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Labour has called on the chancellor to extend the UK government’s emergency support for hard-pressed companies after warning that businesses face a £50bn hit in April when financial help is withdrawn.
With the budget less than a month away, the opposition called on Rishi Sunak to announce a six-month extension of the business rates holiday for retail, hospitality and leisure and to continue the temporary cut in VAT to 5% for the same three sectors of the economy.
Labour, which has already called for an indefinite extension of the furlough, said economic support had failed to keep pace with the tougher social distancing regulations introduced to curb the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Brazil records another 636 deaths
The death toll in Brazil has risen to 232,170 according to its health ministry.
There were a further 23,439 positive tests in the last 24 hours in the South American country, according to Reuters. It has now registered more than 9.5 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began.
US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg is set to quarantine for 14 days after a member of his security team tested positive for Covid.
The 39-year-old has not shown any symptoms and took a PCR test on Monday, according to Reuters. He has had the first dose of the vaccine in recent weeks, and will get his second after his period of quarantine.
Summary
Here’s a re-cap of this evening’s Covid-19 news
- The French health ministry has reported another 458 deaths from Covid-19, as the number of patients in hospital has increased for the second day in a row.
- The World Health Organization has warned against dismissing the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine after concerns about it.
- Surge testing will begin near Manchester after the Kent variant of Covid-19 has been detected. About 10,000 extra tests will be handed out in six postcode areas.
- Migrants and indigenous people in Mexico risk missing out on the coronavirus vaccine because not everyone has the ID number required, according to human rights groups.
- There’s fears in the US that Super Bowl celebrations could spark new outbreaks, as the country’s vaccination campaign gathers pace and new case levels have fallen to their lowest level in three months.
- Scientists and senior MPs have renewed calls for sweeping border curbs to protect the UK’s vaccination programme against new variants as Boris Johnson prepared to introduce tougher measures and Britain saw internal infections fall.
- Wall Street set a record closing high on Monday, on the back of financial stimulus and as the US’s vaccine rollout continues.
- A stay-at-home order for Toronto will be extended by another fortnight, according to Reuters.
Renewed calls for UK border curbs to stop new Covid variants
Scientists and senior MPs have renewed calls for sweeping border curbs to protect the UK’s vaccination programme against new variants as Boris Johnson prepared to introduce tougher measures and Britain saw internal infections fall.
The government is to announce sweeping new restrictions on arrivals into the UK this week, including mass testing of all arrivals. All passengers arriving will be tested for coronavirus on day two and day eight of their isolation – regardless of what country they have come from and whether they are at home or in quarantine. The UK already requires all arrivals to have a negative Covid test from within the past 72 hours, taken while still abroad.
With concerns over the risk to the UK’s vaccine programme from new coronavirus variants, Britons have also been urged to exercise caution booking summer holidays with other households even within the UK this summer. Ministers said a third booster jab is likely to be needed in autumn to protect against new variants.
Updated
Wall Street set a record closing high on Monday, on the back of financial stimulus and as the US’s vaccine rollout continues.
All three of the stock markets grew, with S&P 500 and the Dow Jones posting its sixth consecutive gain – their longest streak since August, according to Reuters.
Oil prices also rose to their highest in over a year due to supply cuts and hopes for a stimulus-driven demand rebound.
“Investors are starting to play the economy opening up and the vaccine starting work,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. “And maybe they can go to a baseball game this summer.”
ITV’s Paul Brand has said all passengers coming into the UK will have to be tested for Covid on the second and eighth day after they arrive.
So to be clear:
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) February 8, 2021
1. ALL arrivals must have a negative Covid test within past 72 hours taken abroad. They must also test for Covid here on days 2 and 8 of their self-isolation.
2. Those coming from red zone countries do the above but quarantine in hotels which they cannot leave.
A stay-at-home order for Toronto will be extended by another fortnight, according to Reuters.
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province said the rules would also apply to suburbs nearby. “We can’t return to normal – not yet, not while our hospitals could still be overwhelmed,” said premier Doug Ford. “But we can transition out of the province-wide shutdown.”
Covid cases have dropped in recent weeks but Ford fears that new variants could threaten progress. Infection rates remain high in Toronto, where routine contact tracing was suspended in October.
The campaign to vaccinate people in the US against Covid-19 is gaining speed and newly recorded cases have fallen to their lowest level in three months, but authorities worry that raucous Super Bowl celebrations could fuel new outbreaks.
Associated Press reports:
More than 4 million more vaccinations were reported over the weekend, a significantly faster clip than in previous days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nearly one in 10 Americans have now received at least one shot. But just 2.9% of the US population has been fully vaccinated, a long way from the 70% or more that experts say need to be inoculated.
Deaths from coronavirus are still running at close to all-time highs, at an average of about 3,160 per day, down about 200 since mid-January.
The sight of fans, many without masks, celebrating the Super Bowl in the streets, in sports bars and at game-watching parties also sparked worries of new outbreaks.
“This isn’t how we should be celebrating the Super Bowl,” the mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, Rick Kriseman, tweeted after a maskless party was hosted by rapper 50 Cent in a hangar at the city’s airport, not far from where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the title.
Updated
Migrants and indigenous people in Mexico risk missing out on the coronavirus vaccine, because not everyone has the ID number required, according to human rights groups.
Reuters reports that over-60s were asked to sign up for the jab by the government last week. However more than a million Mexicans who don’t have a birth certificate and thousands of undocumented migrants therefore don’t have a “CURP” – a unique ID number.
In a statement Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, called on regional governments to ensure their vaccine systems were “putting people’s needs at the forefront of their policies without exceptions”.
At a news conference on Saturday, representatives of Mexico’s health ministry said they were aware that some people did not have a CURP and were working on a strategy to reach that population.
The UK government will begin surge testing in areas near Manchester after the Kent variant has been identified.
The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said six postcode areas would be targeted by officials in a bid to stem the spread of a more transmissible variant, according to PA Media. The scheme will see 10,000 extra tests handed out. A similar surges have taken place in Worcestershire, Sefton, Bristol and south Gloucestershire.
Doorstep tests will be offered to people aged over 16 who live, work or study in the affected areas.
The DHSC said: “Surge testing is in addition to existing extensive testing, and in combination with following the lockdown rules and remembering hands-face-space, will help to monitor and suppress the spread of the virus. Positive cases will be sequenced for genomic data to help understand Covid-19 variants and their spread within these areas.”
Updated
WHO warns countries not to dismiss Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine
The World Health Organization has warned against dismissing the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine after setbacks, AFP reports.
The body and its Covax partners insisted that the jab was an important tool to fight coronavirus. It accounts for almost all of the 337.2 million doses Covax is preparing to ship to 145 countries during the first half of 2021 – once it gets WHO approval.
Richard Hatchett, who leads the coalition for epidemic preparedness innovations (CEPI), which co-leads the Covax facility said: “It is vastly too early to be dismissing this vaccine
“It is absolutely crucial to use the tools that we have as effectively as we possibly can.”
Good evening this is Harry Taylor taking the liveblog for the rest of this evening, bringing you the latest coronavirus updates from the UK and around the world.
If you have any comments, tips or suggestions – then drop me a line either via email to harry.taylor.casual@guardian.co.uk, or via Twitter @HarryTaylr.
France's death toll increases by 458
The French health ministry has reported another 458 deaths from Covid-19, as the number of patients in hospital with the virus has increased for the second day in a row.
A total of 79,423 people have now died in France, the seventh-highest amount globally, an increase from the 171 reported on Sunday.
Another 4,317 new infections have been reported, according to Reuters. 28,037 people are now in French hospitals with coronavirus, a rise of 343 patients.
Summary
Here is a brief re-cap of recent events in the UK and from around the world:
- The Texas Republican congressman Ron Wright has died aged 67 after contracting the coronavirus. He is the first member of Congress to die after testing positive for Covid-19.
- Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador returned to his daily morning news conferences on Monday following a two-week absence after catching the coronavirus.
- The local authority for the city of Eaubonne, north of Paris, said on Monday that cases of the South African variant of the new coronavirus had been detected. South Africa will reportedly roll out the AstraZeneca vaccine in a “stepped manner” to assess its effectiveness in preventing severe illness.
- Argentina, which is ramping up its vaccination programme with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, has detected the first cases of two Brazilian Covid-19 variants in travellers from the neighbouring nation, the government has said.
- Covid case rates for the four nations of the UK have dropped to their lowest level since before Christmas, new analysis shows. It came before the UK on Monday recorded 333 further deaths - its lowest daily total for more than six weeks.
- From today, all staff and pupils at French schools are to wear only category 1 face masks under a tightening of health rules at education establishments, which have remained open.
Updated
Brazilian biomedical institute Butantan plans to vaccinate a city’s entire adult population of about 30,000 people against Covid-19 to test whether it lowers the infection rate, institute and government officials said on Monday.
Butantan, which is overseen by the Sao Paulo state government, will carry out the mass vaccination study in Serrana, a city in the interior of the state that has a high infection rate, according to a statement and news briefing.
The institute will use the CoronaVac shot developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech that is already being used nationally in a campaign to vaccinate frontline healthcare workers and the most vulnerable groups, Reuters reports.
Texas Republican congressman Ron Wright dies after Covid diagnosis
The Texas Republican congressman Ron Wright has died after contracting Covid-19, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:
Updated
Reuters reports:
The Dutch government will extend a night-time curfew intended to slow the spread of coronavirus through 3 March, the country’s justice minister said on Monday.
The curfew, the first in the Netherlands since World War Two, sparked several days of riots from anti-lockdown protesters when it was initially introduced on 23 January.
The team of medical experts advising the government “has told us that it’s turning out worse than we feared after all with the number of infections, hospitalisations and such,” justice minister Ferd Grapperhaus said.
“It also warned us stringently about the ever-higher rise of the much more infectious British variant, and advised us urgently to go ahead and continue with the curfew,” he told reporters as he announced the decision after a Cabinet meeting.
Updated
UK records lowest daily totals for more than six weeks
The UK has recorded 333 further deaths - its lowest daily total for more than six weeks.
Reported deaths are always low on a Monday, because some figures do not get processed at the weekend, but the daily total has not been this low since 27 December, when it was 317, the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow writes.
The total number of deaths over the last seven days is 22.4% down on the previous week.
South Africa to roll out AstraZeneca vaccine in steps to assess effectiveness
South Africa will roll out the AstraZeneca vaccine in a “stepped manner” to assess its effectiveness in preventing severe illness, Prof Salim Abdool Karim, the co-chair of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19, said on Monday.
Karim said South Africa would pause the rollout while determining how to carry it out, and could vaccinate 100,000 people with the shot to see how well it worked on preventing hospitalisations and deaths, Reuters writes.
It was reported earlier today that South Africa had halted the rollout of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccinations after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild infection from one variant (see earlier post).
Updated
Italy reported 307 Covid-related deaths on Monday against 270 the previous day, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 7,970 from 11,641 the day before.
Some 144,270 tests for Covid-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 206,789, the health ministry added.
Italy has registered 91,580 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged last February, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the sixth-highest in the world.
The country has reported 2.65m cases to date, according to Reuters.
The region of Calabria in Italy has bought hundreds of thousands of anti-Covid face masks from an alleged Mafia-linked company, prosecutors said, writes Lorenzo Tondo, the Guardian’s correspondent in Palermo.
According to Nicola Gratteri, an anti-mafia prosecutor and head of the prosecutor’s office in Catanzaro, the region of Calabria has bought facemasks from a businessman recently arrested and described by investigators as the “business arm” of the ‘Ndrangheta clans of Crotone, in Calabria.
“Covid-19, which for the whole world represents the most tragic and sudden pandemic of the modern era, could become an extraordinary opportunity for ‘Ndrangheta, and for organised crime in general, to conquer new markets and launder money,” Italy’s chief of police, Franco Gabrielli, had warned last year.
In December, Interpol had also issued a global alert to law enforcement across its 194 member countries warning them to prepare for organised crime networks targeting Covid-19 vaccines, both physically and online.
Updated
A 116-year-old nun has recovered from Covid-19 after it swept through a nursing home in the south of France, writes Kim Willsher, the Guardian’s Paris correspondent.
Sister Andrée, born Lucile Randon in 1904, tested positive for the coronavirus last month at the Sainte-Catherine Labouré home near Toulon where, despite health safety measures, 81 of the 88 residents contracted the virus and 10 of whom died.
The nun, who will celebrate her 117th birthday on Thursday, was reported to have suffered no Covid-19 symptoms but remained confined to her room unable to mix with other residents or attend mass. Nursing home staff told reporters her only complaint had been the “solitude”.
“Sister Andrée, the oldest woman in France and Europe, has beaten the virus” … ”France’s oldest woman Sister Andrée, sees off Covid-19”, read the French headlines.
David Tavella, a spokesperson for the nursing home, told the local newspaper Var Matin that the nun had shown no fear of the virus.
“She didn’t ask me about her health but about her routine. She wanted to know for example if the meal and bed times were going to change. She showed no fear of the illness. In fact, she was more worried about the other residents,” Tavella said.
Sister Andrée, who is blind and in a wheelchair, worked as a governess and tutor before entering a convent in 1944, aged 40. She has been in nursing homes since 1979 and in the Toulon home since 2009.
Last year, the nun said she had no idea how she had lived so long. “I’ve no idea what the secret is. Only God can answer that question,” she told French radio. “I’ve had plenty of unhappiness in life and during the 1914-18 war when I was a child, I suffered like everyone else.”
Updated
The public health commission in Spain has said the country’s vaccination programme will not make use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in older people, making it the latest European country to do so.
Like Italy and Belgium, Spain’s health system will only administer the AstraZeneca vaccine to people under-55, a decision taken on the grounds that few older people were included in clinical trials for the product. Germany has said it will only give the vaccine to under-65s.
According to El Pais, the decision was taken on Friday, after three meetings deliberating over whether it was the right course of action.
Portugal has reported its fewest Covid-19 deaths in three weeks, which, according to the Associated Press is spurring hopes that its latest wave of pandemic could be over.
Soaring death and infection rates made Portugal the world’s worst affected country last month. The latest data on Monday showed it was still recording the highest daily death rates and was the fourth-highest in new cases, about four weeks after it entered a nationwide lockdown that officials say could last until mid-March.
According to AP:
Portugal officially recorded just over 2,500 new infections, taking the country’s total to almost 768,000, the health ministry said Monday. New cases have been trending downward since Jan. 24, when they reached a high point of more than 16,400. The number of new cases published on Mondays tends to be lower than the true number due to fewer tests over the weekend.
The ministry reported 196 more daily COVID-19 deaths, the lowest since Jan. 18. In all, the country has seen 14,158 confirmed deaths.
Still, Portugal’s hospitals remain under severe strain and likely will be that way for several weeks, health experts say.
Hospitalizations rose to 6,344 but were still lower than the Feb. 1 peak of 6,869. The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care was 877, below the Feb. 5 high of 904.
Mexico's president returns after catching coronavirus
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador returned to his daily morning news conferences on Monday, following a two-week absence after catching coronavirus, but vowed not to wear a mask or require Mexicans to use them.
“There is no authoritarianism in Mexico … everything is voluntary, liberty is the most important thing,” López Obrador said, adding: “It is each person’s own decision.”
López Obrador revealed he received experimental treatments, which he described only as an “antiviral” medication and an anti-inflammatory drug, the Associated Press reports.
He also revealed that he twice tested negative in late January in rapid tests that are widely used in Mexico, before a more thorough test – apparently PCR – came back positive the same day.
Updated
Wales’ health minister has said he is “deeply sorry” for the country’s coronavirus-related deaths as the total reported by its health agency passed 5,000.
Vaughan Gething insisted the Welsh government had done everything it could to avoid deaths from the virus, but acknowledged it wanted to make “even better choices in the future”.
On Monday, Public Health Wales said a further 12 deaths of people with suspected Covid-19 reported to the agency took the total in Wales since the start of the pandemic to 5,001.
About half of those deaths are ones reported in the time since the final week of November, making the winter months the deadliest period of the pandemic so far, PA Media reports.
Updated
Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, said he is “very confident” in the coronavirus vaccines after concerns were raised that the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab may be less effective against the South African variant (read his other comments here).
But Johnson did not rule out the strain could delay the relaxation of lockdown restrictions, instead insisting he has “no doubt that vaccines generally are going to offer a way out,” PA media reports.
Updated
Reuters reports:
Austria is warning against non-essential travel to its Alpine province of Tyrol because of an outbreak of the so-called South African variant of the coronavirus there, the government said on Monday.
The province, a winter sports hotspot, has so far been unable to explain how the variant arrived in the Ziller Valley, long a popular tourist area.
Austrian ski lifts have been allowed to open since 24 December but hotels are closed for all but business travel and restaurants can only serve take-away meals.
Tyrol’s provincial government has been in talks with the national government over how to deal with the outbreak.
So far, 293 cases of the South African variant have been confirmed in Tyrol and the current number of active cases is estimated to be at least 140, a government statement said.
“The government is warning against travel to Tyrol in order to prevent the South African variant from spreading, and the government asks all citizens to restrict journeys to Tyrol to those that are absolutely necessary,” the statement quoted chancellor Sebastian Kurz as saying.
Updated
Russia’s state statistics service said on Monday there had been 323,802 more deaths in 2020 than in 2019 because of the pandemic, an increase of 17.9%.
It added that it had recorded 44,435 deaths caused by or related to Covid-19 in December alone, Reuters reports.
Updated
The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is effective against the Covid-19 variant that emerged from South Africa, according to a study.
PA Media reports:
In a study of 20 vaccine recipients, researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, America, found that the vaccine neutralises the virus with the N501Y and E484K mutations.
The paper comes after a separate study found that the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab was not effective at preventing mild illness caused by the more infectious South African mutation.
The findings could mean that Britons face needing a third jab this year amid concerns over the vaccine’s effectiveness.
Updated
Cases of South African variant detected north of Paris, one school closed
The local authority for the city of Eaubonne, north of Paris, said on Monday that cases of the South African variant of the new coronavirus had been detected and that it was starting a track-and-trace campaign in light of this.
An official at the College Jules Ferry in Eaubonne told Reuters the school had been ordered to close temporarily after coronavirus cases were found on premises.
See earlier posts on France’s tighter Covid measures.
Argentina detects first cases of Brazilian Covid variants
Argentina has detected the first cases of two Brazilian Covid-19 variants in travellers from the neighbouring nation, the government said on Monday.
“The Amazonas P1 variant was recently detected in two samples, and the Rio de Janeiro P2 variant in two other travellers. All of them from Brazil,” Argentina’s minister of health Ginés González García said in a tweet.
Argentina, which is ramping up its vaccination programme with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, has recorded nearly 2m confirmed Covid cases, with a total of 49,171 deaths, Reuters reports.
Updated
In the UK, Boris Johnson has said he is confident that both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer Covid vaccines helped prevent death and grave illness, and that medicine was slowly gaining the upper hand over Covid-19.
The prime minister told reporters:
We think that both the vaccines that we’re currently using are effective in, as I say, in stopping serious disease and death. We also think in particular in the case of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine that there’s good evidence that it is stopping transmission, as well, I think 67% reduction in transmission.
“They remain a massive benefit to our country and the population,” he said when asked about AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
“I’ve no doubt that vaccines generally are going to offer a way out. And with every day that goes by, you can see that medicine is slowly getting the upper hand over the disease.”
Covid case rates drop to pre-Christmas levels for all UK nations
Covid-19 case rates for the four nations of the UK have dropped to their lowest level since before Christmas, with some regions of England recording rates last seen in early December, fresh analysis by PA Media indicates.
In London, the seven-day rate of new cases for the whole of the capital stands at 233.4 per 100,000 people – down from 356.4 one week earlier. The rate has fallen to its lowest since 8 December.
The figure for south-east England is at its lowest since 7 December, with 187.4 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 3 February, down from 274.0 a week earlier.
While a handful of local areas across the UK have recorded a week-on-week rise in the latest figures, most of the increases are small.
The national rate for Wales is at its lowest since early October, as it recorded 122.4 cases per 100,000 people in the week to 3 February.
Elsewhere, Scotland recorded 122.6 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 3 February – down week-on-week from 144.4, and the lowest since 20 December.
Northern Ireland’s rate stood at 177.7 cases per 100,000 in the seven days to 3 February.
This is down from 222.0 one week earlier, and is the lowest rate since 15 December.
The figures, which have been calculated by PA Media from health agency data, suggest the lockdowns in place across the UK are continuing to have an impact in driving down the number of new reported cases of coronavirus.
Updated
French health minister Olivier Véran gave the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine a boost on Monday after announcing he had been inoculated with it (see earlier post).
And to prove it, the minister posted a photograph on Twitter getting the jab with the word “Vacciné”.
Vacciné. pic.twitter.com/smhltj74D1
— Olivier Véran (@olivierveran) February 8, 2021
The tweet led to a wave of criticism of the minister, who is a youthful 40 years old, and not a frontline health worker, or first responser, or apparently in a vulnerable group being prioritised for the AZ vaccine, the third to be approved in France after the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
President Emmanuel Macron caused a cross-Channel spat ten days ago when he suggested the AZ vaccine was “quasi-ineffective on people older than 65, some say those 60 years or older”.
His comments came just hours before the European Medicines Agency approved the vaccine’s distribution.
The French High Authority of Health has recommended the AZ vaccine be used only on those under 65 saying there was not enough data “to calculate the vaccine’s efficacy” on older people.
Véran is the first French minister to be vaccinated. “I felt nothing, you were great,” he told the nurse giving him the vaccination.
So far 270,000 doses of the AZ vaccine have arrived in France and 300,000 more are expected.
Several countries, including France, will not be using the AZ vaccine on older patients. France started distributing the vaccine on Saturday.
Updated
A council in Wales has been accused of discrimination for hiring a private security firm to enforce Covid restrictions at a caravan site after some residents tested positive.
Read the full story by my colleagues Aamna Mohdin and Aaron Walawalkar:
Reuters reports:
The Czech health ministry will recommend the use of Covid-19 therapies that contain casirivimab/imdevimab and bamlavinimab antibodies ahead of standard approval, the ministry said on Monday.
Both therapies are being reviewed by the European Medicines Agency, the agency said last week.
The Czech Republic has been among the European countries worst hit by the current wave of the coronavirus pandemic, with the number of new infections per 100,000 people higher only in Portugal and Spain, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control released last week.
“The ministry will recommend distribution and use of unregistered treatments which contain casirivimab/imdevimab and bamlavinimab antibodies,” the ministry said.
It said it would wait for an expert opinion from the national drug agency SUKL before issuing a final ruling.
The former points to Regeneron’s cocktail of casirivimab and imdevimab, which was authorised for emergency use in the United States in November, and was given to then US president Donald Trump during his Covid-19 infection.
The latter, 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.
Czechs should receive the first 500 doses of the therapy in February, prime minister Andrej Babis said last Friday.
The ministry said the treatment would be beneficial mainly for patients with high risk of deterioration, such as people who had received organ transplants.
Updated
Vietnam reported 49 more Covid-19 cases on Monday, most in the economic hub Ho Chi Minh City, Reuters reports.
This raised total infections to 2,050, including 1,160 locally transmitted infections and the rest imported, the ministry of health said. It has recorded 35 Covid deaths.
Updated
Olivier Véran, the French health minister, was vaccinated on Monday against Covid-19 at a vaccination centre in the city of Melun, in the Paris region, BFM television reported.
“I didn’t feel anything. You were great,” Veran told the nurse who administered the shot, Reuters reports.
He said that he continued to support the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, arguing it provided sufficient protection against “nearly all the variants” of the virus.
Updated
A panel of South Korean advisers has urged caution over the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people older than 65, citing a lack of data, the food and drug safety ministry said last week.
The government confirmed on Monday it would go ahead with plans to distribute the company’s vaccine, but that regulators will decide later this week whether to provide it to older citizens, Reuters reports.
Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency director Jeong Eun-kyeong said some 1.5m doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, enough for around 750,000 people, will arrive in the final week of February.
South Korea, which has one of the fastest ageing populations in the world, has reported the lowest daily number of new coronavirus cases since late November (see earlier post).
Laos has received 300,000 doses of a Covid-19 vaccine produced by Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm, according to media reports.
The southeast Asian country has already started to inoculate 600 frontline medical workers, the English-language Laotian Times reported, adding that the country had previously received 2,000 doses from China and also Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
“These vaccines will be provided to medical workers and at-risk frontline workers in Laos,” health minister Bounkong Syhavong was quoted as saying in the paper.
State-media China Radio International also reported the arrival of the 300,000 doses, according to Reuters.
Morning everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the live blog now until the evening. Please feel free to drop me a message on Twitter if you have any coverage suggestions.
Updated
Migrants living in Britain will be eligible to receive Covid-19 vaccines regardless of whether they have the legal right to live and work in the country, the government said on Monday, adding that getting the shot would not trigger immigration checks.
The Daily Mail newspaper has reported that those living in Britain who entered the country illegally would be encouraged to register with their local doctor so they could be vaccinated when their turn comes.
Asked about that report, which described the policy as an “amnesty”, a government spokeswoman said: “Coronavirus vaccines will be offered to everyone living in the UK free of charge, regardless of immigration status.
“Those registered with a GP (General Practitioner) are being contacted at the earliest opportunity and we are working closely with partners and external organisations to contact those who are not registered with a GP to ensure they are also offered the vaccine.”
I am running the live blog from London, where it’s 10am GMT. Please get in touch with me to share news tips or comments while I work.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
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Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
Updated
Tanzania has spent more than six months trying to convince the world it has been cured of the coronavirus through prayer while refusing to take measures to curb its spread, AFP reports.
However, dissent is mounting, along with deaths attributed to “pneumonia”, with even a politician in semi-autonomous Zanzibar admitting he has the virus.
“Covid-19 is killing people and we see a lot of cases but we cannot talk about the disease,” said a doctor in a public hospital in Tanzania’s biggest city, Dar es Salaam, who like many asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.
The Tanzanian president, John Magufuli, has continually played down the seriousness of the virus even as neighbouring countries shut borders and implemented curfews and lockdowns.
The country last gave case figures in April 2020, at the same time as Magufuli revealed he had secretly had a variety of items tested for the virus – of which papaya, a quail and a goat apparently tested positive.
He alleged “sabotage” at the national laboratory, even though the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said Tanzania’s tests had been proven to be reliable.
Updated
France bans homemade masks in schools
From today, all staff and pupils at French schools are to wear only category 1 face masks under a tightening of health rules at education establishments, which have remained open. This means no more home-made masks, which are less effective against the spread of new Covid-19 variants. Windows in classrooms are to be opened for several minutes every hour, and the distance rules have been increased to 2 metres in school canteens.
On Sunday, the health authorities sent out an urgent note suggesting the new variants posed an immediate and serious risk and calling for tighter measures.
These include the requirement for a second test in the case of a positive Covid-19 PCR or antigen test to establish if the person has one of the highly contagious variants with results within 36 hours. People found to have the South African or Brazilian variant will be required to isolate for 10 – as opposed to seven – days. The rule will also apply to anyone with whom they have been in contact.
If a school pupil tests positive for the Brazilian or South African variant, their class will be automatically closed and all pupils in it along with all teachers tested.
Updated
Ukraine, which hopes to vaccinate half of its population against coronavirus by early 2022, is in talks with other countries, including Poland, about receiving some of their coronavirus vaccines, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday.
Zelenskiy said last week that Kyiv had secured a total of 20 million doses of vaccine from India’s Serum Institute and the global COVAX scheme. Ukraine also expects to receive 5 million doses of vaccine from China’s Sinovac.
South Korea to give covid tests to cats and dogs with symptoms
Pet cats and dogs with a fever, cough or breathing difficulties will be offered coronavirus tests if they have been exposed to carriers, the Seoul metropolitan government said Monday.
The programme in the sprawling South Korean capital comes weeks after the country reported its first case of Covid-19 infection in an animal, involving a kitten.
“Starting today, the Seoul metropolitan government will offer coronavirus tests for pet dogs and cats,” Park Yoo-mi, a Seoul city official handling disease control, told reporters.
Tests will be limited to pets that show symptoms - including fever, coughing, breathing difficulties and runny noses - after coming into contact with humans who have tested positive, she added.
The test will be conducted near the animal’s home by a team of health workers including a veterinarian, Park said.
Animals that test positive will be required to be kept isolated at home for 14 days, but where owners have the virus their pets will be sent to separate kennels or catteries – human patients in South Korea are generally confined in central quarantine facilities if they do not need hospital treatment.
Around the world, several animals – including dogs and cats – have tested positive for the coronavirus, which has killed more than two million people worldwide.
At least two gorillas at California’s San Diego Zoo tested positive for the virus last month, believed to have been transmitted from an asymptomatic zoo worker.
Updated
South Africa halted the rollout of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccinations after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild infection from one variant, but Britain said the shot still stopped death and serious illness.
The novel coronavirus has killed 2.3 million people and turned normal life upside down for billions but new variants of the virus have raised fears that the world could be locked in a cat-and-mouse battle for years with the pathogen.
Researchers from the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Oxford said in a prior-to-peer analysis that the AstraZeneca vaccine provided minimal protection against mild or moderate infection from the so-called South African variant among young people.
Prof Shabir Madhi, the lead investigator on the AstraZeneca trial in South Africa, said the vaccine’s similarity to another produced by Johnson & Johnson, which reduced severe disease by 89%, suggested it would still prevent serious illness or death.
“There’s still some hope that the AstraZeneca vaccine might well perform as well as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a different age group demographic that I address of severe disease,” he told BBC radio.
Updated
Ukraine hopes to vaccinate half of its 41 million population against coronavirus by early 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday.
Zelenskiy said last week that Kyiv had secured a total of 20m doses of vaccine so far.
Updated
A Singapore government scheme to ensure children have access to computers for home learning has raised privacy concerns over monitoring software installed on the devices.
The scheme, accelerated by the closure of schools last year during the Covid-19 pandemic, offers subsidies to ensure all secondary school students will have access to computers by the end of 2021.
The government said in December that the computers must be fitted with device management applications, while students using their own computers will also need to have these installed onto their devices.
The software allows teachers to view and control students’ screens remotely, the vendor has said, sparking an online petition against the plan and criticism from international NGO, Human Rights Watch.
Hello everyone. I am taking over the live blog from London, where it’s 7.20 am GMT. Please get in touch with me to share news tips or comments while I work.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
Summary
I’ll be handing over to my colleagues in London shortly, but first, here’s a summary of the day so far.
- The US has passed 27m cases of coronavirus, as Joe Biden warned that it would be “very difficult” for the country to achieve heard immunity by the end of the summer.
- A World Health Organization panel is due to meet to discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday, the use of which has been suspended in South Africa over concern over its efficacy in over-65s.
- A majority of Japanese remain opposed to holding the Olympics this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic but the ratio lowered significantly from recent polls, a Yomiuri newspaper poll showed on Monday. A combined 61% want the Games to be postponed or cancelled altogether, however that’s around 20% points lower than recent opinion polls.
- South Korea reported the lowest daily number of new coronavirus cases since late November as the government slightly eased social distancing restrictions in the face of growing criticism from businesses impacted by the rules.
- Panama has sought to acquire more than 8m coronavirus vaccine doses to inoculate about 80% of the Central American nation’s residents, health minister Luis Sucre said on Sunday.
- China reported 14 new mainland Covid-19 cases on 7 February, official data showed on Monday, up slightly from a day earlier. All new cases originated from overseas.
Updated
Several of the British front pages are concerned with the vaccine rollout. The Guardian’s Covid headline is “Rethink on jabs urged after variants cuts efficacy”. The Telegraph leads with “Keep faith in Oxford jab, urges minister” and the Times suggests another round of jabs later in the year: “Autumn jab to ward off new strains of Covid 19”. The i has “New jabs on way to beat virus variants” and the Mail reports that immigrants who have not registered with a GP are being urged to get vaccinated: “Illegal migrants’ vaccine amnesty”. The Scotsman says “Fears quarantine regime will not be ready in time”.
GUARDIAN: Queen lobbied for change in law to hide her wealth #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/5ALunTNghY
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) February 7, 2021
TELEGRAPH : Keep faith in Oxford jab, urges minister #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/juA9E0YjOk
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) February 7, 2021
TIMES: Autumn jab to ward off new strains of Covid 19 #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/gIpb62MbAE
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) February 7, 2021
MAIL: Illegal migrants’ vaccine amnesty #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/AiRhCnHnOb
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) February 7, 2021
SCOTSMAN: Fears quarantine regime will not be ready in time #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/OKnPeGu93O
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) February 7, 2021
Japanese infectious disease specialist Atsuo Hamada wants to see the Olympics happen in Tokyo this summer, but admits if they were being held anywhere else, he’d probably support a cancellation.
“Even without the coronavirus pandemic, the Olympics as a mass gathering fosters all sorts of infectious diseases,” Hamada, a professor at Tokyo Medical University, told AFP.
With less than six months until the pandemic-postponed Games, organisers say they’re confident the event will be safe. But some medical experts aren’t so sure, and think cancellation is safer.
“I do understand the athletes’ sentiments,” said Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at Britain’s University of Southampton.
“But I think from … the global public health point of view, there’s nothing about the Olympics that makes any sense whatsoever right now.”
Updated
The Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific is reported to no longer be requiring first and business class passengers to wear masks when their seats are in the fully reclined position. The Executive Traveller website says it only “applies on long-haul-equipped planes with fully flat beds, so it doesn’t apply in Cathay Pacific’s regional business class, which doesn’t offer as much spacing”.
Previously passengers were only allowed to remove their masks when eating or drinking.
WHO panel to meet to discuss AstraZeneca vaccine
A World Health Organization panel is due to meet to discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday, the use of which has been suspended in South Africa over concern over its efficacy in over-65s.
AFP writes that a trial showed the vaccine provides only “minimal” protection against mild to moderate Covid-19 caused by the variant first detected in South Africa, a setback to the global fight against the pandemic as many poorer nations are relying on the logistical advantages offered by the AstraZeneca shot (it doesn’t need to be stored at very low temperatures).
“It’s a temporary issue that we have to hold on AstraZeneca until we figure out these issues,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize told reporters on Sunday.
The 1.5m AstraZeneca vaccines obtained by South Africa, which will expire in April, will be kept until scientists give clear indications on their use, he added.
AstraZeneca, which developed the shot with the University of Oxford, told AFP: “We do believe our vaccine will still protect against severe disease.”
A company spokesperson said researchers were already working to update the vaccine to deal with the South African variant, which has been spreading rapidly around the world.
The WHO panel is due to meet in Geneva to examine the shot, which is a major component of the initial Covax global vaccine rollout that covers some 145 countries.
Updated
India, with 10.8 million cases is in second place behind the US, followed by Brazil on 9.5m and then the United Kingdom with just under 4m cases in total.
The US also has the most deaths, on 463,437, followed by Brazil on 231,534, Mexico on 166,200 and India on 154,996. The UK has 112,681.
All figures from the Johns Hopkins Covid tracker.
US passes 27m infections
The US has passed 27m coronavirus cases, according to figures from Johns Hopkins. The country – the worst affected in the world – has also recorded more than 463,000 deaths. The Institute for Health and Metrics Evaluation, part of Washington University’s medicine department, predicts the death toll from the pandemic will pass 500,000 by the beginning of March, even with universal mask wearing.
The milestone came as President Biden said it would be difficult for the United States to reach herd immunity, at least 75% of the population inoculated against the coronavirus, by the end of this summer.
“The idea that this can be done and we can get to herd immunity much before the end of next - this summer, is - is very difficult,” Biden told CBS news in an interview.
Updated
Freedom and fairness: Covid vaccine passport plans cause global unease
It is the question being asked with increasing urgency around the world, at least in countries where the vaccine is already available: how much freedom to live life as it was before the pandemic should be granted to those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19?
Its impacts range from the speed at which economies can open, to when grandparents and grandchildren can hug again, but it is causing growing unease among decision-makers who warn there is a danger of dividing societies already under huge strain due to pandemic restraints.
Updated
In Victoria, Australia, another hotel quarantine worker in Victoria has tested positive for coronavirus.
More on Mexico’s vaccination program (see earlier post about Mexico’s rising death toll).
The launch of a vaccination program in Mexico has been disastrousm with the government’s registration website repeatedly crashing.
David Agren reports from Mexico City.
The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is facing mounting anger over claims he attended a meal that exceeded the limits on gatherings on the very day health restrictions had been tightened to thwart transmission of the virus.
More on the “resurgent” Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
South Korea reported the lowest daily number of new coronavirus cases since late November as the government slightly eased social distancing restrictions in the face of growing criticism from businesses impacted by the rules.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 289 additional cases as of midnight Sunday, with the daily tally falling below 300 for the first time since 23 November.
In recent months South Korea has been battling its largest and most persistent wave of infections, with daily cases peaking at more than 1,200 over the Christmas holiday.
Despite the drop in cases since then, authorities have been hesitant to ease unprecedented social distancing restrictions ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday from 11 February, when tens of millions of Koreans usually travel across the country to family gatherings.
South Korea on Saturday eased curfews on more than half a million restaurants and other businesses outside the capital Seoul, letting them stay open an hour later, amid a public backlash over tight curbs to contain Covid-19.
Rules remain stricter in the capital Seoul and surrounding areas, where more than 70% of infections are concentrated.
In late January, authorities extended social distancing curbs until Feb. 14 - including a ban on private gatherings larger than four people - and called on residents to stay home during the long holiday.
Panama has sought to acquire more than 8 million coronavirus vaccine doses to inoculate about 80% of the Central American nation’s residents, Health Minister Luis Sucre said on Sunday.
Panama has a population of about 4.2 million people but most coronavirus vaccines require two shots spaced several weeks apart.
Panama has requested about 1 million doses from the Covid-19 vaccine portfolio under the COVAX facility coordinated by the World Health Organization to support lower-income countries, Sucre said.
Panama will acquire a further 3 million doses from US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer Inc and the same amount from Russia, which has developed the Sputnik V vaccine.
Panama also aims to acquire 1.1 million doses manufactured by AstraZeneca PLC and 300,000 shots produced by Johnson & Johnson, Sucre added.
Mexico’s health ministry on Sunday reported 414 new confirmed deaths from Covid-19, bringing the total to 166,200.
The government says the real number of infected people and the death toll in Mexico are both likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
A majority of Japanese remain opposed to holding the Olympics this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic but the ratio lowered significantly from recent polls, a Yomiuri newspaper poll showed on Monday.
Some 28% of respondents said they want the Olympics to be cancelled and the same ratio of people think they should be held without spectators, the poll showed.
The Yomiuri poll showed a combined 61% wanting the Games to be postponed or cancelled altogether, around 20% points lower than recent opinion polls.
Just 36% of the public are in favour of holding the Tokyo Olympics this summer, of which 28% are calling for no spectators while the remaining 8% back allowing spectators.
The Tokyo Olympic Games were postponed last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and rescheduled to take place this year starting on 23 July.
Some 56% expected the coronavirus pandemic to remain unchanged in the summer, while 37% anticipated improvement and 3% saw it getting worse. Some 70% believed the vaccination would help resolve the situation, outweighing those who saw no containment.
Dwarfed by a 21-storey-tall statue of the Hindu god Vishnu riding the mythical eagle Garuda, a tour guide on the Indonesian resort island of Bali said he was staring at a dismal Lunar New Year season as the coronavirus wreaks havoc on tourism.
“In the last 10 months, there’s been no income, because there are no visitors,” said Effendy, clad in traditional red headgear and batik sarong, as he stood in the deserted 60-hectare park where the statue is a tourist draw.
In 30 years of working as a tour guide, the Mandarin-speaking Effendy said the peak holiday period of Lunar New Year, which starts on Feb. 12 this year, usually attracted droves of tourists from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
“My biggest hope is that we can recover from this pandemic quickly...and all activities can return to normal again,” added Effendy, 65, an ethnic Chinese who also uses the name Lin Wen Hui.
Indonesia is vaccinating 50,000 people against the virus every day but its infections and deaths are rising faster than ever, as experts fear its tally of more than a million cases and 31,000 killed underestimates the actual figure.
With foreign tourists banned to prevent the spread of the virus, Effendy now spends the bulk of his time practising the martial art of kung fu at home, while helping his wife to sell packaged rice to earn some money.
The couple have even had to sell some valuables, such as rings and a necklace to sustain themselves, he added.
In normal times, each person in a tour group ranging in size from 10 to 30 brings in about 2 million Indonesian rupiah (US$142.65) over a visit of three to seven days, Effendy said.
But as long as the park is bereft of visitors, with rows of seats standing vacant in an amphitheatre that has hosted concerts by groups such as Iron Maiden and daily performances of traditional music and dance, the hard times will continue.
“We will experience economic crisis because of this pandemic, and we can’t do anything,” Effendy added.
Photograph: Johannes Christo/Reuters
Under the onslaught of the pandemic, Southeast Asia’s largest economy last year suffered its first full-year contraction in more than two decades, and shrank almost 2.2% in the fourth quarter.
In the park, a sticker on the back of one seat urged social distancing, adding, “Your health is precious.”
Ebola 'resurgent' in DRC
In other dreadful pandemic news. Agence-France Presse reports ebola is resurgent in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
DR Congo on Sunday announced a “resurgence” of Ebola in its troubled east after a woman died of the disease, just three months after authorities declared the end of the country’s latest outbreak.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had dispatched a team of epidemiologists to the scene of the latest death to investigate.
“We have another episode of the Ebola virus” in the Biena health zone of North Kivu province, Health Minister Eteni Longondo told state television RTNC.
“It was a farmer, the wife of a survivor of Ebola, who showed typical signs of the disease on February 1,” he added.
She died on February 3, after which a sample of her blood tested positive for Ebola, the health ministry said.
The WHO’s Africa office said the woman had died in an area that had previously been one of the epicentres of the latest outbreak, near the town of Butembo.
“It is not rare that sporadic cases continue after a major epidemic,” the WHO said in a statement.
It added that WHO epidemiologists were in Butembo investigating, and that more than 70 people who had been in contact with the woman had already been identified.
“The disinfection of sites visited by the patient is also underway,” the UN agency said.
Since the West African Ebola crisis of 2013-16 - which left 11,300 dead across the region - the WHO has eyed each new outbreak with great concern, treating the most recent Congolese epidemic as an international health emergency.
DR Congo had on November 18 declared that epidemic, which lasted nearly six months in the northwestern province of Equateur, to be over. It was the country’s eleventh Ebola outbreak, claiming 55 lives out of 130 cases.
The last person declared recovered from Ebola in Equateur was on October 16.
The widespread use of vaccinations, which were administered to more than 40,000 people, helped curb the disease.
The return of the virus in the country’s northeast - a region plagued by violence between armed groups - comes as the vast African country is also fighting its own Covid-19 outbreak, with 681 deaths to date.
- Fatality rate up to 90% -
A previous Ebola outbreak in the DRC’s east, which ran from August 1, 2018 to June 25, 2020, was the country’s worst ever, with 2,277 deaths.
It was also the second highest toll in the 44-year history of the disease, surpassed only by the three-country West African outbreak in 2013-16.
Ebola haemorrhagic fever was first identified in 1976 after scientists probed a string of unexplained deaths in what is now northern DRC.
The symptoms are severe: high fever and muscle pain followed by vomiting and diarrhoea, skin eruptions, kidney and liver failure, internal and external bleeding.
The average fatality rate from Ebola is around 50 percent but this can rise to 90 percent for some epidemics, according to the WHO.
The virus that causes the disease is believed to reside in bats.
China reported 14 new mainland Covid-19 cases on 7 February, official data showed on Monday, up slightly from a day earlier. All new cases originated from overseas.
This marked the first time China has had zero local infections since 16 December, suggesting the aggressive steps taken by authorities managed to stop the disease spreading further from major clusters in Hebei province surrounding Beijing and the northeastern Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed Covid-19 cases, rose to 16 from 10 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said in a statement.
The total number of Covid-19 cases in mainland China stands at 89,706, while the death toll is unchanged at 4,636.
Updated
Vaccine strategy needs rethink after resistant variants emerge, say scientists
In case you missed this earlier, leading vaccine scientists are calling for a rethink of the goals of vaccination programmes, saying that herd immunity through vaccination is unlikely to be possible because of the emergence of variants like that in South Africa.
The comments came as the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca acknowledged that their vaccine will not protect people against mild to moderate Covid illness caused by the South African variant. The Oxford vaccine is the mainstay of the UK’s immunisation programme and vitally important around the world because of its low cost and ease of use.
The findings came from a study involving more than 2,000 people in South Africa. They followed results from two vaccines, from Novavax and Janssen, which were trialled there in recent months and were found to have much reduced protection against the variant – at about 60%. Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have also said the variant affects the efficacy of their vaccines, although on the basis of lab studies only.
All the vaccines, however, have been found to protect against the most severe disease, hospitalisation and death:
South Africa suspends Oxford vaccine
South Africa will suspend use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 shot in its vaccination programme after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild to moderate infection caused by the country’s dominant coronavirus variant, Reuters reports.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Sunday the government would await advice from scientists on how best to proceed, after disappointing results in a trial conducted by the University of the Witwatersrand.
The government had intended to roll the AstraZeneca shot out to healthcare workers soon, after receiving 1 million doses produced by the Serum Institute of India on Monday.
Instead, it will offer vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer in the coming weeks while experts consider how the AstraZeneca shot can be deployed.
“What does that mean for our vaccination programme which we said will start in February? The answer is it will proceed,” Mkhize told an online news briefing.
“From next week for the next four weeks we expect that there will be J&J vaccines, there will be Pfizer vaccines. So what will be available to the health workers will be those vaccines.”
“The AstraZeneca vaccine will remain with us ... up until the scientists give us clear indications as to what we need to do,” he added.
Biden says herd immunity 'difficult' by end summer
President Joe Biden said that it will be difficult for the United States to reach herd immunity, at least 75% of the population inoculated against the coronavirus, by the end of this summer.
“The idea that this can be done and we can get to herd immunity much before the end of next - this summer, is - is very difficult,” Biden told CBS news in an interview.
As of Sunday morning the United States has administered 41,210,937 doses of Covid-19 vaccines and distributed 59,307,800 doses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
I’ll be bringing you the latest developments for the next few hours.
US president Joe Biden said that it will be difficult for the United States to reach herd immunity, at least 75% of the population inoculated against the coronavirus, by the end of this summer.
“The idea that this can be done and we can get to herd immunity much before the end of next - this summer, is - is very difficult,” Biden told CBS news in an interview.
Meanwhile South Africa will suspend use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its vaccination programme while scientists advise on the best way to proceed, the country’s health minister said on Sunday. It will now instead offer vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer in the coming weeks while experts consider how the AstraZeneca shot can be deployed.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- Israel and Jordan relaxed coronavirus restrictions, with barbershops and some other businesses opening in Israel and pupils returning to school in Jordan.
- More than 12 million people in the UK have now received a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to government data up to and including 6 February, when 549,078 were vaccinated.
-
Afghanistan received its first batch of AstraZeneca’s vaccines from India’s Serum Institute on Sunday.
-
Hungary has approved Russia’s coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, with 40,000 doses of the jab ready to be rolled out.
-
Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is facing mounting anger over claims he attended a meal that exceeded the limits on gatherings on the very day health restrictions had been tightened to thwart transmission of the virus.
-
Chicago’s school district has reached an agreement with its teachers’ union about a Covid safety plan, the city’s mayor has said, signalling an end to months of negotiations.
- The government of Montserrat imposed a 14-day lockdown on Sunday after four coronavirus cases were confirmed on the Caribbean island with less than 5,000 residents.
