Coronavirus live news: Pfizer vaccine works on Brazil variant; US airlines ask

The French Pacific territories of New Caledonia and Wallis & Futuna have been forced into sudden lockdowns with Covid-19 outbreaks across both archipelagoes.

New Caledonia went into an immediate lockdown from midnight Tuesday after nine cases were detected in Noumea, with the source of infection believed to be passengers who had arrived from Wallis & Futuna.

Wallis & Futuna – a collection of islands between Fiji and Samoa – was rushed into a fortnight-long lockdown from Tuesday morning, after testing on Monday revealed 12 coronavirus cases in the community.

Previously, the two territories were the only French territories in the Pacific to remain Covid-free. Travel between the two territories had been unrestricted – because both were Covid-free (outsiders were required to quarantine) – but all flights have now been suspended.

The US House of Representatives will take up by Wednesday the Senate version of the sweeping $1.9tn coronavirus relief package backed by President Joe Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday.

Closing in on final approval of one of the biggest US anti-poverty measures since the 1960s, Democrats aim to enact the massive legislation by Sunday, when enhanced federal unemployment benefits are set to expire.

The Senate passed its version of the bill after a marathon overnight vote on Saturday. The Senate version eliminated or pared back some provisions included in the House bill, which had increased the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and extended expanded jobless assistance through 29 August.

Now that it has passed the Senate, it must be approved again by the House before it can make its way to Biden’s desk and be signed into law.

Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol that the timing of a vote on the House floor “depends on when we get the paper from the Senate.”

“We’d take it up Wednesday morning at the latest,” she said.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman approved a range of initiatives aimed at assisting firms and individuals operating in support of Islamic pilgrimages, Saudi state news agency SPA said late on Monday.

Reuters: The initiatives are aimed at mitigating the financial and economic effects of the Covid pandemic across the sector that provides support for the haj and umrah pilgrimages, SPA said.

They include exempting accommodation facilities from the annual fees for municipal commercial activities’ licenses in the cities of Mecca and Medina, where the Islamic pilgrimages take place.

And now for a break to… watch a sea slug and its decapitated head:

The Netherlands will extend its controversial coronavirus curfew until March 31 with exceptions for a general election next week, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Monday, AFP reports.

Four days of riots broke out when the overnight curfew, the first in the Netherlands since the Nazi occupation during World War II, was introduced on January 23.

The 9:00 pm to 4:30 am curfew had been due to end on March 15 but “now continues until the morning of Wednesday the 31st,” Rutte told a press conference.

“A few exceptions apply for the three days of the elections” from March 15 to 17 “because curfews cannot and must not stand in the way of free elections”, he added.

Anyone who could not vote before the start of the curfew at 9:00 pm “can simply do that without hindrance and go home”, said Rutte.

Election workers and volunteers needed written proof from local councils.

Restaurants, bars and cannabis coffee shops will remain takeaway only, as they have done since October, said Rutte. But other restrictions will be slightly relaxed, including more customers allowed in large shops.

Schools have already reopened in recent weeks.

A Dutch appeals court upheld the coronavirus curfew in February after a lower court ruled that it was illegal and should immediately be lifted.

Greece on Monday mourned a 37-day-old baby, the youngest among the country’s nearly 6,800 Covid-19 victims, AFP reports.

“Sadly today we had the pandemic’s youngest…