The severity of the UK's coronavirus crisis deepened over the Christmas and early January period, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday, with 5,576 excess deaths recorded in the week ending January 8, the worst weekly total since last spring. Across the UK as a whole, there have been almost 95,000 excess deaths since the middle of March last year with the total almost certainly now above 100,000, with Covid-19 recorded as the most common cause of death. Excess deaths rose in all areas in England and Wales as the wave of infections worsened, but were highest in London where they were 84.8 per cent above the five-year average for the first week in January. The ONS cautioned, however, that the figures might have been distorted by registration delays from the Christmas and New Year period. For most of the second wave of coronavirus, excess deaths have been lower than the daily reported figure, suggesting some of those dying after testing positive would have died anyway. But this trend weakened during December and excess deaths rose to the levels seen in the daily data as infection rates increased. With deaths rising rapidly, the ONS also estimated that one in eight people in England tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies in December, indicating they had already had the disease, the highest rate since the survey began. Positive antibody rates were highest in Yorkshire and London at over 16 per cent and lowest in the South West of England at just under 5 per cent.

Banks are squeezing the supply of loans to European businesses and households in expectation of higher bad loans due to the impact of fresh coronavirus lockdowns, a European Central Bank report showed. The ECB's quarterly survey of banks found a growing proportion of them are tightening their lending conditions - particularly in France - in a worrying sign for the pandemic-stricken eurozone economy and for the central bank's efforts to avoid a credit crunch. “The tightening was driven mainly by banks’ heightened risk perceptions, reflecting uncertainty around the economic recovery and concerns about borrowers’ creditworthiness in the context of renewed coronavirus-related restrictions,” the ECB said. A growing number of banks said they had tightened their internal guidelines or borrower approval criteria for new loans to businesses, mortgages to households and credit to consumers. The pull-back by banks will be a concern for ECB officials as they meet to discuss monetary policy on Thursday. They are expected to keep it unchanged and to underline their determination to maintain “favourable financing conditions” to support an expected economic recovery this year.

Hong Kong’s unemployment rate hit a 16-year high as the territory’s economy was battered by the coronavirus epidemic. The jobless figure for October to December rose to 6.6 per cent, a 0.3 per cent increase from the previous three months. The retail, accommodation and food sectors suffered from stringent social distancing measures introduced by the government. "As the fourth wave of the local epidemic continues to weigh on local consumption sentiment and disrupt economic activities, the labour market will remain under notable pressure in the near term,” said Law Chi-kwong, the secretary for labour and welfare. A government employment support scheme that expired towards the end of November is also believed to be one of the main factors behind the rising number. “At the moment I understand we have no plans to extend the Employment Support Scheme and hence, I can foresee that the unemployment figures that the government is going to announce this afternoon will be bad.” said chief executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday. Confirmed cases in Asia’s financial hub hit almost 10,000, with 164 deaths.

Global oil demand will be lower in 2021 than previously expected, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday, as renewed lockdowns to contain the coronavirus pandemic hit consumption. The IEA said oil demand would be 600,000 barrels a day lower than previously forecast in the first quarter of 2021 and 300,000 b/d lower for the year as a whole, although it still expects a strong recovery in the second half of the year as vaccinations accelerate. “It will take more time for oil demand to recover fully as renewed lockdowns in a number of countries weigh on fuel sales,” the IEA said in its closely watched monthly report. “[But] the global vaccine rollout is putting fundamentals on a stronger trajectory for the year.” Overall global oil demand is now expected to rise by 5.5m b/d in 2021 to 96.6m b/d after falling by 8.8m b/d in 2020. But it is not expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels of around 100m b/d until 2022 at the earliest. By the fourth quarter of this year demand is forecast to reach just 99m b/d, although this does imply a recovery between now and March of roughly 5m b/d.

Coronavirus-induced lockdowns that forced it to close its stores have caused losses at Superdry to balloon, with the clothes retailer expecting "prolonged store closures and subdued footfall" in the next few months. The clothes retailer lost £18.9m before tax in the 26 weeks to October, compared with a £4.2m loss in the same period last year, it said on Tuesday. Lockdowns have cost it 23 per cent of trading days in the period, with nearly three-quarters of Superdry's stores closed as of January 9. The Covid-19 pandemic meant it will "take time to see the benefits of all our hard work flow through to the results", said Julian Dunkerton, Superdry’s co-founder and chief executive. Sales dropped 23 per cent to £282.7m in the period, but online sales increased 50 per cent year on year to make up half its revenue. A recent marketing partnership with Brazilian football player Neymar Jr showed it was making "great progress with our influencer-led digital marketing strategy".

The United Arab Emirates is accelerating the rollout of its coronavirus vaccines as the Gulf federation seeks to overtake its newfound ally Israel as the world’s most inoculated nation. The UAE, which has vaccinated around 20 per cent of the population, is starting to catch up with Israel, which leads with a 29 per cent rate. “We are just behind Israel in terms of vaccination,” Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, said earlier this month. “Our intention is to surpass Israel.” Dubai this week has widened the provision of its batch of the BioNtech-Pfizer vaccine, opening a new 4,000-a-day vaccination facility at an office block in the emirate’s financial district. Workers at government departments, including the utilities company and municipality, were being inoculated on Sunday and Monday. Over the past few weeks, Dubai has reserved the Pfizer vaccine for nationals and expatriates over the age of 60 or with medical conditions. This week, expatriates of all ages were offered the jab at the new facility - when there was spare capacity. However many were being turned away on Monday afternoon. “We aren’t doing any more walk-ins for now,” said one official. “We just had too many people.” Emirates, the state-owned airline, this week also launched a programme offering both Pfizer and Sinopharm shots to its employees, prioritising frontline staff such as cabin crew and pilots. Employees are to be offered the jab at the company’s medical facilities across the country, including at Dubai airport. The ramp-up in Dubai has been complemented by the UAE federal authorities and the capital of Abu Dhabi, which have been providing the Chinese-produced Sinopharm jab across the UAE.

Online electrical retailer AO World maintained its strong 2020 momentum as it enjoyed its best ever trading period in the run-up to Christmas, buffeted by booming sales in the UK and Germany. UK third-quarter sales at the European white goods retailer shot 67.2 per cent higher to £457.3m and rose 77.4 per cent to €73.6m in Germany compared with the same period a year earlier. "We've seen 10 years of change in 10 months, and experienced our strongest ever peak trading period,” John Roberts, AO founder and chief executive, said in the group’s latest update that covers the three months to December 31. “One of our biggest achievements this period is to have our German business profitable throughout the third quarter.” The group swung to a profit in the first half and said in November that it expected its German unit to become profitable next year. Shares in the online retailer have more than quadrupled over the past 12 months. “We look forward to the last quarter and the next financial year with confidence,” Mr Roberts said. The group expects to benefit from people using their electrical products more as they work from home. The group incurred “significantly higher costs” from changes to comply with coronavirus regulations while the impact of the pandemic on consumers drove a “slightly increased” rate of cancellation of long-term contracts in mobile and warranties, its update on Tuesday said.

Shopping centre owner Hammerson has collected less than half the rent it is owed by retailers in its malls, adding to pressure on the pandemic-hit company. Hammerson, which owns malls including the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham and Brent Cross in London, said on Tuesday that it has received 41 per cent of the rent owed for the first three months of the year, which tenants typically pay in advance. The landlord has agreed to defer £12.9m in payments to a later date, and has collected £19.8m of the £48.6m it was due for the period. Restrictions imposed to contain the virus have forced all but essential shops in its malls to close. The group’s unpaid rent bill has edged up thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, with £72.5m in arrears built up since the start of 2020. The latest lockdown means that only a quarter of Hammerson’s UK tenants are permitted to open, and its French malls are subject to a 6pm curfew. “Market conditions have remained challenging since our last update in October," the company said in a statement on Tuesday, "with national lockdowns introduced in the UK, Ireland, and France in November, and significant restrictions in place across the portfolio through December." Hammerson has been among the landlords hardest hit by coronavirus, which has battered the retail sector and added to the pressure on shopping centres, which were already suffering from the loss of customers to online rivals prior to the pandemic.

The cost of shipping goods from China to Europe has more than tripled in the past eight weeks, hitting record highs as a shortage of empty containers stemming from the pandemic disrupts global trade. The cost of shipping a 40ft container from Asia to northern Europe has increased from about $2,000 in November to more than $9,000, according to shippers and importers. Lars Jensen at consultancy SeaIntelligence said: “It’s a bottleneck problem . . . These rates are being driven by customers fighting over a limited resource — containers.” Thousands of empty containers were left in Europe and the US in the first half of 2020 when shipping lines cancelled hundreds of sailings as coronavirus lockdowns caused a sudden slowdown in global trade. When western demand for Asian-made goods rebounded in the second half of the year, competition among shippers for available containers sent freight rates soaring. Read more here

Australia’s chief medical officer has said the country will return to ‘some sort of normal’ this year following its Covid-19 vaccination programme, but international travel is still some time away. Paul Kelly said the vaccine effort would not allow Australia to reopen its borders, as other parts of the world were still experiencing high infection levels. “There will be a process through 2021 of returning to some sort of normal,” he said. “We’re in such an envious position at the moment compared to the rest of the world . . . unfortunately international border changes will be one of the last things to change, not the first.” Mr Kelly said Australia was assessing countries that might be suitable for travel bubbles, such as New Zealand and Pacific islands. Separately on Tuesday, Daniel Andrews, Victoria’s premier, said a number of people arriving on flights for the Australian Open who tested positive for coronavirus may be reclassified as cases of viral shedding. A handful of people who landed in the country for the tennis tournament in Melbourne tested positive for the virus, sending all other passengers on their flights, including more than 70 tennis players, into strict quarantine. Mr Andrews said the new classifications might allow authorities to loosen the quarantine rules for people on those flights. However, he reiterated that the tournament participants would not receive special treatment. “They knew what they were travelling into, and we’re not cutting corners, we’re not making special arrangements,” he said. Confined to their rooms, some professional tennis players demonstrated on social media how they’ve adapted objects in the hotels, such as mattresses and windows, as training equipment.

Global stocks rose ahead of Treasury secretary nominee Janet Yellen’s confirmation hearing in Washington, where she will make the case for large-scale fiscal stimulus to cushion the economic blow from Covid-19. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 2.2 per cent in early trading in Asia on Tuesday to touch a 20-month high while South Korea’s Kospi added 2.3 per cent. Japan’s benchmark Topix climbed 0.6 per cent. Prepared remarks obtained by the Financial Times show Ms Yellen will voice strong support for President-elect Joe Biden’s $1.9tn relief package on Tuesday, arguing that “with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big”. “In the long run, I believe the benefits will far outweigh the costs, especially if we care about helping people who have been struggling for a very long time,” the former Federal Reserve chair will tell the Senate finance committee. Futures for Wall Street’s S&P 500 were 0.5 per cent higher during Asian trading, with the US market set to resume trading on Tuesday following Martin Luther King Day. Futures for London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.6 per cent. Read more here

India’s Covid-19 vaccination rollout continues to be hampered by public suspicion and technical difficulties, with only about half of those designated to receive the jab turning up to get it. On Monday, 148,266 Indians received the first dose of the vaccine. That is far short of the more than 3m daily jabs that analysts say is necessary to fulfil the government’s ambitious target of vaccinating 300m Indians by the end of August. In total, 381,305 people in India have received a first dose of vaccine since Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the vaccination campaign on Saturday. The programme has been hit by a lack of public confidence in Covaxin, a domestically-developed vaccine that Indian regulators approved for use in “a clinical trial mode” despite the lack of any phase three efficacy studies. Many frontline health workers, who have been given priority access, have balked at taking the Bharat Biotech-developed vaccine and instead requested access to Covishield, a locally produced version of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab. In India’s capital New Delhi, less than half of the 8,100 healthcare workers slated for vaccination on Monday turned up to receive the jab. The drive has also been hit by glitches with the government’s IT platform, CoWIN, which is supposed to send text messages to those chosen for vaccination and then authenticating recipients ahead of their jabs. Authorities say some people appear not to be receiving text messages advising them when to turn up for their shots. Officials are now working to create more flexibility in the IT system by next week. The sluggish start to the vaccination campaign comes as India’s new coronavirus caseload continues to drop, with less than 10,000 new cases confirmed nationwide on Monday, though that partly reflects the low levels of testing on a Sunday.

A Chinese broadcaster has retaliated against England’s Premier League, escalating a legal feud over the collapse of their $700m contract during the coronavirus pandemic. The Premier League sued a streaming service owned by Chinese retail conglomerate Suning for $215m last year for failing to make payments for the rights to screen live matches and highlights. PPLive Sports International is now countersuing, claiming at least $116.8m from the Premier League. The dispute relates to payments for the live transmission of matches in the Premier League — the world’s richest domestic football competition — after the pandemic forced scheduling changes on broadcasters. Read more here

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said the city will expand mandatory coronavirus testing within a neighbourhood that has recorded an outbreak in a series of buildings and will extend social distancing measures. The city reported 102 locally-transmitted infections on Monday, its highest single-day tally since early December. Ms Lam said the recent increase in daily infections had raised concerns. Authorities will impose mandatory testing on residents of a “core zone” in the Jordan and Yau Ma Tei areas of Kowloon following a cluster of cases in the neighbourhood. Ms Lam said mandatory testing for the affected buildings had been helpful in catching asymptomatic cases, with up to 40 per cent of those testing positive reporting no symptoms of Covid-19. Social distancing measures, set to expire on Thursday, will also be extended citywide. Ms Lam said the government has received “strong views” from different sectors of the economy and will examine whether measures can be more targeted.

The Trump administration moved to lift its travel ban on people arriving from the UK and much of Europe, but a spokesman for Joe Biden said the president-elect would keep the restrictions in place to stop the spread of coronavirus. The White House said on Monday night it would lift bans on non-US citizens arriving from the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the 26-nation Schengen common visa area and Brazil that have been in force since early last year. However, the new rules would go into effect on January 26, six days after Mr Biden’s inauguration, and a spokesman for the president-elect said he planned to keep the travel bans in place. “With the pandemic worsening, and more contagious variants emerging around the world, this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel,” Jen Psaki, Mr Biden’s incoming White House press secretary, wrote on Twitter. Read more here

Colombia’s defence minister is receiving permanent medical attention in a critical care unit in Bogotá’s military hospital after contracting coronavirus, the presidency said on Monday. Carlos Holmes, who is 69 and suffers from high blood pressure, tested positive for Covid-19 last week. He initially received treatment in a hospital in Barranquilla but was flown to the capital when his condition worsened. The government said the head of the armed forces, General Luis Fernando Navarro, would run the ministry in Mr Holmes’s absence. Colombia is tackling a particularly virulent second wave of Covid-19. Financial Times analysis shows that on a seven-day rolling average, the country has notched more cases per capita than Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru or Chile. On Friday, it recorded over 21,000 new cases in a single 24-hour period — its highest daily total yet. The country of 50m people has registered more than 1.9m cases — the 11th highest total in the world — and more than 49,000 deaths. Last week, foreign minister Claudia Blum became the latest high-ranking politician to test positive. Vice-president Marta Lucía Ramírez, the mayor of Medellín, the country’s second-largest city, and former president Álvaro Uribe are among other politicians who have caught the virus. Parts of Bogotá and other cities have returned to strict lockdowns in recent weeks after several months of more relaxed rules.

The number of people receiving hospital treatment for Covid-19 in the US fell to 123,848 on Monday, dropping for the sixth consecutive day. Figures from the Covid Tracking Project showed the number of hospitalisations for the disease had fallen from 124,387 a day earlier, while the seven-day average nudged lower to 127,468. The number of people receiving hospital treatment for the virus has fallen in recent days after climbing above 130,000 in early January. States reported a total of 1,393 deaths, down from 2,044 a day earlier. The daily tally of fatalities climbed above 4,000 in early January, but this has also slowed in recent days. The US is approaching 400,000 Covid-19 fatalities, with the Covid Tracking Project recording 390,262 total deaths in the country. But the number of new cases also fell on Monday, coming in at 150,385, compared with 185,518 a day earlier. Figures for weekends and public holidays tend to be lower than those during the week because of disruptions to record taking.

Asia-Pacific stocks rose on Tuesday ahead of Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration and bank earnings in the US. The Topix in Japan was up 0.4 per cent, the Kospi in South Korea added 0.8 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 1 per cent. Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are set to report earnings for the three months to December on Tuesday, along with Netflix. Moves in European equities were muted on Monday and US markets were closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax closed 0.4 per cent higher, while the FTSE 100 in London dipped 0.2 per cent following stronger than expected economic data from China. S&P 500 futures were up 0.4 per cent.

The backlog of crown court cases is causing “grave concerns” amongst the government inspectors who monitor the justice system, a new report has found. The study which looked at the impact of the pandemic on the Criminal Justice System has concluded that the greatest risk to criminal justice in England and Wales comes from the “unprecedented and very serious” backlog in court cases which is having a ripple impact on all parts of the justice system. The case backlog predates the coronavirus pandemic but the situation has been exacerbated by Covid-19 after crown courts were closed and jury trials were temporarily suspended for two months last year. Since then numbers of hearings have fallen because two or three video-linked courtrooms are now needed for each trial due to social distancing measures. The number of outstanding cases in crown courts in England and Wales rose from 39,318 in early March to 53,318 in late November, according to HM Courts and Tribunals Service which has opened a number of new temporary “Nightingale” courts to help ease pressure on the system. The government’s four chief justice inspectors — who monitor the probation service, police, prison and the Crown Prosecution Service—- have united in the latest report to express “grave concerns” about the impact of Covid-19-related court backlogs across England and Wales. The chief inspectors, who will testify before lawmakers at the justice committee on Tuesday, point to difficulties and lengthy waits at all stages of the criminal justice process that “benefit no one and risk damage to many”. Justin Russell, chief inspector of probation, said: “Crown Courts deal with the most serious cases, so this backlog concerns us all. The Covid-19 pandemic has meant severe delays and numerous cancellations throughout 2020, and this has had a negative impact on everyone involved." David Lammy, Labour’s shadow justice secretary, called the report “damning” and said the government had “dithered” allowing the backlog to grow. The Crown Prosecution Service said: “Safely reducing the backlog of court cases is vital so we can ease pressure on prosecutors and continue to deliver justice. We are working urgently with partners to achieve this.” The Ministry of Justice said: “In recognition of the scale of the challenge we face, the government is investing £450m to boost recovery in the courts and deliver swifter justice, and this is already yielding results — the magistrates’ backlog continues to fall and Crown Courts cases reached pre-pandemic levels last month.”

Pandemics and business interruption have shot to the top of an annual survey of business risks compiled by insurer Allianz, as companies around the world brace themselves for another difficult year. Covid-19 has pushed the risk of business interruption — such as threats to supply chains — into the top spot in the survey of 2792 business people in 92 countries for Allianz’s annual Risk Barometer. It was in second place last year. Pandemics came in at number two. The threat of a pandemic has not always figured highly on the list — over the past three years it was at number 16, number 17 and number 19 as businesses worried more about natural catastrophes, climate change and new technology. Cyber threats are down from the top spot to number three. Climate change, technology, and reputational risks also slipped down the rankings. “The Allianz Risk Barometer 2021 is clearly dominated by the Covid-19 trio of risks. Business interruption, pandemic and cyber are strongly interlinked, demonstrating the growing vulnerabilities of our highly globalized and connected world,” said Joachim Müller, CEO of Allianz’s Global Corporate and Specialty division, which put the survey together. “While the pandemic continues to have a firm grip on countries around the world, we also have to ready ourselves for more frequent extreme scenarios, such as a global-scale cloud outage or cyber-attack, natural disasters driven by climate change or even another disease outbreak,” he added.