Hi, I’m Edna Mohamed; we’ll now be closing this live blog. Thank you all for following along with me tonight!
We’ll be starting a new live blog In a few hours, but until then, you can read up on all our coronavirus coverage from across the world here.
Evening summary
Here are some of the top headlines from the past few hours:
- Canada has extended its ban on incoming passenger flights from India and Pakistan by another 30 days to 21 June as part of a campaign to fight Covid-19.
- The US government is partnering with popular online dating platforms such as Match, Tinder and Bumble to encourage more Americans to take up the jab.
- The UK’s minister for transport, Grant Shapps, has said other countries would be added to the country’s green list of travel destinations by the summer, allowing holidays across Europe without the need to quarantine upon return.
- Colombia has barred non-resident arrivals from India through the end of June.
- India’s information technology (IT) ministry has written to all social media companies asking them to take down any content that refers to an “Indian variant” of the coronavirus.
- Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson announced at a G20 health summit that they will supply about 3.5bn vaccine doses at price or discount to low and middle-income countries this year and next.
- Germany plans to remove France from its list of coronavirus risk areas due to a drop in the number of cases in the country, two government sources said on Friday.
- Germany’s public health institute has declared Britain and Northern Ireland a virus variant region, requiring anyone entering from the UK to quarantine for two weeks on arrival.
- Out of almost 60,000 people who attended nine pilot events for mass gatherings in Britain, only 15 people tested positive, health officials announced on Friday.
- Covid-19 has killed 1m people in Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of the deaths, more than 446,000, have occurred in Brazil, which has experienced its deadliest second outbreak outside the United States.
- The White House has said it has no plans to require foreign visitors to the United States to be vaccinated for Covid-19.
- Cameroon’s government auditors have alleged that ministries and state bodies misappropriated and mismanaged funds from a $338m national coronavirus response plan.
- The US will provide vaccinations for 550,000 South Korean soldiers.
According to health ministry data released on Friday, Mexico reported 2,604 new cases and 176 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 2,392,744 infections and 221,256 deaths.
The government has said the actual number of cases is likely to be significantly higher, with separate data published recently suggesting that the actual death toll is at least 60 per cent above the confirmed figure.
US President Joe Biden has said that he and the South Korean President Moon Jae-in had agreed on a complete partnership on vaccines and that the US will provide vaccinations for 550,000 South Korean soldiers.
During a news conference at the White House, Moon said the vaccine partnership would contribute to boosting supplies in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.
Brazil’s health minister said the government is doing everything possible to prevent the spread of the coronavirus variant first identified in India, in the northern Brazilian state of Maranhao. After a member of a crew ship that anchored in Sao Luis after a trip from South Africa was airlifted to hospital with severe Covid-19 symptoms caused by the variant.
Reuters reports:
“This case was detected promptly, all sanitary measures were taken, and we hope that there is no spread of this Indian variant here in Brazil,” Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga told journalists. “Patients and their contacts have been isolated.”
Brazil has struggled to contain homegrown variants of the coronavirus, driving a deadly second wave of Covid-19, which has killed almost 450,000 Brazilians since the pandemic began - nearly half the death toll for all Latin America.
President Jair Bolsonaro has come under harsh scrutiny from a Senate inquiry investigating his government’s handling of the pandemic, including delays in procuring vaccines, which have led to a sputtering national immunization program.
Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa came under pressure on Friday from the state of Bahia to approve the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine within seven days. A move other states in the region said is critical to tackling the Covid-19 crisis.
In a letter to Anvisa seen by Reuters, Bahia’s chief prosecutor Barbara Camardelli highlighted the arrival of the Indian variant and the “incessant rise” in Covid-19 cases and deaths as reasons to warrant a swift decision.
Anvisa in late April rejected requests from Maranhao and other states to import the Sputnik V vaccine, citing “inherent risks” and “serious” defects and a lack of information guaranteeing its safety, quality and effectiveness.
Governors from several northeastern states said in a news release on Friday that they are confident Anvisa will authorize the emergency import of vaccines and reverse its earlier decision on Sputnik V.
Updated
Germany’s new announcement declaring Britain and Northern Ireland a virus variant region will take effect from midnight on Sunday (10 pm GMT). They will apply to people with complete vaccine protection and those who have recovered from Covid-19.
A spokesman for the health ministry said:
“If we want to keep pushing down infection rates, we need to prevent contagious viral variants from jeopardising this positive trend. This step is hard for the UK, but it is necessary to prevent the rapid spread of the Indian variant in Germany.”
He added that only when more people have been vaccinated is Germany armed against such a danger.
German health minister Jens Spahn said earlier this month that Germany’s third wave of infections “appears to be broken,” but government officials are being careful.
Updated
A senior member of the International Olympic Committee has said the Tokyo 2020 Games could go ahead even if the host city is under a state of emergency because of the coronavirus.
“All the measures we are undertaking will ensure a safe Games regardless of whether there is a state of emergency or not,” John Coates, an IOC vice-president who is in charge of preparations, told reporters after a virtual meeting with organisers on Friday.
“Provided that we can protect the Japanese public, the most important thing is giving athletes a chance to compete.”
The IOC and Tokyo 2020 organisers have insisted the Games will go ahead, despite widespread public opposition in Japan and warnings from health experts that the arrival of tens of thousands of athletes, officials, journalists and support staff this summer risked spreading Covid-19.
Japanese doctors and medical workers have called for the Games to be cancelled to relieve pressure on overwhelmed health services, while a recent poll found that 83% of the public want the event to be either called off or postponed for a second time.
More of the story here:
According to a leaked summary of their report shared widely online, Cameroon’s government auditors have alleged that ministries and state bodies misappropriated and mismanaged funds from a $338m national coronavirus response plan.
Reuters reports,
The International Monetary Fund has given $382 million in emergency funds to Cameroon since the start of the pandemic and said it was important for the authorities to keep track of companies contracted as part of its Covid-19 response.
An audit was commissioned by President Paul Biya into the use of Covid-19 funds, but no findings have yet been made public.
Reuters could not confirm the authenticity of the 22-page report purportedly by the supreme court’s audit bench, which alleged government bodies awarded contracts on questionable grounds, falsified accounts, and caused losses of 15 billion CFA francs ($28 m) to the state by choosing a more expensive provider of Covid-19 tests, among other allegations.
The leaked report focused primarily on the activities of the ministry of health and the ministry of scientific research and innovation.
The ministry of health did not respond to requests for comment.
The ministry of scientific research and innovation released a statement denying the allegations in the report, including that one of the bodies under its authority repackaged imported medication to suggest it had been produced locally.
Minister Madeleine Tchuinte “neither received nor managed any financial resources under the government’s coronavirus response,” the statement said.
In April, watchdog Human Rights Watch called on the IMF to push Cameroon to publish the results of the audit by making it a condition of a new loan package.
“The IMF should take seriously the opportunity a new multi-year loan program presents to press for deep-seated governance reforms that will improve Cameroon’s transparency and accountability during this pandemic and beyond,” it said.
Updated
The White House has said it has no plans to require foreign visitors to the United States to be vaccinated for Covid-19, even as the European Union plans to allow Americans who have had their jabs into the bloc.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki added that there was no update on when the US might allow more foreign visitors.
Psaki said: “We certainly understand the desire of many Europeans to come to travel the United States and vice versa. We can’t respond to public pressure or even emotion. We have to rely on the guidance of our health and medical experts.”
Covid-19 has killed 1m people in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Most of the deaths, more than 446,000, have occurred in Brazil, which has experienced its deadliest second outbreak outside the United States.
Brazil remains the third most affected country in the world in cases, behind only India the United States.
Updated
Out of almost 60,000 people who attended nine pilot events for mass gatherings in Britain, only 15 people tested positive, health officials announced on Friday.
The government allowed limited crowds at events, including two FA Cup games, the World Snooker Championship and the Brit Awards, over recent weeks to assess their impact on Covid-19 transmission.
Since March, the country has been gradually easing its strict lockdown and allowed 22,000 football fans permitted inside Wembley Stadium last weekend for the FA Cup final.
AFP reports,
Officials are now working to trace just 15 people to have tested positive following the nine official test events. That level of infection is in line with case numbers for the broader population.
“The aim of our world-leading events research programme is to examine the risk of Covid-19 transmission at large events and explore how crowds can be welcomed back in bigger numbers safely,” a government spokesman said.
“The pilots have been designed in a scientifically controlled way to reduce the risk of transmission for attendees.
“We are working closely with NHS test and trace to ensure everyone can be traced following a positive test,” the spokesman added, referring to Britain’s state-run National Health Service.
The United Kingdom has been one of the hardest-hit countries in Europe by the pandemic but has been able to ease lockdown measures in part thanks to a highly successful vaccination campaign.
The government is hoping to lift the remaining restrictions on 21 June, but doubts have emerged after numerous spikes in the Indian variant of the virus across the country.
Prime minister Boris Johnson is expected to make an announcement on the next stage of the relaxations next week.
Updated
Brazil recorded a further 76,855 confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, alongside 2,215 new deaths, health ministry figures showed on Friday.
According to ministry data, since the pandemic began, Brazil has now registered nearly 16m cases, with the official death toll standing at 446,309.
According to a Reuters tally, the death toll from Covid-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean was due to pass 1m people on Friday as the pandemic worsens in the region with the highest per capita death rate.
On average, in May, 31 per cent of the Covid-19 deaths in the world have been in Latin America and the Caribbean - home to just 8.4 per cent of the global population.
Reuters reports,
Doctors and epidemiologists say the coronavirus pandemic took unprepared governments by surprise last year, and its impact has been worsened by leaders who downplayed its gravity and failed to secure timely vaccine supplies.
The top eight countries registering the most Covid-19 deaths per capita over the past week were all in Latin America.
“Instead of preparing for the pandemic, we minimized the disease, saying the tropical heat would deactivate the virus,” said Dr Francisco Moreno Sanchez, head of the COVID-19 program at one of Mexico’s leading hospitals and a critic of the government’s vaccination plan.
“Unfortunately, we are among the most affected regions, where the handling of the pandemic has been the most mistaken, and now we are suffering the consequences,” the epidemiologist told Reuters.
Updated
Germany declares the UK a virus variant region
Germany’s public health institute has declared Britain and Northern Ireland a virus variant region, requiring anyone entering from the UK to quarantine for two weeks on arrival.
The news comes as cases of the variant of concern first discovered in India continues to climb in Britain.
According to Reuters, a German government source said: “We want to play it safe. In this important phase of the vaccination campaign, the entry of problematic mutations must be avoided as far as possible.”
Updated
While Canada extends its ban on passenger flights from India and Pakistan by 30 days to 21 June as part of a campaign to fight Covid-19, the province of Manitoba has been badly hit by a third wave of the virus, recording the highest rate of infections in the country in the past seven days.
Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister has said he asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to supply critical care nurses, respiratory therapists, and contact tracers on Friday.
Pallister added that Trudeau indicated he would provide all the support he could.
According to Reuters, as vaccinations pick up across the country, the number of daily new cases has dropped by 25 per cent since last week - now averaging around 5,000, deputy chief public health officer Howard Njoo told a briefing.
So far, Canada has recorded a total of 25,111 deaths from Covid-19 and more than 1.3m cases overall.
Updated
States across India have begun declaring a “black fungus” epidemic as cases of the fatal rare infection shoot up in patients recovering from Covid-19.
The fungal disease, called mucormycosis, has a 50% mortality rate. It affects patients initially in the nose but the fungus can then spread into the brain, and can often only be treated by major surgery removing the eye or part of the skull and jaw.
It is usually a rare disease, but more than 7,200 people in India have now been reported with mucormycosis and 219 have lost their lives. The rise in black fungus infections, mostly in patients who had severe cases of Covid-19, has been linked to an overuse of steroids in the treatment of the coronavirus, which can acutely compromise the immune system if taken over a prolonged period.
The high incidence of diabetes in India has also been blamed, with high blood sugar levels linked to susceptibility. India has the second-highest rate of diabetes in the world.
It has also been reported in Covid patients who were on ventilators in intensive care units, due to their airways being exposed to humidity and moisture.
More here on the rare infection:
Germany plans to remove France from its list of coronavirus risk areas due to a drop in the number of cases in the country, two government sources said on Friday.
According to Reuters, the summer holiday destinations, Slovenia and Croatia, would also no longer be classified as risk areas, the sources added.
Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson announced at a G20 health summit that they will supply about 3.5bn vaccine doses at price or discount to low and middle-income countries this year and next.
The European Union also pledged to donate 100m vaccine doses, while Germany and France will each give 30m.
Hi, I’m Edna Mohamed; I’ll be taking over the blog for the next few hours. If there’s anything I miss, you can message me on Twitter or email me at edna.mohamed.casual@theguardian.com
A top Zimbabwean official has denied reports that the government has imposed a strict lockdown on the central city of Kwekwe because the Covid-19 variant dominant in India has been detected there.
The Associated Press reports:
Larry Mavhima, the minister for the Midlands province, said a notice announcing the restrictions issued by the health ministry’s Covid-19 task force was incorrect.
Health minister Constantino Chiwenga, who is also Zimbabwe’s vice president, announced earlier this week that the variant had been found in Kwekwe, a city of more than 100,000.
Zimbabwe has generally eased restrictions nationwide after the rate of infections started slowing after a devastating resurgence in December and January.
The southern African country of 15 million people has recorded 38,635 confirmed cases, including 1,585 deaths, according to health ministry figures.
The country has vaccinated 615,296 people with a first dose of vaccines, mainly the Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, while 252,100 had received a second dose, according to official figures.
India’s information technology (IT) ministry has written to all social media companies asking them to take down any content that refers to an “Indian variant” of the coronavirus, according to a letter issued on Friday which was seen by Reuters.
The World Health Organization said on 11 May that the coronavirus variant B.1.617, first identified in India last year, was being classified as a variant of global concern.
The Indian government a day later issued a statement saying media reports using the term “Indian Variant” were without any basis, saying the WHO had classified the variant as just B.1.617.
In a letter to social media companies on Friday, the IT ministry asked the companies to “remove all the content” that names or implies “Indian variant” of the coronavirus.
“This is completely FALSE. There is no such variant of Covid-19 scientifically cited as such by the World Health Organisation [sic] (WHO). WHO has not associated the term ‘Indian Variant’ with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in any of its reports,” stated the letter, which is not public.
A senior Indian government source told Reuters the notice was issued to send a message “loud and clear” that such mentions of “Indian variant” spread miscommunication and hurt the country’s image.
The IT ministry could not be reached for comment.
Around the world, coronvirus variants have generically been referred to by doctors and health experts on the basis of where the are identified. This includes South Africa, Brazil and UK variants.
The US is likely to soon drop its restrictions on vaccine exports as supplies at home become plentiful and the majority of its citizens get a jab, Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said on Friday.
Washington last year invoked the wartime powers of the Defense Production Act to preserve vaccine raw materials for its own companies, a move which hindered production elsewhere.
“I am pretty sure the US will take off their vaccine barriers now. There are plenty of vaccinations now,” Draghi told reporters at the end of a global health summit where poorer nations complained about an unfair distribution of jabs.
Colombia has barred non-resident arrivals from India through the end of June in an effort to prevent the spread of Covid-19 variant B.1.617, the health ministry said on Friday.
Reuters reports:
The restrictions came into force on Thursday, although travellers who were already in the air or on their journey to Colombia are exempt.
The variant’s potentially higher rates of transmission motivated Colombia’s decision, the ministry said in a statement.
The B.1.617 variant is believed by some experts to be even more transmissible than the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in Britain.
India’s hospitals and crematoria have been overwhelmed by a second wave in coronavirus cases.
It is widely accepted official figures of more than 25 million cases in the Asian country grossly underestimate the real impact of the epidemic, with some experts saying infections and deaths could be up to 10 times higher.
Colombia’s restrictions apply to travelers who have been in India within the last 14 days or who had a connecting flight there, the statement said.
Travellers who are exempt from the ban, including diplomats and those with work visas, must present a negative PCR test upon entry, take an additional test within 24 hours of arrival and a third on the seventh day after entry.
They should also be in strict quarantine for 14 days, the statement said.
French Covid-19 numbers improved further on Friday, with the health ministry reporting 3,631 people in intensive care units with the virus, down by 138 from Thursday.
The overall number of Covid patients in hospital also fell again to just over 20,000.
France also reported 109 new coronavirus deaths in hospitals, compared with 173 on Friday last week, and 305 on Friday three weeks ago.
As we reported earlier, London’s Heathrow airport is to create a separate terminal for flights coming from “red list” countries, to address concerns over passengers from destinations with high rates of Covid-19 mixing with other travellers in the arrivals hall.
Britain’s biggest airport said it would introduce the dedicated arrivals facility in Terminal 3 from 1 June. It follows increasing disquiet over incoming flights, particularly from India, where the B.1.617.2 variant was first detected.
Under the new traffic light system, only returning UK citizens are allowed to fly home from red list countries, while holidays are permitted in green list countries – and potentially amber, with quarantine measures.
Ministers had urged Heathrow to segregate arrivals from higher-risk countries, with the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, saying on Thursday he wanted to “see people separated out as much as is practically possible”.
With many more passengers expected in coming weeks, after holidays were permitted to resume on 17 May, the airport said it would create the facility to help smooth the immigration process.
Although the airport said the current system – designed by the government – had built-in protection, there have been reports of long queues in immigration halls and experts have questioned the safety of travel with passengers from around the world mixing in airports. Border Force officials have had to spend much more time than before processing documentation, including pre-departure Covid test certificates from abroad.
Full story here:
Other EU countries to be added to UK green list soon, transport secretary suggests
The UK’s minister for transport, Grant Shapps, has said other countries would be added to the country’s green list of travel destinations by the summer, allowing holidays across Europe without the need to quarantine upon return.
At the moment, the only EU country on that list is Portugal.
The government will review its traffic light evaluation of countries in the first week of June.
Shapps urged people longing for holidays in France and elsewhere in Europe to be “a little patient”, telling the FT:
I don’t think people have a very long time to wait before other countries are able to join the green list.
If you look at France’s vaccination rate, they’re six or eight weeks behind us.
Asked whether people should travel to countries currently coded amber, Shapps said: “Don’t do it.”
I’m Jedidajah Otte and am taking back over now. If you have anything you want to flag, you get contact me on Twitter @JedySays.
Updated
Looking to meet someone tall, dark, handsome and...fully vaccinated against Covid-19? There’s an app for that.
In one of the more unusual developments in the coronavirus vaccination drive, the US government is partnering with popular online dating platforms such as Match, Tinder and Bumble to encourage more Americans to take up the jab.
Reuters reports:
The dating apps will be offering new features including badges that show people’s vaccination status, free access to “premium content like boosts, super likes, and super swipes” for vaccinated individuals, and ways to filter potential hook-ups according to people’s vaccination status, the White House said.
Italy reported 218 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday against 164 the day before, but the daily tally of new infections fell to 5,218 from 5,741.
Reuters reports:
Italy has registered 125,028 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.18 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 9,925 on Friday, down from 10,383 a day earlier.
There were 51 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 69 on Thursday. The total number of intensive care patients fell to 1,469 from a previous 1,544.
Rachel Hall taking over the blog from Jedidajah Otte. If we’ve missed anything, do send over any thoughts, ideas or tips to rachel.hall@theguardian.com
Updated
An infectious disease expert and co-opted member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group to the UK government has warned that there is “plenty of space” for the variant of concern first detected in India, B.1.617.2 to grow exponentially in Britain.
Speaking at an online meeting of the Independent Sage group of experts, professor Ravi Gupta of the University of Cambridge said that despite the UK’s vaccination programme, cases of B.1.617.2 are set to rise.
“We still have people under the age of 30 not vaccinated, we have many with only one dose, so this virus has plenty of space to expand exponentially and reach very high levels of infection with quite high levels of morbidity overall,” he said.
His comments come as data from the Covid-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium reveals that the India variant has been detected in 4,717 positive Covid samples to date, with the India variant found in around a fifth of analysed positive specimens dating to within the past 28 days.
The rise has also been reflected in case data, which unlike the Cog-UK data does not include potential duplicates, with figures released by Public Health England (PHE) last night revealing there have now been 3,424 confirmed cases of the B.1.617.2 variant in the UK, up from 1,313 cases confirmed by last Thursday.
Both of these datasets are likely to underestimate the current situation as there is a time lag between samples being collected and the variant in positive tests being determined.
Christina Pagel, professor of operational research at University College London, who is a member of the Independent sage group of experts said the rise in cases of the India variant is not yet fully reflected in overall Covid case numbers because of the decline in cases of the Kent variant that has been dominating in the UK.
Anthony Costello, professor of global health and sustainable development at University College London and a former director of maternal and child health at the WHO who is also a member of Independent Sage noted that while Covid vaccines appear to offer protection against the variant, some people can still become very ill with the disease.
He said:
I was on a call with a lot of very experienced Indian physicians in Delhi yesterday and many of them on the call had been hospitalised even though they had been fully vaccinated.
There have been 244 doctors who have died in Delhi during the latest surge and 3% of them were fully vaccinated. Now that is much lower than those that weren’t, but nonetheless, this is a serious virus and that is why we should be suppressing it.
Canada extends ban on flights from India and Pakistan
Canada has extended its ban on incoming passenger flights from India and Pakistan by another 30 days to 21 June as part of a campaign to fight Covid-19, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said on Friday.
The CBC cited a formal Notice to Airmen issued by civil aviation authorities. Ottawa first announced the ban on 22 April as cases of Covid-19 in India soared.
London’s Heathrow airport’s terminal 3 is to be made a designated arrival area for travellers from so-called “red-list” countries from 1 June, the LBC’s Ben Kentish reports, amid a rise in infections with the Indian variant and “early signs” of a potential rise in the proportion of people testing positive for coronavirus in England.
EXCL: Heathrow is to use Terminal 3 as a dedicated “Red List” terminal from 1st June, I understand. It will then switch to Terminal 4 at a later date. Move comes after reports of Red List passengers mixing in long queues and our revelation about 100+ flights landing from India.
— Ben Kentish (@BenKentish) May 21, 2021
As we reported earlier, the UK government said on Friday it was up to airports to ensure people returning from “red-list” countries are separated from other travellers.
British prime minister Boris Johnson on Friday called for an end to a disunited approach to tackling the pandemic and said countries should resist the temptations of nationalism to protect the world from “common enemies” such as Covid-19 in the future.
Johnson drew a parallel between the pandemic and the plague at the start of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad.
He said in a speech at the G20 health summit:
Almost 2,800 years later, the world has been just as disunited I’m afraid as Achilles and Agamemnon. And I think now is the time to come together and to defeat the pandemic and to prevent another.
Now is the time to move away from the temptations of competing nationalism [...] and instead reassert the power, the duty, the necessity for nations to act together, building collective defence against the common enemy of disease.
EU finance ministers were hopeful on Friday about the prospects of a post-pandemic economic recovery, but said Europe would have to work hard to avoid long-term economic damage and not to fall behind China and the US.
The chairman of euro zone finance ministers Paschal Donohoe told a news conference:
We can see a recovery taking hold, but we also know that the challenges remain great.
That the risk of scarring, the risk of damage from this pandemic in our societies, in citizens, and on the balance sheets of employers, continues to be real.
The long-term “scarring” effects of the pandemic could include declining business investments, as it did in the financial crisis a decade ago, European Economics Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told the news conference, while the disruption to young people’s education and training remains another big worry.
European Commission forecasts show the 27-nation EU will reach pre-pandemic growth levels around the middle of 2022, with some, like Germany and France, already there at the end of this year and others, like Italy or Spain only at the end of 2022.
But China and the US will rebound more quickly, forecasts show, and the eurozone will have to act soon to boost its growth potential if it is to stay among the top performers, the French finance minister Bruno le Maire said.
Le Maire told reporters:
Do we want to play in the first league, or do we want to lag behind China and US?
We need more activity, more investment in new technologies. We have to improve the growth potential of Europe. Coming back to normal is not the right ambition. This is from a historic point of view the key decision that we will have to take over the next months.
A total of 49,682,934 Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England between 8 December and 20 May, according to NHS England data, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 601,960 on the previous day.
NHS England said 234,818 first vaccine doses had been administered on the previous day, taking the total of first doses to 31,354,838, while 367,142 second doses were given, taking second shots to 18,328,096 overall.
Italy’s government revived hopes of producing the country’s own Covid-19 vaccine on Friday when it said it was ready to finance the ReiThera project despite a court ruling rejecting a plan to pump public funds into the local biotech company.
Italy’s state audit court on Friday raised objections to the public financing for the project, throwing its future into doubt, Reuters reports.
The court said of the €50m ($60.96m) of public money directly pledged for ReiThera, too little was dedicated to the research and production of the vaccine and too much to a general strengthening of the company, including the purchase of its headquarters.
ReiThera’s vaccine, manufactured with the help of Germany’s Leukocare and Belgium’s Univercells, has concluded Phase II trials and the firm is in early talks with Brussels to supply the EU.
However, the project needs public funding to start phase 3 trials. Italy said on Thursday it will introduce tax breaks of 20% for companies conducting research and development for innovative drugs, including Covid-19 vaccines, provided they grant non-exclusive licences, according to a draft decree seen by Reuters.
Updated
Portugal’s finance ministry will let locals use the VAT included in their bills as credit to spend in other venues, such as restaurants and theatres, in a bid to boost revenue for the country’s struggling tourism sector - although tourists will, curiously, not be eligible for the scheme.
The scheme is due to come into effect on 1 June and will apply to hotels, restaurants, and cultural venues.
Customers can decide whether to pay VAT on their bills to the state, or retain the amount as credit to spend elsewhere in the tourist sector in the following financial quarter.
Only people tax-registered in Portugal will be eligible for the scheme.
VAT constitutes 6% of the bill at hotels and cultural venues and 13% at restaurants, rising to 23% on sales of alcohol, juices and fizzy drinks, Reuters reports.
Customers provide their tax number when paying the bill, and their credits will be logged in an online portal.
Similar schemes have been tested in other countries to incentivise local consumers to support industries which usually rely on foreign visitors for income, such as the UK’s ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme offering discounts at restaurants and Ireland’s ‘stay and spend’ scheme offering taxpayers a 1 euro ($1.22) refund for every 5 spent in the local hospitality sector up to 625 euros.
Portugal’s scheme will cost 200 million euros and be financed by the country’s EU recovery fund budget.
The local tourism sector, accounting for nearly 15% of GDP before the pandemic, saw a 67% drop in revenues in 2020 as lockdowns and travel restrictions kept away foreign visitors whose spending fuels local restaurants, bars and hotels.
Restaurants have reopened but with capacity restrictions on indoor seating and closing time set at 10.30 pm. Bars and clubs are still closed.
Borders opened to tourists from EU countries with low incidence rates and British tourists who have a negative Covid-19 test last weekend.
A Covid-19 outbreak at Singapore’s airport may have initially spread through a worker who helped an infected family arriving in the country, authorities said on Friday, as they further ramped up their testing regime.
Reuters reports:
The airport cluster which involves about 100 cases, is part of a resurgence of infections in the Asian business hub and highlights the challenges of keeping the virus out, despite rigorous testing and quarantine measures for travelers. It is Singapore’s largest active cluster.
The civil aviation regulator and the Changi Airport Group in a statement said test results from a batch of staff were similar and were of the B.1.617 variant, first found in India, suggesting they “originated from a common source”.
“Preliminary investigations indicate that the initial transmission could have occurred through an airport worker who was assisting a family from South Asia,” it said. The family arrived on April 29.
Earlier this month, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said many infected airport staff worked in a zone that received travelers from high-risk countries. The workers may have infected others in the airport’s food outlets, he said.
The airport has since tightened measures by ringfencing teams working with arrivals from higher-risk countries. It also segregates travelers from different risk profile countries, so they use different immigration halls, baggage belts and toilets.
So far about 90% of frontline aviation workers have been vaccinated against Covid-19.
Authorities on Friday said there would be more testing for passengers from very high risk countries and airport workers in higher risk roles.
The B.1.617 variant has been found elsewhere in Singapore, which has recently tightened restrictions.
Bangladesh ordered a strict lockdown in five camps that are home to nearly 100,000 Rohingya refugees following a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the world’s largest refugee settlement this week, government officials said on Friday.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation reports:
Nearly a million Rohingya refugees who fled persecution in Myanmar live in 34 sprawling camps in southeastern Bangladesh, and campaigners have warned that the crowded conditions make it difficult to stem the virus’s spread.
Cases in the camps have stayed relatively low since the pandemic began, but test results on Wednesday and Thursday showed a higher rate of transmission, said government official Shamsud Douza. On Thursday, 45 out of 247 tests were positive.
“The coronavirus spread in the camps has been low since the beginning. But the spike made us take this decision as a preventive step,” said Douza, who works at the government’s Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC).
Under the lockdown that took effect on Thursday, residents will not be able to move between different camps and only essential services will operate.
“We haven’t decided when we will lift the lockdown,” Douza added.There have been 864 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the refugee camps out of about 41,500 tests, and 13 deaths.
Officials think the spike in cases may be linked to an increase in the number of gatherings in the camps during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended on May 12.
Bangladesh’s government has said it will include Rohingya refugees in the nation’s vaccine roll-out, which has stalled since neighbouring India curbed its vaccine exports in April.
Bangladesh was supposed to receive about 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India this year, but has only received 7 million, and has so far vaccinated just 2% of its 170 million people.
France has committed to share at least 30 million doses of different Covid-19 vaccines by the end of the year, French president Emmanuel Macron said on Friday at the G20 summit.
French officials have been lobbying countries in Europe to step up the sharing of vaccines with developing countries and have complained privately about the US export ban on vaccines and key vaccined ingredients.
China’s president Xi Jinping on Friday pledged $3bn in aid over the next three years to help developing countries recover from the pandemic, and proposed setting up an international forum on vaccine cooperation.
The forum would be “for vaccine-developing and producing countries and other stakeholders to explore ways of promoting fair and equitable distribution of vaccines around the world,” Xi said at the G20 Global Health Summit, urging major countries to make more vaccines available to developing nations, Reuters reports.
IMF proposes $50bn project aimed at ending pandemic by vaccinating 40% of people globally by end of 2021
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday unveiled a $50bn proposal to end the Covid-19 pandemic by vaccinating at least 40% of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 and at least 60% by the first half of 2022.
Implementing the plan would cost some $50bn, with $35bn to be paid for by grants from rich countries, private and multilateral donors, and the remaining $15bn to be funded by national governments using low- or no-interest financing available from multilateral development banks.
Doing so, IMF officials say, would inject the equivalent of $9tn into the global economy by 2025 due to a faster resumption of economic activity, with rich countries potentially benefiting the most.
The pandemic has killed more than 3.5 million people across the world, and projections point to highly unequal health prospects well into 2022, which poses “severe risks for the world,” the IMF said.
IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva told a health summit hosted by the European Commission and Group of 20 major economies that it made sense for rich economies to boost donations to ensure a faster end to the pandemic.
“Advanced economies - asked to contribute most to this effort - would likely see the highest return on public investment in modern history, capturing 40% of the GDP gains and roughly $1 trillion in additional tax revenues,” she said in her prepared remarks.
The proposal, drafted by IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath and staff economist Ruchir Agarwal, builds on efforts already under way by the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, United Nations, World Health Organization and other groups.
G20 countries had already recognised the need for some $22bn in grants to tackle the crisis, leaving some $13bn in additional grants needed to reach the $50bn, the IMF authors said.
The estimated reproduction “R” rate in England has edged up to between 0.9 and 1.1, Britain’s health ministry said on Friday, after an official estimate showed the epidemic was no longer shrinking.
An R value between 0.9 and 1.1 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 9 and 11 other people. The R number has returned to its level of two weeks ago after last week, when the estimated range dipped to between 0.8 and 1.1.
The daily case growth rate was estimated at -2% to +1%, compared to -3% to +1% last week.
As we reported earlier, the UK’s Office for National Statistics has spotted early signs of a rise in coronavirus cases in England as efforts ramp up to contain outbreaks of the more transmissible variant first detected in India.
Based on swabs from random community testing across the UK, the ONS estimates that about 49,000 people in England, or one in 1,110, were positive for the virus in the week ending 15 May, up from 40,800 or one in 1,340 the week before.
While cases have continued to fall in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the survey found hints that infections are on the rise in Yorkshire and the Humber and the North East and South East of England. The swabs suggest that any rise so far is driven by the Kent variant.
The time taken to perform genome sequencing means there is a greater lag in results for the B.1.617.2 variant first found in India. In the four weeks to 9 May - the latest period the ONS has data for - the survey found only two confirmed cases of the B.1.617.2 variant.
Scientists advising the government expect infections to rise as England follows the roadmap out of lockdown, but the latest numbers do not take account of the most substantial easing of restrictions this year. On 17 May, step three of the roadmap re-opened indoor hospitality, including pubs, cafes and restaurants, and allowed six people or two households to meet indoors.
Infections in England appear to be on the rise in particular age groups, with the survey reporting potential increases in primary school children, those aged 35 to 49, and more worryingly in the over 70s, though rates remain low making concrete trends hard to discern.
Sarah Crofts, head of analytical outputs for the ONS survey, said: “Although we have seen an early indication of a potential increase in England, rates remain low and it is too soon to say if this is the start of a trend. When rates are low they can change direction more easily, so it is crucial that we continue to monitor infection rates as restrictions are lifted and people are able to socialise more widely.”
People who had blood clots with low platelets after first AstraZeneca shot should not receive second, Europe's regulator says
The second shot of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine must not be given to anyone who has had blood clots with low blood platelets after receiving the first, Europe’s medicines regulator said on Friday.
The recommendations for healthcare professionals were provided by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) as part of an ongoing review into rare, but severe blood clots possibly linked to inoculation after the shot and also Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine.
The EMA has been looking into such clots in the abdomen and brain since March and has since recommended that both vaccine labels carry a warning on the clotting issues while maintaining that their overall benefits outweighed any risks.
On Friday, the EMA also said that patients must be monitored for signs of blood clots or low platelets within three weeks of receiving the first shot of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, Vaxzevria. It said that special care must be provided to those with clots, Reuters reports.
Sweden registered 3,168 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, health agency statistics showed, as the third wave of the pandemic continued to decrease in intensity.
The country of 10 million inhabitants registered 15 new deaths, taking the total to 14,366. The deaths occurred over several days and sometimes weeks.
Sweden has been an outlier in the fight against the pandemic and has opted against lockdowns, instead relying on mostly voluntary measures.
The death toll has been higher than in other Nordic countries but lower than in most European countries that opted for lockdowns.
UK airports responsible for Covid-safe management of arrivals from "red-list" countries, government says
The UK government on Friday said it was up to airports to ensure those returning from “red-list” countries were separated from other travellers, amid growing criticism over prime minister Boris Johnson’s border controls in light of rising infections with the Indian variant.
Asked about whether Downing Street No 10 thought airports were doing enough to keep travellers from red list destinations away from others in UK border queues, a spokesman for the prime minister said:
We’ve asked airports to make sure there are mitigations in place to make sure people can socially distance and, where possible, to allow people from red list countries not to have to intermingle with those who have returned from amber or green-list countries.
But it is a matter for the airports to ensure provisions are in place.
Downing Street said the emergence of a new variant of coronavirus in Yorkshire will continue to be monitored.
The spokesman said:
There have been a number of variants throughout the pandemic and there will continue to be so. There are three mutations of the B1617 strain, as I think has been discussed previously, but as we do with all variants where we spot and identify them through our genomic sequencing programme, we will continue to monitor them and we will designate them as variants under investigation, and then variants of concern if we deem them to be of greater risk.
But again, as you’ve seen throughout the pandemic, that’s what we’ve done and we won’t hesitate to put in measures that we think are necessary to try and tackle the transmission of any variants.
Asked whether the discovery of the new variant would have an impact on the next stage of restrictions lifting on 21 June, the spokesman said the five-week gap between measures relaxing would allow the variant to be monitored.
He added:
As the Prime Minister has said, we will continue to look at all the statistical evidence and data, and we’ll set out our plans as soon as the data allows.
The EU will invest 1 billion euros to build vaccine manufacturing hubs in Africa, the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.
The move is meant to make Africa more independent on vaccine production.
Von der Leyen had announced earlier that the bloc would send 1.3 billion vaccine doses to low and middle income countries this year.
We are working closely with our industrial partners to supply vaccines to low & middle income countries.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) May 21, 2021
They just pledged to make available 1.3 billion doses to these countries in 2021.
1 billion from @BioNTech_Group @Pfizer
200 million from @JNJNews
100m from @Moderna_tx
Scotland to impose travel ban on English virus hotspots, extends Glasgow lockdown
The Scottish government is imposing a temporary travel ban between Scotland and English hotspots of Bedford, Bolton, Blackburn and Darwen from Monday, as level 3 lockdown restrictions continue in Glasgow for another week.
At a lunchtime briefing, Nicola Sturgeon said that “we don’t think we have turned the corner in Glasgow” despite enhanced testing, contact tracing and accelerated vaccinations in the postcodes affected on the southside of the city.
Sturgeon also confirmed that Moray, the location of a previous hotspot, would now be moving down to level 2 of the Scottish government’s five tier system of Covid controls and the level at which the majority of mainland Scotland now sits.
There had been some speculation that East Renfrewshire, a local authority adjacent to Glasgow city, would return to level 3 because of a steep rise in case numbers. But Sturgeon said this would not be necessary because, although the raw data shows higher rates than Glasgow, the total number of cases is considerably smaller - just 17 new cases in East Renfrewshire compared to 166 in Glasgow yesterday.
She added that the East Renfrewshire cases related to specific household clusters, compared to more widespread community transmission in Glasgow.
Scotland has recorded 414 new coronavirus cases and no deaths in the past 24 hours, first minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced.
Sturgeon told a Scottish government coronavirus briefing this means deaths recorded of people who tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days remains at 7,664.
The daily test positivity rate was 1.9%, up from 1.6% the previous day.
There were 81 people in hospital on Thursday with recently confirmed Covid-19, down two from the previous day, and of these four people were in intensive care, down one from the day before.
So far 3,820,251 people in Scotland have received a first vaccine dose.
Pfizer and BioNTech pledged on Friday to deliver 1 billion doses of their Covid-19 vaccine to poorer nations this year and another 1 billion next year, Pfizer boss Albert Bourla said.
“Pfizer and BioNTech are pledging to provide 2 billion doses of our Covid-19 vaccines to middle- and low-income countries over the next 18 months,” Bourla told a global health summit in Rome.
The two companies have, however, yet to decide whether their new commitment will be handled by the international vaccine-sharing facility COVAX.
“We are currently still evaluating this,” a BioNTech spokeswoman said.
A Pfizer spokesman said he could not yet provide that information, Reuters reports.
Updated
Covid infections in England rise for first time in five weeks
The prevalence of Covid-19 infections in England has risen after dropping for five straight weeks, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Friday.
The ONS said that an estimated 1 in 1,110 people had the virus in the week ending 15 May, compared to 1 in 1,340 a week earlier, adding that the proportion of people testing positive for coronavirus in the country shows “early signs of a potential increase” although rates remain low.
Sarah Crofts, head of analytical outputs for the ONS Covid-19 Infection Survey, said:
This week there is a mixed picture of infection levels across the UK.
Although we have seen an early indication of a potential increase in England, rates remain low and it is too soon to say if this is the start of a trend.
Updated
Kyrgyzstan was forced to dump nearly 1,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine after a fridge in a state clinic was unplugged to charge a mobile phone, authorities in the impoverished Central Asian country said.
AFP reports:
The spoilt vaccines were part of a package of 20,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine donated to ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan by Russia.
Kyrgyzstan began mass vaccinations in March using shots of the Sinopharm vaccine donated by China but online polls and queues at health clinics suggest that demand for the Russian vaccine is far higher.
The health ministry has come under fire over the incident, which authorities disclosed this week but that occurred at a clinic in the capital Bishkek in April.
Burul Asylbekova, an official at the Central State Sanitary and Epidemiological Service, said the doses had to be written off after someone unplugged a fridge containing the vaccines in order to charge a phone.
Health Minister Alimkadyr Beishenaliyev said it was possible a cleaner was responsible.
Beishenaliyev was heavily criticised in April for championing a solution based on a poisonous root as a cure for the coronavirus.
Beishenaliyev said the mixture containing the aconite root was concocted by President Sadyr Japarov and brewed in the presidential residence.
Kyrgyzstan has recorded 101,878 cases and 1,735 deaths with the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, but authorities have admitted that official numbers do no capture the full toll of the disease.
Health authorities said last week that more than 50,000 citizens have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine in the country of 6.5 million people.
The German economy could leave the pandemic behind as soon as the autumn if the vaccination campaign speeds up and restrictions are relaxed, the country’s central bank said on Friday.
This from Reuters:
The Bundesbank also predicted that German inflation could briefly hit 4% late this year, albeit partly due to the reversal of an earlier value-added tax cut.
It said German GDP was likely growing substantially this quarter, driven by industrial production and construction, and the economy could surpass its pre-pandemic size in the autumn, as services also spring back to life.
“If there is rapid progress in the vaccination campaign, there is the prospect that restrictions can be significantly eased in the coming months,” the Bundesbank said in its monthly report.
“GDP could then grow strongly in the third quarter and surpass its pre-crisis level in the autumn.”
It noted that higher raw material and transport costs were already lifting producer prices, but these were only passed on to consumers with a delay and to a limited extent.
Covid infection rates have been falling consistently across the country and the national average is now below 80 per 100,000 over a seven-day period. Approximately 40% of the population have received a first shot.
Greece expects tourist arrivals this year to reach half the levels seen in 2019, a government spokeswoman said on Friday.
“We can expect a traffic at 50% of 2019 levels,” Greek government spokeswoman Aristotelia Peloni told Greek website newsbomb.gr.
A fifth of Greece’s economy is based on tourism, which suffered its worst season in decades in 2020 with just 7 million tourists and 4 billion euros in revenues, Reuters reports, down from a record 33 million visitors and 18 billion euros in revenues in 2019.
The EU plans to donate at least 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to poorer nations by the end of this year, the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.
The bloc “aims at donating at least 100 million doses to low- and middle-income countries by the end 2021”, von der Leyen said, as at the beginning of a global health summit in Rome, co-hosted by von der Leyen and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi and meant to coordinate the world’s fight against the pandemic.
“Our objectives: learn the lessons of the COVID crisis and prepare better for the next pandemic,” von der Leyen tweeted.
Pfizer and the Indian government are at loggerheads over a demand by the US drugmaker for legal protection from any claims linked to the use of its Covid-19 vaccine in one of the world’s biggest markets, two sources told Reuters.
India has not given any manufacturer of a Covid-19 vaccine indemnity against the costs of compensation for any severe side effects, which is a condition Pfizer has obtained in many countries where its shots have already been widely rolled out, including the UK and the US.
“The whole problem with Pfizer is the indemnity bond. Why should we sign it?” an Indian government source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
“If something happens, a patient dies, we will not be able to question them [Pfizer]. If somebody challenges in a court of law, the central government will be responsible for everything, not the company,” the source added.
Pfizer and India’s health ministry did not reply to a request for comment on Friday.
The second source said Pfizer was not going to change its position on the indemnity issue.
I’m Jedidajah Otte and will be taking over for the next few hours. If you want to flag anything you think we should be covering you can get me on Twitter @JedySays or via email.
Today so far …
- A decision in Brussels to add the UK to an EU “white list” of countries from where tourists will be welcome this summer is to be delayed, it is understood, due to concerns over the Covid variant first identified in India.
- EU diplomats were expected to use a new lower threshold of infection cases to extend the list of countries at a meeting on Friday but sources said the decision will be put back by two weeks.
- Spain, though, says it will allow travellers from the UK and Japan into the country without a negative PCR test for Covid-19 from 24 May.
- Official tolls showing the number of deaths directly or indirectly attributed to Covid-19 are probably a “significant undercount”, the World Health Organization said this morning.
- In its annual World Health Statistics report, it estimated that total deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 were at least 3 million last year or 1.2 million more than officially reported.
- Half of the clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) people in England continued to shield despite government advice that they no longer needed to, latest figures show.
- A large secondary school in Bedford has been forced to close its doors to pupils from next week because of the rapid spread of Covid-19 in the town.
- The government in Scotland is expected to announce later today whether there will be any changes to the current restrictions and what it will mean for East Renfrewshire and Glasgow, and also Moray which is the only other area currently in level 3.
- Ireland will adopt a Covid-19 certificate to help citizens travel more freely across the European Union “as early as possible” and not necessarily by late July as previously flagged, a senior minister has said.
- Hungary will lift most remaining Covid-19 curbs, including a night-time curfew, as soon as the number of those vaccinated reaches 5 million this weekend, prime minister Viktor Orbán has said.
- The GAVI Vaccine Alliance has signed an advanced purchase agreement with Johnson & Johnson for 200m doses for the Covax vaccine-sharing programme.
- Argentina’s government on Thursday announced a strict lockdown for the first time this year after more than 35,000 coronavirus infections were reported for the third straight day in Argentina and the death toll skyrocketed.
- Taiwan’s health minister, Chen Shih-Chung, has urged residents to stay inside their homes this weekend, after a further 312 domestic cases of Covid-19 were reported.
- Japan has approved two more coronavirus vaccines, raising hopes that the country can speed up its inoculation drive with only about 4% of its 126 million people having received at least one dose.
- Facebook has removed more than 110,000 pieces of Covid-related misinformation generated by Australian accounts in the first year of the pandemic, the company has revealed.
- Dozens of Spanish nationals who have been stuck in Nepal since the Himalayan nation went into a coronavirus lockdown last month were flown out of the country today on a chartered repatriation flight.
Updated
School in Bedford, England, to close next week over rapid Covid spread
A large secondary school in Bedford has been forced to close its doors to pupils from next week because of the rapid spread of Covid-19 in the town, after the school’s leaders said they had “exhausted” efforts to keep it open.
David Morris, chief executive of the Heart academy trust that administers the Bedford Academy, told parents:
“Despite continuing with stringent cleaning procedures, the extended use of face masks for both students and staff, regardless of national guidance, and ongoing education regarding hygiene, we have been unable to control the rapid spread of the virus.
“Even with significant intervention and the deployment of mobile testing units, the increased frequency of LFD and PCR testing and securing vaccinations for 30- to 39-year-old staff, parents and carers, we have still seen new cases emerge, almost on a daily basis. We are now in a situation where we have tried everything possible to keep students in school safely without negatively impacting on their education.
“After in-depth discussions with theDepartment for Education, Department for Health and Social Care, Public Health England and Bedford borough council, we have reached the joint decision for the school to move to remote learning for a week, starting on Monday 24 May 2021. The purpose of this transition is to control the breakout we have experienced, by restricting the attendance to our school site as much as possible.
“Clearly, this is not a decision that has been taken lightly or without due consideration. The senior leadership team have worked in partnership with Public Health England over the last few weeks to ensure every strategy to lower the rate of infection has been exhausted.”
Updated
GAVI Vaccine Alliance purchases 200 million doses of Johnson & Johnson
Another quick one from Reuters here. The GAVI Vaccine Alliance has signed an advanced purchase agreement with Johnson & Johnson for 200m doses for the Covax vaccine-sharing programme.
GAVI said the goal was to have the doses available in 2021 and for both self-financing participants of Covax as well as poorer countries.
“As a one dose vaccine, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has particular relevance for places with difficult infrastructure, making it a very important addition to the portfolio,” said GAVI CEO Seth Berkley.
Updated
Half clinically extremely vulnerable people in England still shielding – ONS
Half of the clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) people in England continued to shield despite government advice that they no longer needed to, latest figures show.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that 50% of CEV people said they were continuing to shield when asked between 26 April and 1 May.
Looking at the figures for PA Media, Joe Gammie notes that 84% of CEV people reported being aware that government advice to shield had been paused and that two-thirds (67%) had received two doses of coronavirus vaccine.
Tim Gibbs, head of the public services analysis team at the ONS, said: “Since 1 April 2021, clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) people have been advised that they no longer need to shield to protect themselves from Covid-19.
“Our results today show that although government advice to shield has paused, half of those identified as CEV reported continuing to shield.
“We’ve recently seen lockdown restrictions ease significantly, this is great to see, however it’s critical that we continue to monitor the impact of these changes on groups such as the clinically extremely vulnerable.”
The ONS also said that approximately 420,000 (11%) CEV people were estimated to have not left the house in the last seven days.
Updated
By the way, my colleague Mattha Busby has launched our UK live blog for today. It looks like it will be heavily dominated by the fallout from the BBC/Diana story, so I’ll be continuing to pick up the top UK Covid lines here. You can join Mattha here though if you want …
Updated
Spain to allow travellers from UK and Japan in without Covid tests
A quick snap from Reuters here that Spain will allow travellers from Britain and Japan into the country without a negative PCR test for Covid-19 from 24 May, according to an order published this morning in the state gazette.
Spain is on the UK’s “amber” list, so UK restrictions still require travellers returning to Britain from Spain to isolate upon arrival. Ministers have said that people should not travel to “amber” list countries for holidays.
The Scottish government is expected to announce later today whether there will be any changes to the current restrictions and what it will mean for East Renfrewshire and Glasgow, and also Moray which is the only other area currently in level 3.
Lucinda Cameron reports for PA Media that Prof Devi Sridhar, of the University of Edinburgh, has said that moving East Renfrewshire back up to level 3 of coronavirus restrictions could help get the surge in cases under control quicker despite being “painful” for the community.
She told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “East Renfrewshire, I’m not sure what will be decided, I think we should remember that it is data that should be driving this, not dates.
“While it is painful to move backwards we’ve seen for example in Moray that actually that early action in holding it brought the numbers down so it can be released earlier. We’ve learned throughout this in every country is you move early, you move hard, you move fast and then once you have the problem under control and you get those numbers down you can release quicker.”
Sridhar, chair of Global Public Health and director of the global health governance programme at the university, also said the biggest risk to progress is a new variant coming in from abroad.
She said the world is seeing a “model of two pandemics”, where richer countries with vaccines are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel but that case numbers and the deaths are getting out of control in other areas around the globe which cannot access the jabs.
Updated
Ireland will adopt a Covid-19 certificate to help citizens travel more freely across the European Union “as early as possible” and not necessarily by late July as previously flagged, a senior minister has said.
Ireland has the strictest travel curbs in the 27-nation bloc, advising citizens against non-essential travel, imposing fines on people travelling to airports to go on holiday and a two-week mandatory hotel quarantine for arrivals from a number of countries.
Padraic Halpin for Reuters reports that while Irish ministers have said it will be late July or early August before they put the so-called EU’s so-called “green certificate” into operation, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said on Friday that it could be earlier.
“The finalised date for Ireland is being worked on and will be announced next week. The government’s view is that we want to participate in this as early as possible,” Donnelly told national broadcaster RTE.
Portugal, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, hopes to reach political agreement on the travel plans by the end of May to enable the certificate to be operational by 21 June.
A Covid certificate would be handed out for free by health authorities in EU countries to people who received a vaccine, had a negative test or are immune, having recovered from Covid.
Updated
EU decision to add UK to travel ‘white list’ to be delayed due to variant fears
A decision in Brussels to add the UK to an EU “white list” of countries from where tourists will be welcome this summer is to be delayed, it is understood, due to concerns over the Covid variant first identified in India.
EU diplomats were expected to use a new lower threshold of infection cases to extend the list of countries at a meeting on Friday but sources said that the decision will be put back by two weeks.
While the UK easily meets a newly revised threshold of under 75 cases per 100,000 people over days, allowing it to be added to the list, the strong emergence of the India variant, or B.1.617.2, in the UK, is key to the delay.
The number of such cases in the UK stands at 3,424 – up 160% from the past week. It is believed to be more transmissible than the dominant variant first identified in Kent although analysis continues.
“Member states need a bit more time to look into developments regarding the Indian variant”, one diplomat said. “They want to prevent putting countries on and off the list too much. So back on the agenda in two weeks unfortunately.”
The maintenance of restrictions on non-essential travel will remain the central recommendation from Brussels to the 27 member states, although countries remain free to make their own decisions. British tourists have been allowed to enter Portugal from Monday following an announcement by the Portuguese authorities.
Earlier this week, the EU did agree on text recommending that fully vaccinated travellers could be safely permitted to travel into the bloc for non-essential reasons, such as holidays.
Read more of Daniel Boffey’s report from Brussels: EU decision to add UK to travel ‘white list’ to be delayed due to Covid variant fears
Japan has approved two more coronavirus vaccines, raising hopes that the country can speed up its inoculation drive with only about 4% of its 126 million people having received at least one dose.
The health ministry gave the green light to the AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines on Friday, three months after it approved the Pfizer shot, the only vaccine being used in Japan.
The Moderna vaccine will be administered at mass vaccination sites in Tokyo, Osaka and other cities that are due to open on Monday in an attempt to ensure that 36 million people aged 65 and older are protected by the end of July.
But about 15% of municipalities have warned that they are unlikely to meet the deadline, in what would be another blow to the prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, who is facing mounting criticism of his handling of a recent surge in Covid-19 cases.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is unlikely to go into immediate use while Japanese health authorities monitor reports that it has caused extremely rare blood clots in recipients in other countries.
Japan has secured 50m doses of the Moderna vaccine, along with 120m from AstraZeneca and 194m from Pfizer.
Approval came as the government prepared to add Okinawa prefecture to a growing list of regions subject to a coronavirus state of emergency.
The measures, including bans on restaurants and bars serving alcohol, are already in place in Tokyo, Osaka and eight other regions that are experiencing a rise in infections driven by more contagious variants.
Okinawa, which reported record daily infections this week, will be added to the list on Sunday, with the restrictions set to stay in place there until 20 June – well beyond the date set for the other nine prefectures.
Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister overseeing Japan’s pandemic response, urged people not to visit Okinawa prefecture, a popular tourist destination 1,000 miles south of Tokyo. The local governor, Denny Tamaki, said Okinawa had reached a state of crisis, with more than 90% of its hospital beds for Covid-19 patients occupied.
Updated
Global Covid death toll has 'significant undercount' – WHO
Official tolls showing the number of deaths directly or indirectly attributed to Covid-19 are likely a “significant undercount”, the World Health Organization said this morning.
Reuters note that in its annual World Health Statistics report, it estimated that total deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 were at least 3 million last year or 1.2 million more than officially reported.
Facebook removes 110,000 pieces of Covid misinformation posted by Australian users
Facebook has removed more than 110,000 pieces of Covid-related misinformation generated by Australian accounts in the first year of the pandemic, the company has revealed.
In February, Facebook, along with Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Redbubble and TikTok, signed on to a new voluntary industry code aimed at combating misinformation and disinformation online.
As part of the code, members are required to publish annual reports on how they are implementing the code’s obligations, with the first report due this month.
In a blogpost on Friday, Facebook’s head of public policy in Australia, Josh Machin, revealed that between March and December 2020, Facebook removed more than 14m pieces of misinformation related to Covid-19, including content about fake preventative measures or exaggerated cures.
Machin said Facebook had identified 110,000 of those posts came from Australian accounts or pages.
As part of the tech giant’s crackdown on misinformation, Facebook removed the former Liberal turned independent MP Craig Kelly’s Facebook page in April for repeated breaches, including posts about unproven treatments for Covid-19. The celebrity chef Pete Evans’ account was removed in late December for similar reasons.
Read more here: Facebook removes 110,000 pieces of Covid misinformation posted by Australian users
Updated
There are some quotes this morning from the UK’s justice secretary Robert Buckland that are not going to go down well with the country’s anti-mask brigade. PA Media reports that he has said he would be minded to keep wearing a face covering in public if he was suffering with a cold, even after coronavirus restrictions are lifted.
He told Sky News: “I think that whatever the regulations might be, and clearly as we come out of this Covid period all of us want to see an end to the use of regulations so we can live our lives as we would want to live, there will be a certain sense I think for a lot of us to carry on wearing masks.
“I for one, if I’ve got a cold or a minor ailment, I think wearing a mask is going to be the right thing to do because I don’t want to spread my cold to somebody else.
“If I’ve got a runny nose and I’m still able to get out there and work, I think wearing a mask is not a bad idea if we can reduce the spread of even the common cold.”
He said “caution has been the watchword” when it comes to lifting restrictions, and that 21 June remained the “at the earliest” date for scrapping all measures.
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Hungary's Orban: 'we have defeated the third wave of the pandemic'
Hungary will lift most remaining Covid-19 curbs, including a night-time curfew, as soon as the number of those vaccinated reaches 5 million this weekend, prime minister Viktor Orbán has said.
Orban told state radio masks would no longer need to be worn in public, and gatherings of up to 500 people could be held in the open air, with events in closed spaces open to people with vaccination cards.
“This means we have defeated the third wave of the pandemic,” Orbán said, adding that the time has come to say “goodbye to masks” in public places.
Krisztina Than reports for Reuters that Hungary is the only EU country to have approved and used Russian and Chinese vaccines in large quantities before the European Medicines Agency has examined or approved them.
This has enabled it to reach one of the EU’s highest inoculation rates, with 50% of its population of about 10 million having already had at least one shot.
Most aspects of its service industry are already back in operation, including hotels, restaurants, spas, theatres, cinemas, gyms and sports venues.
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The amount of money spent by shoppers in stores across Great Britain soared 9.2% in April compared with March as lockdown restrictions eased and non-essential retailers welcomed back customers, according to the UK’s Office for National Statistics.
PA Media reports that compared with April last year – during the first national lockdown – sales were up 43% and up 9.9% compared with the last month of trading before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country.
You can follow reaction to that on our business live blog with Graeme Wearden …
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Taiwan's residents urged to stay inside their homes this weekend
Taiwan’s health minister, Chen Shih-Chung, has urged residents to stay inside their homes this weekend, after a further 312 domestic cases of Covid-19 were reported. Seventy-two cases were still without a known source.
Taiwan’s worst outbreak saw a marked uptick last Friday, and has since produced triple figure daily case numbers – low compared with many other countries but by far the worst seen in Taiwan since the pandemic began. Of the 312 cases, most were still concentrated around the northern cities of Taipei and New Taipei.
Taiwan is under restrictions governed by a level 3 alert of a four-tier system, stopping short of lockdown. Not having mass testing capabilities established, the government is relying on its contact tracing and precision testing, as well as the cooperation of the community, rather than ordering a lockdown.
“I know it’s the weekend, people want to see friends and get out of the house, but please, please do your part and stay home, so we can cut off the outbreak. Our medical professionals are working around the clock to keep us safe. Let’s all do our part,” said Chen.
Entertainment and recreation venues have been closed, and many – but not all – businesses have shut voluntarily. Chen said entertainment venues which were secretly operating should be targeted by law enforcement.
Chen said the country is still under level three alert and there are no plans to raise it to level four alert yet. He said apart from the daily numbers, another important criteria is that the number of those without unidentified cases need to be more than 50%, so he said ...
— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) May 21, 2021
Chen described increasing national coordination between the central and local governments since the whole island was brought under alert 3, addressing some concerns that have been raised by multiple health experts in the past week.
Chen said medical resources were in good supply, and had been sent to frontline institutions, but warned hospitals were under growing pressure with several outbreaks among staff. Centralised quarantine facilities for mild cases were also operating with about 600 people, and capacity for more, he said.
A total of 281,647 people have been vaccinated, a fraction of Taiwan’s population 24 million. So far, 700,000 doses have been delivered to the island, and millions more are expected in coming months but there is no firm date.
Taiwan is also fast-tracking approvals of a domestically produced vaccine, but Chen reportedly did not respond to questions about international approvals, and how that would affect recipients’ ability to travel internationally.
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Dozens of Spanish nationals who have been stuck in Nepal since the Himalayan nation went into a coronavirus lockdown last month were flown out of the country today on a chartered repatriation flight.
The flight arranged by the Spanish government took back 99 Spanish mountaineers, trekkers and tourists who arrived in Nepal to climb its mountain peaks or hike its trails before the country went into lockdown on 29 April.
Earlier in the week, Nepal allowed half a dozen chartered flights arranged by commercial airlines to fly out stranded passengers to the US, Europe, Thailand and Saudi Arabia.
Associated Press report the Spanish plane arrived in Nepal on Thursday, bringing in health aid given by the Spanish government. The shipment included respirators, oxygen concentrators, face masks and virus test kits.
Authorities have closed the country’s borders and canceled all domestic and international flights except for emergency and repatriation flights. Schools, shops and markets have been closed, and people are allowed to shop in neighbourhood stores for groceries for only a few of hours in the morning. Vehicles are not allowed on the streets.
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Thailand finds first domestic cases of Indian Covid variant
Thailand has detected its first 15 domestically transmitted cases of the Covid-19 variant first found in India, the country’s coronavirus taskforce has said.
Reuters report the 15 cases were discovered among construction workers in Bangkok. Those were among 3,481 new cases and 32 new deaths announced today.
If you are in the UK and thinking of trying to get away for a bit of European travel this summer, whether that is to see friends or family or for a holiday, it isn’t just the UK’s rules you need to be aware of. Our travel team have pulled together a guide to the current restrictions and entry requirements in France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Croatia.
Good morning, it is Martin Belam here in London. If I was a betting person, I would say for sure that Euro 2020 is going to take place this summer, one way or another. I’m not so sure that I’d put my money on the Olympics happening, for a variety of reasons.
Reuters report the latest blow to Tokyo’s Olympic Games this morning, that the Canadian swimming team have cancelled their pre-Olympic training plan in Japan over pandemic concerns.
The team is the latest of 50 delegations that have pulled out of pre-Olympic training camps – the majority due to coronavirus concerns as Tokyo and other major cities remain under a state of emergency aimed to contain a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other organisers will wrap up a three-day meeting on Friday to discuss Olympic preparations and coronavirus countermeasures.
With nine weeks to go until the postponed Games are scheduled to start on 23 July, the IOC has sought to placate growing fears in Japan that the Games would be an additional burden to a medical system already strained by the pandemic.
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Hong Kong businesses are stepping in with incentives and orders to encourage staff to get vaccinated, amid lower-than-desired rates across the population. Hong Kong has fully vaccinated about 12% of the population. About 18% have received their first shot, according to government data.
A major hotel company, Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels (HSH), is offering staff $2,000 (US$250) cash to get vaccinated, and another $2,000 bonus if 70% of the staff are fully vaccinated by the end of August. The company has about 1,500 staff working across its hotels, including the Peninsula hotel.
“This initiative is taken with the health and safety of our colleagues as a top priority. Many of our colleagues are on the front line of the hospitality industry and we want to ensure they are protected against Covid, especially as the world is starting to open up again and we will hopefully welcome visitors back to Hong Kong in the near future,” a spokeswoman told the Guardian.
“Vaccines save lives and livelihoods. We are most grateful to all the research scientists and health professionals in Hong Kong and around the world who have contributed to developing and rolling out the vaccines.”Separately, RTHK reports Cathay Pacific has sent an internal memo suggesting it will soon make vaccination a prerequisite for staff.
In the memo the airline reportedly told staff it would soon be difficult to “sustainably roster unvaccinated crew”. According to the report, about 80% of pilots have been vaccinated, but less than half the flight crews.
China has its citizens in Thailand vaccinated
Chinese citizens living in Thailand began being vaccinated on Thursday as part of China’s global campaign to inoculate its nationals living and working abroad, AP reports.
China recently donated 500,000 vaccine doses, and Thailand agreed in turn to inoculate Chinese nationals as it slowly rolls out shots for its own citizens to contain a coronavirus surge that has sickened tens of thousands in the past two months.
Yang Xin, minister counsellor at the Chinese Embassy, said Beijing’s “Spring Sprout” program would benefit tens of thousands of Chinese in the country. An estimated 150,000 Chinese citizens live in Thailand.
China has so far supplied 6 million vaccine doses to the country, most of which Thailand purchased.
The Thai government has said it will vaccinate Thais before inoculating most other foreigners, regardless of risk factors or age.
Just over 2% of Thailand’s 70 million people have received a first vaccine dose and about 1% have received a second. The government hopes to inoculate 70% of its people by the end of the year, but has been criticised for taking too long to start vaccinating.
China’s official People’s Daily newspaper says more than 500,000 Chinese citizens in more than 120 countries have benefited from the “Spring Sprout” vaccine program since it was launched in March.
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Argentina to return to strict lockdown
The Argentinian government on Thursday announced a strict lockdown for the first time this year after more than 35,000 coronavirus infections were reported for the third straight day in Argentina and the death toll skyrocketed, AP reports.
The measures will last from Saturday until May 31, and will limit circulation and suspend social, business, educational, religious and sporting activities. Workers with essential jobs will be exempted from the measures.
“We are living the worst moment since the pandemic began,” President Alberto Fernández said in a message broadcast by the national TV chain. “We are seeing the highest numbers of cases and deaths. We must take this critical situation seriously and not naturalize so much tragedy.”
At the start of the pandemic in 2020, Argentina imposed one of the longest quarantines between March and July, when it began to ease the restrictions. The negative impact of the lockdown on the economy and national mood left the government with little room to move now, but the combination of few vaccine doses and more contagious variants of the virus has put Argentina’s health sector on the verge of collapse.
On Tuesday, the South American country exceeded its daily record of virus infections and deaths with 35,543 new cases and 745 deaths. The subsequent days saw similar high infection rates. Overall, Argentina has seen 3.4 million confirmed coronavirus infections and more than 72,000 deaths.
Fernández said that after May 31, pandemic measures will return to their current level: a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. and social, recreational and commercial activities prohibited in closed spaces. In addition, a strict confinement will be mandatory for the weekend of June 5-6.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
The government of President Alberto Fernández on Thursday announced a strict lockdown for the first time this year after more than 35,000 coronavirus infections were reported for the third straight day in Argentina and the death toll skyrocketed.
Meanwhile Chinese citizens living in Thailand began being vaccinated on Thursday as part of China’s global campaign to inoculate its nationals living and working abroad.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- Northern Ireland’s devolved government has agreed to add Portugal, Israel and Gibraltar to its “Green list” for international travel, according to a letter to lawmakers seen by Reuters.
- The EU has reached a deal on Covid certificates designed to open up tourism across the bloc this summer, the centre-right European People’s Party said.
- Two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are around 85% to 90% effective against symptomatic disease, Public Health England analysis indicates.
- Canada announced it is renewing non-essential travel restrictions along the US border until 21 June.
- Japanese regulators recommended the approval of Covid vaccines developed by Moderna Inc and AstraZeneca PLC.
- Waiving intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines will not be enough to close the huge supply gap between rich and poor countries, the head of the World Trade Organization warned.
- South Korea has said it will conduct a clinical trial that mixes Covid vaccine doses developed by AstraZeneca Plc with those from Pfizer Inc and others
- Dogs are better at detecting Covid-19 in humans than many fast lateral flow tests, a French study found.
