13th January 2021 - Wilson James
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13th January 2021HIGHLIGHTS
Worldwide cases of COVID-19 are at 92,008,301 with deaths numbering 1,970,085 as of 13th January
according to Worldometer. 65,821,602 people have so far recovered from the virus.
The World Health Organisation has warned that the new COVID-19 variant has created an ‘alarming
situation’ that has seen the virus ‘run rampant’ across the continent. Hans Kluge, the European director
for the WHO, has reported a seven-day incidence rate of more than 150 new cases per 100,000 people
in half of the countries in the region, with a quarter recording a 10% surge over the past week.
In the UK 2.6m doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been distributed so far. UK Health Secretary Matt
Hancock has urged people not to use the vaccine as an excuse to be complacent.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday 11th January that he believed approximately
40% of the over 80s had already received the vaccination and 23% of elderly residents in care homes.
The European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen has stated that the EU will continue to work
as one to secure vaccine doses from suppliers, with individual member states not permitted to
negotiate separate vaccine deals.
Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, declared a ‘major incident’ on 8th January after it was feared that
hospitals in London would become overwhelmed, with COVID-19 cases in the capital’s hospitals at 35%
higher than during the first peak of the pandemic in April 2020.
A study published in the Lancet has found that three-quarters of people hospitalise with COVID-19 are
reported to still suffer from at least one symptom of the virus after six months. Among the most
common symptoms to persist were fatigue, muscle weakness and difficulties sleeping.
Brexit News
On 10th January, the Scottish National Party demanded that the British government pay Scotland
billions in compensation for ‘the mounting costs and disruption of Brexit’. The pro-independence SNP
has been pushing for a second referendum for majority remain voting Scotland and have claimed that
Brexit delays are ‘pushing Scottish seafood firms into crisis’.
A number of major retailers have had to halt the sale of some of their products in Northern Ireland.
Due to tariff regulations, items manufactured in the EU cannot be imported to the UK and then further
exported without additional costs involved.
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WORLD NEWS/RAS/13th January 2021COVID – 19
TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES TOTAL DEATHS PATIENTS RECOVERED
92,008,301 1,970,085 65,821,602
13.01.2021 Worldometer
COVID-19 – UK
Upper Tier Local Authority by cases Hospital admissions reported in last 7 days
The total confirmed UK Covid-19 cases as of 12th January is 3,164,051 with 83,230 deaths according to
GOV.UK.
The UK have now approved Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccination for use in the country, the third such
vaccine which can be used to fight the virus alongside those developed by Pfizer-BioNtech and
AstraZeneca-Oxford. The new Moderna vaccine is found to be 94% effective.
The new COVID-19 variants discovered in the UK and South Africa are reportedly ‘unlikely to evade
immune responses generated by vaccines or a previous COVID infection’.
Recent figures have found that absence levels of staff across hospitals, GP surgeries and care homes
are abnormally high, with Kent seeing about 25% of clinical and administrative staff absent.
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WORLD NEWS/RAS/13th January 2021 New guidance by the Department of Education has stated that children of keyworkers should only
attend school if their parent or guardian is unable to work from home. The latest guidance comes as
teachers have warned of staff shortages and raised concerns of schools becoming overwhelmed.
Figures presented by the Observer have found that since the beginning of the pandemic 70,000
households have found themselves homeless. A further 207,543 households also sought help with local
councils over fears of homelessness between April and November 2020.
Delays caused mainly as a result of the pandemic could see defendants and witnesses have to wait up
to four years before a case reaches a crown court trial.
Tocilizumab, an arthritis drug, has been found by Imperial College to reduce the risk of death from
COVID-19 in the most serious of cases by 24% if given the treatment within 24 hours of entering the
ICU. The treatment was also found to reduce the time spent by patients in the ICU by between seven
and 10 days.
Police are currently searching for a scam artist who injected a 92-year-old woman from South-west
London with a fake COVID-19 vaccine while posing as an NHS worker, charging the elderly lady £160 for
the vaccine. The man returned a second time demanding a further £100. The UK’s national fraud and
cyber reporting centre, Action Fraud, has warned that it has received 57 reports relating to similar
scams.
Edge Health (a medical analytical company) has suggested one-in-five people in England (12.4 million
people) could have had COVID-19 (rising to 1 in 2 in some heavily infected areas). This is in stark contrast
to the 2.4 million estimated infections according to the UK track and trace programme. Edge Health
took the number of deaths in an area and compared it against the estimated infection fatality rate
(allowing a 3-week lag between cases and deaths). George Batchelor (co-founder and director of Edge
Health) stated, “Reported tests are only a fraction of the picture of total infections”. They sight
asymptomatic cases, false negative results and the initial poor performance of the UK Track and trace
system as reasons for the discrepancy.
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WORLD NEWS/RAS/13th January 2021COVID-19- OTHER COUNTRIES
Canada
On 9th January the Quebec provincial government announced a COVID-19 curfew, Canada’s first province
wide. The curfew, which comes after the province recorded a seven-day average of more than 2,500 daily
COVID-19 cases daily, will be in place from 8pm to 5am and will be in place until 8th February
China
Tougher restrictions have been imposed in China after daily COVID-19 cases were reported to have doubled.
In the capital, Beijing, passengers of cabs or ride-hailing services must now scan a health code before
boarding. A Beijing city transport official has said that since 1st January drivers have been fined a total of
$154,440 for not properly implementing COVID-19 prevention measures.
India
Sri Lanka have been informed by Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar that they would be
prioritised when Indian produced vaccines are ready for export. India is home to the Serum Institute of India,
which has been contracted by AstraZeneca to produce one billion doses of their vaccine for developing
countries.
Indonesia
The country’s highest Muslim clerical council plans to issue a ruling as to whether the COVID-19 vaccine is
halal before a mass vaccination programme is set to begin on 13 th January. Previous vaccines, such as the
2018 measles vaccine, have been ruled as haram in Islamic society due to gelatine, derived from pigs, being
used as a stabiliser in some vaccines. No pork products are found in the AstraZeneca, Novavax or Pfizer
vaccines, however, Sinovac are yet to disclose the ingredients for their vaccine.
Iran
The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has announced on 8th January that imports of the COVID-19 vaccine from
the United Kingdom and United States will be prohibited.
Japan
The Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, declared a one-month state of emergency in Tokyo and its
surrounding areas from 7th January to 7th February. The state of emergency has asked bars and restaurants
to close by 8pm and has encouraged people not to visit one another as the region has seen another surge in
COVID-19 cases.
United States of America
On 9th January, the USA broke the record for most number of cases recorded in a 24 hour period, reporting
290,000 new cases and bring its total up to 21.8 million COVID-19 cases. The day previously, on 8th January,
the USA recorded over 4,000 deaths in a day for the first time in the pandemic.
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WORLD NEWS/RAS/13th January 2021Useful Information Sources
UK wide – Public Health England
Scotland – Scottish Government
Northern Ireland – NISRA
Covid-19 deaths in England & Wales – ONS
Covid-19 Statistics – Worldometer – Johns Hopkins University
WORLD NEWS
China
Mass arrests of democracy activists in Hong Kong have prompted the foreign ministers of Australia, the US,
the UK and Canada to release a joint statement expressing ‘serious concern’. The four ministers called on
China to respect the freedom of Hong Kong citizens and condemned the use of the national security law
which saw 1,000 police officers take part in a crackdown on 6th January.
India
The Indian economy is expected to face its biggest annual contraction since 1952 as COVID-19 continues to
wrack the country. GDP should shrink to 7.7% in the financial year ending March 2021.
The Tata group appears to be making forays into the aviation sector having placed an expression of interest
for the budget airline AirAsia India.
Indonesia
A Boeing 737 with 62 people on board crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from the Indonesian
capital, Jakarta on 9th January. Navy divers have recovered one of the black boxes from the aircraft, the
device is expected to help investigators determine the reason the aircraft came down around 4 minutes after
taking off.
Ireland
As part of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, the Irish government announced that construction sites would
close from 8th January. Exemptions to the restriction include essential health projects.
Due to the latest COVID-19 lockdown in the UK, the Irish budget carrier, Ryanair, have said they expect to
lose 95% of their forecast passenger traffic in February and March. The airline has heavily criticised the
‘brutal lockdowns’ and have called on the Irish government to speed up the vaccination of the population.
New Zealand
On 10th January, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand reported that it was responding to a ‘malicious breach’ of
its data systems. The bank announced that its main functions were ‘sound and operational’ and that they
were working with domestic and international cybersecurity experts.
Spain
Four people have so far died in Spain after snowstorms swept across the country.
United States
Hundreds of pro Republican demonstrators stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC on 7th January.
Many of those involved had been attending a “Save America” event where outgoing US President Donald
Trump had been speaking prior to the demonstration. 4 deaths were recorded along with 82 arrests.
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WORLD NEWS/RAS/13th January 2021INSIGHTS
Our Risk Advisory Service regularly publish articles and advisories covering a myriad of subjects. These
publications can be found within our Insights section on our Risk Advisory Service website.
Consequences of the SolarWinds Hack
A ‘highly sophisticated cyber espionage operation’ has successfully been operating under the radar of the US
Cyber Command, Homeland Security and the National Security Agency since March 2020, only being
discovered by private cybersecurity firm FireEye in December 2020.1 The hack, described as a supply-chain
attack, originally targeted an update for a piece of software called Orion, which is made by the IT company
SolarWinds, whilst it was under assembly. This attack enabled the hackers to ‘impersonate any… existing users
and accounts, including highly privileged accounts’ of those effected once the update had been installed.2
Due to the ubiquitous nature of the Orion software it is believed that 18,000 clients have been affected by the
security breach, including prestigious technology names such as Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Nvidia and VMware.
In addition to this, multiple agencies within the US government have also been affected including the Treasury,
State, Commerce and Energy Departments.3 The Justice Department, to which agencies such as the FBI, DEA
and US Marshals Services belong, have also reported being affected, with an estimated 3% of its Microsoft
Office 365 mailboxes potentially accessed.4
Since the discovery of the hack, the Cyber Unified Coordination Group, comprising US intelligence agencies
such as the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency and the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, have confirmed the attack to be of Russian origin, proving
to be a major intelligence coup for the most likely suspects; the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.5
It is not confirmed as to what the object of the attack could be.6 One explanation has been that the hackers
intentionally attacked a wide variety of organisations to make it more difficult for investigators to uncover any
the adversary specific target. It has been said that Microsoft is nervous after having discovered that the
hackers were able to access source code. Cyber security experts have posited the attack could be a ‘prelude
to a much more ambitious offensive'.7 A second explanation has been that the attack’s objective was to
compromise multiple US government targets, to allow the adversary to gain access to unclassified but sensitive
data. One example of this sensitive data, is Operation Black Start which could be attained from the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission and details ‘technical blueprints for how the United States plans to restore
power in the event of a cataclysmic blackout’.8 One final explanation has been that the attack started out with
a specific target, with those perpetrating the attack believing they would get caught. When this did not happen
the hackers decided to broaden the operation further, leading them to being eventually found out.
As a result of this audacious and wide spanning attack it is expected that cybersecurity spending could increase
by 20% in 2021.9 In addition to this, it is possible that some software companies could move their engineering
departments from Eastern European bases due to the strong influence Russian intelligence agencies are
believed to have in these areas. To cut costs SolarWinds themselves moved engineering to satellite offices in
the Czech Republic, Poland and Belarus10 . It has been reported that the US judiciary has enacted new
procedures in which highly sensitive court documents filed with the federal courts ‘can no longer just [be sent]
through the internet’ instead having to be delivered on actual paper or USB sticks.11 Further to this, whole
government systems may have to be re-built from the ground up through fear that the hackers have left
behind backdoors through which they could once again be able to compromise the system. It may be a
requirement for governmental agencies to revisit the need to develop their own in-house software suites in
order to defend against supply-chain attacks.
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WORLD NEWS/RAS/13th January 2021SolarWinds have since hired Chris Krebs, the former director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency, to consult with them on the security breach.
8
WORLD NEWS/RAS/13th January 2021COVID19@wilsonjames.co.uk / riskadvisory@wilsonjames.co.uk @WJltd @WJ_Ltd www.linkedin.com/company/wilson-james
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