It follows a day of confusion when Eurotunnel and the British Embassy in Paris said UK nationals would not be able to transit France to reach their homes in other countries unless traveling by air.

The French Interior Ministry told Euronews that leniency would be shown to travelers who had gone to the UK for Christmas “in good faith”, even though under France’s COVID restrictions Britons living in other EU countries did not have the right to drive through French territory. It later spelled out the policy on Twitter.

The French Interior Ministry said in a statement emailed to Euronews on Thursday afternoon that it would offer some leeway to British EU residents who had traveled to the UK for the holiday season.

“A great number of British citizens residing in European Union countries made the journey, in good faith, to the United Kingdom for the end-of-year holiday period and are experiencing difficulties in getting back to their country of residence,” the statement said.

“Faced with this situation, instructions to be lenient have been given to police staff on the borders with the United Kingdom, in order to allow these citizens to transit through France to go home to their residence in a European Union country, after this Christmas and the New Year holiday.”

Initial confusion

Fiona Navin-Jones spent the 24 hours before her trip home fretting. Would she make it, or would she have to leave her family behind?

Navin-Jones, her husband, their three young children, and their dog had spent their Christmas holiday near London with family, a celebration they missed last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

They were supposed to leave England for their home in Belgium on Thursday. But the day before their scheduled departure, Navin-Jones came upon an “urgent update” on the Eurotunnel’s Twitter account informing customers that British citizens who are not French residents could not travel through France by road to reach their country of residence in the European Union.

“It was just so bizarre,” Navin-Jones told Euronews. “We were really respectful of the rules. But we would never have traveled had this rule been clear before.”

British nationals like Navin-Jones who live in the EU and traveled to the United Kingdom for the holidays scrambled to make alternate arrangements. Much voiced frustrations on social media over what appeared to be a bungled announcement of the new rule.

Eurotunnel said its announcement was prompted by a French government decision on Tuesday, but the French Interior Ministry statement made no mention of such a decision.

The British Embassy in Paris confirmed the official restriction in an earlier tweet on Thursday, adding that British citizens could still commute through France as long as they traveled by air.

The British Embassies in Belgium and the Netherlands both said on Wednesday they were “urgently seeking clarifications” from the French government, which a UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman reiterated to Euronews on Thursday.

French restrictions

The French government earlier this month banned most travel to and from the UK due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in both countries. Since then case numbers have skyrocketed in France. More than 200,000 cases were reported in just 24 hours on Wednesday and again on Thursday.

Under those tightened guidelines, those allowed to return to France include French and EU nationals and their families, nationals of other countries residing in the EU, as well as Britons “benefitting from the agreement” on Brexit.

The French authorities said on Thursday that this last category does not include Britons living in other EU countries, who are considered “third country citizens” — adding that leniency would be shown over the holiday period.

The regulations specify that EU nationals are allowed to bring their spouses and children through France to commute to another country, regardless of their nationality.

This is also clear from the French government’s list of “compelling reasons” authorizing travel between the UK and France published in mid-December, and should cover travelers such as Fiona Navin-Jones making the journey with her family.

‘We really just went with our fingers crossed’

But once they heard the news from Eurotunnel, Navin-Jones and her family assumed that she would be denied entry into the Eurotunnel because she does not have a European passport, unlike her husband and three children.

On Thursday morning, she and her husband decided the family would all drive down to the tunnel entrance at Folkstone to see if she would be let on. If not, Navin-Jones would go back to London and take the Eurostar train directly to Brussels.

“We really went just with our fingers crossed that I would get on,” she said.

As they approached the queue, her husband told the kids to speak French, not English, just in case it helped their case. Then a car with a Dutch license plate in front of them was denied entry.

“Everybody was nervous,” she said. “We were all we were 100% prepared for me to be kicked out.”

Navin-Jones got out of her car and headed to the terminal, which she had to do to bring the dog across the border. She asked an employee if she’d be let across, and said it depended on whoever they dealt with at passport control.

“How can it be that inconsistent? How can it be down to the mood of the person in the booth? They’re kind of interpreting as they go because there’s not a clear rule,” she said.

Navin-Jones was allowed to cross. She spoke to Euronews just as she left the tunnel, relieved to be en route back to Belgium.

“I completely understand stopping tourism,” Navin-Jones said. “But I’m not a tourist, I’m trying to get home to a country I’ve lived in for 14 years, and it just feels incredibly hostile this decision.”

This article has been updated following clarifications from the French and British governments.

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From Friday until December 30, the company’s 2,900 outlets in Japan will serve only small portions of fries to avoid shortages, McDonald’s Holdings Japan announced Tuesday.

Due to “major flooding near the port of Vancouver” (western Canada) and “disruptions in global supply chains related to the coronavirus pandemic, we are experiencing supply delays,” it said in a statement.

The company explained it has taken this step to ensure that all consumers can order fries, despite “the difficulty in maintaining a stable supply of core ingredients”.

The restrictions will be put in place as schools and businesses prepare to close for the festive season.

They will apply especially on Christmas Day when long queues usually form outside KFC, a competitor of McDonald’s, whose fried chicken many Japanese associates with the holiday.

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On Monday, Boris Johnson will place English citizens at the center of an experiment that will give some indication of how well a highly populated country with surging cases of coronavirus copes when lockdown restrictions are lifted.

Boris Johnson insists that the success of the vaccine rollout means 
restrictions can be lifted despite rising cases.

The Prime Minister has acknowledged that the lifting of restrictions 
will mean further deaths.

The UK was forced to return to lockdown in early January, following an 
easing of restrictions over Christmas.

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“Those wishing to perform the hajj must be free of chronic diseases and be vaccinated” and between the ages of 18 and 65, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

“In light of what the whole world is witnessing with the coronavirus pandemic … and the emergence of new variants, the relevant authorities have continued to monitor the global health situation,” the statement added.

Last year, the kingdom reduced the number of pilgrims to about 1,000 Saudi citizens and residents to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, after barring Muslims abroad from the rite for the first time in modern times.

Two-thirds were residents from among the 160 different nationalities that would have normally been represented at the Hajj. One-third were Saudi security personnel and medical staff. This year the pilgrimage is expected to start in mid-July.

Hajj, a once-in-a-lifetime duty for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it, is a major source of income for the Saudi government.

Before the pandemic enforced social distancing globally, some 2.5 million pilgrims used to visit the holiest sites of Islam in Mecca and Medina for the week-long Hajj, and the lesser, year-round Umrah pilgrimage, which altogether earned the kingdom about $12bn a year, according to official data.

The congregation of millions of pilgrims from around the world could be a major cause of coronavirus transmission.

Saudi Arabia has so far recorded more than 463,000 coronavirus infections, including 7,536 deaths.

The health ministry says it has administered more than 15 million coronavirus vaccine doses, in a country with a population of about 34 million.

In a relaxation of coronavirus curbs last October, Saudi Arabia opened the Grand Mosque for prayers for the first time in seven months and partially resumed the Umrah pilgrimage.

The limit on Umrah pilgrims is 20,000 a day, with a total of 60,000 worshippers allowed to perform daily prayers at the mosque.

The Umrah usually attracts millions of Muslims from across the globe each year. Authorities said the Umrah would be allowed to return to full capacity once the threat of the pandemic has abated.

General view of the Kaaba at the Grand Mosque, which is almost empty of 
worshippers, after Saudi authorities suspended Umrah in 2020 amid fears of a 
coronavirus outbreak [File:Reuters]

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© UNHCR/Allana Ferreira
Women from Venezuela’s indigenous Warao refugee community attend a COVID-19 
educational session in Brazil.

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The number of global deaths that can be traced back to COVID-19 has risen above 3 million, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University published on Saturday.

The virus that surfaced in late 2019 in central China and the ensuing pandemic has infected more than 100 million people, leaving billions more under crippling lockdowns and ravaging the global economy.

How has the virus spread more recently?

Over 1 million people have died in the three months since mid-January when the death toll reached the last grim milestone.

It took eight months to reach 1 million dead and less than four months after that to reach the second million.

The pandemic continues to ravage populations around the world as more virulent variants appear and spread quickly, with some increasing the virulence of the virus.

COVID-19 deaths have continued to rise despite months-long vaccination campaigns.

However, richer countries have been slammed for hoarding vaccine doses, while countries with large populations such as India and Brazil struggle to bring down even deadlier surges in infection rates.

While the count is based on figures supplied by government agencies around the world, the real toll is believed to be significantly higher because of poor testing and many inaccurately recorded deaths, especially during the first months of the outbreak.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic been felt around the world?

Global cases and deaths continue to rise, but not uniformly across the world.

Some countries such as the UK and Portugal that had previously been hit by rampant surges have since managed to bring their case numbers down and even emerge from strict lockdowns.

Other countries have seen their earlier efforts decimated by newer, more contagious variants, such as the B117 strain first discovered in the UK.

India — with a population of over 1.3 billion — reported a record-breaking 200,000 new daily infections on Thursday after having successfully brought an earlier wave under control.

Germany, which had been praised during the first few months of the pandemic for its handling of the crisis, reported almost 30,000 new cases — among a population of just over 80 million — in one day on Thursday.

Brazil has also been particularly badly hit by the pandemic.

The country has registered a total of 361,884 COVID-19 deaths with daily deaths reaching up to 4,000.

The situation is likely down to a combination of the P1 strain — which appears to have a bigger effect on younger people — running rampant and the refusal by President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration to enforce a strict lockdown.

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The findings offer little new insight into how the virus first emerged and leave many questions unanswered. But the report does provide more detail on the reasoning behind the researchers’ conclusions.

The team proposed further research in every area except the lab leak hypothesis — a speculative theory that was promoted by former U.S. President Donald Trump among others. It also said the role played by a seafood market where human cases were first identified was uncertain.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, said he would like to see the report’s raw information first before deciding about its credibility.

“I’d also would like to inquire as to the extent in which the people who were on that group had access directly to the data that they would need to make a determination,” he said. “I want to read the report first and then get a feel for what they really had access to — or did not have access to.”

The report, which is expected to be made public Tuesday, is being closely watched since discovering the origins of the virus could help scientists prevent future pandemics — but it’s also extremely sensitive since China bristles at any suggestion that it is to blame for the current one.

Matthew Kavanagh of Georgetown University said the report deepened the understanding of the virus’s origins, but more information was needed.

“It is clear that that the Chinese government has not provided all the data needed and, until they do, firmer conclusions will be difficult,” he said in a statement.

Last year, an AP investigation found the Chinese government was strictly controlling all research into its origins. And repeated delays in the report’s release have raised questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew its conclusions.

“We’ve got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent CNN interview.

China rejected that criticism Monday.

“The U.S. has been speaking out on the report. By doing this, isn’t the U.S. trying to exert political pressure on the members of the WHO expert group?” asked Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian.

Still, suspicion of China has helped fuel the theory that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus was first identified. The report cited several reasons for all but dismissing that possibility.

It said that such laboratory accidents are rare, that the labs in Wuhan were well-managed and there is no record of viruses closely related to the coronavirus in any laboratory before December 2019.

The report is based largely on a visit by a WHO team of international experts to Wuhan. The mission was never meant to identify the exact natural source of the virus, an endeavor that typically takes years. For instance, more than 40 years of study has still failed to pinpoint the exact species of bat that are the natural reservoir of Ebola.

In the draft obtained by the AP, the researchers listed four scenarios in order of likelihood for the emergence of the new coronavirus. Topping the list was transmission from bats through another animal, which they said was likely to very likely. They evaluated direct spread from bats to humans as likely, and said that spread to humans from the packaging of “cold-chain” food products was possible but not likely.

That last possibility was previously dismissed by the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but researchers on this mission have taken it up again, further raising questions about the politicization of the study since China has long pushed the theory.

While it’s possible an infected animal contaminated packaging that was then brought to Wuhan and infected humans, the report said the probability is very low.

Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, said even that “very low probability” was an overstatement. “There’s no compelling evidence of people actually being infected through packaging,” he said, calling the theory “far-fetched.”

Woolhouse said it was possible the source of COVID-19 might never be identified.

“The emergence of a new (disease) is always a sequence of unlikely events,” he said. “It’s hard to be definitive and rule anything out.” But he said most scientists agree that bats are the most likely source.

Bats are known to carry coronaviruses and, in fact, the closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats.

The report said highly similar viruses have been found in pangolins, a scaly anteater prized in traditional Chinese medicine, but scientists have yet to identify the same coronavirus in animals that has been infecting humans.

The AP received the draft copy on Monday from a Geneva-based diplomat from a WHO-member country. It wasn’t clear whether the report might still be changed prior to release, though the diplomat said it was the final version. A second diplomat confirmed getting the report too. Both refused to be identified because they were not authorized to release it ahead of publication.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged he had received the report over the weekend and said it would be formally presented Tuesday.

“All hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies,” he said at a news conference.

The report is inconclusive on whether the outbreak started at a Wuhan seafood market that had one of the earliest clusters of human cases in December 2019. Research published last year in the journal Lancet suggested the market may have merely served to further spread the disease rather than being its source.

The market was an early suspect because some stalls sold a range of unusual animals — and some wondered if they had brought the new virus to Wuhan. The report noted that animal products — including everything from bamboo rats to deer, often frozen — were sold at the market, as were live crocodiles.

___

Ken Moritsugu reported from Beijing. Associated Press writers Maria Cheng in London, Victoria Milko in Jakarta, Indonesia, Zeke Miller in Washington, and Frank Jordans in Berlin, contributed to this report.

___

The AP Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Brazil is reeling from a new wave of infections and deaths that has pushed hospitals across the country close to the breaking point.

The German auto maker’s Brazilian unit said that starting Wednesday it would temporarily halt vehicle production “to protect the health of its employees and their families.”

More than 290,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Brazil, more than any country except the United States.

During the first wave of the pandemic last year, production at car companies operating in Brazil ground to a near-total halt, causing output to plummet 99 percent last April.

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On Monday, France’s medical regulator reversed its advice not to use the AstraZeneca jab on over-65s, and Germany’s vaccination committee is coming under increasing pressure to follow suit or even scrap prioritisation altogether.

Both countries have been slow to administer the Oxford-developed vaccine, subject to an acrimonious tug-of-war over delayed deliveries between its Swedish-British producer and the European commission in January.

The utilisation rate of the AstraZeneca jab in France stands at 24%, an official with the health ministry said on Tuesday, well below a target set at 80-85%. In Germany two-thirds of 1.4m delivered doses remained in storage on Monday.

In search of an explanation, much has been made of anecdotal reports of a reluctant public in both countries holding out for BioNTech’s “Rolls Royce vaccine”, which in early trials had shown a higher efficacy in battling Covid-19 infections.

In the western German city of Duisburg, for example, a spokesperson said 50% to 70% of appointments for an injection with the AstraZeneca jab had either been not taken up or cancelled.

But on closer inspection, AstraZeneca scepticism appears to be a local phenomenon restricted to specific regions, with logistical problems likely to play a much bigger part.

In Germany’s second largest city, Hamburg, authorities said they had experienced barely any reluctance among those who were offered the Oxford jab, but conceded that the decision to clear the vaccine only for those under 65 had created “not inconsiderable logistical problems”.

“We’d hoped that the AstraZeneca vaccine would be one of the key drivers of our programme, since its modest storage requirements meant we could have administered it via doctors’ practices before the BioNTech or Moderna vaccines,” said Martin Helfrich, a spokesperson for the northern city state’s health ministry.

The German decision not to clear the vaccine for over-65s meant authorities had to actively seek out younger people in the top priority group. Finding essential workers such as medical staff or firefighters was relatively quickly done through unions and labour associations.

But reaching younger people with pre-existing conditions was a more laborious task, with the state having to invite them by post to book an appointment over the phone, causing considerable delays.

Some cities have started trialling creative ways to shift unwanted stock: for every dose currently left over in Duisburg, specially developed software sends out text messages to three people on a list of interested volunteers. The first to respond is given an appointment to get the jab.

In France, reports of AstraZeneca hesitancy have similarly overshadowed flaws in the design of the country’s rollout strategy.

While a handful of doctors have said publicly they are not recommending the jab, and some healthcare workers have reportedly been reluctant to take it because of the side-effects experienced by some colleagues, there is little evidence that the AstraZeneca vaccine is being actively refused by the general public.

Analysts have said the large number of unused AstraZeneca doses seems to be more a result of the government focusing exclusively – and, critics argue, inflexibly – on vaccinating the oldest and most at-risk groups, such as care home residents, for whom the shot had not been approved, with no back-up plan for using spare doses.

Like most EU countries, France has also not followed the UK in extending the gap between the first and second doses of the Covid vaccine beyond the manufacturer’s recommended period, meaning it has to keep more in reserve for early second doses.

As millions of doses by AstraZeneca, BioNTech and Moderna are due to arrive across the EU this month, the problem in France and Germany is shifting from one of under-supply to that of doctors not being able to get the vaccine into people’s arms quickly enough.

If Germany were to continue vaccinating people at its current pace, Die Welt newspaper calculated on Monday, the country would have piled up almost 5m unused doses by the third week of March.

France’s slow rollout is set to accelerate significantly, with general practitioners authorised to administer shots since last week and pharmacies following suit this week after a ruling by the country’s health regulator on Tuesday.

The French health minister, Olivier Véran, said France should deliver 6m first jabs in March, double the number given during the first two months of the inoculation campaign. The prime minister, Jean Castex, said last week that all over-50s would be offered a jab by mid-May.

In Germany, too, GPs will eventually be drawn into the vaccination rollout, though not until the country receives about 3m doses a week, meaning doctors will not be in a position to choose some of their patients over others.

In Hamburg, the health ministry spokesperson said he expected there to be a “tetchy period” in early April, when the city’s vaccination centres are running at full capacity but there are not yet enough doses to supply to GPs.

In the meantime, there is still room for making the German operation run more efficiently in its current form. Six of the country’s 16 states on Monday were reported to have vaccinated no people on Sunday whatsoever.

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