The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines

Sweden's Göteborg Film Festival has gone digital this year and chosen one lucky film enthusiast to experience its Isolated Cinema on a remote lighthouse island.

Emergency nurse Lisa Enroth will spend seven days in the cabin of Pater Noster Lighthouse on Hamneskär island, with only movies and the sea for company.

The festival reviewed more than 12,000 applicants from 45 countries before settling on the nurse who spent the last year on the front lines fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Through my work in healthcare I seem to have spent ages listening, testing and consoling. I feel like I’m drained of energy," said Enroth in a statement. "The wind, the sea, the possibility of being part of a totally different kind of reality for a week – all this is really attractive."

Enroth, from Skövde, Sweden, won't be allowed a cellphone, a laptop, a book, or any other distractions from January 30 to February 6. She will create a daily video diary that will allow the world to watch her experience.

Like many recent film festivals, Göteborg will be virtual in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, but organizers decided to offer one festival-goer a totally different experience.

"And in these troubled times it feels particularly right to be able to give this unique experience to one of the many heroes of the healthcare system who are all working so hard against COVID-19,” said the chief executive of the festival, Mirja Wester.

The lighthouse was deactivated in recent years, and the lighthouse cabin was recently renovated by design agency Stylt, so Enroth will be able to relax in comfort and style.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated the name of nurse Lisa Enroth.

Crowds of up to 30,000 people per day will be allowed for the opening week of the Australia Open, announced the minister for sport in Australia’s state of Victoria, Martin Pakula, and Tennis Australia CEO, Craig Tiley.

During a press conference on Saturday morning, Pakula said Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has signed off on the spectator numbers.

"We're really looking forward to welcoming fans to Melbourne Park for the @AustralianOpen @ATPCup and Melbourne Summer Series starting tomorrow," said Tiley in a tweet.

Thousands of cheering fans packed the stands on Friday to watch some of tennis' biggest stars warm up for the Australian Open -- with hardly a face mask to be seen.

In an unusual scene for the coronavirus pandemic, the 4,000-strong crowd sat cheek by jowl as big hitters including Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka emerged from their 14-day quarantine to play exhibition matches ahead of the first grand slam of the year in Melbourne next month.

Australia's tough approach to the coronavirus has been controversial ahead of the Open, with some players arriving from overseas frustrated to find themselves in quarantine.

Some took to social media to complain while others issued lists of demands to Australian authorities. But speaking to CNN from quarantine earlier this week, Nadal said his fellow stars should have a "wider perspective."

The Australian Open will begin on February 8 in Melbourne and run for two weeks. Friday's exhibition matches were the official curtain raiser for the international tennis competition and saw Williams and Novak Djokovic win hard-fought matches.

The World Health Organization team of international scientists investigating the origins of Covid-19 in Wuhan spent Saturday visiting a hospital that treated some of the Chinese city's most severe coronavirus cases last year.

The team started its investigation Friday with a visit to the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, which treated some of the first known coronavirus patients.

On Saturday, the group went to Jinyintan Hospital. One of the scientists, British-Americam Peter Daszak, tweeted: 

The Trump administration spent $200 million sending thousands of ventilators around the world, starting weeks after the former President touted America as the "king of ventilators," but without any established way to locate them, the Government Accountability Office found in a report released Thursday.

A total of 150 ventilators went to countries with zero new cases per day on the date the government committed to sending the life-saving machines overseas, as the US edged closer to a shortage of its own. Kiribati and Nauru, two of the countries that received a total of 20 ventilators, have never had a confirmed case, according to the World Health Organization.

From late May to late September, the previous administration committed to sending 8,722 ventilators to 43 countries, but with no clear criteria for determining which countries need ventilators or how many to send, the GAO found.

Read more here:

RELATED

US sent ventilators around the world but can't find many now, watchdog finds

Americans will have to wear a mask while using any form of public transportation -- including buses, trains, taxis, planes, boats, subways or rideshare vehicles -- from late Monday to slow the spread of Covid-19, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced.

The order goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. ET Monday.

The order, signed by Dr. Martin Cetron, director of CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, says people must wear a mask that covers the nose and mouth while on public transportation and while waiting for their ride. The mask needs to feature at least two layers of breathable fabric and secured to the head with ties, ear loops or elastic bands. 

Masks need to fit snugly and should not have exhalation valves or punctures. If someone chooses to wear a gaiter, it must be made with two layers of fabric or folded to have two layers. Face shields and goggles can supplement a mask, but cannot be worn in place of a mask. Scarves and bandanas do not fulfill the new requirement.

Children under the age of 2 or people with a disability who cannot wear a mask are exempt. 

In the order, which was announced late Friday, CDC said it reserves the right to enforce it through criminal penalties, but it “strongly encourages and anticipates widespread voluntary compliance" and expects support from other federal agencies.

The order will stay in effect until further notice.

The move comes after US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on January 21 that mandated interstate travelers wear a mask. On his first day in office, Biden challenged Americans to wear a mask for 100 days to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, says colleagues in South Africa have told him some patients there have been reinfected with the coronavirus due to the new, more contagious, variant. 

However, Fauci said vaccination appears to be "good or better than natural infection in preventing further infection."

"The vaccine itself appears to be better at inducing that kind of protection because they had anywhere from 50 to 88% efficacy against severe disease," said Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

At least 434 cases of a coronavirus strain first identified in the UK have been detected in 30 US states, according to data posted Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That’s over 100 more cases than the CDC’s last update on Wednesday.

The current total includes 125 cases in Florida, 113 in California, 42 in New York and 22 in Michigan. The rest have fewer than 20 known cases each.

The variant -- which is known as B.1.1.7 and appears to spread more easily -- has also been found in at least 70 countries worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

In addition, South Carolina reported the first two US cases of another strain first seen in South Africa, which is called B.1.351 and has been found in more than 30 other countries. Minnesota health officials have also reported one case of the P.1 strain first linked to Brazil, which has been detected in at least eight countries.

The CDC says this does not represent the total number of such cases circulating in the US, but rather just those that have been found by analyzing positive samples. The agency cautions that its numbers may not immediately match those of state and local health departments.

Colombia will start mass vaccinations on February 20, President Ivan Duque announced on Friday. 

The Andean country will receive a mix of privately purchased vaccine doses as well as 20 million shots purchased through the Covax mechanism in order to vaccinate its 35 million citizens, Duque said in his daily television address to the nation. 

Colombia has reported more than 2 million coronavirus cases and more than 53,000 related deaths during the pandemic. On Tuesday, Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo died due to Covid-19. 

Coronavirus restrictions in many parts of Italy will be eased from Sunday, the country's Health Ministry has announced.

All but five of Italy's regions will be considered "yellow" under its color-coded system, the ministry said on Friday. 

Veneto, the region around Venice, is to go from an orange to a yellow zone, which allows the daytime reopening of bars and restaurants and greater freedom to travel.

Calabria in the south and Emilia-Romagna in the north were also downgraded from orange to yellow.

From Sunday, the regions of Puglia, Sardinia, Sicily, Umbria and the autonomous province of Bolzano will be in the orange zone.

All the other regions and autonomous provinces are in the yellow zone.

Health Minister Roberto Speranza said Italy had experienced a significant drop in its coronavirus transmission rate.