in the early stages but have been forced to introduce new measures in recent days.

Malaysia had relaxed restrictions as infections fell to almost zero last year but cases have crept up again, hitting record highs in recent days.

AFP said the prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, announced a two-week partial lockdown to be imposed in the worst-hit parts of the country from Wednesday, with all non-essential businesses to close.

“Our healthcare system is at breaking point, the situation today is indeed very alarming,” Yassin said in a nationally televised address.

The curbs will be imposed in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and five of the country’s 13 states, home to around 20 million of the country’s 32 million inhabitants.

Malaysia has recorded more than 138,000 infections and 555 deaths from Covid-19.

Russia will conduct a clinical trial of a one-dose “Sputnik-Light” version of its coronavirus vaccine, authorities said on Monday, describing it as a possible “temporary” solution to help countries with high infection rates make it go further.

The slimmed-down vaccine will be tested on 150 people in Moscow and St Petersburg, a government clinical trials register reported by Reuters showed.

According to authorities, more than 1 million Russians have so far been inoculated with the original two-dose version of Sputnik V, named after the Soviet-era satellite that triggered the space race in a nod to the project’s geopolitical importance for Moscow.

The two-dose vaccine will remain the main version used in Russia, said Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is responsible for marketing Sputnik V abroad. The one-dose version could, however, be used for export.

“‘Sputnik Light’ can serve as an effective temporary solution for many countries which are experiencing a peak of coronavirus infection,” said Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is covering the costs of the Sputnik Light trial.

Vladimir Putin has said the single dose will provide less protection than the two doses but “will still reach 85%”.

The Gamaleya Institute that developed the vaccine says it is more than 91% effective after the two-dose course. The institute’s director, Alexander Gintsburg, has said protective immunity after just the first shot of Sputnik V lasts around three to four months, the Tass news agency reported.

More than half a million people were placed under lockdown in Beijing on Monday as the Chinese government imposed strict measures to stamp out a handful of Covid-19 cases.

China has largely brought the virus under control, but is tackling a number of local infections with lockdowns and mass testing.

Authorities are keen to stem any outbreak in the capital – home to more than 20 million people – particularly ahead of a week-long national holiday next month.

All rural villages in Shunyi district on the outskirts of Beijing are locked down until a fresh round of mass testing has been completed, district official Zhi Xianwei said at a press briefing Monday, AFP reported.

The move means around 518,000 residents will not be permitted to leave their villages until they have undergone testing.

Officials also said locals would be under “closed management”, suggesting they will be barred from leaving their residential compounds.

The district, which has a total population of 1.2 million, is home to many rural migrant workers. Zhi said officials would “knock on doors … all migrants will be classified and accounted for.”

Experts have not yet identified the source of the outbreak, but one asymptomatic case confirmed on Sunday was a driver for an online ride-hailing service, and the government has suspended all taxi-hailing services in the district.

Hi, this is Archie Bland picking up the liveblog, and beginning with the head of the World Travel and Tourism Council, who said on Monday morning that requiring Covid-19 vaccinations for international travel was akin to workplace discrimination and should be rejected.

“We should never require the vaccination to get a job or to travel,” said the industry body’s chief executive, Gloria Guevara, speaking on a Reuters Next conference panel.

As governments race to deploy vaccinations and stem the coronavirus pandemic, some policymakers have suggested immunisation should be necessary for air travel. Qantas Airways has said it plans to introduce such a requirement.

“I totally disagree with the approach from Qantas,” said Guevara, whose organisation represents a sector accounting for as much as 10% of global employment. “If you require the vaccination before travel, that takes us to discrimination.”

The director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has welcomed news that an international team of experts will travel to China.

It is not clear whether or not the team will be able to visit Wuhan, where the pandemic began, and experts have played down the likelihood of hard conclusions being reached as a result of this trip alone.

A fresh lockdown will be imposed in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and five other states, the prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, has said, as the country’s cumulative cases grew to more than 135,000 as of Sunday.

Muhyiddin said interstate travel would also be barred during the two-week lockdown, but five essential sectors would be allowed to continue operating under strict regulations.

A World Health Organization investigation team is unlikely to reach any conclusions on the origins of the pandemic as a result of its trip to China this month, a health expert affiliated with the body has said. Dr Dale Fisher told the Reuters Next conference:

I would be inclined to set the expectations of a conclusion very low for this visit.

A WHO team experts will arrive in China on 14 January, Chinese authorities have indicated. It is not clear, however, whether or not the team will visit the central city of Wuhan, where the outbreak began.

China has been accused by some of a cover-up that delayed its initial response, allowing the virus to spread. The United States has called for a more transparent WHO-led investigation and criticised the terms of the current effort, which have allowed Chinese scientists to do the first phase of preliminary research. Fisher, who took part in a WHO mission to Wuhan last year, said:

I think it’s an important meeting but it shouldn’t be overrated in terms of an outcome this time.

The experts will meet their Chinese counterparts and exchange notes on what data they have and what studies they will further have to do, Fisher added.

Though he did not expect all the answers from this trip, Fisher said he believed the chances of finding the origin of the pandemic were much better than a year ago because experts now knew a lot more about what data they would need to collect based on information they already had.