A summary of today's developments
- The number of daily Covid fatalities has hit another new high in Brazil, with the news that another2,286 Brazilians had lost their lives. The latest high, which followed a record 1,972 deaths on Tuesday, took the South American country’s total death toll to more than 270,000, second only to the US.
- Mexico’s health ministry reported 6,674 new cases of Covid-19 in the country and 699 additional fatalities, bringing the total tally of infections to 2,144,558 and 192,488 deaths.
- The daily number of new coronavirus cases in Turkey rose on Wednesday to the highest level this year, standing at 14,556, health ministry data showed.
- There is nothing to suggest so far that vaccination was responsible for the death and illness of two people who had been given AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine in Austria, the European Medicines Agency said. Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Latvia have along with Austria suspended using the vaccine to allow time for the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee to conduct an investigation.
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France reported 30,303 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours on Wednesday, rising above 30,000 for the first time in two weeks.
- The Maltese government has ordered non-essential shops and schools to close amid a surge in Covid-19 cases on the Mediterranean island.
- The European commission said on Wednesday it has reached a deal with Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of an additional 4m Covid vaccine doses to be delivered this month.
- The highly infectious British variant of Covid-19 is between 30% and 100% more deadly than previous strains, researchers have said.
- Poland has reported 17,260 new daily Covid cases, the highest number since November.
- Mauritius has started a two-week nationwide lockdown following 14 local Covid cases, with all residents and visitors asked to stay at home or in their hotels until 25 March.
- Far more people in Germany will receive a Covid vaccination from April when family doctors start giving them but the idea that 25% of the population can get a shot in just a month is unrealistic, its health minister warned on Wednesday.
- Bulgaria has reported 3,502 new Covid cases, its highest daily tally in three months, as government data shows the number of deaths also increased to 132.
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The UK government was too “definitive” when it set a date for indoor care home visits to restart, the head of a care provider membership body said.
Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said providers are being faced with a “stark choice”, but their priority must be the safety and care of residents.
The campaign group Rights for Residents told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that the majority of members “are not getting this type of visits that they were promised” after the Government said they could restart from Monday.
The Government has said care home residents can receive regular indoor visits from a nominated friend or relative, who must be tested and wear protective gear.
Those with the highest care needs are also able to receive visits from a loved one providing essential care or support, with these visits permitted to continue even if the home has a coronavirus outbreak, unless there are “specific reasons”.
The resumption of visits is backed up by new visiting guidance, which is not mandatory.
Rights for Residents co-founder Jenny Morrison said it is a “very, very distressing time for relatives who unfortunately are in the main, not being reunited with their loved ones inside care homes”.
She said: “The guidance does say that visits should stop in the case of an outbreak, and of course that makes sense, because you know if you’ve got an outbreak of Covid in a care home you don’t want reams of relatives going in.”
There are “concerning signals” about the effect of the pandemic on children and young people, researchers have said.
In an editorial published in The BMJ, experts said the mental health of the children of Britain was “deteriorating before the pandemic”.
Known triggers for self-harm and poor mental health are aggravated by pandemic restrictions, they said.
Researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Bristol and Swansea said that between 2004 and 2007 anxiety, depression and self harm increased, particularly among teenage girls.
They said research suggests that probable mental health conditions among children and young people rose from 11% in 2017 to 16% in July 2020.
A separate survey found parents reported deteriorating mental health and increased behavioural problems among children aged four to 11 between March and May last year.
“Studies carried out during the pandemic suggest that although some families are coping well, others are facing financial adversity, struggling to home school and risk experiencing vicious cycles of increasing distress,” they wrote.
Experts who travelled to China to probe the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins called for such international investigations to become standard practice following an outbreak to lessen the stigma.
“Why don’t we do this with every outbreak, as a routine?” asked Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who was a member of the World Health Organization mission to Wuhan earlier this year.
The UN health agency worked for months to send an international team to Wuhan to help determine how the novel coronavirus first jumped from animals to humans.
But in a tense geopolitical climate, the highly sensitive mission only landed on the ground this past January - more than a year after the first cases were detected in the Chinese city in late 2019.
The independent experts, who spent four weeks in Wuhan visiting sites linked to early cases, wrapped up their mission last month without conclusive findings.
The team, which stressed this was a first stage in the process, is expected to publish a report with their full findings next week.
Speaking at a virtual event hosted by the Chatham House think-tank, several experts suggested China’s reluctance to admit an international team was understandable given the broad misconception that they were going in to second-guess Beijing’s own probe.
They stressed that their true mission had been to cooperate with Chinese counterparts and build on their findings.
Koopmans said few countries would welcome international experts in such circumstances, “because it feels like people coming in and telling you you are not doing a good job.”
But if international investigations of disease outbreaks were automatic, it would help remove the notion that they are a “punishment”, she said.
If we want to move beyond this sensitivity, let’s just make it routine, standard.”
The South Australian health department say viral fragments have continued to be found in wastewater from northern Adelaide.
COVID-19 symptoms? Get tested.
— SA Health (@SAHealth) March 10, 2021
COVID continues to be detected in wastewater from Adelaide CBD North B11 catchment area. We do not believe the detection is from medi-hotels. Positive results could be due to people with historic cases shedding the virus.https://t.co/dhlkAuC2fj pic.twitter.com/Dq88HO1Zpx
Mexico surpasses 192,000 deaths
Mexico’s health ministry reported 6,674 new cases of Covid-19 in the country and 699 additional fatalities, bringing the total tally of infections to 2,144,558 and 192,488 deaths.
Health officials have said the actual number of infected people and deaths in Mexico is likely significantly higher than the official count because of a lack of wide-scale testing.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said that infection rates in Brazil are worrying, spurred by a new and more contagious variant known as P1, and called for much stricter public health measures.
Brazil has registered a record for daily Covid-19 fatalities, with 2,286 people dead from the virus in the last 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry.
“We are concerned about the situation in Brazil. It provides a sober reminder of the threat of resurgence: areas hit hard by the virus in the past are still vulnerable to infection today,” PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said in a briefing.
Tanzania’s president, John Magufuli, is critically ill in a hospital in Kenya after contracting coronavirus, the threat of which he has repeatedly trivialised, an opposition leader has said, citing sources with knowledge of the case.
The 61-year-old president suffered a cardiac arrest and flew to a hospital in Nairobi for urgent treatment, Tundu Lissu told the BBC.
Lissu’s claims have not been independently verified, but Magufuli has not been seen for almost two weeks, sparking widespread speculation about his health and whereabouts. His absence is unusual as he is known for making frequent public speeches and appearing on state television several times a week.
Guatemala and Honduras will receive their first shipments of Covid-19 vaccine doses via the COVAX mechanism this week, government officials and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.
Guatemala said it is expecting 81,600 doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine on Thursday, which it purchased through the global COVAX facility, led by the GAVI vaccines alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote equitable access to the vaccine.
Guatemala’s government said in a statement it had requested a total of 6.74 million doses from COVAX, Reuters reports.
That adds to 5,000 vaccine doses donated to Guatemala by Israel and another 200,000 doses donated by India, it added.
Separately, PAHO, the WHO’s regional office for the Americas, said Honduras will on Saturday receive its first 48,000 donated vaccine doses through COVAX.
Brazil suffers new highest daily death toll
The number of daily Covid fatalities has hit yet another new high in Brazil, with the news that another2,286 Brazilians had lost their lives.
The latest high, which followed a record 1,972 deaths on Tuesday, took the South American country’s total death toll to more than 270,000, second only to the US.
Hours earlier Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, excoriated what he called President Jair Bolsonaro’s “moronic” and inept response to the pandemic.
“Lots of these deaths could have been avoided had we had a government which had done basic things,” Lula said, attacking how Bolsonaro had failed to buy vaccines and trivialised Covid-19 as a “little flu” about which only only “pansies” and “cowards” were concerned.
Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain, has shown scant sympathy for Brazilian victims of Covid, last week telling citizens to stop “whining” about the pandemic.
Speaking on Wednesday Lula said: “I want to express my solidarity with the victims of coronavirus, the relatives of the victims ... and above all with the heroes and heroines of our public health service.”
“Had it not been for our national health service we would have lost so many more people than we have lost,” he added.
A summary of today's developments
- The daily number of new coronavirus cases in Turkey rose on Wednesday to the highest level this year, standing at 14,556, health ministry data showed.
- There is nothing to suggest so far that vaccination was responsible for the death and illness of two people who had been given AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine in Austria, the European Medicines Agency said. Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Latvia have along with Austria suspended using the vaccine to allow time for the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee to conduct an investigation.
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France reported 30,303 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours on Wednesday, rising above 30,000 for the first time in two weeks.
- The Maltese government has ordered non-essential shops and schools to close amid a surge in Covid-19 cases on the Mediterranean island.
- The European commission said on Wednesday it has reached a deal with Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of an additional 4m Covid vaccine doses to be delivered this month.
- The highly infectious British variant of Covid-19 is between 30% and 100% more deadly than previous strains, researchers have said.
- Poland has reported 17,260 new daily Covid cases, the highest number since November.
- Mauritius has started a two-week nationwide lockdown following 14 local Covid cases, with all residents and visitors asked to stay at home or in their hotels until 25 March.
- Far more people in Germany will receive a Covid vaccination from April when family doctors start giving them but the idea that 25% of the population can get a shot in just a month is unrealistic, its health minister warned on Wednesday.
- Bulgaria has reported 3,502 new Covid cases, its highest daily tally in three months, as government data shows the number of deaths also increased to 132.
Spanish biopharmaceutical group Zendal wrote to Spain’s industry minister declaring its interest in producing Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the country, an industry ministry spokeswoman said.
Spain’s health ministry said earlier on Wednesday it was unaware of any contract to domestically manufacture Sputnik V after Moscow’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund said it had struck deals in Spain, Italy, France and Germany.
Zendal’s letter to Industry Minister Reyes Maroto was forwarded to the health ministry, the spokeswoman told Reuters.
The French industry ministry had said on Tuesday no company in France had signed such a contract, appearing to contradict the head of RDIF, which markets the vaccine internationally and announced the deals earlier in the day.
The Russian Embassy in Madrid tweeted on Tuesday that Spanish company IberAtlantic was negotiating a potential deal with RDIF and Zendal to produce Sputnik V at the latter’s laboratory in the northwestern region of Galicia.
Governors Andrew Cuomo and Phil Murphy announced on Wednesday that restaurants in New York City and New Jersey will be able to expand indoor dining capacity to 50% from March 19.
Restaurants in the rest of New York state will expand to 75% capacity.
Several Balkan countries said that they would step up restrictions in hopes of easing the pressure on their overburdened health systems.
Doctors in Bosnia’s capital of Sarajevo warned that infections have “exploded” in recent days and urged people to comply with pandemic regulations. Illustrating the rise in infections, long queues of people waiting to see doctors formed outside COVID-19 wards and outpatient clinics in the city.
Bosnian authorities said that all bars, restaurants and non-essential shops in the Sarajevo canton will be shut during this weekend.
More than 1,000 new infections and 37 deaths over the past 24 hours were reported on Wednesday.
On a positive note, the first AstraZeneca vaccine doses donated by neighboring Serbia, were administered in Sarajevo on Wednesday.
Serbia’s Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said the government-appointed virus crisis body most likely will meet on Thursday to decide on tighter measures for the upcoming weekend.
In Montenegro, health authorities said schools will shift to remote instruction, while daycare centres, bars and fitness centres will close as part additional measures imposed.
In North Macedonia, a nationwide, two-week curfew will take effect on Wednesday from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Five countries suspend use of AstraZeneca vaccine
Austria’s national medicines regulator has suspended use of a batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine after four patients were diagnosed with dangerous blood clotting conditions after receiving the jab.
Four other countries - Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia - have suspended its use to allow time for the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) to conduct an investigation.
Europe’s medicines watchdog said a preliminary probe showed that the batch of vaccines used in Austria was not likely to blame for the death of a nurse, aged 49, who received a jab.
The nurse died of multiple thrombosis - formation of blood clots within blood vessels - 10 days after their vaccine, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said.
A second patient was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism - where blockages form in the arteries in the lungs - but is now recovering.
As of Tuesday, two other clotting conditions had been identified in patients that had received a dose from the same batch.
The EMA said there is currently no evidence that the vaccine caused the conditions, and that thrombosis is not listed as a potential side effect of the vaccine.
It said that the batch labelled ABV5300 comprised one million doses and had been delivered to 17 EU countries.
Turkey’s health minister Fahrettin Koca blamed the rise in cases on a faster spread of Covid-19 variations.
The daily number of new coronavirus cases rose on Wednesday to the highest level this year, with the figure at 14,556.
“Mutated viruses have increased the rate of spread,” Koca said, adding that more than 40,000 people have been infected by the variant identified in Britain, as well as much smaller numbers by those identified in South Africa and Brazil.
Malta announces new lockdown after surge in cases
The Maltese government has ordered non-essential shops and schools to close amid a surge in Covid-19 cases on the Mediterranean island.
Prime Minister Robert Abela imposed the measures after Malta saw a daily record of 510 new cases on Wednesday in the country of 500,000 people, Reuters reports.
As well as schools and shops, he suspended all organised sport and closed theatres, museums, gyms and religious activities. Gatherings of more than four people are prohibited.
Other restrictions introduced over recent weeks, including the closure of all bars and restaurants and the mandatory wearing of masks in public areas, remain in place.
Health Minister Chris Fearne said Malta was far ahead of other EU countries in its vaccination campaign against the virus, having given 18% of the population at least one jab.
Herd immunity is expected to be achieved by mid-summer, he said.
Regional and national health ministers in Germany agreed on Wednesday that family doctors should start giving vaccinations.
It comes after health minister Jens Spahn warned that the notion that 25% of the population can get a jab in a month is unrealistic, Reuters reports.
US President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill secured enough votes in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass on Wednesday.
The Senate has already approved the legislation.
The next step will be the White House, where Biden is expected to sign it into law.
Early evening summary
Here is a quick recap of recent Covid related events from around the world:
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The daily number of new coronavirus cases in Turkey rose on Wednesday to the highest level this year, standing at 14,556, health ministry data showed.
- There is nothing to suggest so far that vaccination was responsible for the death and illness of two people who had been given AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine in Austria, the European Medicines Agency has said.
- France reported 30,303 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours on Wednesday, rising above 30,000 for the first time in two weeks.
- The European commission said on Wednesday it has reached a deal with Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of an additional 4m Covid vaccine doses to be delivered this month.
- The highly infectious British variant of Covid-19 is between 30% and 100% more deadly than previous strains, researchers have said.
- Poland has reported 17,260 new daily Covid cases, the highest number since November.
- Mauritius has started a two-week nationwide lockdown following 14 local Covid cases, with all residents and visitors asked to stay at home or in their hotels until 25 March.
- Far more people in Germany will receive a Covid vaccination from April when family doctors start giving them but the idea that 25% of the population can get a shot in just a month is unrealistic, its health minister warned.
- Bulgaria has reported 3,502 new Covid cases, its highest daily tally in three months, as government data shows the number of deaths also increased to 132.
Updated
New Covid cases in Turkey hit highest level this year after curbs eased
The daily number of new Covid cases in Turkey rose on Wednesday to the highest level this year, health ministry data showed, ten days after president Tayyip Erdogan announced an easing of measures curbs.
The number of new cases stood at 14,556, the highest level since the end of last year and nearly double from a month ago.
Erdogan announced a partial opening of schools, as well as cafes and restaurants last week, with Ankara also having eased weekend lockdowns after the number of new cases fell below 10,000 daily.
Wednesday’s data showed 67 people died due to Covid-19 in the last 24-hour period, bringing the death toll to 29,227, Reuters reports.
United Arab Emirates and Israel’s governments have entered formal talks to establish a quarantine-free travel corridor between the two countries to boost bilateral exchange following a normalisation deal, according to state news agency WAM.
The travel corridor, which will apply to passengers who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, will help facilitate travel for commercial, tourism and official purposes, it was reported on Wednesday.
Nothing to suggest vaccine behind deaths in Austria, EMA says
There is nothing to suggest so far that vaccination was responsible for the death and illness of two people who had been given AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine in Austria, the European Medicines Agency has said.
The Austrian national health authority suspended the use of a batch of the vaccine after a person was diagnosed with multiple thrombosis and died 10 days after vaccination, and another was hospitalised with pulmonary embolism, Reuters reports.
In a statement, the EMA said:
There is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine. Although a quality defect is considered unlikely at this stage, the batch quality is being investigated.
Updated
Australia’s peak doctors body has acknowledged the government is unlikely to achieve its target of vaccinating all Australians by October, suggesting some will have to wait until the end of the year, Elias Visontay reports:
Jordan has approved Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use against Covid-19, the Russian Direct Investment Fund has said.
Sputnik V has now been cleared for use in 49 countries with combined populations of more than 1.3 billion people, it added.
Daily cases in France above 30,000 for first time in two weeks
France reported 30,303 new Covid infections over the past 24 hours on Wednesday, rising above 30,000 for the first time in two weeks.
The French health ministry said the number of people treated in intensive care units for Covid-19 was unchanged at 3,918, halting a five-day-long increase.
There were 264 new deaths from the respiratory disease over the past 24 hours, taking the total to 89,565, the seventh-highest in the world, Reuters reports.
Updated
The French government is working on a Covid health pass, its spokesman Gabriel Attal told reporters on Wednesday after a cabinet meeting (see some of his other comments in this post).
Last month, president Emmanuel Macron said vaccine passports would be unfair because they would discriminate against young people, in particular, who aren’t eligible for vaccination yet.
However, as Reuters reports, he is in favour of a “health pass” that would also include whether a person has antibodies from getting Covid-19 or the results of a negative test, and could be used to get access to restaurants or other venues.
Italy reported 332 Covid-related deaths on Wednesday against 376 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 22,409 from 19,749 the previous day.
Some 361,040 coronavirus tests were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 345,336, Reuters reports.
Italy has registered 100,811 deaths linked to Covid since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe.
Updated
The UK government said a further 190 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Wednesday, bringing the UK’s death toll by that measure to 124,987.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 147,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
As of 9am on Wednesday, there had been a further 5,926 lab-confirmed cases in the UK, bringing the total to 4,234,924.
Data up to 9 March shows that of the 24,064,182 vaccine doses given in the UK so far, 22,809,829 were first doses - a rise of 217,301 on the previous day. Some 1,254,353 were second doses, an increase of 72,922.
Updated
Sweden’s reluctance to impose lockdowns is being tested by growing pandemic fatigue in the population and the rapid spread of a more contagious variant first identified in the UK as the country battles a third wave, Reuters reports.
The country has shunned lockdowns throughout the pandemic, relying on social distancing and hygiene recommendations. Schools and businesses for the most part have stayed open.
The Swedish Health Agency has argued that voluntary measures can achieve as much as lockdowns without harming the economy, child welfare and the general health of the population to the same extent.
Another key argument for Sweden’s less intrusive strategy has also been that it is more sustainable over time. But authorities have found that adherence to pandemic protocols may be flagging.
“There’s quite a bit of what is called ‘pandemic fatigue’ to keep in mind,” chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said this month. “We saw a good effect after the measures put in place in November and December, but now we have to increase [measures] again.”
A new law comes into effect on Thursday that would allow the government to shut businesses in what would be the most drastic measures yet. The health minister Lena Hallengren said on Wednesday there were no immediate plans for a lockdown.
Sweden has seen infections rise again after falling in January and February. Combined with the rise of the UK variant and a beleaguered healthcare system, the situation has led to calls for a lockdown.
“We are in the midst of a third wave and for it not to turn into an uncontrollable tsunami, we need to take tough action early,” said opposition Centre party leader Annie Loof this week. She wants to close shopping malls for three weeks.
Sweden has gradually added more binding restrictions and tougher recommendations since November. Restaurants and cafes have to close by 8.30pm, while shops face crowd limits.
Not everyone is so sure about the benefits of a lockdown. “What’s the point of locking down a year after the pandemic started?,” said Thomas Yavuz, 35, owner of a pizzeria in central Stockholm. “The one thing I liked about the Swedish model was that it gave us personal responsibility, but stricter rules would take that out of our hands.”
While infections have risen, deaths have declined over the past two months, a trend authorities believe is underpinned by the rollout of vaccines.
Updated
Update from earlier post detailing Mauritius going into lockdown:
Nilen Vencadasmy, chairman of the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority, said:
We have decided to implement the nationwide lockdown to make sure that there is no risk of it spreading further. Mauritius is looking forward to welcoming visitors back later in 2021 in the knowledge that we are a safe and secure destination.
All residents and visitors have been asked to stay at home or in their hotels until 25 March.
The Indian Ocean island of 1.4 million people has had 641 confirmed Covid cases with 10 deaths, according to the latest World Health Organization data.
Reuters reports:
A push to increase production of Covid-19 vaccines for poor nations hung in the balance at the World Trade Organization on Wednesday amid disagreement between richer and developing countries over the issue of patent rights.
South Africa and India planned to renew their bid at a two-day meeting to waive rules of the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement, a move that would allow generic or other manufacturers to make more vaccines.
Their proposal is backed by dozens of largely developing countries at the WTO, but opposed by western countries including Britain, Switzerland, EU nations and the United States, which have large domestic pharmaceutical industries.
Proposals need backing by a consensus of the WTO’s 164 members to pass.
The issue was set to come up at the WTO’s TRIPS Council on Wednesday afternoon. Members would then hold an eighth discussion on the topic since it was first raised in October.
Updated
In England, a passenger train has been converted into a rapid lateral flow Covid testing station for railway staff, PA Media reports.
The Southern Class 313 Coastway train stationed at platform 8 of Brighton station will be used with two other bases to test up to 1,250 workers for Govia Thameslink Railway, which operates Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express.
Reuters reports:
A majority of Covid-19 patients that were admitted to US hospitals during the first few months of the pandemic were prescribed antibiotics even before a bacterial infection had been confirmed, a study showed on Wednesday.
The study by Pew Charitable Trusts suggests that such drugs were over-prescribed between February through July 2020, as doctors rushed to treat Covid-19 patients when treatment options were sparse.
Antibiotics do not fight viruses but are prescribed to treat secondary bacterial infections.
“Ultimately, what we’re really concerned about is what the data could mean about the long-term fight against antibiotic resistance,” said David Hyun, project director for Pew’s antibiotic resistance project.
The report, which included data from 5,838 hospital admissions, highlights the risk of prescribing antibiotics unnecessarily, which could speed up the emergence of drug-resistant ‘superbugs’.
Hundreds of children between the ages of 12 and 16 who have been given the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccination in Israel experienced no serious side-effects, a senior official has told the Guardian, one of the first signs that Covid-19 inoculations could be safe for minors ahead of clinical trial results.
Israel’s health ministry has recommended vaccinating some teenagers if they suffer from underlying conditions that make them vulnerable to contracting coronavirus, Oliver Holmes, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, reports:
US president Joe Biden will announce on Wednesday that he has directed his health team to procure an extra 100m doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine, a White House official said.
Biden is to meet with the chief executives of J&J and Merck on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
Updated
Honduras will on Saturday receive its first 48,000 Covid vaccine doses via the Covax mechanism, the Pan American Health Organization (the Americas regional office of the World Health Organization) has confirmed.
Honduras is eligible to receive vaccine donations from Covax to cover 20% of its population.
Boris Johnson has “corrected” European council president Charles Michel over his claim that the UK had imposed a “outright ban” on the export of Covid vaccines, the BBC reports.
Speaking at prime minister’s questions, Johnson said the country had “not blocked” the sale abroad of “a single vaccine or its components”.
Michel had said his claim about the UK’s position was based on “facts” (see earlier post).
An EU official was summoned to the Foreign Office to explain his remarks.
Updated
France is on track to reach its Covid vaccination targets, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said after a cabinet meeting.
Attal also told reporters that curbs were working, but the situation in hospitals – including in Paris and its surrounding region – remained a concern.
Updated
Portugal’s health authority said on Wednesday it had approved the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine for people aged over 65, as new studies revealed its effectiveness in preventing infection and lowering hospitalisations among elderly people.
The decision means that all people over 18 can now receive the shot, the DGS authority said, after it was approved for those under 65 in late January, according to Reuters.
It reported 847 new infections and 30 deaths on Tuesday, bringing the total to 811,306 and 16,595 respectively.
About 748,000 people have so far received one dose of a Covid vaccine, of whom 295,515 have had a second dose.
Updated
Eli Lilly and Co has said that its combination antibody therapy to fight Covid-19 reduced the risk of hospitalisation and death by 87%, in a study of more than 750 high-risk coronavirus patients.
It is the second large, late-stage study to show that combination therapy of two antibodies, bamlanivimab and etesevimab, is effective at treating mild to moderate Covid cases, Reuters reports.
Daniel Skovronsky, chief scientific officer at Eli Lilly, said:
I expect this data to continue to drive more utilization” of the antibodies. We have few other diseases where we have drugs that can offer this magnitude of benefit.
Updated
Europe to receive 4m more Pfizer/BioNTech Covid shots this month- commission
The European commission said on Wednesday it has reached a deal with Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of an additional 4m Covid vaccine doses to be delivered this month, according to Reuters.
The doses to vaccinate 2 million people will be supplied in addition to the planned deliveries, to ease border movement and to tackle virus hotspots, the commission added (see earlier post).
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the commission, said:
To tackle aggressive variants of the virus and to improve the situation in hotspots, quick and decisive action is necessary.
A BioNTech spokeswoman said the additional doses were a result of an “improvement in efficiency”, adding that volumes to be delivered in the second quarter remained unchanged.
Updated
Here are some figures on the share of people who have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine (9 March) compiled by Our World in Data:
Our data is updated: https://t.co/03pQ8rRViP
— Edouard Mathieu (@redouad) March 10, 2021
Share of people with at least 1 dose:
🇮🇱 Israel 58%
🇦🇪 UAE 35%
🇬🇧 UK 33%
🇨🇱 Chile 22%
🇺🇸 US 18%
🇧🇭 Bahrain 18%
🇷🇸 Serbia 17%
🇭🇺 Hungary 11%
🇲🇦 Morocco 11%
🇩🇰 Denmark 9%
🇹🇷 Turkey 9%
🇫🇮 Finland 9%
🇱🇹 Lithuania 8%
🇪🇪 Estonia 8% pic.twitter.com/iw3O8QbPrR
Updated
In the UK, Covid case rates have fallen below the symbolic level of 50 cases per 100,000 people in half of all local areas, analysis shows.
It is a major turnaround from one month ago, when only six of the 380 local areas were reporting rates under 50 per 100,000.
The steep fall suggests the various lockdowns in place across the country are continuing to play a key role in reducing the number of new reported cases of coronavirus.
The analysis, which has been compiled by the PA Media news agency, shows that for the seven days to 5 March 190 out of 380 local authority areas in the UK recorded Covid-19 case rates below 50 per 100,000 people.
In England, these ranged from 49.7 in Dartford in Kent to 5.7 in South Hams in Devon.
A majority of local areas in Wales are now below 50 cases per 100,000 people, with Ceredigion recording a rate of just 9.6.
More than half of areas in Scotland are also below 50, including the Shetland Islands (4.4) and the Orkney Islands (no recent cases).
In Northern Ireland, two of the 11 local authority areas are now below 50: Newry, Mourne & Down (40.8) and Fermanagh & Omagh (33.2).
Updated
With spring and Covid-19 vaccines within sight, Hungarian confectioner Laszlo Rimoczi is sending a message of hope for Easter by creating chocolate bunnies holding vaccine syringes, Reuters writes.
Rimoczi said the vaccines, made of fine Italian chocolate and sprinkled with silver food colouring powder, signalled there was a way out of the pandemic.
Unlike his Christmas chocolate Santas, Rimoczi’s bunnies no longer wear masks.
“There is no filling in the vaccines at all, it is just a 100% good quality Italian milk or dark chocolate,” Rimoczi said as he moulded the chocolate vaccines in his small workshop in Lajosmizse, 45 miles south of Budapest.
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Pakistan has launched a Covid vaccination drive for the general public, starting with older people, as it grapples with a high degree of vaccination hesitancy.
It will begin with a focus on the oldest people in the community, generally over the age of 80, health minister Faisal Sultan said.
According to a survey released last week, nearly half of healthcare staff had concerns over China’s Sinopharm vaccine – the only one available in the country of 220 million.
The poll of 555 medical workers found that meany healthcare staff would prefer other vaccines.
Pakistan distributed 504,400 Sinopharm vaccine doses to provincial authorities by 20 February, and 230,000 frontline health workers had received a shot by Friday, Sultan said.
Pakistan, which has recorded 595,239 Covid cases and more than 13,000 deaths, has not secured any supplies from vaccine manufacturers.
It is largely depending on the GAVI/WHO Covax initiative for poorer nations and donations from China, Reuters reports.
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Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog up until the evening (UK time). As always, feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
France will get an extra 600,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses over the next fortnight, according to a tweet from the country’s European affairs minister, Clément Beaune.
Reuters reported that the European commission said it has reached a deal with Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of an additional 4m vaccine doses to be delivered this month.
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Covid variant first identified in Britain has 'significantly higher' mortality, study finds
The highly infectious British variant of Covid-19 is between 30% and 100% more deadly than previous strains, Reuters reports.
In a study that compared death rates among people in Britain infected with the new Sars-CoV-2 variant, known as B.1.1.7, against those infected with other strains, scientists said the new variant had “significantly higher” mortality.
The B.1.1.7 variant was first detected in Britain in September 2020, and has since been found in more than 100 countries.
It has 23 mutations in its genetic code – a relatively high number of changes – and some of these have made it far more able to spread. UK scientists say it is about 40%-70% more transmissible than previously dominant circulating coronavirus variants.
In the UK study, published in the British Medical Journal on Wednesday, infection with the new variant led to 227 deaths in a sample of 54,906 Covid-19 patients, compared with 141 among the same number of patients infected with other variants.
“Coupled with its ability to spread rapidly, this makes B.1.1.7 a threat that should be taken seriously,” said Robert Challen, a researcher at Exeter University who co-led the research.
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Morocco and Kenya have approved Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine for use, Reuters reports.
According to Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund, 48 countries have approved the vaccine.
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The US state of Texas has lifted the mask mandate and occupancy restrictions on businesses in the country’s widest rollback of coronavirus restrictions, Reuters reports.
Vast swaths of Texas are said to have rarely enforced mask or occupancy mandates in the past year.
Several major retailers, grocery and restaurant chains in the state said they would still insist that masks be worn in their stores. Austin’s city council voted to still require masks, daring state officials to sue the city.
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The head of a German panel of experts has come out in support of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, as Europe cautiously weighs producing and using it, Reuters reports.
Thomas Mertens, head of STIKO, Germany’s expert panel on vaccine use, told daily Rheinische Post:
This is a good vaccine, which looks like it will be approved in the EU at some point. The Russian researchers are very experienced in vaccines.”
The European Union’s drugs regulator began reviewing the shot for possible approval last week. Three western-made vaccines are already cleared for use in the bloc and the go-ahead for a fourth one is expected soon.
On a national level, Sputnik V has already been approved or is being assessed for approval in three EU member states – Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. EU officials have said Brussels could start negotiations about a possible agreement to buy vaccines if at least four members request it.
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Poland reports highest coronavirus rates since November
Poland has reported 17,260 new daily coronavirus cases, the highest number since November, Reuters reports.
The country is grappling with its third wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
Data by health ministry showed that the total number of Covid-19 cases in Poland has exceeded 1.8 million, including 45,997 deaths.
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Mauritius goes into lockdown
Mauritius has started a two-week nationwide lockdown following 14 local Covid cases, AFP reports.
The new lockdown is the second time the Indian Ocean archipelago nation has imposed coronavirus restrictions.
Prime minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth said:
We had no other choice but total containment in order to prevent the spread of the virus and protect the population.”
Only essential services will be operational from Wednesday, including the port, airport, hospital services and emergency relief. As of Thursday, supermarkets, bakeries, petrol stations and pharmacies will be accessible on an alphabetical rotation basis.
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German vaccine rollout to accelerate but health minister asks people to be realistic
The vaccine rollout in Germany will accelerate from April when GPs begin to administer the jab, but a target to reach 25% of the population is unrealistic, Reuters reports.
“Vaccination numbers will not immediately grow to 20 million a month or to 10 million a week,” health minister Jens Spahn told ZDF Television.
Germans are growing frustrated over a sluggish vaccination rollout. Only around 6.4% of the 83 million population have received at least a first dose against the coronavirus.
The head of the KBV doctors’ association said surgeries could administer about 5m vaccinations a week and urged the government to let them get on with it.
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The EU and Britain will discuss a dispute over accusations of vaccine nationalism later today, Reuters reports.
The EU will send charge d’affaires Nicole Mannion, effectively the EU deputy ambassador to Britain, to a morning meeting with British Foreign Office permanent under-secretary Philip Barton.
The latest spat resulted from European council president Charles Michel’s rejection of charges of “vaccine nationalism” levelled at the EU, in which he commented that Britain and the US have export bans on Covid-19 vaccine doses. Britain retorted that claims that it has an export ban or restrictions were “completely false”.
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Russia has reported 9,079 new Covid-19 cases, including 1,116 in Moscow, taking the national infection tally to 4,351,553 since the pandemic began, Reuters reports
The government coronavirus taskforce said that 466 people had died in past 24 hours, pushing its death toll to 90,275.
Ukrainians are increasing opposed to receiving the Covid-19 vaccination despite infections rising sharply, Associated Press reports.
An opinion poll released earlier this month by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 60% of the country’s population don’t want to get vaccinated, up from 40% a month earlier. There is particular reluctance among medical workers.
The resistance appears to be rooted in longstanding suspicion of vaccines dating back to the Soviet era, amplified by politicians’ allegations about low-quality vaccines, corruption scandals and misinformation spread through social media.
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Some South Korean hospitals are using specially designed syringes to squeeze an extra seventh dose of coronavirus vaccine from vials that officially only contain six, Reuters reports.
The practice has raised debate over medical safety and commercial concerns from the manufacturers who charge by the dose.
But at Seoul’s National Medical Center, healthcare workers say it’s actually a safe and easy process that should be a no-brainer for countries struggling to provide enough vaccines quickly.
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Bulgaria reports highest Covid-19 rates in three months
Bulgaria has reported 3,502 new Covid-19 cases, its highest daily tally in three months, Reuters reports.
The government data shows the number of deaths also increased to 132.
The Balkan country, which has already banned non-urgent operations in hospitals in many cities, said regional health authorities could close schools, shopping malls and gyms and restaurants to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
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UK transport secretary Grant Shapps rejected claims that the test and trace system has been a “waste of time” and said it played a key role in reopening the UK border and limiting the spread of new variants, in a Sky News interview this morning.
Shapps was pressed after a report said the £23bn programme had failed to justify its costs.
Rajeev Syal’s writeup of the report is here:
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An outbreak of a deadly pig disease may have set the stage for Covid-19 to take hold in humans, Natalie Grover reports
A new analysis suggests that African swine fever (ASF), which first swept through China in 2018, disrupted pork supplies and increased the potential for human-virus contact as people sought out alternative meats.
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The US is poised to approve Joe Biden’s sweeping $1.9tn (£1.37tn) coronavirus stimulus and relief plan to revive its battered economy, Lauren Gambino reports in Washington, DC.
If passed, it will be one of the largest rescue packages in history, and will send direct payments of up to $1,400 (£1,009) to most Americans, expand aid to state, local and tribal governments, provide federal subsidies for those struggling to afford health insurance, housing and food and deliver money to boost Covid-19 vaccine distribution and testing and to safely reopen schools.
Rachel Hall here taking over from Helen Sullivan for the rest of the morning. Do send any tips and thoughts over to rachel.hall@theguardian.com.
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That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along.
Here is a sweet photo essay on raising baby twins under lockdown:
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Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- UK ministers asked to justify ‘staggering’ £20bn test and trace system cost. There is no evidence to show that the government’s £22bn test-and-trace programme to combat Covid-19 in England contributed to a reduction in coronavirus infection levels, parliament’s spending watchdog has concluded.
- Overseas fans face ban from Tokyo Olympics, reports news agency. Japan’s government has decided to stage the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics without overseas spectators because of fears among the population over the potential spread of Covid-19, the Kyodo news agency has reported, citing officials with knowledge of the matter.
- Nancy Pelosi hailed a ‘historic’ Covid relief bill as House prepares to vote. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has hailed the massive $1.9tn Covid relief bill as “historic” and “transformative” as the House stood poised to give the legislation final approval with a vote on Wednesday morning.
- Big Indian state scaled down vaccinations, citing shortage. The Indian state of Rajasthan said on Tuesday it had started limiting Covid vaccinations to its major hospitals due to a shortage of doses, despite an assurance from the federal government that supplies were adequate.
- Brazil suffered record deaths. Brazil registered 1,972 new Covid deaths in a single day on Tuesday, a national record, according to the health ministry. The country had 70,764 new cases of coronavirus, reaching a total of 11.12 million infections. Brazil had 168,370 coronavirus deaths.
- Palestinian intensive care units at 100% capacity. Palestinian hospitals are overfull and intensive-care units operating at 100% capacity with coronavirus patients in some areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has said.
- San Francisco Uber driver assaulted after passenger allegedly refuses to wear mask. An attack on a San Francisco Uber driver over the weekend by a passenger who allegedly refused to wear a face mask has drawn outrage after video of the incident emerged on Tuesday.
- J&J ‘under stress’ to meet EU 2nd-quarter vaccine supply goal – Reuters source. Johnson & Johnson has told the European Union it is facing supply issues that may complicate plans to deliver 55m doses of its Covid vaccine to the bloc in the second quarter of the year, an EU official told Reuters.
Updated
Big Indian state scales down vaccinations, citing shortage
The Indian state of Rajasthan said on Tuesday it had started limiting Covid vaccinations to its major hospitals due to a shortage of doses, despite an assurance from the federal government that supplies were adequate.
Reuters: The federal government said after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s principal secretary that there was no shortage of vaccine doses in the country and that there should be no stockpiling or hoarding by any state.
India, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, is donating or selling vaccines to more than three dozen countries, drawing some criticism for not expanding its own immunisation campaign further.
Plans to prioritise hard-hit south Auckland in New Zealand’s vaccination rollout have been welcomed by experts – though cricketers hoping to head for the UK will have to wait for clarity.
Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said on Wednesday that vaccinations over the next three to four months would go to the two million New Zealanders who were “most at risk of getting or spreading Covid-19, or getting seriously sick from it”.
Hipkins said this “targeted” approach was designed to minimise the risk of future coronavirus outbreaks, as well as protecting the elderly and other at-risk groups.
South Auckland has been at the centre of two outbreaks in recent months, the latest of which led to a week-long lockdown in the city:
UK ministers asked to justify 'staggering' £20bn test and trace system cost
There is no evidence to show that the government’s £22bn test-and-trace programme to combat Covid-19 in England contributed to a reduction in coronavirus infection levels, parliament’s spending watchdog has concluded.
In a report which examined the rush to invest in the scheme, the cross-party public accounts committee has challenged ministers to justify the “staggering investment of taxpayers’ money” and criticised the use of private consultants who are paid up to £6,624 a day.
The programme, which has a budget that exceeds that of the Department for Transport, is run by Dido Harding, who was appointed by the health secretary, Matt Hancock, last year. At the time, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, said the country would have as “world-beating” system:
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J&J ‘under stress’ to meet EU 2nd-quarter vaccine supply goal - source
Johnson & Johnson has told the European Union it is facing supply issues that may complicate plans to deliver 55 million doses of its Covid vaccine to the bloc in the second quarter of the year, an EU official told Reuters.
EU countries raised questions earlier in the year about J&J’s production network and contract with the EU, which would require it to send vaccines made at its Dutch factory to the United States for bottling before being shipped back to the EU.
More on markets at the moment, via AFP:
Globally, pandemic rescue packages total some $24tn, according to Kokou Agbo-Bloua, global head of economic research at French bank Societe Generale.
That only served to buoy markets that had already become addicted to cheap money, especially since the 2008 global financial crisis, said Eric Bourguignon, investment manager with Swiss Life Am.
For JJ Kinahan at TD Ameritrade, the pandemic was “obviously sort of the ultimate Black Swan (exceptional event)... something we haven’t seen for over 100 years in terms of a pandemic.”
“How we’ve come out of it is absolutely amazing,” he added.
But there are signs that markets may be nearing their peak, with valuations stretched by millions of new private investors locked down at home who have poured into the game.
The huge speculative frenzy around some stocks - such as GameStop, a traditional retailer of video games that pitted Wall Street against small investors - is only further evidence of the growing risks of a very sharp reversal in sentiment.
Underneath it all lies the risk posed by the mountain of debt built up to finance the government stimulus programmes and which will have to be repaid at some point.
The fear is that all these trillions floating around will spark inflation, in turn requiring governments and central banks to close the cheap money taps and hike interest rates - a move that would mark the end of the pandemic markets party.
“The Achille’s heel of this fragile balance is clearly inflation,” noted Agbo-Bloua.
For Bourguignon, “it is going to require lots of finesse to keep this system going over the long term”.
A year ago, stock markets went into free-fall as the scale of the coronavirus crisis became apparent and countries desperately locked down to try to halt the pandemic.
A year on, they have more than recouped the lost ground, some of them even driven to record highs by a tidal wave of cheap stimulus money and the hope that vaccination programmes will allow a return to normality sooner than anyone could have expected.
AFP: But now analysts worry markets may have got too far ahead of themselves and face a sharp reverse if and when governments decide to dampen down the party.
“In my opinion, it would be extremely dangerous to think that the end of the health crisis will be tantamount to the end of the (economic) crisis,” said Vincent Mortier at asset manager Amundi. “In fact, it’s the contrary,” he warned.
World Health Organization’s declaration on March 11 that the coronavirus outbreak was a pandemic sparked spectacular losses the following day, with New York falling 10 percent while London shed 11 percent, matching the worst days of the 1987 crash.
The downturn did not end on March 12, with further heavy losses over the following days as investors tried to get a fix on what the pandemic would mean for the global economy - a deep but relatively short global recession.
Factories shut, borders closed, airlines grounded, shops and restaurants shuttered - the world came to a halt.
“It was crazy. The market was falling at a pace (that) we thought there would be no bottom,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, an analyst at Swissquote Bank in London.
In response, central banks and governments acted “very strongly, without having to be accountable” for what they were doing, Mortier said.
In an effort to keep their economies afloat until the pandemic - or at least the first wave - was over, governments simply resorted, massively, to debt, he said.
When Tokyo won the right to host the Olympic Games, enthusiastic buyers flocked to purchase luxury condominiums planned for the sprawling development that will house athletes during the event.
But with the Olympics delayed for a year because of the global pandemic, and with uncertainty still clouding the Games, buyers’ excitement has turned into frustration. Even as move-in dates have been pushed back by a year, they say they have heard little from the property companies.
Two dozen buyers of units in Harumi Flag, the 5,600-condominium complex on the Tokyo waterfront, are seeking compensation for the delay from developers, Reuters reports.
“Any change in the move-in day is an extremely important factor in a real-estate sales contract,” said Hironobu Todoroki, a lawyer representing the buyers in civil mediation, which aims to resolve disputes through discussion.
The property companies should have met with the buyers to explain the situation, he said, adding that he would consider a lawsuit if mediation failed.
A spokeswoman for Mitsui Fudosan Residential, the lead developer among the 10 property companies involved, said it has responded to inquiries and would continue to do so.
She said the company would continue to set up opportunities to explain the situation to buyers and respond as needed to civil mediation or other legal action.
Buyers have been told they can back out of contracts because of the delay. Mitsui Fudosan Residential declined to say whether any contracts had been cancelled.
Podcast: The great global vaccine divide
The speed at which the world’s scientists have managed to create several effective Covid vaccines has been close to miraculous. But as Michael Safi says, the richest countries have taken the lion’s share:
More than 300 Covid vaccine candidates are in development and 200m doses have been jabbed in the arms of citizens. But those people are overwhelmingly found in just a few of the world’s richest countries. For the rest of the more than 5 billion adults around the world, things are less hopeful. They face a wait of up to three years, if they can get a jab at all.
As the Guardian’s international correspondent Michael Safi tells Anushka Asthana, there is potential for the huge economic global divide to feed directly into a two-tier system of vaccinations. For the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, this represents a catastrophic moral failure.
Writing in the Guardian, he said the me-first approach of rich countries might serve short-term political interests but would ultimately be self-defeating. Until the virus is under control across the globe, it will remain a threat everywhere. But is that a message politicians can sell to voters?
More on the Tokyo Olympics, via Reuters:
Japan has decided to stage this summer’s Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics without overseas spectators due to public concern about Covid, two government sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
The Olympics, postponed by a year because of the pandemic, are scheduled for 23 July to 8 August and the Paralympics from 24 August to 5 September Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has said a decision on spectators would be made by the end of March.
The government has concluded that welcoming fans from abroad would not be possible given public concern about the coronavirus and the detection of more contagious variants in many countries, the people said, declining to be identified because the information is not public.
Kyodo News, which reported the decision on Tuesday, said the opening ceremony of the torch relay on March 25 would also take place without spectators.
“The organising committee has decided it is essential to hold the ceremony in the northeastern prefecture of Fukushima behind closed doors, only permitting participants and invitees to take part in the event, to avoid large crowds forming amid the pandemic,” Kyodo said, quoting the officials.
The Tokyo organising committee said a decision would be made based on “factors including the state of infections in Japan and other countries, possible epidemic-prevention measures, and expert scientific advice.”
Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto has said she wants a decision made on before the start of the torch relay on whether to allow overseas spectators.
A new romantic comedy starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts will inject an estimated $32.7m into the Queensland economy in 2021, premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced on Tuesday.
Universal Pictures’ Ticket to Paradise will begin filming in the Whitsundays, on the Gold Coast and in Brisbane later this year, and is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs for local cast, crew and extras.
While rumours persist that Marvel Studios is about to relocate from Atlanta in the US to Sydney, the sunshine state has become something of a haven for Hollywood recently, as the pandemic in California continues to take its toll (3.5m infections and more than 54,000 deaths) and many nonessential businesses and services remain closed:
The idea that vitamin D supplements can reduce susceptibility to, and the severity of, Covid-19 is seductive – it offers a simple, elegant solution to a very complex and lethal problem. But analyses encompassing large European datasets suggest the enthusiasm for the sunshine vitamin may be misplaced.
Papua New Guinea will not get its first Covid-19 vaccines until next month at the earliest, despite an uncontrolled coronavirus outbreak spiralling across the country, hospitals shutting their doors to patients, and an already vulnerable healthcare system on the verge of collapse.
At Port Moresby’s general hospital, 40% of mothers admitted to the labour ward were reported to have tested positive for Covid-19, but could not be separated from other mothers because there is no isolation labour ward for them.
San Francisco Uber driver assaulted after passenger allegedly refuses to wear mask
An attack on a San Francisco Uber driver over the weekend by a passenger who allegedly refused to wear a face mask has drawn outrage after video of the incident emerged on Tuesday.
The incident occurred on Sunday in the city after the driver, Subhakar Khadka, picked up three women. In a 43 second video clip shot by Khadka and posted to Twitter by local news outlets, an unmasked woman in the back of the car is seen coughing into Khadka’s face and screaming at him. Seconds later the woman snatches Khadka’s cell phone out of his hand and plucks his mask from his face. She and another passenger continue to yell at the driver and threaten to beat him up. Khadka claims he then got out of the car before being pepper sprayed by one of the passengers:
Nancy Pelosi hails 'historic' Covid relief bill as House prepares to vote
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has hailed the massive $1.9tn Covid relief bill as “historic” and “transformative” as the House stood poised to give the legislation final approval with a vote on Wednesday morning.
Joe Biden, who will mark a year since the pandemic brought shutdowns across the nation with a primetime speech on Thursday, has said he will sign the bill as soon as it lands on his desk.
The House vote on the bill, which includes checks for most American households, comes after the Senate passed a modestly reworked version of the package on Saturday and will clinch Biden’s most significant early legislative achievement.
“It’s a remarkable, historic, transformative piece of legislation, which goes a very long way to crushing the virus and solving our economic crisis,” Pelosi said during a press conference with senior Democrats on Tuesday afternoon, who took turns extolling what they said was the historic nature of the legislation and its impact on reducing poverty in America. “I’m so excited, I just can’t hide it,” she added:
Palestinian intensive care units at 100% capacity
Palestinian hospitals are overfull and intensive-care units operating at 100% capacity with coronavirus patients in some areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has said.
Reuters reports:
Palestinian cities have introduced full lockdowns over the last two weeks to control soaring COVID-19 infections, even as neighbouring Israel has begun to lift restrictions as it proceeds with one of the world’s fastest vaccination campaigns.
“The percentage of hospital occupancy in some areas has reached more than 100%,” Shtayyeh said in Ramallah, one of the West Bank cities where his Palestinian Authority (PA) exercises limited self-rule. “The number of casualties is increasing and the number of deaths is increasing on a daily basis, forcing us to take strict, direct and unprecedented measures.”
The West Bank and Gaza, home to a combined 5.2 million Palestinians, have received around 34,700 vaccine doses to date. These came from small donations by Israel and Russia as well as 20,000 sent by the United Arab Emirates to Gaza. Meanwhile in Israel, restaurants reopened on Sunday as the country kept up a fast pace of mass vaccinations.
The pandemic has a habit of bringing hidden social crises into the open. Now it reveals the precarious position of local government, the provider of vital services from care homes to public health and bin collection, which has helped keep the show on the road in the UK’s biggest national emergency since the second world war.
The National Audit Office (NAO) account of the near implosion of England’s local councils during Covid is sobering: only by the government’s swift, if grudging, injection of billions of pounds of emergency cash into council coffers over recent months did ministers avert what the auditors call “system-wide financial failure”.
The watchdog rightly praises ministers for this: the consequences of scores of local authorities having to declare bankruptcy in the middle of lockdown are frightening. But it makes two other points: first, that 10 years of austerity made municipal finances structurally fragile; and second, that councils’ budget crisis isn’t over:
Brazil sees record deaths
Brazil registered 1,972 new Covid deaths in a single day on Tuesday, a national record, according to the Health Ministry.
The country had 70,764 new cases of coronavirus, reaching a total of 11.12 million infections. Brazil had 168,370 coronavirus deaths.
Rio de Janeiro-based research institute Fiocruz said in a report on Tuesday that more than 80% of intensive care unit (ICU) beds are occupied in the capitals of 25 of Brazil’s 27 states. In 15 of Brazil’s largest cities, 90% of ICU beds occupied.
The institute said a growing number of cities risk a collapse of their health systems.
Overseas fans face ban from Tokyo Olympics, reports news agency
Japan’s government has decided to stage the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics without overseas spectators because of fears among the population over the potential spread of Covid-19, the Kyodo news agency has reported, citing officials with knowledge of the matter.
The opening ceremony of the torch relay on 25 March will also be held without spectators, according to the agency.
“The organising committee has decided it is essential to hold the ceremony in the north-eastern prefecture of Fukushima behind closed doors, only permitting participants and invitees to take part in the event, to avoid large crowds forming amid the pandemic,” Kyodo reported.
The report was played down by the International Olympic Committee, which said no decision on overseas spectators had yet been taken:
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
I’ll be bringing you the latest developments here while I try to solve a caterpillar mystery here.
Brazil has suffered its highest daily death toll since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with the confirmation of 1,972 new fatalities.
The news, which took Brazil’s total death toll to nearly 270,000, comes as the South American lives through the most severe moment in its 13-month outbreak and sparked renewed calls for a nationwide lockdown.
Meanwhile Japan’s government has decided to stage the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics without overseas spectators because of fears among the population over the potential spread of Covid-19, the Kyodo news agency has reported, citing officials with knowledge of the matter.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- Italy recorded 100,000 coronavirus deaths, a year after it became the first western country to impose a total lockdown and as it braces for a third wave of the pandemic.
- The World Trade Organization director-general called for urgent action on boosting Covid-19 vaccine production in developing countries, saying manufacturing sites could be prepared in six to seven months or less than half the time previously thought.
- Estonia’s government has banned groups larger than two people, closed non-essential shops and told restaurants to switch to take-aways as part of a drive to contain a surge in Covid-19 infections.
- Denmark’s health minister Magnus Heunicke said there were grounds to ease restrictions further since the epidemic was not worsening in the Nordic country.
- People who are vaccinated against Covid-19, have antibodies or test negative can travel to Greece this summer, tourism minister Harry Theocharis has said, after the country led calls for an EU-wide vaccination certificate.
- Seventeen European countries received doses from a batch of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine that authorities in Austria have stopped using while investigating a death and an illness, a senior health official said.
- Johnson & Johnson told the EU it was facing supply issues that may complicate plans to deliver 55 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to the bloc in the second quarter of the year, an EU official told Reuters.
- The developers of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine have questioned the neutrality of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) after an EMA official urged EU members to hold off approving the vaccine.
- The UK’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab has written to the European Council president after he claimed the UK imposed an “outright ban” on coronavirus vaccine exports. Raab said he is seeking to “set the record straight”.
- Palestinian hospitals became overfull and intensive-care units were operating at 100% capacity with coronavirus patients in some areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said.
- Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, announced some limited relaxations to outdoor mixing in Scotland, in particular for teenagers.
- Bosnia’s foreign minister said she and her compatriots were “justifiably unhappy” after failing to yet to receive any of the promised vaccines from the EU-backed Covax scheme.
