Making Headlines: London Nightingale to open; Travel Covid tests; Trump condemns US Capitol attack
Subscribe to the Evening Standard on YouTube: / @thelondonstandard The NHS will next week begin using the Nightingale hospital at London’s ExCel centre as the pressure facing the health service due to Covid patients continues to grow. The hospital, which will also be a vaccination hub, was one of several built in the spring to help during the pandemic. In the event, they were barely used and were mothballed for use potentially during further waves of the crisis. A move to open the ExCel centre for patients next week came as hospital admissions of people with Covid-19 reached another record high in England, figures showed. All travellers to England and Scotland from international destinations will from next week need a test negative for Covid before they can enter the country. Failure to comply with the new regulations will lead to an immediate £500 fine. Under plans set out by the Transport Secretary, passengers arriving by boat, train or plane will have to take a test up to 72 hours before leaving the country of departure. Grant Shapps, announcing the move, said it was designed to prevent new variants of the disease emerging in countries like South Africa and Denmark. Donald Trump has decried the “heinous attack” on the US Capital by his supporters after he was accused of inciting violence. The US President, back on Twitter after a suspension, committed to an "orderly" transition of power, a day after his supporters stormed Congress sparking global condemnation. Mr Trump spoke as Democrats including House Speaker Nanci Pelosi demanded that he be removed from office - just 13 days before he is set to step down as US leader. Elon Musk has become the world's richest man, surpassing Amazon boss Jeff Bezos. The billionaire business magnate, Telsa and SpaceX boss Musk has a net worth of more than $188.5 billion (£136bn) - $1.5 billion more than Bezos, Bloomberg reported. Musk's personal wealth has been boosted by last year's more than eight-fold surge in the shares of Tesla, which became the world's most valuable carmaker. He has a 20 per cent stake in the carmaker and about $42 billion of gains on vested stock options, according to the Bloomberg report. And finally… Peter Andre has been secretly battling coronavirus at home, it is reported. The pop singer, 47, got tested for Covid-19 after feeling “extremely tired and unwell”, a source told The Sun. Andre, whose wife Emily MacDonagh, 31, is an NHS doctor, “started feeling very weak” a few days ago and so decided to get checked, the insider said.
