Infections are also increasing in Chile, with 5,241 new cases reported on average every day. That’s 51% of the peak – the highest daily average reported on 17 June – according to the Reuters Covid-19 Tracker.

On Saturday, Chile posted 9,284 new daily cases, the second highest daily figure recorded since the start of the pandemic, and possibly the actual record, since a record of 13,990 cases logged on 6 June 2020 looks like a statistical anomaly due to a backlog.

The average number of new infections reported each day in Chile rose by more than 4,000 over the last 3 weeks, 38% of its previous peak.

Earlier this week, Chile became the first Latin American country to start administering fourth doses of Covid-19 vaccines. 88.33% of the Chilean population are fully vaccinated, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre.

Chile has recorded 1,857,764 infections and 39,355 coronavirus-related deaths since the pandemic began.

Israeli finance minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Saturday that he had tested positive for Covid-19 and would self-isolate but continue working from home.

“I feel good and will isolate in the next few days,” Lieberman, 63, said on Twitter.

Foreign minister Yair Lapid tested positive on Monday.

On 10 January, Lieberman posted a photo of himself receiving a fourth Covid-19 vaccination dose.

The health ministry says that a first booster increases protection seven days after the shot, but has not yet released data on the effectiveness of a fourth dose, Reuters reports.

Israel began administering fourth jabs to people with compromised immune systems in late December, expanding that booster campaign to over-60s and medical staff in January.

Israel hit a three-month high in severe Covid cases on Friday amid a stubborn fifth wave of infections, with 306 patients in a serious condition, Haaretz reported.

According to health ministry data, 125 of the patients in a serious condition are not vaccinated at all and 32 did not receive a booster shot or are otherwise not considered fully vaccinated.

Israel, with a population of 9.4 million, has confirmed about 1.7 million coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic and more than 8,000 deaths.

Italy reported 180,426 Covid-related cases on Saturday, after 186,253 the day before, the health ministry said, while the number of deaths fell to 308, from 360.

A week ago, the country reported 197,535 new cases and 223 deaths.

Italy has registered 140,856 deaths linked to Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, the second highest toll in Europe after the UK’s and the ninth highest in the world.

The UK reported 81,713 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, a near 33% decline on the previous week.

The British government reported 287 deaths of people who had tested positive for the disease within the previous 28 days.

The seven-day total for deaths was up 45% on the week before, following a record spike in infections in recent weeks.

Hello, this is Jedidajah Otte again picking up from my colleague Lucy Campbell. As always, if you have anything to flag you think is relevant for our coverage, feel free to contact me on Twitter @JedySays or via email.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Austria’s capital on Saturday to protest against government plans to introduce mandatory Covid vaccinations for all next month, Reuters reports.

“The government must go!” crowds chanted at one rally in central Vienna in what has become a routine Saturday event.

Parliament is scheduled to vote next week on the issue, which has polarised the country as coronavirus cases surge.

In November, the government announced a fourth national lockdown and said it would make vaccinations compulsory for all Austrians, the first European Union country to do so.

A poll for Profil magazine found 51% of those surveyed oppose making jabs mandatory from February, of whom 34% were against compulsory vaccination in general and 17% wanted to wait. The survey found 45% of Austrians favoured compulsory vaccination starting in February.

The poll showed chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservatives and the opposition Social Democrats in a dead heat for first place at 25%, followed by the right-wing Freedom party, a strident critic of government policy, at 20%.

The Greens, junior partner in the coalition, were even with the liberal Neos on 11%, while the vaccine-sceptical MFG party scored 6%.

Health authorities have reported more than 1.4 million infections and nearly 14,000 deaths from Covid since the pandemic began.

A mother whose baby was stillborn while she was seriously ill in hospital with Covid-19 has urged people to get their vaccine to save themselves the “agony” of becoming severely unwell, PA reports.

Rachel, 38, whose surname was not given, was so ill she did not realise she had given birth to her son Jaxon, at 24 weeks, in August.

She had gone to get her vaccine while pregnant last year, but said there had still been uncertainty from experts at that early stage in the rollout over whether expectant women should have it.

She said she and her family were “devastated” by their loss, and urged people to take up the offer of jabs.

She said:

I did initially go to get the vaccine, but at the time the advice was not to have it. I thought I’d have the vaccine when I’d had the baby, but it wasn’t meant to be.

As more data has emerged showing the vaccine to be safe, there have been repeated calls for pregnant women to get jabbed.

Earlier this week, the Department of Health and Social Care cited statistics from the UK Obstetric Surveillance System which it said showed 96.3% of pregnant women admitted to hospital with Covid symptoms between May and October were unvaccinated, a third of whom required respiratory support.

Rachel, from Bilston in Wolverhampton, was in a coma and in hospital for three and a half months after contracting the virus.

She said she would encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated.

I would say take it – it’s a two-minute thing that can save months of agony if you end up like I was.

Speaking about her loss, she said:

I didn’t actually know I had given birth. I was on drugs so they wanted to tell me when I wasn’t sedated, and the obstetrician informed me a few days later.

My emotions were disbelief – one minute you’re having a scan and a gender reveal, naming the baby and getting excited, and then there was this sudden loss.

I was only able to see him once. Normally I’d have been able to spend a lot more time with him and to hold him. But I didn’t get to do that because of the circumstances.

She said things have been difficult for her partner and her 18-year-old son.

“We’re all devastated at our loss,” she said. “We were all very excited at this new life then we were left with nothing.”

Rachel thanked staff at both New Cross hospital’s integrated critical care unit (ICCU) and Glenfield hospital in Leicester, for their care.

The actor Jamie Dornan has revealed he was stuck in hotel quarantine in Australia when he received the news that his father, Jim, had died from Covid after being admitted to hospital for a routine knee operation.

Dornan, 39, most famous for the film Fifty Shades of Grey and the crime drama television series The Fall, found himself on the other side of the world with four days of his quarantine remaining when his father died last March, and was unable to travel back to his native Northern Ireland.

Dornan was required to isolate in Australia before filming BBC drama The Tourist, in which he plays a man who has no idea who he is and why he has been left stranded in Australia’s outback.

Losing his father made 2021 “the worst year … and the hardest” of his life, Dornan told the Sun.

“It’s been a brutal time for lots of reasons and for lots of people. We’re all just trying to ride it out and come out the other side – and hope we’ve got our heads intact,” he said.

A renowned obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast, Jim supported his son’s pursuit of an acting career and helped him navigate the loss of his mother, Lorna, from pancreatic cancer when he was 16, telling him: “Don’t let this be the thing that defines you.”

“I’ve been subjected, early on in my life and now, to a lot of pain and loss,” Dornan said.

The full piece is here: Jamie Dornan was stuck in Australian quarantine when dad died of Covid

Related: Jamie Dornan was stuck in Australian quarantine when dad died of Covid

My colleague Clea Skopeliti has this round-up of the Conservative MPs who have so far called for Boris Johnson to resign, including the senior Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, who said this morning the prime minister must “lead or step aside”.

Related: ‘Lead or step aside’: pressure grows on Boris Johnson to go

A quick snap from Reuters reporting that Turkey will no longer require unvaccinated individuals to take a PCR test before using planes, buses or other transportation, or before attending events such as concerts, plays or movies.

Citing the interior ministry, the state-owned Anadolu Agency said on Saturday that unvaccinated civil servants, private-sector employees and school personnel will also not be required to take a PCR test.

Turkish Airlines CEO, Bilal Ekşi, said separately on Twitter that the carrier will not require PCR tests on domestic flights.

Although Covid infections in Denmark are at their peak currently, the number of patients in intensive care in the country fell to the lowest level in over a month on Friday.

As of Friday morning, 60 Covid patients in Denmark were admitted to intensive care wards, according to official data from the State Serum Institute (SSI). The number is the lowest since 11 December.

Daily totals for new infections have ranged between 22,000 and 25,000 this week after a dip in numbers last weekend, The Local reported.

At the end of December, Denmark’s daily infection tallies exceeded 15,000 for the first time.

According to the Reuters Covid-19 Tracker, the daily average of infections in the country is higher than ever and still rising, with currently 18,955 new infections reported on average each day.

Denmark has recorded 3,468 coronavirus-related deaths since the pandemic began.

According to the Danish Health Authority, as of Friday morning 80% of the population have had at least two Covid-19 vaccines, and 55.8% a third jab.

Coronavirus cases appear to be “plateauing” in parts of the UK, a government health advisor has said.

Dr Susan Hopkins, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) chief medical adviser, said the number of infections were flattening in London, the south-east and east of England.

Dr Hopkins told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme cases were still relatively high, with one in 15 people in England infected and one in 20 elsewhere in the UK, but that there was a “slowdown” in hospital admissions.

She said:

We see that infections are plateauing in the community, which is good, in London and the south-east and the east of England.

There are still risings, but much slower in the northern parts of the country.

All of that means we are seeing a slowdown in the number of admissions to hospital but they are slowing down rather than reversing at the moment, so there are still more than 2,000 admissions to hospital across the UK, and nearly 2,500 yesterday.

Hopkins said hospitals had been able to discharge patients “faster” due to Omicron being milder than previous variants but that, with around 15,500 people in hospital last week, the NHS remains under “a lot of pressure”, with some trusts “unable to do much of their elective care”, a situation exacerbated by staff absences.

Hi all, I’m taking over for the next hour or so, if there’s anything you’d like to flag feel free to contact me on Twitter @JedySays or via email.

Prof Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh and chief social policy adviser to the Scottish government, has said Omicron cases appear to be “stabilising”, PA reports.

She told BBC Breakfast on Saturday:

The cases, if we look at them, are going down by over 20%. In fact, yesterday I think was the last day, the first day for a while we’ve had less than 100,000 cases so things seem to moving in the right direction.

However, she added that the number of patients in hospitals was still “very high” and will need to wait for an accurate picture.

Prof Bauld explained that while there had been a rise in Covid deaths in the last week, the figure was a “lagging indicator” and hoped they would continue to decline.

She said:

I think we’ve got more data this week that suggests more optimism, and let’s hope, as we continue, that trajectory will be consistent and we can feel we’ve got through what’s been a really, really tough period.

Dr Chris Smith, a consultant virologist and lecturer based at Cambridge University, said current coronavirus data gives him “great cause for optimism”, PA Media reports.

Smith told BBC Breakfast:

The number of people who are going into intensive care or are on mechanical ventilation beds is actually dropping. It has remained flat.

Now that could be because Omicron hasn’t had a chance to bite yet and there will be an uptick later.

On the other hand, it may be that we are following the trajectory of South Africa, which we seem to be so far, which is they saw a much fewer translation of hospital cases into intensive care beds cases. So let’s hope that carries on.

This gives me great cause for optimism because I think we are getting to a point now where thanks to vaccination, where 96% of the country we’re told now have antibodies against the coronavirus, thanks to vaccinations thanks to infection rate reinforcing our immunity we are getting to a point where the population have sufficient immunity that we can fend off the infection when we get it much better than we could previously.

So we don’t see that strong connection of cases turning into consequences.

If it is a political truism that a cabinet is all smiles when the ruling party is well ahead in the polls, it is equally the case that nothing highlights ministerial ambitions more than a vulnerable prime minister, write Peter Walker and Heather Stewart.

With Boris Johnson on the ropes over lockdown party allegations, all eyes are now on his cabinet colleagues and other senior Tories.

Most have offered him lukewarm support – so far. But will any break cover over the weekend, particularly if there are any new revelations?

From Rishi Sunak to Michael Gove, the Guardian looks at the senior Tories to watch: Which of Johnson’s colleagues will be first to publicly withdraw support?

Related: Which of Johnson’s colleagues will be first to publicly withdraw support?

The southern Chinese city of Zhuhai suspended public bus routes on Saturday after announcing it had detected at least seven cases of the Omicron variant and warning residents not to leave the city, AFP reports.

The coastal city of Zhuhai, which borders the gambling hub Macau, said late on Friday that Omicron had been detected in one mildly ill and six asymptomatic patients, after launching mass testing due to a case in a neighbouring city.

China is battling a spate of coronavirus outbreaks, including several from the highly transmissible Omicron variant, as the country steps up vigilance against the virus ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics next month.

Millions of people across the country have been ordered to stay at home in recent weeks, with scores of domestic flights cancelled and factories shut down.

Zhuhai officials have asked residents to avoid leaving the city “unless necessary”, with those who are required to show negative Covid test results within the past 24 hours.

The city had launched mass testing for its population of 2.4 million people on Friday after a Covid case was detected in neighbouring Zhongshan earlier in the week.

Businesses including beauty salons, card rooms, gyms and cinemas were ordered to close on Thursday, with officials announcing the suspension of public bus routes in parts of the city.

China has kept Covid cases relatively low throughout the pandemic with its zero-tolerance strategy of immediately ordering mass testing and strict lockdowns when infections are detected.

But the fast-spreading Omicron has tested that strategy in recent weeks, appearing in the port city of Tianjin close to Beijing before spreading to the central city of Anyang.

National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng told reporters on Saturday that the country faced a “twofold challenge” from both the Delta and Omicron variants.

He warned that regions that had not yet seen outbreaks “must not relax” their prevention measures and “strengthen risk auditing”.

The country reported 104 domestically transmitted Covid cases on Saturday.

The Conservative backbencher Andrew Bridgen has said Boris Johnson has “lost the moral authority to lead” after presiding over a culture in No 10 of “one rule for them and the rest of us do as we’re told”, PA Media reports.

The North West Leicestershire MP, who became the fifth Tory MP to publicly call for Johnson’s resignation this week, told BBC Breakfast:

[This is] not about one isolated incident, what we are seeing with these continued revelations coming out about what’s been going on at No 10 is a pattern of behaviour, and ultimately the buck stops with Boris Johnson.

What I’ve seen, to me it looks like Boris Johnson and those in his inner circle can do what they want and the rest of us have to do as we are told – that’s not acceptable to me, it is not acceptable to my constituents or, I believe, most people in the country. And what that certainly isn’t is ‘levelling up’ in my book.

Bridgen said he did “not need to see what Sue Gray says to know that for me Boris Johnson has lost the moral authority to lead the country”.

Asked about reports of “wine-time Friday” sessions in Downing Street during the lockdown months [see 8.37am.], the Tory said the claims were a “surprise” to him, adding:

It doesn’t matter, quite honestly, if the prime minister was present or not present – ultimately, he is responsible for what goes on in government, he is responsible for the culture in No 10 and what we’re seeing is a culture where it is one rule for them and the rest of us do as we’re told, and that’s just not acceptable.

I’m not sure that any apology is going to put that right.

A new Covid-19 vaccine is being developed by Texas scientists using a decades-old conventional method that will make the production and distribution cheaper and more accessible for countries most affected by the pandemic and where new variants are likely to originate due to low inoculation rates.

The team, led by Drs Peter Hotez and Maria Bottazzi from the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine, has been developing vaccine prototypes for Sars and Mers since 2011, which they reconstructed to create the new Covid vaccine, dubbed Corbevax, or “the world’s Covid-19 vaccine”.

Although more than 60 other vaccines are in development using the same technology, Bottazzi said their vaccine is unique because they do not intend to patent it, allowing anyone with the capacity to reproduce it.

“Pretty much anybody that can make hepatitis B vaccines or has the capacity to produce microbial-based protein like bacteria or yeast, can replicate what we do,” Bottazzi said.

Patent wars over mRNA vaccines have recently heated up. Moderna and the National Institutes of Health are in a dispute over who should get credit for specific discoveries that led to a Covid-19 vaccine which has been delivered to more than 73 million Americans. If Moderna is found to have infringed on the federal government’s patent, it could be forced to pay more than $1bn.

At the same time, activists have called for Pfizer and Moderna to share the technology and knowhow for producing their vaccines, including taking the fight to the World Trade Organization. Low-income countries, which have few vaccine research and production facilities, have vaccinated just one in nine people, according to the World Health Organization. The US has fully vaccinated 67% of the population and provided a third vaccine dose to more than one-third.

Corbevax’s clinical trial data has yet to be released due to resource constraints, but Texas Children’s hospital said the vaccine was over 90% effective against the original Covid-19 strain and over 80% effective against the Delta variant. The vaccine’s efficacy against the Omicron variant is currently being tested.

The process to create the vaccine involves the use of yeast – the same method by which hepatitis B vaccines are produced.

Read the full story here: Texas scientists’ new Covid-19 vaccine is cheaper, easier to make and patent-free

Related: Texas scientists’ new Covid-19 vaccine is cheaper, easier to make and patent-free

Boris Johnson has been warned by cabinet ministers that he is in the “last chance saloon” after Downing Street had to apologise to the Queen over parties held at No 10 on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, the Times (paywall) reports.

The paper also reports that Sue Gray, the senior civil servant overseeing an investigation into the Whitehall partygate allegations, felt “completely blind-sided” by the revelations and felt Downing Street staff were hiding information about parties held there.

Cabinet ministers who publicly backed Johnson after his apology on Wednesday told the paper that it was increasingly difficult to justify their support for him or to defend him.

“This is the last chance saloon. More revelations of parties, and a pummelling at the local elections, and the party will rise up,” said one.

“If Boris is going to survive, like an alcoholic he has to admit that he has a problem and go into serious therapy. It’s beyond my comprehension how stupid they can be.”

Another told the Times the prime minister must take the “opportunity” to clear out his team and reset his government. “He needs a complete clear-out,” they said. “He’s being served very poorly.”

Three cabinet ministers said that Dan Rosenfield, his chief of staff, needed to go, the paper also reported.

As the United States’s Covid peak seems to near, with hospitalisations and cases seemingly subsiding in states with high vaccination rates, experts have cautioned against letting our guard down and celebrating too soon.

Eric Berger has this report: As Covid-19 peak seems to near, experts warn against letting guard down

Related: As Covid-19 peak seems to near, experts warn against letting guard down

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday revised its guidance on wearing masks to protect against Covid, recommending people use “the most protective mask you can” while stopping short of advocating nationwide usage of N95 respirators, Reuters reports.

The CDC, an agency critics have accused of offering shifting and confusing guidance amid the pandemic, clarified on its website “that people can choose respirators such as N95s and KN95s, including removing concerns related to supply shortages for N95s”.

Americans should “wear the most protective mask you can that fits well and that you will wear consistently”, the CDC added.

The United States leads the world in Covid deaths – roughly 850,000 – even as it battles a surge of cases involving the fast-spreading Omicron variant. Complicating matters is the refusal of some Americans to get vaccinated.

The president, Joe Biden, said on Thursday that the federal government planned to make “high-quality masks” available to Americans for free. In another step, the White House on Friday said the government will begin shipping 500 million Covid tests to Americans later this month without charge.

The CDC said it wants to encourage Americans to wear masks rather than push them to wear the highest-grade face protection, but also explicitly said that respirators provide the best level of protection. It said that “loosely woven cloth products provide the least protection”.

“Masking is a critical public health tool to prevent the spread of Covid-19, and it is important to remember that any mask is better than no mask,” the CDC added.

The CDC said the revised recommendations “reflect the science on masking, including what we have learned in the past two years”, since the start of the pandemic.

More Americans have been recently opting for higher-grade protection amid the surge in cases.

The US is tallying about 1,800 Covid deaths and 780,000 new infections daily – the most in the world – as well as record levels of hospitalised patients.

The CDC last May announced that fully vaccinated people could shed their face coverings, as Covid cases were then on the decline. But in July, the CDC said fully vaccinated people should wear masks in indoor public places in regions where Covid was spreading rapidly. The CDC said this week 99.5% of US counties currently are covered by the mask recommendation.

Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, on Monday will require some employers to provide “medical-grade” masks – surgical masks, KF94, KN95s or N95s – to workers at high risk of Covid infection on the job.

Masks remain polarising. Biden, a Democrat, this week again urged people to wear masks and noted that about a third of Americans report they do not wear a mask at all. Many Republican-leaning states have no mask requirements. Some Democratic-governed states such as California have reimposed indoor mask mandates.