Coronavirus live news: South Africa to give health workers unapproved J&J vaccine; two new cases in New Zealand | World news

US passenger airline traffic fell 60% in 2020 to the lowest number since 1984, the US transportation department said. In total, there were 368 million passengers in 2020, down from 922.6 million in 2019. The previous yearly low was 351.6 million in 1984, the department said.

For all of 2020, US domestic air travel fell by 58.7%, while international travel fell 70.4% as many countries imposed significant travel restrictions. US airlines say air travel demand remains down more than 60% through early February, Reuters reports.

Airlines for America, an industry trade group representing American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and others, said the nine largest U.S. airlines lost $46 billion before taxes in 2020 and said that passenger volumes are unlikely to return to pre-Covid-19 levels before 2023 or 2024.

US citizens are still barred from travel to much of Europe and other countries, and business travel remains severely depressed. The number of flights operated by US carriers remains down about 45%.

A $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill making its way through Congress would allocate another $14 billion to extend payroll assistance to US airlines to keep thousands of workers on the job through 30 September. Congress has previously approved $40 billion in payroll assistance for US airlines and $25 billion in low-interest loans.

Brazil’s environment minister has tested positive for Covid-19, the ministry announced in a statement.Ricardo Salles is, at least, the 15th member of the Bolsonaro administration to be diagnosed with the illness so far.

Salles had mild symptoms but was otherwise well and self-isolating at the direction of doctors, the ministry said. Bolsonaro, who has sought to downplay the severity of the pandemic, also tested positive for the coronavirus last year.

South Africa is preparing to give its first Covid-19 vaccinations, shots of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine still being tested, to health care workers this week as part of a large scale trial, the health minister has said.AP reports that the first batch of 80,000 doses of the single dose vaccine, which has not been authorised for general use in South Africa or anywhere else in the world, is expected to arrive in the country imminently and will be administered to health care professionals across the country, Zweli Mkhize told parliament.

The vaccines are to be administered as an observational study, in which no placebo shots will be given and the health and future infections of all participants will be tracked.Tests so far suggest the vaccine is safe and effective at preventing severe illness or death from Covid. Another 500,000 doses are expected to be flown to South Africa within four weeks for the vaccination campaign.The first phase of South Africa’s campaign is to vaccinate the country’s 1.25 million health care workers. More than 380,000 health care workers have already registered for vaccination, Mkhize said, encouraging all front-line health workers to register on the government’s internet site.

We salute the health care workers who have chosen vaccination for their own protection and the protection of their colleagues, families and community members.

As more doses arrive the service will be ramped up accordingly to ensure that we maintain a good rate of daily vaccines.

Early results from the trials showed the vaccine has 57% efficacy against moderate to severe cases of Covid-19 caused by the variant in South Africa.South Africa does not have plans to administer the AstraZeneca vaccine which a small, preliminary test shows offers minimal protection against mild to moderate disease caused by the variant here, said Mkhize, following an abrupt halt to the plans after the study.It comes after South Africa announced it planned to share 1m unwanted doses of the vaccine with other countries via the African Union.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest. As always, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

South Africa is preparing to give its first Covid-19 vaccinations, shots of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine still being tested, to health care workers this week as part of a large scale trial, the health minister has said.

Here are the other key recent developments:

• Mexican foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard has said that his government is to present a complaint at the United Nations security council tomorrow about the unequal access to Covid vaccines globally, Reuters reports.
• France has registered 586 new coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, a sharp fall from 724 last Tuesday while the seven-day moving average of deaths fell to 381, the first time the average was below 400 since late January.
• Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are three times more likely to die with Covid-19 than the population as a whole, Reuters reports.
• Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that a phased return to school for younger pupils in Scotland will start from Monday. This will include children aged four to seven and secondary school pupils required to carry out practical assignments.
• The EU is adding clauses to contracts with vaccine makers to allow the bloc to gain access to possible upgraded shots that may offer better protection against variants of the virus, sources have told Reuters.
• The Norwegian government will lift all the extra restrictions imposed on the capital region to stop the spread of a more contagious variant of the coronavirus on Thursday, the government has said.
• Germany is to offer free Covid-19 antigen tests for all from March, the health minister, Jens Spahn, has said, as the country cautiously began allowing some children to return to schools.
• The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, has called on the country to respect a night-time curfew, saying it was still needed to fight the pandemic despite a court ruling earlier today that the measure lacked a legal basis.
• Morocco has received a second batch of 500,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine, health ministry sources have told Reuters.