Beijing’s city government on Sunday introduced new measures to contain an Omicron outbreak, as China’s capital continued to report new local cases of the virus less than two weeks before it hosts the Winter Olympic Games.

The National Health Commission said nine locally transmitted cases were found in Beijing on Saturday, of which six were in Fengtai district.

Fengtai – a large district southwest of the city centre which is home to some to 2.2 million people – will organise PCR or equivalent tests for all of its residents on Sunday, district health authorities said.

Authorities said they have asked residents of “risky areas” to not leave the city, adding that Fengtai residents were asked to avoid mass gatherings.

Reuters reports that some nurseries in Fengtai have told parents that unvaccinated children will not be allowed to attend.

Mainland China reported 56 new Covid cases on Saturday, down from 63 the day before.

Scotland will offer reprieve to those worried about close contact after the end of coronavirus rules by handing out free badges and lanyards which identify a desire to distance.

They will be adorned with shield logos and can be worn in public by people who are at high risk or concerned about the virus as a way of showing they want to be given more room or treated with added care.

The voluntary Distance Aware scheme was launched by Welsh think tank the Bevan Commission after research found almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of people most at risk said they would like to signal to others to give them extra space.

The Scottish government said it has invested £55,500 to buy and distribute badges and lanyards, as well as promote the scheme.

From 26 January, the badges and lanyards will be available free from all community and mobile libraries in Scotland and in Asda stores.

Russia has reported a new record number of daily Covid-19 for the third day in a row.

New cases jumped to 63,205 from the previous record of 57,212 a day earlier. The government’s coronavirus task force also reported 679 deaths.

Russia has reported more than 325,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic — by far Europe’s worst death toll. But by deaths per capita Russia fares better than the UK and Belgium.

Around half of Russia’s 146 million people have been fully vaccinated, a relatively low proportion.

Maria van Kerkhove, the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s technical lead for Covid-19, said it would be “premature” to end the requirement to self-isolate when infected.

The UK government is likely to lift the legal mandate in the coming weeks. The current rules expire on 24 March but Boris Johnson said he would bring the date forward if Covid data was encouraging.

Clinically vulnerable people have raised concern that they will be “marginalised” as the country lifts restrictions.

Asked about the end to isolation in a BBC interview, Ms van Kerhove said: “I think it’s premature. I think there needs to be a clear reason of why it’s being dropped.

“If you don’t isolate cases then the virus will spread between people.”

The boss of Pfizer said annual vaccination against Covid-19 would be preferable to more frequent booster jabs.

Many countries are offering boosters a few months after second doses but it is so far unclear how the distribution of vaccines will develop in future.

Albert Bourla, chief executive of Pfizer, was asked in an interview with Israel’s N12 News, whether he expected booster shots to be administered every four to five months on a regular basis.

He said: “This will not be a good scenario. What I’m hoping (is) that we will have a vaccine that you will have to do once a year,” Bourla said.

“Once a year – it is easier to convince people to do it. It is easier for people to remember.

“So from a public health perspective, it is an ideal situation. We are looking to see if we can create a vaccine that covers Omicron and doesn’t forget the other variants and that could be a solution.”

Following up on that last post on the attacks faced by the government’s Covid modellers, Samuel Lovett, Science Correspondent, has spoken to some of the members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling.

You can read their defence of their influential work here:

Senior scientific advisers have said that repeated attacks against the government’s Covid modellers threaten to erode public trust and undermine future pandemic responses, writes Samuel Lovett.

Multiple members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) – a sub-committee of Sage – told The Independent they were concerned by the “knock-on effect” of the criticism they have received in recent weeks for their modelling of the Omicron wave.

Fellow scientists and MPs have accused the advisers of bouncing the UK into repeated lockdowns and creating a “climate of manipulated fear”. SPI-M members fear such attacks will weaken trust in the modelling and hinder decision-making in the face of dangerous new Covid variants or future pandemics.

Professor John Edmunds, a SPI-M member, said there has been both “wilful misinterpretation” and a “genuine misunderstanding” of the group’s recent modelling, which did not predict what would happen over winter, but instead provided a variety of scenarios for ministers to review, ranging from the best to the worst.

This explains why one of the scenarios showed that 6,000 people could die a day, with tens of thousands of daily hospitalisations, the experts said. “The newspapers tend to emphasise the worst-case scenario, so that’s the stuff that gets reported,” said Prof Edmunds.

Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said compulsory vaccination for NHS workers in England was “not the right way forward”.

He said while most staff were fully vaccinated there remain around 80,000, or 10 per cent, who would be barred from the workplace if jabs were made compulsory. It would have “massive consequences” for the NHS, he told the BBC.

He called for a delay to the 1 April deadline to allow time for booster jabs and a “sensible conversation” about whether vaccines should be mandatory.

NHS workers yesterday protestes against the policy in cities around England.

The government is reportedly considering pausing the mandatory vaccine policy over fears of staff shortages.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, has postponed her own wedding after introducing new Covid-19 restrictions.

She said stricter rules were needed after nine cases of the Omicron variant were detected in a single family that flew to Auckland earlier this month.

The prime minister had planned to get married next weekend.

“I just join many other New Zealanders who have had an experience like that as a result of the pandemic and to anyone who’s caught up in that scenario, I am so sorry,” she said.

The so-called “red setting” of the country’s pandemic response includes heightened measures such as required mask wearing and limits on gatherings, and the restrictions will go into effect on Monday.

Ms Ardern stressed that “red is not lockdown”, noting that businesses can remain open and people can still visit family and friends and move freely around the country.

New Zealand was among the few remaining countries to have avoided an Omicron outbreak but Ms Ardern acknowledged last week an outbreak was inevitable given the high transmissibility of the variant.