Herald section
The latest health reporting from The Belfast Herald.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports their first case of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2. The patient is a 23-year-old woman who travelled from the United Kingdom to Shanghai on December 14 and later tested positive for COVID-19.
A further 20 million people in England are placed into Tier 4, the level with the strictest COVID-19 restrictions. All secondary schools in England are to remain closed for an additional two weeks.
Malta reports its first three cases of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 from the United Kingdom. Two of the cases are reported in people who travelled from the UK, while the third is still being investigated.
Scotland reports a record 2,045 new cases in the past 24 hours.
The country implements full Level 5 restrictions, closing non-essential retail and delaying school reopenings until 11 January, while extending travel bans to South Africa and the UK until 6 January.
Northern Ireland reports a record 1,566 new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 68,762.
A man in his 20s in Elbert County, Colorado, tested positive for the U.K. SARS-CoV-2 variant, B.1.1.7, with no travel history. The case marks the first confirmed instance in the United States.
Ireland launched its national vaccination programme against COVID-19 on 29 December 2020, administering the Pfizer-BioNTech tozinameran vaccine to a 79-year-old woman from Dublin and a frontline healthcare worker at St James's Hospital.