Covid live news: Sydney reopens after long lockdown, New Zealand braces for rising cases

There were long queues outside pubs, hairdressers and beauty salons as Australia’s most populous city reopened on Monday, as part of Sydney’s first steps towards living with Covid-19 after more than 100 days of lockdown.

About 5 million Sydneysiders awoke to new freedoms on Monday morning after enduring 106 days of strict stay-at-home orders in a bid to battle the highly contagious Delta strain.

Despite an unseasonably cold and rainy start to the day, thousands defied grey skies and flocked to newly opened cafes, barbers and beauty salons to kick off what some have described as “freedom day”.

Some even queued outside department stores in the minutes before midnight to shop in-store for the first time in nearly four months. Others crowded into pubs to enjoy the day’s first freshly poured beers in a boost to the city’s hospitality and entertainment industry.

Read more here from my colleagues Samantha Lock, Mostafa Rachwani and Rafqa Touma in Sydney: With queues at the pubs and beauty salons, Sydney reopens after more than 100 days in lockdown

It is possibly a less exciting day if you are running a nightclub in Wales. From today people must show an NHS Covid Pass or demonstrate their vaccination status to enter nightclubs and attend large events in the country.

It means all over-18s need one to enter nightclubs, indoor non-seated events for more than 500 people, such as concerts or conventions, outdoor non-seated events for more than 4,000 people and any setting or event with more than 10,000 people in attendance.

People will also be able to show they have had a negative lateral flow test result within the last 48 hours.

But those who fake a coronavirus test result or vaccination status will be committing a criminal offence and face a fixed penalty notice.

Rod Minchin reports for PA Media that Wales is facing some of the highest infection rates since the beginning of the pandemic, particularly among young people.

Economy minister Vaughan Gething said: “Our fantastic vaccination programme continues to go from strength to strength but the pandemic is not over.

“Cases remain high across Wales and, unfortunately, families across the country are losing loved ones to this awful virus. The clear advice from our scientific advisers is that we need to take early action now.

“The Covid Pass is just one of a series of measures in place to help prevent people spreading and catching coronavirus while helping to keep the economy open.

“None of us want to see further lockdowns and for businesses to have to close their doors once again. Showing a Covid Pass is already part of our collective effort to keep businesses open.”

It is potentially a big day for the travel industry in the England. At 4am this morning, forty-seven countries were removed from the international travel red list. Arrivals from those locations will no longer need to spend 11 nights in a quarantine hotel.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has lifted its advice against non-essential travel to a further 42 countries and territories, following the removal of travel advisories to 41 locations last week.

PA note that just seven countries will remain on the red list from Monday: Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru and Venezuela. People arriving from those locations will still be required to enter a quarantine hotel at a cost of £2,285 for solo travellers.

Good morning from London, it is Martin Belam here taking over from Samantha Lock, and I’ll be with you for the next few hours. Damian Hinds, the minister of state for security, is doing the media round in the UK this morning. I’ll bring you any Covid lines that emerge from that, though I suspect his focus is going to be on the energy crisis and that treasury reprimand for business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng. I’ll also bring you the latest coronavirus news from around the world.

Hello and welcome to our rolling live news coverage of the coronavirus outbreak.

I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be giving you a rundown of the latest updates as they happen.

Millions of Australians have woken up today to new freedoms after 106 days of lockdown. Greater Sydney reopened at 12:01am on Monday as stay-at-home orders were lifted across the state of New South Wales after state reached its milestone of 70% of the over-16 population fully vaccinated last week.

Gyms, cafes, restaurants, pools, shops, hairdressers and beauticians can now reopen, people can have 10 people over to their home, gather in groups of 30 people outdoors in public, and travel more than 5km from their home. The new freedoms are only available to the fully vaccinated and those who have a medical exemption.

• New Zealand on a ‘knife-edge’ as Covid cases are expected to rise further. The island nation recorded 94 new infections over the weekend, as experts say an “exponential growth curve” will occur where new cases will quickly top 100 a day if the government stays its current course.
• The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention says 187 million people in US are fully vaccinated.
• Dr Anthony Fauci warns the US must not ‘prematurely declare victory’ over Covid. As the holiday season approaches, the White House medical adviser urged caution in celebrating declining Covid cases.
• One in six of England’s most critically ill patients are unvaccinated pregnant women, new figures reveal. Twenty of the 118 patients with Covid who received extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (Ecmo) between July and September were mothers-to-be, NHS England said. Of these, 19 had not had a jab and the other had only had one dose of a vaccine. The health service is urging pregnant women to get fully vaccinated amid new evidence that the virus can cause serious problems for the mother-to-be and her baby in the later stages of pregnancy.
• Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, plans to “accelerate” the resumption of international travel and home quarantine sooner than planned, but only for those in the state of New South Wales.
• UK Health Security Agency chief executive Dr Jenny Harries has warned that people who catch flu and Covid at the same time this winter are twice as likely to die than those who only have coronavirus.
• Harries also said that it’s hard to predict what the next chapter of the pandemic will look like in the UK, as immunity from vaccines wanes among older people.
• Two million people in England have received a Covid booster jab, NHS England said. The health secretary, Sajid Javid, tweeted: “This is great progress which is helping to reinforce our wall of defence so we can keep the virus at bay.” Over-50s, younger adults with health conditions and frontline health and care workers are eligible for a third shot.
• Singapore’s health ministry reported 3,703 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, the highest since the beginning of the pandemic, while it recorded 11 new deaths.