Summary Here’s a summary of the latest developments: France reported 23,306 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Saturday, down from 23,507 on Friday. The French health ministry reported 170 new deaths, taking the total to 88,444. A further 158 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK as of Saturday, bringing the total to 124,419, according to the latest official figures. The government also said that, as of 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 6,040 lab-confirmed cases in the UK. Italy has reported 307 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday against 297 the day before, the health ministry said. The daily tally of new infections fell to 23,641 from 24,036 the day before. The US Senate has passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief plan. The all-night session saw Democrats battling among themselves over jobless aid and the Republican minority failing in attempts to push through some three dozen amendments. Ireland reached the milestone of half a million coronavirus jabs administered. The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, hailed progress made fighting the pandemic. He said he was inspired by recent visits to vaccination centres where thousands of frontline healthcare workers are receiving the vaccine doses. The Dalia Lama had a Covid-19 vaccine administered. The Tibetan spiritual leader said: “In order to prevent some serious problems, this injection is very, very helpful.” Hundreds of thousands of people in northern France went back into lockdown. The residents of Pas-de-Calais on the north coast joined those in the region’s port of Dunkirk – and the Mediterranean resort of Nice – already shut down on Saturdays and Sundays. There have been 779 further deaths from coronavirus and 6,561 new confirmed cases in Mexico, bringing its total to 2,125,866 infections and 190,357 deaths, Mexico’s health ministry reported. Officials have been frustrated by bottlenecks in the vaccine supply and raised concerns that wealthy countries are hoarding vaccines. On Monday, the administration of the US president, Joe Biden, downplayed the prospect of sharing vaccines with Mexico. Mexico has so far administered roughly 2.7m vaccine doses, enough for about 1.1% of the population, according to data compiled by Reuters. Health officials have said the real number of infected people and deaths in Mexico is likely significantly higher than the official count. Joe Biden hailed “one more giant step forward on delivering on that promise that help is on the way”, after Democrats took a critical step towards a first major legislative victory since assuming control of Congress and the White House, with a party-line vote in the Senate to approve a $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill. After a marathon voting session through the night on Friday and into Saturday afternoon, Democrats overcame unified Republican opposition to approve the sweeping stimulus package. The final tally was 50-49, with one Republican absent. One of the largest emergency aid packages in US history now returns to the House for final approval before being signed into law by Biden. Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, has said she expects to approve the measure before 14 March, when tens of millions of Americans risk losing unemployment benefits if no action is taken. The US has administered 87,912,323 doses of Covid-19 vaccines as of Saturday morning and delivered 116,355,405 doses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The tally of doses are for both Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE vaccines, the agency said. The agency said 57,358,849 people had received one or more doses, while 29,776,160 people have received the second dose as of Saturday. A total of 7,349,495 vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said. French police cleared the banks of the River Seine in central Paris on Saturday over concerns people were getting too close together and not respecting coronavirus social distancing rules. Hundreds of people were asked to leave the area – popular for strolling and picnicking on sunny days – and police officers closed the riverbanks for the rest of the day, Reuters reports. “Social distancing rules are not being respected,” police called out through a megaphone. The police have regularly been clearing the area over the past few weeks with warmer weather bringing people out to take advantage of the sunshine before a curfew kicks in from 6pm to 6am. The Paris police banned the consumption of alcohol on the riverside on Friday and asked people to limit their gatherings. The government has resisted putting the capital and its surrounding area back under lockdown despite a rise in coronavirus cases and growing numbers of patients in the capital’s intensive care units. There is no evidence the mutated coronavirus strain first found in the Brazilian city of Manaus has been transmitted by the three Scots infected with the variant, Scotland’s health secretary Jeane Freeman has said. A total of six cases of the P1 variant were identified in the UK last month – three in Scotland and three in England. Since then, approximately 300 contacts or contacts of contacts linked to the three Scottish cases have been reached, told to self-isolate and offered a Covid-19 test, Freeman has revealed. Freeman has now announced that there has been no community transmission linked to the variant strain of coronavirus identified since the first cases were discovered on 27 February. She also confirmed that attempts to track down all passengers on the Heathrow to Aberdeen flight taken by the three Scots who tested positive for the mutated virus have ended, despite a failure to locate 21 of the 90 people on the plane. Although the search for the remaining passengers has been called off, anyone who was on flight BA1312 on 29 January who has not been contacted is still being asked to call the national contact tracing centre on 0800 030 8012. She said: There is no evidence of any community transmission of the P1 variant so far, and I am grateful to health protection teams, local clinicians and contact tracers for their efforts to contact the remaining passengers. We have used all available options and done everything possible to contact all passengers, including referring to flight manifests and telephone information from the Community Health Index to make contact. Some passengers only have international telephone numbers so it is possible they are no longer in Scotland. Ireland has now administered half a million coronavirus jabs. The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, hailed Irish progress in the pandemic, tweeting on Saturday afternoon that he had been informed by the Health Service Executive that the country had passed the half-million mark. Speaking earlier in a video posted on Twitter, Martin said he had been inspired by recent visits to vaccination centres where thousands of frontline healthcare workers were receiving the inoculation. He said the government and the HSE were doing everything they could to secure supplies and to give vaccines to people as quickly as possible. The first coronavirus vaccine in Ireland was given to a Dublin woman, Annie Lynch, on 29 December. In the UK, Prince Charles has paid tribute to the courage shown throughout the Commonwealth in response to coronavirus in a broadcast that will air on Sunday. The prince was joined by other royals, including his elder son and heir Prince William, in talking about the impact of Covid-19 in messages recorded for a programme marking Commonwealth Day dedicated to the countries, mainly from the former British empire, that maintain links with Britain. He said: The coronavirus pandemic has affected every country of the Commonwealth, cruelly robbing countless people of their lives and livelihoods, disrupting our societies and denying us the human connections which we so dearly cherish. Amidst such heartbreaking suffering, however, the extraordinary determination, courage and creativity with which people have responded has been an inspiration to us all. Commonwealth Day is usually marked with a service held at London’s Westminster Abbey, but it was cancelled this year due to the pandemic. It will be replaced by a special programme – A Celebration for Commonwealth Day – which will be broadcast on BBC One at 5pm on Sunday. US Senate passes $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief plan The US Senate has passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief plan in a party-line vote after an all-night session that saw Democrats battling among themselves over jobless aid and the Republican minority failing in attempts to push through some three dozen amendments. The final bill includes $400 billion in one-time payments of $1,400 to most Americans, $300 a week in extended jobless benefits for the 9.5 million people thrown out of work in the crisis, and $350 billion in aid to state and local governments, Reuters reports. The Senate voted 50-49, with no Republicans voting in favour, on what would be one of the largest stimulus packages in US history. The US Senate on Saturday began voting on Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan at the end of an around-the-clock session that began on Friday involving nearly two dozen preliminary votes and hours of closed-door negotiations. Democrats, who narrowly control the chamber, agreed to scale back aid to the millions who have lost their jobs in the crisis, Reuters reports. As Friday night turned to Saturday morning, they stuck together to turn back Republican attempts to modify the bill, which according to the Congressional Budget Office would be the largest stimulus package ever. If the Democratic bill becomes law, Washington will have provided about $6 trillion in emergency assistance over the past year to battle the coronavirus pandemic and help stabilise the American economy. A further 170 people have died in France France reported 23,306 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Saturday, down from 23,507 on Friday. The French health ministry reported 170 new deaths, taking the total to 88,444, Reuters reports. The number of people in intensive care rose by nine to 3,689. The Dalai Lama, the 85-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader, was administered the first shot of the coronavirus vaccine on Saturday at a hospital in the north Indian hill city of Dharamshala. After receiving the injection, he urged people to be brave and come forward to be vaccinated. “In order to prevent some serious problems, this injection is very, very helpful,” he said. Dr GD Gupta, of Zonal hospital, where the shot was administered, told reporters that the Dalai Lama was observed for 30 minutes afterwards. “He offered to come to the hospital like a common man to get himself vaccinated,” he said. Thousands of people turned out for Sydney’s 43rd Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras on Saturday, one of the world’s few Pride events allowed to go ahead. The British pop star Rita Ora closed the event with an electric performance at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where the Mardi Gras was held for the first time in the event’s history. The venue allowed crowds to stay seated while parade participants marched and danced past. Italy reports 307 more deaths Italy has reported 307 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday against 297 the day before, the health ministry said. The daily tally of new infections fell to 23,641 from 24,036 the day before, PA news reports. Some 355,024 tests for Covid-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 378,463, the health ministry said. A further 158 people have died in the UK A further 158 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK as of Saturday, bringing the total to 124,419, according to the latest official figures. The government also said that, as of 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 6,040 lab-confirmed cases in the UK. It brings the total to 4,213,343. There have been 22,887,118 jabs given in the UK so far with 21,796,278 being first doses – a rise of 437,463 on the previous day. Some 1,090,840 were second doses, an increase of 56,772. Summary Kevin Rawlinson Here’s a summary of the latest developments: Ireland reached the milestone of half a million coronavirus jabs administered. The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, hailed progress made fighting the pandemic. He said he was inspired by recent visits to vaccination centres where thousands of frontline healthcare workers are receiving the vaccine doses. The Dalia Lama had a Covid-19 vaccine administered. The Tibetan spiritual leader said: “In order to prevent some serious problems, this injection is very, very helpful.” Passengers flying indirectly to Portugal from the UK or Brazil were told they would have to present a negative test taken 72 hours before departure and quarantine for two weeks upon arrival. Reuters reported that the move was designed to close a loophole that allowed travellers from Britain and Brazil to reach Portugal by stopping over in a country from which travel was authorised. The Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari received a first Covid vaccine dose, the day after the distribution of the shots began in the west African nation. According to AFP, Buhari said he wanted to encourage all Nigerians to have the jab, although the country faces massive security and logistical challenges in delivering the vaccines. England and Wales passed the 20m mark in respect of vaccine doses administered. NHS England said about 19.25m vaccinations – whether first or second dose – had been given, while Public Health Wales reported nearly 1m more. The UK government came under increasing pressure to reverse a plan to offer health workers only a 1% pay rise. Workers representatives, the Tory party’s own and MPs and the opposition offered severe criticism of the proposal. Hundreds of thousands of people in northern France went back into lockdown. The residents of Pas-de-Calais on the north coast joined those in the region’s port of Dunkirk – and the Mediterranean resort of Nice – already shut down on Saturdays and Sundays. The UK was told the next few weeks would crucial for keeping infections down. An infectious disease expert said that, as schools reopen, there would be a rise in the reproductive number. Businesses in England will now be able to sign up to receive free rapid coronavirus tests under the UK government’s workplace testing programme. From Saturday, businesses of all sizes, including those with fewer than 50 employees, can register to order lateral flow tests for their workers, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said. FacebookTwitter 9h ago 15:55 A further 185 people who tested positive have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 84,276, NHS England says. Patients were aged between 42 and 96. All except six, aged between 54 and 84, had known underlying health conditions. The deaths were between 31 December and 5 March. There were 40 other deaths reported with no positive Covid-19 test result. More than 20m vaccine doses administered in England and Wales Health authorities in England and Wales have given 20.24m Covid vaccine doses, they have said. Provisional NHS England data shows a total of 19,258,271 vaccinations took place between 8 December and 5 March, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 422,916 on the previous day’s figures. Of this number, 18,491,771 were the first dose of a vaccine, a rise of 385,681 on the previous day, while 766,500 were a second dose, an increase of 37,235. Public Health Wales said a total of 983,419 first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have now been given, an increase of 16,377 from the previous day. The agency said 168,163 second doses had also been given, an increase of 13,344. France reintroduces lockdown measures in north of country Hundreds of thousands of people in northern France have gone back into lockdown, while health officials stepped up their nationwide vaccination campaign to make up ground after a slow start. AFP reports: The residents of Pas-de-Calais on the north coast joined those in the region’s port of Dunkirk – and the Mediterranean resort of Nice – already shut down on Saturdays and Sundays. That puts more than 2 million people across France under the weekend restrictions, required to stay at home unless they can provide a written exemption. With hospital capacity at 90% in Pas-de-Calais, the region’s prefect insisted the new restrictions were necessary to prevent local health services from being overwhelmed. Two thirds of the cases recorded there recently have been the more contagious variant first detected in England, said local officials. But with a 6pm-6am curfew already in place and non-essential shops closed there, the new restrictions will hurt already hard-pressed businesses.