We are closing this blog now, but you can stay up to date on all the day’s developments on our new blog below:
Key Covid developments
- Germany is now expected to extend its lockdown until 7 March, but hairdressers may be allowed to open before the date.
- The WHO and Unicef are calling on countries to share their vaccines once they’ve vaccinated their high-risk populations.
- Ski resorts in Italy’s Lombardy region will reopen from 15 February.
- Brazil registered 59,602 new cases of coronavirus and 1,330 new deaths in the past 24 hours on Wednesday.
- Children in Germany are suffering from psychological issues due to the ongoing pandemic, especially children from underprivileged backgrounds, a new report finds.
- Prof John Edmunds, a member of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said that the UK may be “more or less free” of Covid by the end of the year.
Updated
In an interview with ITV’s Robert Peston, Prof John Edmunds, a member of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said the UK may be “more or less free” of Covid by the end of the year.
However, he said that some measures would remain “probably forever”, PA reports.
On the new variants identified in the country, Edmunds said: “We need to arm ourselves against them and we don’t have new vaccines that could potentially arm ourselves against these new variants yet.
“I know that companies are working very hard on developing new vaccines in order to protect against these potential new variants that might affect us, so I do think we need to be very cautious at the moment about travel abroad.”
Updated
A new survey from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf found that children in Germany are suffering from psychological issues due to the ongoing pandemic, and especially children from underprivileged backgrounds.
The study found that one in three German children are suffering from pandemic-related anxiety or depression, or are exhibiting psychosomatic symptoms such as headaches or stomach pains.
AP reports:
Children and teenagers from poorer families and those with migrant roots are disproportionally affected, according to the study.
“Children who were doing well before the pandemic and feel sheltered and comfortable within their families will get through this pandemic well,” said Ulrike Ravens-Sieberer, the head of the study and research director of the children’s psychiatric clinic at the university hospital.
“However, we need better concepts to especially support and strengthen the mental and emotional health of children from at-risk families,” she said.
Particularly during lockdowns “schools need to keep in regular contact with the students and express appreciation and attention,” she said.
“Otherwise there is the danger that children from at-risk families lose their motivation and eagerness to study.”
Researchers questioned more than 1,000 children between ages seven and 17 and more than 1,500 parents online from mid-December to mid-January. More than 80% of them had participated in a previous survey in June.
Overall, four out of five children reported feeling burdened by the pandemic.
They said their families fight and argue more, they have more problems in school and the relationships with their friends are deteriorating. They also eat less healthfully, spend more time online and play fewer sports, according to the study.
Updated
The WHO announced today that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine can be given to adults of all ages, after some countries decided not to give the dose to those aged over 65 over doubts about its effectiveness.
What really is the difference between all the vaccines on the market right now?
The Observer’s James Tapper wrote about the different vaccines and which one you might get here:
Updated
Brazil has registered 59,602 new cases of coronavirus and 1,330 new deaths in the past 24 hours on Wednesday, the health ministry has said.
The country has registered nearly 9.7 million cases since the pandemic began, with the death toll total at 234,850.
Having now administered the Pfizer/Biotech vaccines to almost 40% of its population, Israel is planning to open up some hotels, gyms and other leisure facilities in a fortnight to those deemed to be immune to the virus, the health minister has said.
Israel has said that it will issue an official app that allows users to link up their health ministry files and show if they have been vaccinated against or recovered from Covid-19, with presumed immunity, to gain entry into leisure facilities, Reuters has reported.
Those for whom neither option applies will be able to get a Covid test, and if negative, can display it on the app and use for similar access.
Updated
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that double-masking can significantly enhance protection against Covid-19.
Double-masking is the process of wearing close-fitting surgical masks worn underneath cloth masks.
A recent study has found that when people wear the two masks, they can not only increase their protection from aerosol droplets by 90% or more, and that possible transmission is significantly reduced when both parties wore masks.
My colleague Jessica Glenza reports more on the CDC’s recommendation here:
Updated
Ski resorts in Italy’s Lombardy region, the previous epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, will reopen its ski resorts from 15 February, authorities have said.
This, will be the first time this winter season that skiing will be allowed in Italy, after weeks of Covid-related closures, AFP reports.
The approval to open up the resorts is contingent on precautions to limit the number of skiers on the slopes at the same time, including a cap on ski pass sales.
In other regions of the country, skiing could also resume as long as they remain in the “yellow” lower virus-risk category.
Currently, the entire country is “yellow,” except for South Tyrol in the north, Umbria in the centre, and Puglia and Sicily in the south.
Updated
A new study has found that a cheap asthma drug has appeared to significantly reduce the risk of people getting severely ill with Covid-19, if taken within the first week of developing symptoms.
One possibility as to why people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), were underrepresented in hospital admissions could be due to the steroid inhalers.
The Guardian’s Linda Geddes reports more on the new study here:
Global health leaders are calling on other countries to share their vaccines once they’ve vaccinated their high-risk populations, PA reports.
The WHO and UNICEF have said that there are almost 130 countries who have yet to deliver a single vaccine to their inhabitants.
This is a combination of 2.5 billion people who have yet to have received a single dose. In the 128 million doses now delivered, three-quarters of these have happened in only 10 countries.
In a joint statement from Unicef executive director Henrietta Fore and WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, they said:
As of today, almost 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose.
This self-defeating strategy will cost lives and livelihoods, give the virus further opportunity to mutate and evade vaccines and will undermine a global economic recovery.
Today, UNICEF and WHO - partners for more than 70 years - call on leaders to look beyond their borders and employ a vaccine strategy that can actually end the pandemic and limit variants.
We need global leadership to scale up vaccine production and achieve vaccine equity.
Covid-19 has shown that our fates are inextricably linked. Whether we win or lose, we will do so together.”
The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that the while the country wants to avoid triggering another wave, it will aim to open up carefully.
It’s now expected to extend its lockdown until March 7, but hairdressers may be allowed to open before the date.
Merkel met with governors in a video conference on Wednesday to outline the country’s journey to opening up, after having been in a second lockdown since November.
The new developments in its lockdown plans comes amid concerns that the new variants could see a rise in the previously falling infections, AP reports.
Hello, I’m Edna Mohamed, I’ll be taking over the live blog from my colleague for the next few hours. As always if there’s anything you want to flag or want to send over any tips, you can do so through either Twitter or by emailing me: edna.mohamed.casual@theguardian.com
Updated
Summary
Here are some of the key recent events from the UK and around the world:
- The benefits of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine outweigh any risks and the shot should be recommended for use, including in people aged 65 and older, a World Health Organization panel has said.
- Israel is set to open up some hotels, gyms and other leisure facilities in a fortnight to those documented as being immune to Covid-19, according to the country’s health minister.
- The share of people infected with the more contagious Covid variant first identified in the UK is on the rise in Denmark. In the first week of February, 27% of positive cases analysed for their genetic material were carrying the B117 variant, up from 20% the week before, a report said.
- Germany plans to extend restrictions to halt the spread of Covid-19 until 14 March, a draft agreement for talks between Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of the 16 federal states on Wednesday indicated.
Updated
France reported 25,387 new confirmed Covid cases on Wednesday, up from 19,348 the previous day but slightly lower than last Wednesday’s 26,362 as average daily increases continued slowing.
The health ministry also reported 296 new coronavirus deaths in hospitals, from 436 on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
South Africa aims to immunise between 350,000 and 500,000 health workers with Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine in an “implementation study” to further evaluate the shot, the president of the country’s Medical Research Council said.
Reuters reports:
Glenda Gray, co-lead investigator on the local leg of a J&J global trial, told Reuters South Africa expected to get batches of around 80,000 doses every seven to 14 days for the study, once it is approved.
The implementation study would be aimed at further evaluating J&J’s vaccine in the field and would be akin to a phase IIIb study, Gray said.
J&J’s vaccine has already been tested in the global phase III trial involving more than 40,000 participants including over 6,000 in South Africa.
Gray’s comments come days after the government paused the rollout of 1 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine and switched to the J&J shot to start protecting its health workers.
AstraZeneca has unveiled plans to build a new Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing facility in partnership with IDT Biologika at the German firm’s Dessau site, in a move aiming to speed up production and defuse a row with the EU over vaccine supply.
Read the full report by the Guardian’s Julia Kollewe:
The US on Wednesday said that Tanzania, whose president has advised citizens to shun coronavirus vaccines, is experiencing a surge in Covid cases, Reuters reports.
In a statement, the US embassy in Dar es Salaam said it was “aware of a significant increase in the number of Covid-19 cases since January”.
The practice of Covid-19 mitigation and prevention measures remains limited... healthcare facilities in Tanzania can become quickly overwhelmed in a healthcare crisis.
Tanzanian leader John Magufuli has said citizens should avoid vaccines and the country does not need a lockdown because God will protect his people.
Updated
The UK has recorded 1,001 further Covid-linked deaths, according to government data. A week ago today the figure was 1,322. The UK has recorded 13,013 new cases, which is an increase from yesterday’s total (12,364), but week on week, the seven-day average is down 27.7%.
See the full release here.
Updated
Italy reported 336 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday down from 422 the day before, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 12,956 from 10,630 the day before.
Some 310,994 tests for Covid-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 274,263, the health ministry said.
Italy has registered 92,338 deaths linked to Covid-19, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the sixth-highest in the world. The country has reported 2.67 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 19,280 on Wednesday, down from 19,512 a day earlier.
There were 155 new admissions to intensive care units, up from 146 on Tuesday. The total number of intensive care patients fell to 2,128 from a previous 2,143.
When Italy’s second wave of the epidemic was accelerating quickly in the first half of November, hospital admissions were rising by about 1,000 per day, while intensive care occupancy was increasing by about 100 per day.
Portugal’s government is preparing a support package for the country’s crushed tourism sector, including delayed loan repayment schedules, debt-to-equity instruments and grants.
Reuters reports:
Economy minister Pedro Siza Vieira told a parliamentary committee the package would aim to ensure companies in the sector survived the crisis “without having their balance sheets overloaded with debt”.
“Tourism will need more intense support... these companies will be depleted after a year of of the pandemic in which they have exhausted their (financial) reserves,” Siza Vieira said.
Revenue from holidaymakers played a crucial role in Portugal’s recovery from the 2010 economic and debt crisis, totalling 15% of Portugal’s gross domestic product in 2019.
But lockdowns and travel restrictions throughout the pandemic have paralysed the sector, with just a third of the usual number of tourists visiting the country at the height of the tourist season last summer, government data showed.
The sector’s revenues are expected to have dropped 80% in 2020, according to Portugal’s hotel association, who said a further 100,000 jobs could be lost this year if it did not receive targeted support.
The government is also in discussion with the Bank of Portugal and Portuguese Banking Association about extending a moratorium on loan repayments currently in place until September even further, and postponing maturities on remaining debt, Siza Vieira said.
Portugal’s banks have suspended capital and interest repayments on €46bn of corporate and household debt to avoid a jump in bad loans.
Europe’s medicines regulator said it has not received any application seeking approval of the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine developed by Russia’s Gamaleya institute.
However, the European Medicines Agency said the vaccine’s developers have expressed an interest that their shot be considered for a real-time review in Europe.
The regulator said it was in discussions with Gamaleya to map out next steps.
Updated
WHO expert panel recommends wide use of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine
The benefits of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine outweigh any risks and the shot should be recommended for use, including in people aged 65 and older, a World Health Organization panel said on Wednesday.
In interim recommendations on the shot, the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation (Sage) panel said the vaccine should be given in two doses, with an interval of about eight to 12 weeks between the first and second doses.
Sage also said that even where questions have been raised about the vaccine’s efficacy against a South African variant of the coronavirus, “there is no reason not to recommend its use”, Reuters writes.
AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine is in the final stages of review for a WHO emergency-use listing and could receive approval by mid-February, the UN health agency said.
Updated
Update from earlier post about Israel’s planned re-opening of sections of its society:
With some elementary schools due to open on Thursday, health minister Yuli Edelstein, speaking separately with reporters, said he would seek to require teachers who are not documented as being immune to Covid-19 to test negative every 48 hours.
The health ministry says that around 50% of teachers have been vaccinated, and that Edelstein’s proposal would not be in effect by Thursday, Reuters reports.
Updated
WHO experts recommend AstraZeneca Covid vaccine for over 65s
#BREAKING WHO vaccine experts recommend AstraZeneca Covid jab for over-65s pic.twitter.com/Uoiv9wKxaW
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 10, 2021
Updated
Ireland’s government is considering increasing fines for residents who break current Covid restrictions to travel aboard on holiday to €2,000 from €500, the prime minister, Micheál Martin, said on Wednesday.
The government said two-thirds of Irish arrivals at airports are returning holidaymakers, which an official in Martin’s department described as “a very concerning statistic”, Reuters reports.
Martin told parliament:
There’s a sense €500 is not a sufficient disincentive to travel abroad. That will be increased and the government is considering increasing that to €2,000 to act as a significant deterrent.
Updated
Grant Shapps, the UK transport secretary, has told people in Britain not to book holidays domestically or abroad, reports Jasper Jolly, a financial correspondent for the Guardian.
Germany will run up against limits on its capacity to inoculate people against Covid-19 by the end of March, health ministry documents showed, as an expected increase in supply puts its network of vaccination centres to the test.
The country has so far been starved of shots as drugmakers faced production problems, but shortages are likely to ease as deliveries accelerate, according to a revised vaccine strategy released by the health ministry on Wednesday.
The strategy update came as German biotech startup BioNTech launched a new facility in the German town of Marburg, expecting first vaccines made there to be distributed in early April, Reuters reports.
Updated
Denmark says cases of more contagious UK Covid variant on rise
Reuters reports:
The share of people infected with the more contagious coronavirus variant first identified in Britain is on the rise in Denmark, authorities reported on Wednesday, citing preliminary data.
In the first week of February, 27% of positive cases analyzed for their genetic material were carrying the B117 variant, up from 20% the week before, the State Serum Institute (SSI) said in a report.
Denmark is a front-runner in genome sequencing being used to analyze the genetic material of the coronavirus to determine variants.
The reproductive number for the new variant, which indicates how many one person transmits the virus to, is 0.99%, SSI said on Tuesday, meaning the virus is currently on a slight decline.
General infection numbers are falling in Denmark after the government instituted hard lockdown measures in December, with just 470 cases registered in the last 24 hours, down from thousands of daily infections late last year.
A total of 1,690 people have been infected with the new variant first detected in Britain.
At 3pm today, the World Health Organization will issue its interim recommendations on the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. Stay here for all the updates.
Big moment for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. The WHO will issue its interim recommendations on its use at 3pm today. Brought forward from tomorrow.
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) February 10, 2021
Updated
Israel plans to open up some leisure facilities to those documented as being immune to Covid
Israel plans to open up some hotels, gyms and other leisure facilities in a fortnight to those documented as being immune to Covid-19, Yuli Edelstein, the health minister said.
Having administered Pfizer Inc vaccines to almost 40% of its 9m population, Israel saw the first signs of managing to outpace highly contagious virus variants, he added.
Israel said it would issue an official app allowing users to link up to their Health Ministry files and show if they have been vaccinated against or recovered from Covid-19, with presumed immunity, in order to gain entry to leisure facilities, Reuters reports.
Those to whom neither applies would be able to get a Covid test and, if the result is negative, display it on the app for up to 72 hours of similar access, officials have said.
Updated
A study of more than 1m people in England has revealed additional symptoms that are linked with having Covid-19, PA media reports.
Chills, loss of appetite, headaches and muscle aches have been reported as symptoms.
This is in addition to the classic symptoms - loss of sense of smell and taste, fever and a new persistent cough.
The research is based on swab tests and questionnaires collected between June 2020 and January 2021 as part of the Imperial College London-led React study.
Bahrain has authorised Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, Bahrain TV’s twitter account said on Wednesday.
It already uses the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, one manufactured by Chinese state-backed pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm, and the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, Reuters writes.
Updated
The EU is “not where it wants to be” with its coronavirus immunisation programme, Ursula von der Leyen has conceded, as she faced MEPs in the European parliament amid mounting criticism of the bloc’s slow deployment of vaccines.
Read the full report from the Guardian’s Europe correspondent Jon Henley:
Reuters reports:
Greek restaurant and cafe owners pleaded on Wednesday for additional government support to protect livelihoods and jobs after months of crippling restrictions on their businesses to help stem the spread of Covid-19.
Some 80,000 restaurants and cafes in tourism-dependent Greece, employing about 350,000 people, closed in September and have been allowed to offer only delivery and take away services since.
“I can’t go on, we can’t go on,” said 43-year-old cafe owner Dimitris Katsaros.
“If the shop doesn’t operate we can’t eat, and we do not have 10-20,000 euros stashed away in savings and able to feed ourselves at the same time. If the shop is not operating then that is the end.”
In a move to showcase their problems, restaurateurs and cafe owners collected the keys of their businesses and dropped them in boxes set up at a central Athens square and in other Greek cities. They plan to hand them over to the prime minister’s office in the coming days.
This is the latest from Reuters on Covid infections among vaccinated people in Israel:
More than half of eligible Israelis - about 3.5 million people - have been fully or partially vaccinated. Older and at-risk groups, the first to be inoculated, are seeing a dramatic drop in illnesses pic.twitter.com/WBaNwEmYvc
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 10, 2021
Malaysia has reported 3,288 new Covid infections, raising the total to 251,694 cases.
Health authorities also reported 14 deaths, bringing that total up to 923, according to Reuters.
Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, and executive chairman of the Institute for Global Change, has called for the creation of a globally co-ordinated vaccine strategy, saying that the world now has “an opportunity to learn the lessons from the early vaccine rollout”.
Blair said:
As more vaccines achieve regulatory approval and new vaccines to deal with new variants arrive, the world must be prepared. Closed borders are not sustainable in the medium or long term. We need to create a globally co-ordinated vaccine strategy now, bringing together representatives from science, medicine, the pharmaceutical industry, manufacturing, financiers, distribution and logistics to consider how to accelerate vaccine production and oversee allocation and procurement processes with governments.
“With a new wave of vaccines and boosters now in development, we have an opportunity to learn the lessons from the early vaccine rollout and we must take it,” he added.
South Africa will discuss with the international COVAX vaccine scheme whether it can swap 500,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses it has ordered from the Serum Institute of India but which are yet to arrive.
Zweli Mkhize, the country’s health minister, said:
The 500,000 that was ordered, we have actually contacted the Serum Institute, and we will actually be discussing with COVAX whilst it has not been delivered whether it is possible to swap it on COVAX and therefore get a different vaccine.
Spain’s health ministry said on Wednesday that under 55-year olds without major health complications who contracted Covid-19 will have to wait six months from their diagnosis before receiving a vaccine.
The ministry said cases of reinfection within six months are “exceptional,” in a document defining the national vaccine strategy, Reuters reported.
So far, the only people under 55 being vaccinated are health-care professionals.
The measure will apply to the three vaccines currently being distributed in Spain and is provisional pending any further research, the ministry added.
Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog until the evening. Please do feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
It is “certainly plausible” that countries will insist that people have received a Covid-19 vaccine before allowing them to travel, England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said.
He stressed that the British position had never been that there should be mandatory vaccinations.
Van-Tam said he was concerned about the take-up of Covid vaccines in minority ethnic groups.
I have concerns that uptake in the minority ethnic groups is not going to be as rapid or as high as in the indigenous white population of the UK.
And this really concerns me because the big message I have for for everyone listening is that this virus just doesn’t care what ethnic background you’re from.
It just doesn’t care about the colour of your skin or where you live in the world or, or any of these things, it just cares that you’re a human being, that you don’t have immunity and that you’re susceptible.
Van-Tam, said the study carried out in South Africa which showed low efficacy for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for mild disease should be interpreted with caution.
I’m not sure that really tells us about whether the vaccine is still going to be really important in terms of protection against severe disease and protection in an older age group, and they’re the people who are most at risk.
It would be a very, very big public health win indeed if all of the vaccines that we’re deploying simply stop people going into hospital, even if they don’t flatten the infection rate. That would be a major, major public health victory.
He said the South African variant was not the UK’s most pressing problem, adding:
It’s not our major threat right now. The thing that is going to kill people in the next one to two months in the UK is the problem we have with our own circulating virus, which is the Kent variant as we now know it. And we have good data now that the vaccines are very effective against the Kent variant.
Van-Tam explained why he did not believe the South African variant would become dominant in the UK.
England’s deputy chief medical officer told the BBC the mutation first identified in Kent accounts for more than 90% of cases and there had been fewer than 200 cases of the South African strain.
If you are running a bath and you have got the hot water tap on and you add in a very small amount of cold water, so the cold tap is running as well but at really a very low volume, your bath water is basically going to remain hot.
It’s only if that cold tap was gushing much more than the hot tap, the cold water would take over.
That’s probably the best analogy I can give you at the moment. There are no signs that South African variant is running at that speed at the moment and therefore I don’t frame it as something that is going to be a dominant issue in the next few months.
Hong Kong will ease strict coronavirus restrictions from Feb. 18, re-opening sports and entertainment facilities and extending dining hours, Health Secretary Sophia Chan said on Wednesday, as the city logged a steady decline in daily cases.
Reuters reports:
Chan said catering businesses would be able to operate until 10 pm, granting them an additional four hours. Beauty salons, theme parks, cinemas and all sports facilities would be allowed to resume with conditions in place.She told a news conference:
We are cautiously optimistic on the pandemic.
New cases have fallen to below 30 a day from over 80 at the end of January.
Separately, a government advisory panel for COVID-19 vaccines said on Wednesday that China’s Sinovac vaccine was safe and effective, bringing it a step closer to getting the greenlight in the Asian financial hub.
The panel said it was awaiting further information from Sinovac and would thereafter make a recommendation to the government, which has the final decision on whether to approve the vaccine.
Hong Kong’s government last week said it was exempting Chinese drug maker Sinovac from publishing results of its third phase clinical trials in medical journals due to the “urgency” of the need for vaccines.
The BioNTech vaccine * the first vaccine approved in Hong Kong- was required to have published their results in a medical journal before being examined by the advisory panel.
The first batch of one million BioNTech doses is expected to arrive in the second half of February.
Hong Kong’s vaccination program has lagged other developed cities and mainland China which started its vaccine program in July last year. Hong Kong has a separate approval process from the mainland.
A University of Hong Kong survey found that fewer than 30% of people would accept the Sinovac vaccine.
Hong Kong has secured a total of 22.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from Fosun Pharma-BioNTech, Sinovac and Oxford-AstraZeneca.
The city of 7.5 million people has recorded around 10,700 infections and 188 deaths since January last year.
Pfizer has said it could deliver its COVID-19 vaccine, which requires ultra-cold temperatures for storage and distribution, directly to points of vaccination in South Africa.
Reuters reports:
South Africa is scrambling to secure supplies after the AstraZeneca vaccine it planned to use to kick off its immunisation campaign had greatly reduced efficacy against the COVID-19 virus variant now dominant in the country.
Pfizer said it had allocated vaccine doses to South Africa and was currently in discussions with the government. Pfizer told Reuters in an e-mailed response to questions late on Tuesday:
We are enabling direct shipment to the point of vaccination in a thermal shipper that will maintain the ultra-low temperature required for up to 10 days unopened.
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine needs to be stored and distributed at around -70 degrees Celsius, requiring countries importing it to have ultra-cold chain capabilities.
That is a potential impediment for countries including those in Africa with weak public health systems. Pfizer said:
We have experience in distributing, storing and administering the vaccine in our Phase 3 trial sites around the world (including South Africa) so we already know that the processes we are using work, and patients are able to be dosed at the points of vaccination.
South Africa says it has secured 20 million doses from Pfizer, with deliveries starting in the second quarter. It also expects to receive 117,000 Pfizer shots in the first quarter from the COVAX facility co-led by the World Health Organisation.
Pfizer said the supply that will be sent to South Africa and to COVAX is manufactured at its site in Puurs, Belgium.
Updated
Britain’s Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall have had their first Covid-19 vaccinations, Clarence House has said.
TPA Media reports:
Heir to the throne Charles, 72, and Camilla, 73, are, as over 70-year-olds, in the fourth priority group for the rollout of the jabs.
Prime minister Boris Johnson has set a target for all people in the top four groups to be offered a coronavirus vaccine by 15 February.
The confirmation comes after the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were given the injection last month, announced in an unusual move by Buckingham Palace, which rarely comments on the private health matters of the 94-year-old head of state and her consort, 99.
It is not known whether Charles and Camilla were vaccinated together, or which version of the vaccine they were given.
Charles had previously said he would “absolutely” get the Covid-19 vaccine when it was offered to him. The heir to the throne and his eldest son, the Duke of Cambridge, both contracted coronavirus during the first wave of the pandemic.
Charles was described as having mild symptoms and lost his sense of taste and smell for a period, while it was reported William was hit “pretty hard” by the virus.
On a visit to a vaccination centre at Gloucestershire Royal hospital before Christmas, Charles said he was “way down the list” for an inoculation. People over the age of 70 who have not yet been offered a Covid jab are being encouraged to contact the NHS to arrange an appointment.
The top four priority groups include all those over 70, health and social care workers, care home residents, their carers and people deemed to be clinically extremely vulnerable to the virus.
Updated
Germany plans to extend restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus until 14 March, a draft agreement for talks between Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of the 16 federal states on Wednesday showed.
Reuters reports:
The number of new daily infections in Germany has been falling, leading some regional leaders to push for a timetable to ease the lockdown, but concerns are growing about the impact of more infectious strains of the virus on case numbers.
Winfried Kretschmann, Greens premier of the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, told Spiegel Online:
We have a highly fragile situation. We can see in other countries, such as Portugal, how quickly the tide can turn.
The draft document for the talks, which start in the afternoon, says hairdressers could reopen under strict conditions from 1 March. The draft is subject to change.
Merkel has made clear that primary schools and nurseries will take priority in any easing. The draft agreement said that individual states can decide on how to re-start classes.
Kretschmann said:
If the infection figures continue to fall reliably, the highest priority is clearly on the youngest children.
Merkel has in the past also made clear she wants a seven-day incidence of 50 cases per 100,000 people to be the benchmark for restrictions to be lifted. That number currently stands at 68, according to data published by the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases on Wednesday.
Germany reported 8,072 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday and a further 813 deaths, bringing the total death toll to 62,969.
Updated
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme the UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said it was “very important” to be clear that the government does “not want people traveling domestically or internationally”.
He was asked what people who were looking to book future holidays should do.
Shapps said:
First of all, I should say people shouldn’t be booking holidays right now not domestically or internationally. The prime minister will say more about the route to unlocking this country when he speaks on 22 February, but we don’t know yet whether that will include information on things like holiday simply because we don’t know where we’ll be up to, in terms of the decline in cases, deaths, the vaccination, and not just the vaccination programme here, but the vaccination programme internationally
On the shrinking chance that has anybody listening to this interview at this stage, and thinking of booking a holiday under the current circumstances bear in mind you cannot legally do that at the moment and until you know the route out of lockdown, which we can’t know until we have more data, more information, more information on vaccines as well, please don’t go ahead and book holidays for something which at this stage, it is illegal to [do].
Further down the line. I simply don’t know the answer to the question of where we’ll be up to this summer, it’s too early to be able to give you that information. And [people will] want to wait until that’s clear before booking anything, so the best advice is do nothing at this stage.
Updated
The UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has defended the threat of a 10-year jail sentence for travellers who try to conceal journeys from high-risk countries this morning, saying the British public “would expect pretty strong action”.
He told BBC Breakfast:
It’s up to 10 years, it’s a tariff, it’s not necessarily how long somebody would go to prison for.
But I do think it is serious if people put others in danger by deliberately misleading and saying that you weren’t in Brazil or South Africa, or one of the red list countries, which as you say does include Portugal.
But I think the British public would expect pretty strong action because we’re not talking now just about, ‘oh there’s a lot of coronavirus in that country and you might bring some more of it back when we already have plenty of it here’.
What we’re talking about now are the mutations, the variants, and that is a different matter, because we don’t want to be in a situation where we later on discover that there’s a problem with vaccines.
Updated
Travellers arriving from coronavirus hotspots could face £10,000 fines and jail sentences of up to 10 years under a package of measures designed to stop new variants entering Britain, write my colleagues Rajeev Syal and Libby Brooks.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said people who travelled to England from 33 high-risk countries would have to pay up to £1,750 to quarantine in government-designated hotels for 10 days. He also confirmed a new “enhanced testing” regime for all international travellers, with two tests required during the quarantine process from next Monday.
The strictest punishments would be reserved for people who lie about their travel history and conceal recent visits to countries on the “red list”, for example by travelling via exempt countries.
Pharmacists in England are considering strike action unless the Treasury writes off a £370m debt from a support package awarded during the pandemic, which saw many chemists help deliver vaccines, writes the Guardian’s deputy political editor Jess Elgot.
The chair of the National Pharmacy Association urged the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to intervene in the budget on 3 March, saying the industry did not want to stage walkouts but many members were facing closure due to unsustainable debts.
Andrew Lane, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, told the Guardian:
This is a desperate situation for many of our members, so it’s not surprising that you do hear people talking about some form of protest.
But no one wants to let their patients down, so strike action is the last thing any pharmacist would want to do. Instead, we need to continue to make the evidence-based case and appeal to the government to do the right thing by the nation’s heroic pharmacists and the patients they serve.
Well, the story of Rod Ponton, the lawyer who showed up to virtual court in the 394th district of Texas with a kitten filter turned on, is not, I suppose, strictly speaking a coronavirus story.
But as it IS a story that could have only happened in these crazy times, and because it has given the whole world a much-needed laugh, I think it’s acceptable to have an update (and a perfectly reasonable excuse for you to watch the video again).
Mr Ponton has just been on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in the UK, speaking about his experience. His gently embarrassed good humour is a lesson to all of us who have faced Zoom mishaps since the pandemic began. He said:
When I did the zoom, everything seemed fine, my picture popped up, I was in the waiting room with the judge. I disappeared and a cat appeared, instead of me to my great surprise, of course.
Nick Robinson clarified that this was not just an image of a cat, but a video of the lawyer speaking as a cat.
Ponton added:
The cat was the image, and I’m still, I’m still talking. So, we all scratched our heads with that. As it turns out, in hindsight, it’s provided a good laugh I think for the country. Anybody that’s ever struggled with a computer or Zoom can recognise that, those kind of things can happen. It certainly did happen to me.
Robinson, applauding the spirit in which Ponton engaged with the fun, said it looked like he was “in on the joke rather than regretting it”.
I am now, it was certainly a matter of some consternation and concern [at the time]. When the deluge of phone calls and emails came in I finally realised, in Texas we have a saying ‘you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube’. And if this was going to become an internet sensation I just had to laugh at myself along with everybody else doing so, and roll with it.
Last word on the matter?
I did not know Zoom could turn me into a cat, and I did not know that a cat zoom could turn me into an internet celebrity.
Rod Ponton: the hero we all needed this week.
Updated
More contagious variants of the new coronavirus are taking hold in France but their spread is not as fast as initially feared, Bruno Lina, a French virus specialist and a member of the scientific body advising the government, said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Lina told France Inter radio:
For now, we have the feeling the introduction of these variants is somewhat curtailed.
He added that the variant first detected in Britain now accounted for around 30-35% of Covid-19 cases in Paris/Île-de-France region, and that the one stemming from South Africa represented 2-3% of Covid-19 cases in France at present.
Updated
Beer sales in British pubs halved last year to the lowest since the 1920s as they faced some of the toughest and longest-lasting restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic, according to industry figures, write my colleagues Jasper Jolly and Richard Partington.
Overall beer sales in pubs were down 56% in 2020 to about £6.1bn, a loss of £7.8bn in sales compared with 2019, said the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) – the lowest volume of beer sold in at least a century.
The evidence of a collapse in spending comes as the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, faces mounting pressure to take action to prevent a wave of business failures in the hospitality sector that experts say would hold back Britain’s economic recovery after lockdown is relaxed.
This is Ben Doherty, signing off from our rolling coverage. The estimable Alexandra Topping in London is taking over from me.
Thanks for your company, comments and correspondence today. Be well, and look after each other.
Summary
A summary of the latest developments in the global coronavirus pandemic.
- A member of the WHO mission to China exploring the origins of the coronavirus pandemic took a swipe Wednesday at US intelligence on the issue, after the State Department cast doubt on the transparency of their probe. Briton Peter Daszak said in a tweet as the mission ended: “Please don’t rely too much on US intel: increasingly disengaged under Trump & frankly wrong on many aspects.”
- Estonia is working on a pilot project with the World Health Organisation on how globally recognised electronic vaccine certificates - so-called ‘vaccine passports’, might work.
- New Zealand will administer the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines to quarantine personnel, frontline health workers and airline staff, after the government formally approved its use on Wednesday.
- People may need to get vaccinated against Covid-19 annually for the next several years, Johnson & Johnson chief executive Alex Gorsky told CNBC on Tuesday, due to mutations to the virus.
- Venezuela will receive the first 100,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine next week, President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday.
- Brazil has reported 51,486 new coronavirus cases, as well as 1,350 deaths, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
- In London, Lambeth council is asking some residents to take a coronavirus test after the variant first identified in South Africa was detected in the local area.
- The Athens region will enter a stricter coronavirus lockdown from Thursday, Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said, with schools and non-essential shops closed.
- Spain has now recorded more than 3 million Covid cases, while also registering 766 deaths over the past 24 hours - the highest daily death toll of the current third wave.
- Two new Covid variants, one of which has been classified as a “concern”, have been identified in England with some similarities to the South African and Brazilian variants, a government advisory scientific committee said.
- The Navajo Nation’s vaccination rollout continues to surpass the broader United States, Al Jazeera reports, having distributed 94 per cent of the doses it has received.
- Ireland is likely to gradually emerge from its strict lockdown between April and June with outdoor dining and domestic tourism likely to be possible during the summer, deputy prime minister Leo Varadkar has said.
Raucous dragon dance shows have been banned in Manila’s Chinatown due to the pandemic, casting aside a crowd-drawing Lunar New Year tradition many believe helps drive misfortunes away.
The Philippine government’s ban on large public gatherings and street parties to fight the coronavirus dealt a big blow to hundreds of dragon dancers and production crews who are struggling to find other sources of income.
“There would have been large crowds wanting to drive away the misery and bad luck, but our street dance shows were prohibited this year,” said Therry Sicat, a Filipino slum-dweller who with his siblings manages one of several dragon dance troupes in Chinatown.
“If we had 100% fun in the past, I only feel 30% of that this time around. It’s really depressing,” said the 31-year-old, whose wife is pregnant with their fourth child.
The absence of the dragon dances is a palpable sign for many Manila residents that the pandemic crisis that shut down much of Manila’s economy and locked down millions of Filipinos in their homes is spilling over well into this year.
WHO mission member says ‘don’t rely’ on US virus intelligence
A member of the WHO mission to China exploring the origins of the coronavirus pandemic took a swipe Wednesday at US intelligence on the issue, after the State Department cast doubt on the transparency of their probe.
President Joe Biden “has to look tough on China”, expert Peter Daszak said in a tweet as the mission ended, adding: “Please don’t rely too much on US intel: increasingly disengaged under Trump & frankly wrong on many aspects.”
Well now this👇. @JoeBiden has to look tough on China. Please don’t rely too much on US intel: increasingly disengaged under Trump & frankly wrong on many aspects. Happy to help WH w/ their quest to verify, but don’t forget it’s “TRUST” then “VERIFY”! https://t.co/ukaNAkDfEG
— Peter Daszak (@PeterDaszak) February 10, 2021
The WHO mission to China ended without finding the source of the coronavirus that has killed more than 2.3 million worldwide.
The experts had to walk a diplomatic tightrope, with the United States urging a “robust” probe before they left and China warning against the politicisation of the issue.
As they wrapped up the mission team member Daszak, a British zoologist and an expert on disease ecology, tweeted that they worked “flat out under the most politically charged environment possible.”
Later he issued the extraordinary tweet referencing Biden, wading directly into the soupy geopolitics which covers the pandemic origin story.
Dasak’s comments were linked to an article referencing US State Department comments that cast doubt over the transparency of China’s cooperation with the WHO mission.
Beijing is desperate to defang criticism of its handling of the chaotic early stages of the outbreak. Former US president Donald Trump frequently laid the blame with China and repeated a controversial theory that a lab leak may have been the source of the pandemic.
The WHO team also concluded the theory of a lab experiment gone wrong was “extremely unlikely”, while introducing new avenues of inquiry, chiming with China’s view that it may have originated overseas or been spread by frozen foods.
Despite failing to finding the virus origins, a year after the pandemic began, the team of foreign experts did agree the virus likely jumped from bats to an unknown animal species before transmitting to humans.
Thailand on Wednesday reported 157 new coronavirus cases, taking its total infections to 23,903.
One additional death was reported, taking fatalities to 80 recorded overall, the coronavirus taskforce said.
Thailand’s daily cases so far this week are among the lowest numbers reported since its latest and biggest outbreak emerged in mid-December.
Cambodia launched its coronavirus inoculation drive on Wednesday, using 600,000 vaccine doses donated by China, with the sons of long-serving prime minister Hun Sen and government ministers among the first recipients.
The south-east Asian nation of about 16 million has managed to limit the spread of the disease, reporting 478 infections and no deaths, although a rare cluster of cases emerged in November.
Hun Sen had vowed to take the first dose, but later said that at 68 he was above the age to get the vaccine, made by Sinopharm. His sons and the justice and environment ministers were among the first to get it instead.
“I feel even more confident that I have a defence system in my body against Covid,” said Hun Manet, the prime minister’s eldest son, flashing a thumbs-up sign at the Calmette hospital in the capital, Phnom Penh.
Doctors had advised Hun Manet, a deputy commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, not to eat seafood or drink alcohol after taking the vaccine, he told reporters, urging them to also get shots.
China’s first consignment of 600,000 doses had arrived in Phnom Penh on Sunday by special airplane, most of them earmarked for health workers and the military.
One of Asia’s poorest countries, Cambodia has been an important ally of China in recent years.
Beijing has said it will send 1 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine to Cambodia, sufficient for 500,000 people.
“We were worried that we might infect family members with the virus, now there is the vaccine as the defence wall,” justice minister Keut Rith said after his injection.
“A vaccine is the best defence solution for us, for family and the community.”
Updated
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 8,072 to 2,299,996, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday.
The reported death toll rose by 813 to 62,969, the tally showed.
Zero deaths from Covid-19 in Delhi. The first coronavirus fatality-free day in the Indian capital since May.
🏥Delhi Health Bulletin - 9th February 2021🏥#DelhiFightsCorona pic.twitter.com/O7pl8X1g2d
— CMO Delhi (@CMODelhi) February 9, 2021
Millions of people in Japan will not receive Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine as planned due to a shortage of specialist syringes – an oversight that could frustrate the country’s inoculation programme.
Standard syringes in use in Japan are unable to extract the sixth and final dose from each vial manufactured by the US drugmaker, according to the health minister, Norihisa Tamura.
Asian share index hits all-time high
The hope of a large government stimulus to help the American economy recover from the Covid-induced downturn, and further good progress with vaccinations programs around the world, have sent stock markets in Asia to an all-time high.
MSCI’s index of Asian shares outside Japan rose 0.8%, to eclipse its record high set in January following a strong lead from Wall Street on Tuesday where the tech-heavy Nasdaq index closed at a record high.
In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite hit a five-year high on the last trading day before the week-long lunar new year holidays. In Australia, the ASX200 index was up 0.55%.
European markets are expected to follow Asia higher when trade begins on Wednesday.
The FTSE100 is looking at a jump of 0.6%.
Mona Mahajan, at Allianz Global Investors in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg TV:
It seems like right now the story is just getting started, and the momentum is building behind it, and that story includes the reopening, vaccines, the downward trend now in some of the virus cases we’ve been seeing, supported by the stimulus talks and the Fed still on the sidelines.
Updated
Kumamon, Japan’s favourite cuddly mascot, is having a good pandemic.
The black bear raked in a record ¥169.8bn ($1.62bn) in sales of goods bearing his image last year, thanks to a surge in interest in face masks and other hygiene products.
Sales of Kumamon items rose 7.6% in 2020 from a year earlier, bringing cumulative sales to more than ¥989bn since he was created in 2010 to promote the start of a bullet train service on the south-western main island of Kyushu.
While stuffed toys, stationery and keyrings were less popular last year, masks, face shields and fresh food adorned with Kumamon’s face fared much better as more people stayed home during the pandemic.
The mischievous bear, whose name draws on kuma - the Japanese for bear - Kumamoto, his home prefecture, and the local pronunciation of mon, or “things” – is the undisputed king of Japan’ legions of yuru kyara characters.
The nationwide fraternity of about 1,000 different mascots provide a touch of whimsy to everything from the serious business of paying taxes and saving the environment, to promoting tourist spots and regional cuisine.
The governor of Kumamoto prefecture, Ikuo Kabashima, said he was “glad” the ursine celebrity had thrived commercially despite the coronavirus, adding: “I hope Kumamon will become more active internationally after the pandemic dies down.”
Despite cutting down on public appearances during the pandemic, Kumamon’s popularity shows no sign of abating. Last month, he received more than 5,000 New Year greetings cards from fans in Japan and overseas.
Peter Daszak, a British zoologist and an expert on disease ecology, is president of EcoHealth Alliance, and part of the WHO’s investigative team undertaking the coronavirus source-tracing mission in Wuhan, China.
.@WHO @WHOGOARN team working right up to departure. It’s only the beginning of the road w/ a lot of work to do now following up these leads w/ our colleagues in China. V proud of our achievements. Realistic about what lies ahead! Thanks @Peterfoodsafety for your leadership! pic.twitter.com/SzdUB3hiDr
— Peter Daszak (@PeterDaszak) February 10, 2021
"It is a significant finding", @PeterDaszak member of the
— TIAN Wei (@tianwei) February 10, 2021
WHO-China Joint Mission told me early Wednesday morning, when he explained the conclusion regarding if #COVID-19 was a lab spillover. He said: "It was an unanimous decision that this is an extremely unlikely event" @WHO pic.twitter.com/ORxflK66kd
We are all being exposed to a huge amount of #COVID19 information ℹ️ on a daily basis, and not all of it is reliable.
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 9, 2021
On #SaferInternetDay , here are 7⃣ tips for telling the difference and stopping the spread of misinformation. pic.twitter.com/JvtoN4Bc86
Estonia to test 'vaccine passports'
As AFP reports from Tallinn, trust will be key as Estonia tests global vaccine passports...
Could a QR code open up the world? That is the question in Estonia as it takes a lead in global efforts to develop digital vaccine passports.
The small, tech-savvy Baltic EU member state is working on a pilot project with the World Health Organisation on how globally recognised electronic vaccine certificates might work.
Marten Kaevats, an advisor to the Estonian government on technology, said the primary issue for the project so far is to ensure that anyone checking the certificate can “trust the source”.
“Both the architecture and the solution should work both in Eritrea and Singapore,” Kaevats said.
While Estonia already has its own system of electronic health records with vaccine information, most countries in the world do not and there is no mutual recognition across borders.
There are now many digital vaccine passport initiatives cropping up globally that are raising urgent questions about privacy and human rights.
The WHO is also moving cautiously and for the moment does not recommend vaccination passports for travel as it does not see them as sufficient guarantee of protection from transmission.
Nevertheless, digital vaccine certificates are an attractive prospect, particularly for pandemic-hit businesses such as airlines.
Emirates and Etihad, two of the Middle East’s biggest airlines, announced last month that they would be trying out an application that allows pre-travel verification of vaccinations.
The agreement between the WHO and Estonia is to explore the possibility of a “smart yellow card” - a digital version of an existing paper system to prove yellow fever vaccination.
Kaevats, who also advises the WHO on digital health issues, said it would be “impossible” to create a global digital ID in the coming months and that a mix of paper and electronic certificates was more likely.
He said the main focus at the moment was on elaborating global standards to develop “a single common solution for checking the existence of healthcare providers”.
- Privacy and human rights? -
Estonia, a eurozone member of 1.3 million people, is known as a tech trailblazer and innovation testing ground, with Estonians helping pioneer the likes of Skype, e-voting and delivery robots.
Guardtime, an Estonian company, is now developing a system for cross-border recognition of electronic health records using blockchain.
The company is also working with Iceland, Hungary and Lithuania, as well as with AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical giant producing one of the coronavirus vaccines.
Ain Aaviksoo, Guardtime’s chief medical officer, said he expected the first countries to begin using digital vaccine certificates domestically “in the coming weeks”.
Aaviksoo dismissed privacy concerns for the VaccineGuard system, pointing to the company’s use of blockchain to ensure data protection.
Personal and health data remain in the original location and the system provides “cryptographic proof of the certificate and its issuance process and the authenticity of the vaccine,” he said.
In response to similar concerns, the WHO-Estonia project is guided by the principles that people should be allowed to delete the data and tech companies should not be allowed to profit from the data that they handle.
But many are still worried about their implementation.
Ana Beduschi, an associate professor of law at the University of Exeter in Britain, said the introduction of vaccine passports “poses essential questions for the protection of data privacy and human rights”.
“These passports build on sensitive personal health information to create a new distinction between individuals based on their health status,” she said.
This differentiation “can then be used to determine the degree of freedoms and rights they may enjoy”.
Before they are rolled out more widely, Beduschi said policymakers should ensure vaccines are universally available and explore alternatives for people who cannot be vaccinated such as pregnant women.
“It is not sufficient to develop technical solutions for the verification of people’s health status,” she said, adding that “the risks of deploying such technologies must be anticipated and mitigated as much as possible”.
Dr Sanjaya Senanayake, infectious diseases expert at the Australian National University medical school, has addressed the National Press Club in Canberra, Australia. He has made an argument for better co-ordinated global rollout of vaccines: and a rationale of vaccine altruism over vaccine nationalism.
Senanayake said the world needs to improve the rollout of vaccines in developing countries if it wants to stop new strains emerging in other parts of the world that could undermine existing vaccines.
If we continue this global vaccine rollout while in other parts of the world infection continues unchecked, then we will see more sinister strains emerge which might have further impacts on vaccine efficacy.
Therefore, if you were a believer in vaccine nationalism – wanting the best impact of vaccines in your own country – you also have to embrace vaccine altruism and ensure that vaccines are delivered in sufficient number and in a timely manner to the developing world.
Some important statistics from the US. The Covid Tracking Project reports 1.6m tests over the past 24 hours, 93,000 positive cases, and 2,795 deaths.
Importantly the trend of deaths from Covid-19 is down, across the country, and in every major region.
Our daily update is published. States reported 1.6M tests, 93k cases, 79,179 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19, and 2,795 deaths. pic.twitter.com/FH1UlCCcuG
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) February 10, 2021
The trend in reported COVID-19 deaths is improving in every major US region. pic.twitter.com/w00nnaAU3j
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) February 10, 2021
A little more on New Zealand’s Covid-19 response.
The Lowy Institute in Australia ranked the response of 100 countries to the COvid-19 pandemic: New Zealand was number 1.
The Top 10 was: New Zealand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, Cyprus, Rwanda, Iceland, Australia, Latvia, Sri Lanka.
As Daniel Hurst reported in the Guardian:
The Lowy Institute’s new interactive feature - the Covid Performance Index - looks at how countries and territories have performed in responding to the pandemic.
It’s based on crunching data for the 36 weeks that followed every country’s hundredth confirmed case of Covid-19, based on indicators such as confirmed cases, confirmed deaths, confirmed cases per million people, confirmed deaths per million people, confirmed cases as a proportion of tests, and tests per thousand people.
Of the nearly 100 jurisdictions with publicly available and comparable data in these categories.
The researchers say China was not included in the rankings due to a lack of publicly available data on testing, but South Korea is ranked 20th, Japan 45th, the United Kingdom 66th, Indonesia 85th and the United States 94th, with Brazil in last place at 98th.
“Although the coronavirus outbreak started in China, countries in the Asia-Pacific, on average, proved the most successful at containing the pandemic,” the interactive says.
“By contrast, the rapid spread of Covid-19 along the main arteries of globalisation quickly overwhelmed first Europe and then the United States.”
Researchers Alyssa Leng and Hervé Lemahieu say smaller countries with populations of fewer than 10 million people “proved more agile than the majority of their larger counterparts in handling the health emergency for most of 2020” - but development levels or differences in political systems “had less of an impact on outcomes than often assumed or publicised”.
In general, countries with smaller populations, cohesive societies, and capable institutions have a comparative advantage in dealing with a global crisis such as a pandemic, Leng and Lemahieu said.
American political scientist Francis Fukuyama has argued the dividing line in effective crisis response has not been regime type
but whether citizens trust their leaders, and whether those leaders preside over a competent and effective state
You can explore the Lowy Institute interactive, and find out more about how they crunched the data here.
Updated
New Zealand approves Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines
New Zealand will first administer Covid-19 vaccines to quarantine personnel, front line health workers and airline staff, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said, as the government formally approved its use on Wednesday.
New Zealand’s medicines regulator last week provisionally approved the use of the Covid-19 vaccine jointly developed by US drugmaker Pfizer Inc and Germany’s BioNTech.
“Now we’ve reached the crucial stage of approval for the first vaccine, we are in a much better position to start having a conversation with New Zealanders about how we plan to proceed,” Hipkins said in a statement.
Authorities expect the Pfizer vaccine to arrive in the country by end-March but they had expressed concerns about export curbs.
Pressure has been mounting on prime minister Jacinda Ardern to start inoculations for the country’s five million people soon even though New Zealand has virtually eliminated the virus.
With just under 2,000 confirmed cases and 25 deaths since the pandemic began, New Zealand largely escaped the high number of cases and deaths from the virus compared with many other developed countries thanks to border closures and lockdowns.
But the emergence of highly contagious variants abroad and more overseas residents returning home has raised concerns of the virus spreading in the community again.
Ardern’s critics have said New Zealand has fallen behind the rest of the world after promising in November that it would be first in the queue for Covid-19 vaccines.
“When the first batch of vaccine arrives, we will be ready to go,” Hipkins said, adding information campaigns will begin next week.
New Zealand will get 1.5 million vaccines from Pfizer, which will provide enough doses to vaccinate 750,000 people, while the medicines regulator is in talks with AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax regarding the approval of their Covid-19 vaccines.
Updated
More from Australia: New South Wales will ease some Covid restrictions from Friday
Premier Gladys Berejiklian, has spoken to media after the state recorded no new cases of Covid-19.
This comes after a man in Wollongong tested positive for coronavirus on the 16th day after he started quarantine. That was announced on Monday.
Berejiklian said it was possible it was “an old infection”.
“It is unlikely to have contracted at in quarantine, so the best advice is that it’s either an old infection or else the person obviously has had an unusually longer incubation period, which can happen.”
Berejiklian said NSW would be raising its flight arrival cap on Monday, back to 3,000 people a week.
“It’s the right thing to do by Australians.”
And she says that the NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, has signed off on a relaxing of restrictions on Friday.
Masks will no longer be mandatory for hospitality workers – but will still be required on public transport. Venues will be able to go back to the 2-square metre rule.
Reuters reports:
Britain’s financial sector paid £75.6bn pounds ($104.08 billion) in tax in 2020, but receipts are forecast to drop this year as unfettered access to the European Union ends and fallout from the pandemic continues, a report said on Wednesday.
The City of London Corporation, which administers the capital’s historic financial district, said the tax contribution in the year to March 2020 was little changed from £75.5bn pounds in the prior period, despite uncertainties over Britain’s future relations with the European Union.
“However, the future is uncertain, and we do not yet know the long-term impacts of the pandemic, Brexit and changes in ways of working,” City leader Catherine McGuinness said.
The sector accounts for over 10% of UK tax receipts.
Receipts are expected to ease in the current financial year that ends next month to between £71.1bn and £75.7bn, consultants PwC estimated in a report for the City.
“The transition to new trading arrangements between the UK and the EU will put further downward pressure on the recovery of the financial services sector,” the report said.
Britain’s trade deal with the bloc from January 1 does not cover financial services, with the City likely to get only limited access to the EU for the forseeable future.
Financial services exports to the EU in recent years have totalled about £26bn pounds annually, but some of this activity has already moved to the bloc.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorisation to Eli Lilly’s combination antibody therapy to fight Covid-19, the US drugmaker said on Tuesday.
Eli Lilly’s combination therapy of two antibodies, bamlanivimab and etesevimab, helped cut the risk of hospitalisation and death in Covid-19 patients by 70%, data from a late-stage trial showed in January.
“This therapy is authorised for the treatment of mild to moderate Covid-19 in patients aged 12 and older who are at high risk for progressing to severe Covid-19 and/or hospitalisation”, the company said in a statement.
NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of #COVID19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) February 10, 2021
Four new cases were acquired overseas, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 4,940. pic.twitter.com/vuO1SUZAJE
US drugmaker Moderna Inc has signed supply agreements for its Covid-19 vaccine with the governments of Taiwan and Colombia for five million doses and 10 million doses, respectively.
“The Covid-19 vaccine Moderna is not currently approved for use in Taiwan or Colombia, and the company will work with regulators to pursue necessary approvals prior to distribution,” Moderna said in a statement.
Deliveries would begin in mid-2021, the company added.
Late in December, Taiwan said it had agreed to buy almost 20 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine, including 10 million from UK drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc, with the first shots to start arriving from March.
Last week, Germany ducked an appeal by Taiwan for its help to supply Covid-19 vaccines, as the Asian tech powerhouse’s request for assistance following Berlin’s plea to ease a semiconductor supply crunch in the auto industry risked provoking China’s ire.
More on Venezuela’s announcement it will begin a vaccination roll-out next week.
From AFP:
The first 100,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine will arrive in Venezuela next week, the South American nation’s President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday.
“When the vaccination process begins, we are going to vaccinate all medical personnel, all health personnel in Venezuela,” Maduro said in a televised address.
“The most vulnerable sectors, and then we will vaccinate the teachers.”
The shipment represents just one percent of a total of 10 million vaccines that Russian authorities have agreed to send impoverished Venezuela.
With 30 million residents, Venezuela has recorded more than 130,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 1,240 deaths, though international groups have questioned the accuracy of the figures.
Tony Bennett is vaccinated, and he wants you to know about it!
Both doses of the COVID 19 vaccine are important. Just got the second dose today!
— Tony Bennett (@itstonybennett) February 9, 2021
COVID 19 vaccine resources: https://t.co/uLn4Pu7Fcj
📸 Mark Seliger pic.twitter.com/kQ73HjASss
We had this story in our earlier blog coverage, but it bears repeating: a little bit of joy amongst so much awful news.
A French nun who is Europe’s oldest person has recovered from Covid-19 after it swept through a nursing home in the south of France, and will celebrate her 117th birthday this week.
Kim Willsher reports:
To Australia, where your correspondent sits, and Victoria, the state hardest hit by Australia’s comparatively limited Covid-19 outbreaks.
AAP reports:
More Victorians have been forced into isolation and another review of the state’s hotel quarantine system is underway after two new cases of Covid-19 were linked to a Holiday Inn at Melbourne Airport.
A food and beverage worker and a returned traveller tested positive on Tuesday after an authorised officer working at the same hotel tested positive on Sunday.
The returned traveller had tested negative several times during her stay, which ended on Sunday. She got tested again on Monday after learning of the outbreak.
The woman did not leave home other than to get tested and only one primary close contact has been identified so far.
The food and beverage worker worked on the same floor as the returned traveller and was identified as a close contact of the positive authorised officer.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the three Holiday Inn cases were likely linked to a floor with known Covid-positive guests.
That includes a family of three, one of whom has been transferred to intensive care.
Professor Sutton indicated the infected workers and former guest appeared to have picked up the virus from the family, despite having no close contact.
“Cases can happen anywhere, at any time, and they can happen without a breach of protocol or any particular errors being made,” he said on Tuesday.
“We are talking about an incredibly infectious virus. We have known that airborne transmission is possible.”
Health officials are investigating ways to better protect hotel quarantine workers and guests.
“All I can say is bring on the vaccine,” Sutton said.
Hello, and welcome to a new liveblog, and our continuing coverage of the global coronavirus pandemic. My name’s Ben Doherty, typing these words in Sydney, Australia, thank you for your company. Correspondence and comments are always welcome, you can find me at ben.doherty@theguardian.com or @BenDohertyCorro on twitter.
To begin, a summary of global developments:
- People may need to get vaccinated against Covid-19 annually for the next several years, Johnson & Johnson chief executive Alex Gorsky told CNBC on Tuesday, due to mutations to the virus.
- Venezuela will receive the first 100,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine next week, President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday.
- Brazil has reported 51,486 new coronavirus cases, as well as 1,350 deaths, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
- In London, Lambeth council is asking some residents to take a coronavirus test after the variant first identified in South Africa was detected in the local area.
- The Athens region will enter a stricter coronavirus lockdown from Thursday, Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said, with schools and non-essential shops closed.
- Spain has now recorded more than 3 million Covid cases, while also registering 766 deaths over the past 24 hours - the highest daily death toll of the current third wave.
- Two new Covid variants, one of which has been classified as a “concern”, have been identified in England with some similarities to the South African and Brazilian variants, a government advisory scientific committee said.
- The Navajo Nation’s vaccination rollout continues to surpass the broader United States, Al Jazeera reports, having distributed 94 per cent of the doses it has received.
- Ireland is likely to gradually emerge from its strict lockdown between April and June with outdoor dining and domestic tourism likely to be possible during the summer, deputy prime minister Leo Varadkar has said.
- Ghana’s parliament has suspended most of its activities for three weeks after at least 17 MPs and 151 staff members were infected with the coronavirus, the speaker Alban Bagbin has told the country’s parliament.
- eSwatini health minister Lizzie Nkosi has said that her country, which borders South Africa, would no longer use AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine.
- Argentina has announced it has approved the emergency use of the Indian-made Covishield vaccine, AFP reports.
- Equatorial Guinea has said it would impose a curfew for the first time, limit flights and reintroduce other restrictions after cases of coronavirus rebounded in the West African country, AFP reports.
