UK coronavirus LIVE: Tier 4 curbs hit millions more as lockdown begins in Scotland and Northern Ireland

 Health officials in Ontario said on Saturday that two confirmed cases of the new Covid-19 variant first detected in the United Kingdom have appeared in the Canadian province.

The cases, identified in a couple in southern Ontario with no known travel history, exposure or high-risk contact, came as the province which went into a lockdown on Dec. 26

The Government has said there are still long queues on the roads leading to the Port of Dover.

The Department for Transport said in a tweet: “Although congestion has eased, there are still long queues and HGV hauliers should continue to avoid travelling to Kent.

“Drivers will not be able to cross the border without a negative Covid-19 test.”

France closed its border last Sunday following the discovery of a fast-spreading mutant Covid-19 strain in the UK, and drivers wishing to enter the country from Britain must now show proof of a negative Covid-19 test taken in the previous 72 hours.

Traffic flow has improved over Christmas Day and Boxing Day, with French firefighters and the Polish military’s Territorial Defence Force drafted in to help some 1,100 British military personnel with testing.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the vaccine rollout, calling it “a touching moment of unity”.

She said: “Today, we start turning the page on a difficult year. The Covid-19 vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries. Vaccination will begin tomorrow across the EU.”

Germany and Hungary began administering their first coronavirus vaccine shots on Saturday only hours after receiving their first shipments, upsetting the European Union’s plans for a coordinated rollout on Sunday across the bloc’s 27 nations.

“Every day that we wait is one day too many,” said Tobias Krueger, the operator of a nursing home where immunizations began Saturday in Halberstadt, in the northeast German region of Saxony-Anhalt.

The first person at the home to be immunized with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 101-year-old Edith Kwoizalla, the dpa news agency reported.

Krueger said 40 of the home’s 59 residents wanted the immunization shot along with 10 of around 40 workers. He was among those immunized but added, “I also understand the concerns.”

In Hungary, health care workers were vaccinated at the Southern Pest Central Hospital in Budapest, while authorities in Slovakia also planned to begin administering their first doses on Saturday evening.

The first shipments of the vaccine arrived at hospitals across the EU in super-cold containers late Friday and early Saturday after being sent from a manufacturing center in Belgium before Christmas.

The number of Covid-19 cases worldwide has topped 80 million.

Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University reported the mark Saturday morning after 472,000 cases were recorded Christmas Day. The number of deaths related to the coronavirus pandemic across the globe stands at 1.75 million.

The U.S. is by far the leader among nations in cases of coronavirus illness, reporting nearly 18.8 million Saturday. India follows with 10.2 million; Brazil has counted 7.45 million. There have been more than 330,000 deaths in the U.S., 190,000 in Brazil and 147,000 in India.

There have likely been many more cases of the coronavirus that have not been counted for a variety of reasons, including under-reporting, asymptomatic infections and lack of cooperation with contact tracers.

Hundreds of migrants are stranded in a burnt-out tent camp in Bosnia amid heavy snow and falling temperatures.

Migrants at the Lipa camp in north-west Bosnia wrapped themselves in blankets and sleeping bags to protect against biting winds in the region, which borders European Union member Croatia.

A fire earlier this week destroyed much of the camp near the town of Bihac which had been harshly criticised by international officials and aid groups as inadequate for housing refugees and migrants.

Authorities have failed to find new accommodation for the migrants at Lipa, leaving around 1,000 people stuck in the cold, with no facilities or heating and on meagre food parcels provided by aid groups.

“Snow has fallen, sub-zero temperatures, no heating, nothing,” the International Organisation for Migration’s chief of mission in Bosnia, Peter Van Der Auweraert, tweeted.

“This is not how anyone should live. We need political bravery and action now.”

taly reported 261 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday against 459 the day before, the health ministry said.

The daily tally of new infections increased by 10,407 from 19,037 the day before, taking the total number of cases since Italy’s epidemic began to 2,010,037.

Italy on Thursday became the eighth country in the world to exceed 2 million officially recorded cases.

The number of swab tests carried out in the past day was 81,285 from a previous 152,334, the health ministry said.

The first Western country hit by the virus, Italy has reported 70,909 deaths since its outbreak came to light on Feb. 21, the highest toll in Europe and the fifth highest in the world.

BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin said his company would be open to cooperating with others as it looks to increase production capacity for its Covid-19 vaccine developed with Pfizer and was considering opening an office in Turkey.

Sahin repeated BioNTech aimed to distribute 1.3 billion doses of its vaccine by the end of 2021 and that 70% of the world needed to be vaccinated by next winter to go back to “normal life”, according to an interview with Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

“We want to produce more than 1 billion doses with Pfizer next year. We need to distribute them to over 80 countries,” he was cited as saying. “This is not easy. Vaccines are made in a complex manner. We will start cooperating with other companies again,” he added.

“If we can carry out our plans on how to increase capacity, we can disclose it in January or February. I believe we can increase it. We don’t have a guaranteed plan yet.”

Ankara has agreed to buy 4.5 million doses of the BioNTech and Pfizer vaccine, with an option to procure 30 million more doses later.

Sahin, the son of a Turkish immigrant to Germany, told Anadolu BioNTech was in talks with Turkey’s state scientific agency Tubitak, and would aim to deliver the 30 million doses to the country by the end of 2021.

“It is a great joy to be able to help people in Turkey,” Sahin was quoted as saying by Anadolu.

The United Kingdom recorded 210 COVID-19 deaths on Saturday, down from 570 the day before, while cases rose 1,968 to 34,693, the government said, citing partial data.

The latest R number is estimated at 1.1 to 1.3, the government said.

The United Kingdom has recorded a death toll of 70,405, defined as those dying within 28 days of a positive test. Under that measure, it has the world’s sixth largest toll, after the United States, Brazil, India, Mexico and India.

A broader measure of those dying with COVID-19 on their death certificates puts the United Kingdom’s death toll at 79,349.

There have been six deaths related to Covid-19 recorded in Ireland in the past 24 hours and an additional 1,296 cases.

It brings the total number of Covid-19-related deaths in the country to 2,200.