International

World News. 18th December
Now the vaccine has been rolled out. But in the USA more than 300 thousand people have died. It is because of the Thanksgiving holiday and also now the Christmas holiday coming up, the numbers will increase. Trump is still not doing anything about this.
Covid still active in Australia. Looked as if it was gone. Now a new cluster has appeared just north of Sydney. Small numbers (only 28) but it grows fast. The version of the virus is from the USA. They have a person in quarantine who came from the USA
You know that Russia was banned for four years because they were using drugs for their sports people…. The Russians denied it and covered it up. But they were caught. Well, a special court for Sport has just cut the ban in half. Now only 2 years. The Russian athletes can compete in the World Cup in 2022. Other athletes are furious.
It has been warmer than usual in the UK in early December. Not very like Christmas. But in North East of USA and especially New York State the weather has been awful. They had over 3 feet of snow (90 centimetres) which the same amount that New York had in the whole of last winter. More than 1,800 flights were cancelled and 4,000 were delayed. Travelling by road was really dangerous.