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The highly infectious Kent variant of Covid-19 is the most dominant “lineage” of the virus in the US, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of CDC, said hospitals are seeing more younger adults being admitted with severe disease, which can be attributed to increasing prevalence of variants.
During a White House coronavirus response team’s briefing on Wednesday, she said: “Based on our most recent estimates from CDC surveillance, the B117 variant is now the most common lineage circulating in the United States.
“So there are many different lineages.
“There are several different kinds of, sort of, wild-type variants, and this is, in fact, the most common lineage right now.”
According to data by the CDC, there are 16,275 reported cases of the Kent variant in the US.
Summary
The front page of Thursday’s Guardian in the UK.
Guardian front page, 8 April 2021: Jab confidence fears as under-30s offered alternative to AstraZeneca pic.twitter.com/K2vYhld3Lb
— The Guardian (@guardian) April 7, 2021
Updated
Spain’s health ministry decided to only give AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine to people aged between 60 to 65 after European and British regulators found a potential link between the shot and rare brain blood clots.
“The AstraZeneca vaccine will only be administered to person older than 60, although there is diversity of opinions in the European Union,” said health minister Carolina Darias.
Brazil recorded 92,625 additional confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 3,829 deaths from Covid-19,Reuters reports.
Brazil has registered more than 13 million cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 340,776, according to ministry data.
Algeria will start producing Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine in September in partnership with Moscow and part of the production will be intended for African countries, Reuters reports.
The North African country, which already has received 50,000 doses of Sputnik V, said in February it was in talks with Russia to produce the vaccine.
“We must meet the vaccine challenge. We will be ready to produce an Algerian vaccine in September,” Lotfi Benbahmed, the pharmaceutical industry minister, said.
Qatar announced the reimposition of strict lockdown measures, banning most indoor activities except retail and work, AFP reports.
Restaurants, cafes, hairdressers, beauty salons, museums, libraries and cinemas will be forced to close from Friday, according to minutes of a cabinet meeting.
“We are still in the middle of the second wave of the Covid pandemic, and we have not reached the peak of infections yet,” Abdullatif al-Khal, chair of the National Health Strategic Group on Covid-19, said during a speech on state television.
Restaurants can still offer deliveries, while mosques will remain open at set times for five-times daily worship but authorities ordered additional prayers for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan be conducted at home.
Private and public sector workplaces will be limited to 50 percent of capacity and home visits between members of different households remain illegal, according to the minutes published by the official Qatar News Agency.
Tunisia will extend its night curfew hours and will prevent all gatherings and weekly markets to curb the rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic, as intensive care units near maximum capacity in most hospitals, Reuters reports.
The curfew will start 7:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. morning starting Friday.
Tunisia also will impose quarantine for all visitors who need to show Covid-19 tests upon arrival, the government spokeswoman Hasna Ben Slimane said.
Beds in intensive care units in Tunisian public hospitals are about 80% full as Covid-19 cases surge, health minister Faouzi Mehdi said.
Tunisia has recorded 263,000 coronavirus cases and 9,039 deaths.
Germany is about to start bilateral negotiations with Russia to obtain its Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, a source told Reuters, adding that any final agreement depended on Russia providing key data to the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The European Commission told health ministers of EU member states that Brussels was not planning to start talks with Russia on a preliminary contract for Sputnik V as it did with other vaccine providers, the source said.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced during the virtual meeting that Germany would start preliminary negotiations with Russia on a bilateral agreement to secure the vaccine, the source added.
Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, said it would begin opening some 600 new graves per day, well beyond the record of 426 burials in a day on March 30, Reuters reports.
The city is also preparing plans for a “vertical cemetery,” a crypt with 26,000 drawer-like graves that can be build in 90 days once approved.
Italy reserves AstraZeneca jab for over 60s
Italy will reserve AstraZeneca’s vaccine for the over 60s following concerns of a link to blood clots in younger people, the government’s top adviser on the coronavirus crisis announced.
AFP reports:
The decision has been taken to “recommend the preferential use on individuals aged above 60”, Franco Locatelli told reporters.
His announcement came hours after the EU’s medicines regulator said that blood clots should be listed as a rare side effect of the jab but insisted the benefits continue to outweigh the risks.
A summary of today's developments
- Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has insisted there would be “no national lockdown,” ignoring growing calls from health experts a day after the nation saw its highest number of coronavirus deaths in 24 hours since the pandemic began. Brazil has also recorded its first confirmed case of the highly contagious coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa
- Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel is in favour of tightening virus restrictions for a short period to stem rising case numbers, her spokeswoman said. AFP reports that Merkel backs calls for a “short national lockdown”, Ulrike Demmer said, noting that the country’s health system was under growing pressure.
- The Belgian government has said it will restrict access to the AstraZeneca vaccine to just those people over 55 in light of the European medicines agency’s advice that blood clots are a potential side-effect of the jab.
- South America is now the most worrying region for Covid-19 infections, as cases mount in nearly every country, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.
- The French health ministry reported on Wednesday that the number of people in intensive care units with Covid-19 increased by 103 to a new 2021 record of 5,729 people.
- Adults under 30 should be offered an alternative vaccine instead of the AstraZeneca jab if there is one available in their area and they are healthy and not at high risk of Covid, the UK government’s vaccination advisory body said.
- The EU drug regulator will begin an investigation next week on whether clinical trials of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine followed global clinical and scientific guidelines, the Financial Times reported. But the official twitter handle for Sputnik V called the FT report “fake” and “incorrect”.
- Moderna Inc’s chief medical officer Tal Zaks said the company should be able to provide a booster shot for protection against variants of the coronavirus by the end of this year, Reuters reports.
Moderna Inc’s chief medical officer Tal Zaks said the company should be able to provide a booster shot for protection against variants of the coronavirus by the end of this year, Reuters reports.
Zaks, speaking to the Economic Club of New York, said he expects the booster shots the company is testing to show a higher level of protection against variants of the coronavirus.
The Canadian province of Ontario will begin a four week-long stay-at-home order and close in-store shopping for non-essential retailers from Thursday, Premier Doug Ford said.
The move follows last week’s shuttering of all indoor and outdoor dining across Canada’s most populous province, Reuters reports.
Hospitals in the province are becoming increasingly stretched, with the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units at the highest point since the pandemic began, according to provincial data.
Bolsonaro rules out national lockdown in Brazil despite highest daily death toll
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has insisted there would be “no national lockdown,” ignoring growing calls from health experts a day after the nation saw its highest number of coronavirus deaths in 24 hours since the pandemic began.
The country’s health ministry registered 4,195 deaths on Tuesday, Reuters reports, becoming the third country to go above that threshold as Bolsonaro’s political opponents demanded stricter measures to slow down the spread of the virus.
“We’re not going to accept this politics of stay home and shut everything down,” Bolsonaro said, resisting the pressure in a speech in the city of Chapeco in Santa Catarina state.
“There will be no national lockdown.”
Mexico’s private healthcare workers are protesting being left out of the government’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout as the country braces for a potential third wave of infections.
Reuters reports:
Angered by what they see as discrimination by a government prioritizing the public sector, hundreds of health workers that had gathered outside a medical school last week hoping to get inoculated ended up chanting “we want the vaccine.”
About 500 of the protesters eventually got their wish that day.
At least 3,679 medical staff have died in the pandemic that has so far killed more than 200,000 people in Mexico, according to the latest official data. The toll is the highest worldwide for health workers, according to Amnesty International.
A mayor in central Venezuela has begun placing red warning symbols on the homes of people with Covid-19 and also threatened to cut welfare handouts for those breaking quarantine.
Reuters reports:
We are protecting our people,” said Luis Duque, the mayor of Sucre municipality in Yaracuy state, pointing to a white paper sign on a home with a red circle and line drawn through.
“This indicates that there is a Covid case or a suspected Covid case, so the people are alert,” he added.
Duque said benefits including food handouts and cooking gas could be cut if people did not comply with quarantine orders.
The move by Duque, a member of President Nicolas Maduro’s ruling Socialist Party, brought accusations of discrimination.
“We must denounce him, and furthermore wish him good health so that he does not have to mark himself,” tweeted Tamara Suju, a human rights lawyer.
The South American country is experiencing a resurgence of the virus after a first peak last August, with 1,526 new cases and 15 deaths reported on Tuesday.
The EU drug regulator will begin an investigation next week on whether clinical trials of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine followed global clinical and scientific guidelines, the Financial Times reported.
The FT report unidentified people familiar with the European Medical Agency’s approval process as having expressed concern that the Sputnik V trials may not have met ethics standards.
But the official twitter handle for Sputnik V called the FT report “fake” and “incorrect” in a tweet.
“Sputnik V team is going through a regular rolling review of EMA, in which good clinical practice (GCP) is a part of the standard procedure for all vaccines,” the tweet added.
Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund, told the newspaper, “There was no pressure (on participants) and Sputnik V complied with all clinical practices”.
Turkey recorded 54,740 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, the highest daily level since the start of the pandemic, Reuters reports.
Last week President Tayyip Erdogan announced a tightening of coronavirus restrictions, including the return of full nationwide weekend lockdowns during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, which starts on April 13.
The latest daily death toll was 276, bringing the total to 32,943.
Merkel backs call for "short national lockdown" in Germany
Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel is in favour of tightening virus restrictions for a short period to stem rising case numbers, her spokeswoman said.
AFP reports:
Merkel backs calls for a “short national lockdown”, Ulrike Demmer said, noting that the country’s health system was under growing pressure.
Germany has been in some form of shutdown since November but has struggled to bring case numbers under control in recent weeks with a surge in the British variant of the virus.
At their last meeting in March, Merkel and the leaders of Germany’s 16 states agreed national rules including strict shutdowns and possible curfews in areas with more than 100 new infections per 100,000 people over seven days.
The patchwork of rules “is not contributing to security and acceptance at the moment,” Demmer told reporters.
“The health system is under intense pressure,” she said, noting a five percent increase in occupied intensive care beds in just 24 hours.
Updated
Reaction from the World Health Organization to the AstraZeneca findings.
It is important to note that whilst concerning, the events under assessment are very rare, with low numbers reported among the almost 200 million individuals who have received the AstraZeneca #COVID19 vaccine around the world https://t.co/p8XMMAiUne https://t.co/Fbhb3ndmR8
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) April 7, 2021
G20 finance ministers and central bankers have agreed to extend a moratorium on debt interest payments for the poorest countries, which could lag behind the global recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
AFP reports:
In an online meeting, the Group of 20 most powerful nations also backed the International Monetary Fund’s plan to boost its reserve offerings to help impoverished nations, and pledged to reach a deal on global tax reform by the middle of the year.
“We will further step up our support to vulnerable countries as they address the challenges associated with the Covid-19 pandemic,” the G20 ministers said.
AstraZeneca on Wednesday said it was working with European and UK regulators to change the product information on its Covid-19 shot after authorities said they suspected possible brain blood clots were a rare side-effect of the shot.
The company said in a statement:
Both of these reviews reaffirmed the vaccine offers a high-level of protection against all severities of Covid-19 and that these benefits continue to far outweigh the risks.
However, they came to the view that these events have a possible link to the vaccine and requested they be listed as an extremely rare potential side effect [..] AstraZeneca has been actively collaborating with the regulators to implement these changes to the product information.
That’s all from me, I’m now going to hand over to my colleague Nadeem Badshah.
This from EU commissioner for health and food safety Stella Kyriakides on the video meeting of EU health ministers that is underway about the EMA’s recommendations regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine:
Important meeting with 🇪🇺 Health Ministers following @EMA_News presentation of their assessment of AstraZeneca vaccine safety.
— Stella Kyriakides (@SKyriakidesEU) April 7, 2021
Our decisions on vaccine rollouts should be based on science and with the safety of citizens at the centre. pic.twitter.com/w5RUdYJWfB
The AstraZeneca experience shows that our pharmacovigilance system works. But is essential that we follow a coordinated approach across the 🇪🇺.
— Stella Kyriakides (@SKyriakidesEU) April 7, 2021
We must speak with one voice across the EU to improve public trust in vaccinations.
Mexico’s government reported 5,499 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 596 more fatalities, according to data from the health ministry published on Wednesday, bringing the country’s total to 2,261,879 infections and 205,598 deaths.
The government says the real case numbers are likely significantly higher, and separate data published recently by the health ministry suggested the actual coronavirus death toll may be at least 60% above the confirmed figure, Reuters reports.
The Dutch government is working on plans to reopen café and restaurant terraces from 21 April and to allow shops to open more fully, broadcasters NOS and RTL said on Wednesday, quoting sources in The Hague.
Dutch News reports:
The curfew, introduced in January, could also be scrapped from that date, NOS said. Any relaxation of the rules depends on coronavirus infection rates, which have been dropping in recent days.
NOS says the measures were discussed by key members of the cabinet on Tuesday and were also raised in the regional safety board talks earlier in the week.
A number of city mayors have publicly called on the government to open cafe terraces in a bid to improve crowd control as the Dutch head outside to enjoy the summer.
Other rule relaxations on the horizon include allowing universities and colleges to resume more normal teaching, and to expand the options for secondary schools and after school clubs.
The number of visitors to private homes many also be increased from one to two. The plans are now being looked at by government health experts in the Outbreak Management Team, NOS said, and the OMT will report back to the cabinet on Sunday.
Italy’s government, the country’s main unions and employer associations said on Wednesday they had signed a protocol to organise the administration of vaccines in workplaces, as Rome steps up its vaccination plan.
Reuters reports:
Companies are eager to resume full activity in Italy, one of the European countries worst-hit by Covid-19, after businesses have been heavily impacted by the restrictions that Rome has imposed for over a year to stem the contagion of coronavirus.
Under the agreement, companies or groups of companies can submit their plans for voluntary employee vaccinations to local health authorities and make premises and internal medical staff available to do so.
Alternatively, companies will also be allowed to sign agreements with private medical service suppliers to have their employees vaccinated.
While health authorities will still provide the vaccines - once doses are available - needles, syringes and specific training for staff, employers will bear the costs of setting up and managing the vaccinations.
Italy has said it aims to vaccinate at least 80% of its population by the end of September, following criticism about the slow rollout of its campaign.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 11.6 million shots had been administered in the country, with 3.6 million of its 60-million-strong population having received the recommended two doses.
Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is concerned about the increasing spread of coronavirus in nurseries and schools, Zeit reports.
“The number of Covid-19 cases is increasing again in all age groups, but particularly strongly among children and adolescents,” says a newsletter from the institute.
Adolescents were “also increasingly [driving] transmissions”, it added.
In those over 80 years of age, infections have also resisted a national downward trend that lasted for weeks. The number of outbreaks in old people’s and nursing homes has decreased however.
In the majority of infections, the location of transmission is not known, the RKI report continues.
Outbreaks currently particularly affect private households, but increasingly also daycare centers, schools and the professional environment.
Updated
Belgium to restrict AstraZeneca jab to over 55s for a month after EMA findings
The Belgian government has said it will restrict access to the AstraZeneca vaccine to just those people over 55 in light of the European medicines agency’s advice that blood clots are a potential side-effect of the jab.
Following discussions with officials at the EMA and a interministerial conference call on Wednesday, the government said it will impose the restriction for a month.
The EMA announced on Wednesday that the rare blood clots would be listed formally as a side-effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but it did not announce any restrictions on use of the vaccine.
The EMA’s executive director Emer Cooke had said the regulator could not identify the cause of the blood-clotting event, which was mostly, but not entirely, in women under the age of 60.
Belgium has been one of the few EU member states not to restrict use of the vaccine. The impact of the change in policy will not be significant, however, as the country is only slowly moving through the age groups.
Just 12.4% of those between 50 and 59 have received a first jab and the proportion drops to 10.6% for those aged 25 to 49.
Updated
South America now most worrisome region amid surging infections
South America is now the most worrying region for Covid-19 infections, as cases mount in nearly every country, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.
Reuters reports:
“Nowhere are infections as worrisome as in South America,” director Carissa Etienne said during a weekly news conference.
Brazil has seen the most merciless surge. Scientists forecast it will soon surpass the worst of a record January wave in the United States, with daily fatalities climbing above 4,000 on Tuesday.
“The situation in Brazil is concerning countrywide,” said Covid-19 incident director Sylvain Aldighieri. “Our concern at the moment is also for the Brazilian citizens themselves in this context of health services that are overwhelmed.”
Brazil needs access to more Covid-19 vaccines now and should be able to receive them through global partnerships, Aldighieri said.
[...]
Intensive care units are nearing capacity in Peru and Ecuador, and in parts of Bolivia and Colombia cases have doubled in the last week, Etienne said, adding that the southern cone is also experiencing an acceleration in cases.The United States, Brazil and Argentina are among the 10 countries seeing the highest number of new infections globally, she added.
The Americas recorded more than 1.3 million new coronavirus cases and over 37,000 deaths last week, Etienne said, more than half of all deaths reported globally.
The UK government on Wednesday sought to encourage people to continue getting the AstraZeneca vaccine, urging people who have had a first dose to show up for their second dose, irrespective of age.
A government spokesman said:
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is safe, effective and has already saved thousands of lives.
As the MHRA - the UK’s independent regulator - and the JCVI have said, the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risks for the vast majority of adults.
Everybody who has already had a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine should receive a second dose of the same brand, irrespective of age, except for the very small number of people who experienced blood clots with low platelet counts from their first vaccination.
The Government will follow today’s updated advice, which sets out that, as a precaution, it is preferable for people under the age of 30 with no underlying health conditions to be offered an alternative vaccine where possible once they are eligible.
When people are called forward, they should get their jab. Vaccines are the best way out of this pandemic and provide strong protection against Covid-19.
This from Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition:
The AstraZeneca vaccine is safe, effective and saving thousands of lives.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) April 7, 2021
Trust in our doctors and scientists. When it is your turn to get the jab, do so.
My first dose was AstraZeneca and I look forward to getting my second dose when it is offered.
Updated
Further to the UK government’s vaccines advisory body’s recommendation that the AstraZeneca vaccine should only be used in people over 30, it has emerged that most of the reported cases of blood clots after the AstraZeneca jab also tested positive for an antibody seen in patients who have an adverse reaction to heparin, an anticoagulant (blood thinner).
PA reports:
Beverley Hunt, professor of thrombosis and haemostasis at King’s College London, said tests were carried out to find the antibody to a molecule called platelet factor 4.
Speaking at a briefing hosted by the Science Media Centre (SMC) on Wednesday, she said: “We have a special test that we can do and we have always done in the past in patients who’ve had a very odd reaction to getting heparin.
“We were surprised to find, and it was first found in Germany, that these patients have this positive test for antiplatelet factor 4 antibody.
“And in many ways they behave like this very rare syndrome of heparin-induced thrombosis.”
Updated
France logs new record number of intensive care Covid patients since beginning of the year
The French health ministry reported on Wednesday that the number of people in intensive care units with Covid-19 increased by 103 to a new 2021 record of 5,729 people.
Week-on-week, the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care rose by 13.4%, the biggest week-on-week increase since 13 November, Reuters reports.
A British medical expert has said there is not enough evidence to rule out that blood clotting side effects seen with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could not also be seen with other types of vaccines.
Professor Anthony Harnden, deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said a similar vaccine type to the AstraZeneca jab is the Janssen vaccine, which the UK has placed orders for.
Speaking at a briefing hosted by the Science Media Centre (SMC) on Wednesday, Harnden said reports of blood clots could be “AstraZeneca-related”, adding:
It could be related to the specific vaccine but could be related to the vaccine platform.
And if it is, then the same safety signals will arise with the Janssen vaccine, and we know that there’s been one case within the clinical trial of the Janssen vaccine.
But we’re not seeing this with the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, that’s the Pfizer or Moderna at the moment.
Updated
The global human rights situation has deteriorated significantly since the pandemic began, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
The crisis was abused by numerous states to further restrict the rule of law and freedom of expression, the organisation said in its annual report.
It also levelled criticism against rich countries over their lack of solidarity during the pandemic.
In many regions the pandemic has increased inequality, discrimination and oppression, the organisation said.
Amnesty General Secretary Agnès Callamard wrote in the report’s foreword that the Covid-19 crisis has “increased mediocrity and mendacity, egoism and deceit among those in power in the world.”
Amnesty Germany boss Markus Beeko said it was significant that, statistically speaking, in 2020 a person working in the healthcare sector with Covid-19 died every 30 minutes.
Further, in 42 of the 149 countries examined, government agencies harassed and intimidated health workers in connection with the pandemic, he added.
Updated
A joint China-World Health Organization (WHO) study into Covid-19 has provided no credible answers about how the pandemic began, and more rigorous investigations are required - with or without Beijing’s involvement, a group of international scientists and researchers said on Wednesday.
Reuters reports:
The joint study, released last week, said the likeliest transmission route for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, involved bats and other wildlife in China and southeast Asia. It all but ruled out the possibility it had leaked from a laboratory.
In an open letter, 24 scientists and researchers from Europe, the United States, Australia and Japan said the study was tainted by politics.
“Their starting point was, let’s have as much compromise as is required to get some minimal cooperation from China,” said Jamie Metzl, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, who drafted the letter.
The letter said the study’s conclusions were based on unpublished Chinese research, while critical records and biological samples “remain inaccessible”.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus said last week China had withheld data.
Liang Wannian, China’s senior Covid-19 expert, denied this and appeared to rule out any further joint investigations in China, saying the focus should shift to other countries.
Metzl said the world might have to “revert to Plan B” and conduct an investigation “in the most systematic way possible” without China’s involvement.
China has rejected allegations that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a research laboratory in Wuhan, the city where Covid-19 was first identified.
The joint China-WHO study said the lab leak was “extremely unlikely”, saying there was “no record” that any laboratory had kept SARS-CoV-2-related viruses. Tedros said more research was required to “reach more robust conclusions”.
Brazil records first case of South African virus variant
Brazil has recorded its first confirmed case of the highly contagious coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa, a fresh danger for a country already ravaged by the world’s highest daily death toll amid a surge in infections fuelled by a widespread local variant.
Reuters reports:
Last week, scientists at the Butantan biomedical institute said the case, identified in a woman in Sao Paulo state, might be a new local variant. Further analysis confirmed it as the first known local case of the variant widely circulating in South Africa and elsewhere.
Scientists fear a showdown between the South African variant and the already rampant Brazilian variant, known as P.1, both of which are more contagious and possibly more deadly than the original version of the coronavirus and have led to accelerated Covid-19 surges.
“It could be a huge duel,” said Maria Carolina Sabbaga, one of Butantan’s coordinators for studying new variants. “I think P.1 has already taken over. I’m not sure if the South African will overtake P.1, let’s see.”
The South African variant in studies appears to lessen protection from current vaccines.
Brazil is in the midst of a brutal Covid-19 wave, setting records for deaths on a weekly basis. On Tuesday, the Health Ministry reported a single-day record of 4,195 deaths.
The Biden administration is in extended discussions with US airlines and other travel industry groups to provide technical guidance for vaccine passports that could be used to ramp up international air travel safely, industry officials said.
Reuters reports:
The administration has repeatedly made clear it will not require any businesses or Americans to use a digital Covid-19 health credential, however. It will also publish guidelines for the public.
The key question, airline and travel industry officials say, is whether the US government will set standards or guidelines to assure foreign governments that data in US traveller digital passports is accurate. There are thousands of different US entities giving Covid-19 vaccines, including drugstores, hospitals and mass vaccination sites.
Airline officials say privately that even if the United States does not mandate a Covid-19 digital record, other countries may require it or require all air passengers to be vaccinated.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday that the administration would provide guidance “that provides important answers to questions that Americans have, in particular around concerns about privacy, security, or discrimination, soon.”
On March 22, major US airlines and other travel groups urged the White House to “develop uniform Federal principles for Covi-19 health credentials” that would ensure they can “securely validate both test results and vaccination history, protect personal data, comply with applicable privacy laws, and operate across local, state and international jurisdictions.”
The World Health Organization’s advisory vaccine safety panel said on Wednesday a causal link between the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine and rare cases of blood clots with low platelets is “considered plausible but is not confirmed”.
The independent experts, in a statement issued after a review of the latest global data, said that specialised studies were needed to fully understand the potential relationship between vaccination and possible risk factors.
“It is important to note that whilst concerning, the events under assessment are very rare, with low numbers reported among the almost 200 million individuals who have received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine around the world,” the panel said.
It added that it would meet against next week to review additional data.
In Germany, the federal and state health ministers decided previously, because of a small cluster of brain thrombosis cases that mainly occurred in young women, to only give the jab to people aged 60 and over.
For younger people, vaccination with the jab is only possible at their own risk after they have been informed about possible side effects.
In France, the vaccine is only given to people over the age of 55.
Updated
India reported a record 115,736 new infections on Wednesday, a 13-fold increase in just over two months, raising pressure on the government to expand its vaccination campaign.
Reuters reports:
Some states, including hardest-hit Maharashtra and Odisha, have complained of a scarcity of vaccines during a second wave that has forced some centres to turn away people.
Only those aged over 45 are now being immunised in India, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, which started its campaign with health and other frontline workers in mid-January.
“Vaccination centres have to close early due to a shortage of supplies,” Maharashtra’s health minister, Rajesh Tope, told reporters.
Stocks would run out in three days after the daily injection of over 450,000 doses, he said.
Odisha said it had closed nearly half of its immunisation sites due to the shortfall, with supplies left only for two more days.
India’s health minister said the complaints, mostly from states not ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, were attempts to cover up their failures and spread panic.
“Vaccine supplies are being monitored on a real-time basis, and state governments are being apprised regularly about it,” Harsh Vardhan said in a statement. “Allegations of vaccine shortage are utterly baseless.”
Maharashtra has for weeks accounted for over half India’s daily new cases, which on Monday passed 100,000 for the first time. The government blames the resurgence mainly on crowding and a reluctance to wear masks as shops and offices reopen.
As we reported previously, health ministers fom the EU’s 27 member states will discuss the recommendations of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) regarding the rare risk of blood clots from the AstraZeneca vaccine this evening.
The EMA’s findings - that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be listed as very rare side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine - are expected to have an immediate impact on the bloc’s vaccination rollout and will require a co-ordinated response, Reuters reports.
“We expect this announcement will have a direct and immediate impact not only on our national vaccination plans, but also in our citizens’ trust in vaccines against Covid-19,” a letter seen by Reuters states.
Updated
Italy reported 627 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday against 421 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 13,708 from 7,767 the day before.
Italy’s overall official death toll from the virus now stands at 112,374, the second-highest toll in Europe after the UK’s and the seventh-highest in the world. The country has reported 3.7 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 29,316 on Wednesday, just below the 29,337 a day earlier.
There were 276 new admissions to intensive care units, slightly up from 221 on Tuesday. The total number of intensive care patients decreased to 3,683 from a previous 3,743.
The US has delivered about 3 million Covid-19 vaccine doses per day on average over the past week, up 8% over the previous 7-day average, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday.
But, she stressed, new daily infections in the US have been averaging 63,000 over the past seven days, up 2.3% from the previous seven-day average.
British prime minister Boris Johnson said he did not expect to change the government’s plans for relaxing Covid-19 restrictions as health regulators recommended that people aged under 30 should not be given the AstraZeneca vaccine.
“I don’t think that anything I have seen leads me to suppose that we will have to change the roadmap or deviate from the roadmap in any way,” Johnson said.
The Swedish Medical Products Agency said on Wednesday the benefits of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine outweighed the risks after the EU drug regulator said it had found a possible link between the shot and rare blood clots.
Reuters reports:
Sweden paused the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in March after reports of rare but serious blood clots among people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca shot. Sweden later resumed use for people over 65.
“We stand behind this conclusion, that the benefits outweigh the risks,” Ulla Wandel Liminga at the Medical Products Agency told a news conference.
The EU drug regulator said on Wednesday that the vaccine had possible links with very rare cases of unusual blood clots with low blood platelet counts, but it reiterated that its advantages outweighed its risks and recommended no age or gender limits for its use.
Here a bit of detail on the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MRHA) decision to limit the AstraZeneca jab to people over 30 from Sky’s Sophy Ridge:
Important to put this in context
— Sophy Ridge (@SophyRidgeSky) April 7, 2021
79 people in the UK have had blood clots following their first Oxford-AstraZeneca jab up to the 31 March
20.2 million doses have been given up to 31 March so the risk is four people in a million
19 have died - three under the age of 30
(MHRA)
Of these 79 people, 51 were women and 28 men.
Updated
Germany’s vaccine advisory committee sees no disadvantages or risks from giving younger recipients of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine a second dose of an alternative shot, two of its members said on Wednesday, after the EMA’s safety committee, in a curious twist, recommended the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine should continue to be used in all age groups, while the UK’s vaccine watchdog recommended limiting it to those over the age of 30.
Reuters reports:
“Nobody expects from an immunological perspective that there will be a disadvantage to getting a second dose of another vaccine,” Marianne Roebl-Mathieu, a member of the standing committee on vaccinations, told an online briefing.
Studies involving mixing vaccine doses are underway.
The German committee recommended last week that people aged under 60 who had received one shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine should get a second dose of another vaccine following reports of rare blood clotting events.
Should a second dose prove ineffective, a third dose could be effective, added Roeble Mathieu.
Her colleague on the panel, Christian Bogdan, said he had seen no evidence linking other vaccines to the rare blood clotting disorders.
Updated
The UK’s recommendation against giving the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to those aged under 30 due to a very small risk of blood clots will have a negligible impact on the vaccine programme, England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said.
“Because of our supply situation in relation to alternative vaccines, the effect on the timing of our overall programme should be zero or negligible,” Van-Tam said at a briefing on Wednesday.
He added that the side effects were “vanishingly rare but sadly quite serious”, and said from mid April there would be Moderna vaccines available in England, and that orders had been placed for Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine.
31.7 million people in the UK have had their first vaccine dose so far, and on Wednesday, the country recorded 2,763 new infections, as well as 45 further deaths from Covid-19.
A quick reminder that it’s worth refreshing the blog every once in a while, as some posts are slightly amended or beefed up over time.
Bavaria has become the first German state to sign an advance purchase agreement with Russian vaccine Sputnik V, state premier Markus Söder announced on Wednesday.
If Sputnik V is given the green light by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Germany’s southernmost state would be set to receive 2.5 million doses, which would be partially imported from Russia.
The memorandum of understanding signed by Söder on Wednesday also foresees the Russian vaccine to be manufactured at a newly developed site in the Bavarian town of Illertissen, Sputnik’s first state-backed production site within the European Union.
Söder said the earliest Bavaria would receive the vaccine doses following Sputnik’s authorisation would be July.
Dr Sabine Straus, the European Medicines Agency’s chairwoman, said side effects developing were “not unexpected”.
She said:
We know we are rolling out vaccinations in very large scale, (in) very many healthy people, and the difficulty is you will see events occurring, some of them just by chance, and some like this one might be an adverse effect from the vaccine.
Emer Cooke, the regulator’s executive director, added:
The situation evolves as we have more information available, as more vaccines are available, and as different risk groups are identified.
We can expect there will be new information and recommendations as time goes on.
Dr Peter Arlett, head of the EMA’s data analytics and methods task force, said that the body was examining whether other vaccines using similar technology as the AstraZeneca vaccine posed any risk and that there had been three cases of venous thromboembolism blood clots involving the Johnson & Johnson jab.
He said:
The first thing to say is that during the clinical trials, and in the assessment of those clinical trials at the time of authorisation of Johnson & Johnson, there was an early sign of an increased risk of venous thromboembolism not yet confirmed but it is in the risk management plan for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
There have been three cases with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine of blood clots associated with low platelets which have some similarities to these cases that we’ve been describing today. However the numbers are extremely small compared to the compared to 5 million patients that have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine worldwide.
This is however, under close scrutiny the [committee] is looking at it carefully, and I think it would be fair to say there’s intensive monitoring of this issue across the vaccines. I think I will leave it there.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said that Covid-19 was causing “many thousands of deaths every day” across the EU and stressed that the vaccines were effective in preventing deaths.
Dr Peter Arlett, head of data analytics at the EMA, told a Brussels briefing:
The important thing to remember is to go back to basics in terms of benefit risk.
So, as has been mentioned, Covid is causing many thousands of deaths every day across the EU.
We have a number of vaccines authorised in the European Union, all of which have demonstrated effectiveness at preventing severe disease and they are preventing deaths.
In the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, we have now identified a very rare side effect. And if we then put that into the context of the overall benefits of the vaccine, then the benefits outweigh the risks.
Professor Wei Shen, chairman of the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said the recommendation to prefer other vaccines to AstraZeneca for the under-30s was “out of the utmost caution” rather than because of “any
serious safety concerns”.
He said the body was merely advising “a preference” for a vaccine over another vaccine for a particular age group to be on the safe side.
Asked by a journalist why a young woman should take the AstraZeneca vaccine given the greater preponderance of cases of blood clots among females in the lower age groups, Dr Sabine Strauss, chair of the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee, said the risk of mortality from Covid-19 remained greater.
She also highlighted the groups that were being prioritised for jabs in a number of countries including those working in health care settings and homes for the elderly where women may make up a larger proportion of the workforce.
She said:
The risk seems to be predominantly in younger age groups - 60 years and younger - but it also occurs in the elderly and we have seen that it predominantly affects women, some of that could be explained by the way that the vaccine is being used in the European union in the European economic area.
What we do know is that Covid-19 is a very serious disease. And we know that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been established.
The press conference heard that the risk factor for blood clots was in the region of one in 100,000.
In response to the decision by the UK’s regulatory agency, the MHRA, to recommend that healthy people aged 30 and below should be offered a different vaccine where it is available, Emer Cooke, head of the EMA, said the authority would take into account information from Britain in any further review.
She said:
In the UK, I cannot comment on the decision making to restrict to a certain age was but what I can tell you there is a lot more use in the younger age groups in the UK than in the EU at the moment and we will certainly take this into account in our further evaluations.
Updated
England’s deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said the changes being proposed to the vaccination rollout were a “course correction”.
He told a press conference:
The UK vaccine programme has been the most enormous success indeed.
If you had said to me that by March 2021 we would not have needed a course correction, that also would have amazed me.
The benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risks for the “vast majority” of people after cases of blood clots were detected in an “extremely small” number of people, Dr June Raine, chief executive of the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said.
Raine said:
The evidence is firming up and our review has concluded that while it’s a strong possibility, more work is needed to establish beyond all doubt that the vaccine has caused these side effects.
Based on the current evidence, the benefits of the Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca against Covid-19 and its associated risks - hospitalisation and death - continues to outweigh the risks for the vast majority of people.
Our review has reinforced that the risk of this rare suspected side effect remains extremely small.
Raine gave a list of symptoms that should prompt the public to come forward for swift medical advice after receiving the vaccine.
She told the briefing:
Anyone who has symptoms four days after vaccination or more should seek prompt medical advice, a new onset of a severe or persistent headache or blurred vision, shortness of breath, chest pain, leg swelling, persistent abdominal pain or indeed unusual skin bruising or pin-point spots beyond the injection site.
Updated
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said that the case “clearly demonstrates” the challenges of a large-scale vaccination programme.
Executive director Emer Cooke said:
It’s important that both vaccinated people, and healthcare professionals, are aware of the signs and symptoms of these unusual blood clotting disorders, so that they can be spotted quickly to minimise any possible risks.
We will continue to monitor the scientific evidence available on both effectiveness and safety of all the authorised Covid-19 vaccines, and we will issue further recommendations if necessary on the grounds of science and robust evidence.
This case clearly demonstrates one of the challenges posed by large-scale vaccination campaigns.
When millions of people receive these vaccines, very rare events can occur that were not identified during the clinical trials.
The role of pharmacovigilance, the monitoring of the side effects, is to help us to rapidly detect and analyse these risks, and their impact on the benefit risk profile of the vaccine.
Adults under 30 should be offered vaccines other than AstraZeneca, UK watchdog says
Adults under 30 should be offered an alternative vaccine instead of the AstraZeneca jab if there is one available in their area and they are healthy and not at high risk of Covid, the UK government’s vaccination advisory body has said.
The recommendation from the joint committee on vaccines and immunisation (JCVI) is broadly in line with the thinking in Europe, where some countries have already opted to restrict the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to older groups following concerns about rare events of blood clots allied to low platelets.
Overall, the risks from Covid for older people are far higher and they will be encouraged to have the vaccine, which has been proven to be safe and effective in millions of people. In the UK, up to 31 March, there were 79 reports of these rare blood clots with low platelets – some but not all of them in the brain – and 19 deaths, among more than 20m AstraZeneca jabs.
Updated
UK prime minister Boris Johnson said the British government believes the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is “safe”, telling reporters on a visit to Cornwall: “But the crucial thing for everybody is to listen to what the scientists, the medical experts have to say later on today.”
He added on the vaccination programme: “You can really start to see some of the benefits of that – it’s pretty clear that the decline in the number of deaths, the decline in the number of hospitalisations is being fuelled, is being assisted, the steepness of that decline is being helped by the rollout of the vaccines so it’s very important for everybody to continue to get your second jab when you’re asked to come forward for your turn.”
Updated
Emer Cooke, the head of the EMA, told a virtual press conference that the “European medicines agency has confirmed that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing Covid-19 overall outweighs the risks of side effects”.
She said the vaccine had “proven to be highly effective” in preventing severe disease and hospitalisation, and that the risks of blood clots were “very rare” although it should be listed as a possible side-effect seen in all ages and in men and women.
”It’s important that both vaccinated people and healthcare professionals are aware of the signs and symptoms of these unusual blood clotting disorders, so that they can be spotted quickly to minimise any possible risks.”
She said the fact that the side-effect had been discovered illustrated that the surveillance system of the vaccine roll out was working well. Cooke said national decision on the use of the vaccine would “take into account the pandemic situation in any individual country, and other factors such as hospitalisation and availability of vaccines”.
The EMA’s safety committee examined a total of 86 cases of blood clots of which 18 had been fatal. As of 4 April, there had been a total of 222 cases of blood clots among the 34 million people vaccinated with the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.
Updated
Most of the cases of blood clot disorders occurred in people below 60 years of age and in women within two weeks of vaccination, but the EMA concluded that age and gender are not determining factors for these rare reactions to the jab, Sabine Straus, head of the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (Prac), said.
She said:
This vaccine has proven to be highly effective, it prevents severe disease and hospitalisation and it is saving lives.
Vaccination is extremely important in helping us in the fight against Covid-19 and we need to use the vaccines we have to protect us from the devastating effects.
Prac, after a very in-depth analysis, has concluded that the reported cases of unusual blood clotting following vaccination of the AstraZeneca vaccine should be listed as possible side effects of the vaccine.
She added, when pressed about the risks of getting the vaccine and concerns about blood clots:
The frequency [of these rare side effects] is difficult to assess, but we feel if you state the reporting rate is approximately one in 100,000 or even a little bit higher, that would reflect the risk.
Based on that information we ask national vaccination authorities to make up their mind on who they would like to vaccinate with which kind of vaccine.
Updated
The EMA press conference has just begun.
The benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine “overall” continue to outweigh any side effects, Emer Cooke, the EMA’s executive director said.
A “plausible explanation” for the rare cases of blood clotting is an immune response to the vaccine, she said.
Further recommendations will be issued in the future, and the safety and efficacy of the vaccine will continue to be monitored, she added.
The warnings and increased scrutiny of the jab showed that the EU’s pharmaceutical vigilance system is working, Cooke said.
Updated
More from the EMA’s safety committee which has concluded that while the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine should continue to be used in all age groups that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be listed as a very rare side effect.
Those administered vaccine should be made aware of the possibility of very rare cases of blood clots combined with low levels of blood platelets occurring within 2 weeks of vaccination.
Most of the cases reported have occurred in women under 60 years of age within 2 weeks of vaccination. Based on the currently available evidence, specific risk factors have not been confirmed.
The blood clots occurred in veins in the brain (cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, CVST) and the abdomen (splanchnic vein thrombosis) and in arteries, together with low levels of blood platelets and sometimes bleeding.
The committee carried out an in-depth review of 62 cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and 24 cases of splanchnic vein thrombosis reported in the EU drug safety database (EudraVigilance) as of 22 March 2021, 18 of which were fatal. The cases came mainly from spontaneous reporting systems of the EEA and the UK, where around 25 million people had received the vaccine.
The EMA said the reported combination of blood clots and low blood platelets was very rare, and the overall benefits of the vaccine in preventing COVID-19 outweigh the risks of side effects.
One plausible explanation for the combination of blood clots and low blood platelets is an immune response, leading to a condition similar to one seen sometimes in patients treated with heparin (heparin induced thrombocytopenia, HIT), they say.
Updated
EMA concludes blood clotting should be listed as 'very rare' side effect of AstraZeneca jab
EMA’s safety committee just put out a statement saying that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be listed as very rare side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
A statement said:
In reaching its conclusion, the committee took into consideration all currently available evidence, including the advice from an ad hoc expert group.
EMA is reminding healthcare professionals and people receiving the vaccine to remain aware of the possibility of very rare cases of blood clots combined with low levels of blood platelets occurring within 2 weeks of vaccination. So far, most of the cases reported have occurred in women under 60 years of age within 2 weeks of vaccination. Based on the currently available evidence, specific risk factors have not been confirmed.
People who have received the vaccine should seek medical assistance immediately if they develop symptoms of this combination of blood clots and low blood platelets (see below).
The PRAC noted that the blood clots occurred in veins in the brain (cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, CVST) and the abdomen (splanchnic vein thrombosis) and in arteries, together with low levels of blood platelets and sometimes bleeding.
The Committee carried out an in-depth review of 62 cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and 24 cases of splanchnic vein thrombosis reported in the EU drug safety database (EudraVigilance) as of 22 March 2021, 18 of which were fatal.1 The cases came mainly from spontaneous reporting systems of the EEA and the UK, where around 25 million people had received the vaccine.
COVID-19 is associated with a risk of hospitalisation and death. The reported combination of blood clots and low blood platelets is very rare, and the overall benefits of the vaccine in preventing COVID-19 outweigh the risks of side effects.
Updated
The European medicines watchdog EMA is about to issue guidance on whether AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine should be used in people under 60, in a press conference set to kick off at 1500 GMT.
Hugo De Jonge, in charge of the Dutch response to the pandemic, wrote in a Facebook post that the Dutch government had decided to pause AstraZeneca vaccinations for people under 60 pending advice from the EMA.
The EMA had previously said there was no increased risk of blood clots in general from the shot, developed by researchers at Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
Estonia on Wednesday suspended the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for people under the age of 60, the Baltic country’s public broadcaster reported.
It said the decision responded to reports that the vaccine may be associated with a rare blood clotting syndrome and, quoting the head of the government’s scientific advisory council Irja Lutsar, said it would remain in effect pending further information being made available about the matter, Reuters reports.
I’m Jedidajah Otte and am taking back over from my colleague Rhi Storer now. Feel free to get in touch with me on Twitter @JedySays.
Updated
That’s it from me for now. I am handing the liveblog back over to my colleague Jedidajah Otte. Please feel free to send her any contributions.
Any link between AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots 'at limits of what is detectable', says former MHRA chief
On Radio 4’s the World at One Sarah Montague interviewed Prof Sir Kent Woods about what the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is likely to announce. Woods was chief executive of the MHRA between 2004 and 2013. He was also chair of the European Medicines Agency, which is making its own announcement about the AstraZeneca vaccine at the same time.
- Woods said the possible link between the extremely rare type of blood clot and the AstraZeneca vaccine was “at the limits of what is detectable”. He said:
I think this possible association between the vaccine and these clotting events as being at the limits of what is detectable by the methods that we have. We’re talking about a small number of cases emerging in many millions of vaccinated individuals, which is an extremely low incidence rate.
We don’t know with precision how common these events are outside vaccination. In other words, it still remains possible that this is a chance association.
And then, of course, coronavirus infection itself does very considerably increase the risk of blood clotting events.
So what we don’t know is the background occurrence of these blood clotting events in the population now when we know there’s a lot of coronavirus around.
You can read more about this over at our UK liveblog below:
Iran has shattered its daily record for new infections for the second consecutive day on Wednesday.
According to Associated Press, cases have soared to 20,954 after more than a year of the country battling the worst outbreak in the Middle East.
Iran’s severe surge has triggered new movement restrictions in major cities, following a two-week public holiday for Nowruz, the Persian new year, which drove millions to travel to the Caspian coast and other popular vacation spots.
The country’s vaccine rollout continues to lag, with only some 200,000 vaccine doses administered in the country of 84 million, according to the World Health Organization.
Wednesday’s infection count easily surpassed the previous record set Tuesday of 17,430 infections, marking the worst pandemic days since peaks reached over four months ago.
Updated
Kits for self-administered coronavirus tests began arriving in Greek pharmacies on Wednesday, with each resident entitled to one free of charge per week as part of efforts to tackle a surge of coronavirus cases and hospitalisations.
Health officials have said anyone testing positive will have to declare it on a government website and will have to undergo a repeat PCR test. Priority for the home tests is initially being given to teachers and high school students aged 16-18.
Greece has been under lockdown-type restrictions since early November, with authorities debating the possibility of reopening schools, particularly for the final grades of high school, where students are preparing for university entrance exams.
As of Tuesday, the country announced a record number of daily cases Tuesday, with 4,309 new confirmed cases and 79 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to more than 8,530.
Updated
Hi everyone, this is Rhi Storer here taking over from my colleague Jedidajah Otte. Please feel free to email me your contributions at rhi.storer@guardian.co.uk or you can contact me on Twitter.
UK prime minister Boris Johnson is facing a growing battle in trying to introduce coronavirus health certificates for the vaccinated population, after Labour and the SNP joined Tory rebels in ruling out backing the proposals as they stand.
PA reports:
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called the current state of play on so-called vaccine passports a “complete mess” on Wednesday, warning that they could be a vast waste of taxpayers’ money when the focus should be on administering jabs.
He joined SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford in saying their opposition MPs would not back the plans in their current form if the Prime Minister put them to a Commons vote.
A government review into “Covid status certification” said they could “potentially play a role” in settings such as theatres, nightclubs and mass events, and might also be used in pubs and restaurants to reduce social distancing restrictions.
But, during a visit to Plymouth, Sir Keir told broadcasters: “We do not support the government’s plans in their current form, it’s as simple as that.
“In fact the government’s plans seem to be changing on an almost-daily basis.
“Only a few weeks ago the Prime Minister was saying he was thinking of vaccine passports to go to the pub - now he says isn’t.
“One day he’s talking about tests - then it’s certificates. It’s a complete mess.
“There isn’t a real plan around this, and what I fear it will be, another example of the government with a plan that doesn’t work, costing lots of taxpayer money, when I think the focus should be on getting as many people vaccinated as possible - that’s the light at the [end of the] tunnel.”
Dubai will offer Covid-19 vaccines to all official representatives of countries participating in Expo 2020, due to be held from October 2021 to March 2022, the UAE’s state-run news agency WAM reported, citing Dubai Crown Prince Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum.
Sweden, which has shunned lockdowns throughout the pandemic, registered 6,814 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, health agency statistics showed.
This compares with 8,441 fresh cases recorded a week ago.
The country of 10 million inhabitants registered 45 new deaths, taking the total to 13,578. The deaths registered have occurred over several days and sometimes weeks.
Sweden’s seven-day average of new infections began declining in mid January, but started rising again in early February and surged markedly in the third week of March.
Updated
Philippine health authorities on Wednesday allowed the use of China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine for some senior citizens after initially limiting coverage to people aged 18-59 years, as the country battles one of Asia’s worst coronavirus outbreaks.
Reuters reports:
The Department of Health and the Food and Drug Administration said they made the decision after receiving the recommendation of the Department of Science and Technology’s vaccine expert panel.
Senior citizens can now receive CoronaVac shots provided there is stringent evaluation of the person’s health status and exposure risk, they said in a statement.
[...]
The Philippine health authorities said that even though efficacy data for senior citizens from Phase III trials of the Sinovac vaccine, known as CoronaVac, was not yet sufficient “the benefits of using the vaccine for this particular group outweigh its risks”.
The Philippines has also negotiated vaccine supply deals with other manufacturers, aiming to inoculate up to 70 million people, or two thirds of its population.
The Philippines is in the middle of a new wave, mostly affecting the capital Manila, and recorded 6,414 new cases on Wednesday.
Over 14,000 people nationwide have lost their lives to Covid-19, the Department of Health said, according to CNN Philippines.
The death toll climbed to 14,059 after the DOH confirmed 242 new deaths, 133 of which were previously classified as recoveries.
It also announced 6,414 more infections, raising the official case tally to 819,164. Of this number, 158,701 or 19.4% are active cases.
South Korea said on Wednesday it will temporarily suspend providing AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine to people below 60 amid a European review, while approving a Johnson & Johnson shot in a bid to speed up its inoculation rollout.
The European Medical Agency (EMA) is due to announce the results of a review at 1400 GMT on whether some cases of blood clotting in adults may be linked to the AstraZeneca shot.
Global controversy over the efficacy and side-effects of some Covid-19 vaccines has caused some delays in South Korea’s vaccination campaign, which kicked off in late February with the goal of reaching herd immunity in November, Reuters reports.
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will hold a news conference at 1500 GMT, where it will address blood clot concerns over the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, Sky reports.
Use of the vaccine for younger Britons has been reviewed, after 30 rare blood-clotting cases have been reported and seven deaths in more than 18 million UK adults who have received the jab.
Bavaria will buy 2.5 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik coronavirus vaccine if it is approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the premier of the German region said on Wednesday.
Markus Soeder, premier of the wealthy south-western German state, said the purchase would take place in July.
In view of spiking infections, Bavaria is postponing all opening steps by two weeks, Zeit reports.
Soeder again spoke out in favor of a short hard lockdown in all of Germany.
The Czech Republic will also wait until the EMA approves the Sputnik V shot before using it, prime minister Andrej Babis said on Wednesday.
Updated
Several European countries are considering mixing up Covid-19 vaccines for citizens who received a first dose of AstraZeneca’s shot, an unprecedented move that highlights challenges for governments struggling to tame fresh rises in infections.
Reuters reports:
Vaccination programmes have been upset after a small number of reports that recipients of the AstraZeneca inoculation have suffered extremely rare blood clots, leading some countries worldwide to suspend its use out of caution.
A senior official for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in an interview published on Tuesday there was a link between the vaccine and rare blood clots in the brain but the possible causes were still unknown.
The EMA later said in a statement that its review of the vaccine was ongoing. It will give an update on its investigation on Wednesday afternoon.
AstraZeneca has said previously its studies have found no higher risk of clots because of the vaccine, millions of doses of which have been administered worldwide.
While many countries have resumed using the shot, some have imposed age restrictions.
In many instances, this has left officials scratching their heads over what to do for people who received a first dose of AstraZeneca but are no longer eligible under the new rules.
While the numbers are small compared with the tens of millions being inoculated across the region, the decision is significant because it has not been tested in late-stage human trials.
Any divergence to the EMA’s marketing authorisation would also be considered as “off label use”, meaning it would not be approved by the regulator and leave individual countries responsible for any possible side-effects.
The EMA had no immediate comment when asked about mixing and matching vaccines and referred to the briefing later on Wednesday.
Some experts say that, because all of the vaccines target the same outer “spike” protein of the virus, they could work together to train the body to fight off the virus. There is no evidence it will be as effective.
The European commission said on Wednesday that delivery shortfalls of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine were a global issue, not something to be addressed only in talks between the EU and Australia.
The comment followed Australia’s request to the EU to send AstraZeneca doses. The Australian government has said the EU has blocked shipments, whereas the EU says AstraZeneca had not requested new authorisations for exports to Australia.
“We’re not the only region in the world producing AstraZeneca vaccines, and therefore this is a global issue. It is definitely not simply a bilateral issue between one country and the European Union,” a spokesman for the EU commission told a news conference when asked about Australia’s request, Reuters reports.
The spokesman said the EU was also facing huge shortfalls of AstraZeneca vaccine deliveries.
The Australian federal government’s vaccine rollout has been beset by a lack of transparency and poor communication, causing concern for experts, doctors’ groups, patients, state governments and aged care providers.
Prime minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday that 3.1m vaccine doses had not arrived from overseas as expected.
Updated
Malta will start a gradual easing of pandemic-related curbs this month, prime minister Robert Abela said on Wednesday, as the country forges ahead with vaccinations at a much faster rate than elsewhere in the EU.
Reuters reports:
Abela told reporters schools would reopen on Monday and the government will consider reopening restaurants and non-essential shops on 26 April. Masses will resume in churches on 18 April.
“Restrictions will be eased gradually, but children cannot afford to lose more of their education experience in the classroom,” Abela said.
Schools and restaurants on the small Mediterranean island were closed early in March following a spike in virus cases blamed on the so-called British variant.
But a high of 510 new virus cases in a population of 500,000 on 10 March has declined to an average of 54 new cases daily in the past two weeks. Some 400 people have died of the virus to date.
Abela said Malta planned to reopen its crucial tourism sector on 1 June. “We will promote ourselves as one of the safest tourism destinations,” he said.
Health minister Chris Fearne said 42% of adults in Malta have now had at least one vaccine shot.
According to latest Reuters data, no other EU state has come close to matching Malta’s figures, with second-placed Hungary on 24%.
Malta is using a mix of Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca shots and unlike many other EU countries, it exercised options to buy as many of the various jabs as it could.
Updated
Nigeria has directed its 36 states and federal capital territory to stop giving first doses of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine once they use half their current stock in order to safeguard supply for the second dose, its health minister said.
Reuters reports:
Osagie Ehanire said the directive came amid concerns over when Nigeria would get another shipment of the shots after India put a temporary hold on all major exports of the doses made by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
India, the world’s second most populous country, is aiming to preserve supply to meet domestic demand. It reported a record 115,736 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, a 13-fold increase in just over two months.
“We thought that it was proper for us under the circumstances to ensure that those who were vaccinated were fully vaccinated,” Ehanire said in a televised briefing on Tuesday evening.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, and inoculating its 200 million citizens is seen as key to stemming the global spread of the virus.
The country has used roughly a quarter of the 3.92m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines, produced by the SSI, that it received on 2 March. It had administered 964,387 first doses as of 6 April, but progress varied widely by state.
Twenty-one of its states and capital territory had given first doses to more than half of those targeted for shots, but it was not clear whether the figures also reflected the proportion of shots available within the state. It is spacing the doses by three months.
The head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control said India’s decision would undermine Africa’s vaccination plans, and could have a “catastrophic” impact if extended.
Nigeria hopes to receive up to 70m doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine this year through the African Union.
Updated
South Korea has temporarily suspended vaccinating people aged under 60 with AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, the Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday, citing health authorities.
EU health ministers will hold a meeting on Wednesday on vaccine rollouts after the bloc’s drugs regulator announces its decision on the safety of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, the EU presidency said.
Marta Temido, the health minister of Portugal, which holds the EU presidency, will host the meeting from 1700 GMT “following the public announcement of the conclusions of the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee of [the European Medicines Agency] EMA on the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine,” a spokeswoman for the Portuguese presidency wrote on Twitter.
The EMA plans to announce its decision at 1400 GMT. Experts from the European drug authority have reviewed to what extent some cases of blood clotting in adults who had recently received the AstraZeneca vaccine may be linked to the injections.
Hungary’s surgeon general said on Wednesday new infections were stagnating but that the number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals is still “very high”, as the country’s businesses and services begin reopening.
Surgeon general Cecilia Muller also told a briefing that Hungarian authorities would follow guidance from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) regarding AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, but there has not been an official statement yet.
Prime minister Viktor Orbán announced on Tuesday that more than a quarter of the country’s 10 million people had been given at least a first shot of the vaccine, allowing for an easing of restrictions from Wednesday.
Daily News Hungary reports that daily new deaths are still “brutally high”, with 311 new deaths having been recorded over the past 24 hours, while 1,933 new infections were registered, as koronavirus.gov.hu said on Wednesday.
So far, 2,536,751 people have received a first jab, while 1,005,936 have been fully vaccinated.
The number of active infections has risen to 252,115, while hospitals are caring for 12,202 Covid patients, 1,407 of whom need respiratory assistance. There are 47,578 people in official quarantine, while 4,795,584 tests have been officially carried out.
Updated
German chancellor Angela Merkel supports demands for a short, tough lockdown to curb rising infections, a German government spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
Reuters reports:
Germany is struggling to tackle a third wave of the pandemic and several regional leaders have called for a short, sharp lockdown while the country tries to vaccinate more people.
“Every call for a short, uniform lockdown is right,” deputy government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer told reporters, adding Germany was seeing a growing number of intensive care patients.
“We need a stable incidence below 100,” she said, referring to the number of cases over seven days per 100,000 inhabitants. It is currently 110.1, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
She also said that the government was looking at whether nationwide, rather than regional, measures were needed.
“The range of regulations does not help acceptance,” said Demmer. While some states have imposed night-time curfews over Easter, others are experimenting with some easing of restrictions.
he majority of Germany’s 16 federal state premiers was against bringing forward talks scheduled for April 12 on what action to take.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 9,677 on Wednesday to more than 2.9 million, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases said. It has warned that the numbers may not yet show the full picture as not all cases were registered over Easter. Some 77,401 people have died.
Norway’s Covid-19 infection rates and hospitalisations must decline before the government will begin to unwind restrictions on social interaction, prime minister Erna Solberg told parliament on Wednesday.
Reuters reports:
Solberg presented a four-step plan for easing Norway’s restrictions, and said the first three steps could be completed by the end of June unless new setbacks emerge.
She did not say how long the fourth phase, which will still contain some restrictions, is estimated to last.
“Before we open up we need to see low and stable infection rates. It is important that the number of hospitalisations come down from today’s level,” Solberg said.
The government’s best estimate is that everyone aged 18 or older will have been offered their first vaccine shot by end-July, Solberg said.
Solberg had originally planned to present a plan for re-opening the country before Easter, but instead introduced tougher national measures, such as a ban on the public serving of alcohol and a mandatory 10-day quarantine at a designated hotel after returning for holidays abroad.
Norway has had some of Europe’s lowest rates of infections and deaths since the start of the pandemic early last year, but has started seeing a rapid increase in hospitalisations led by more contagious variants of the virus.
I’m Jedidajah Otte and I’ll bring you the latest on the pandemic from around the globe for the next few hours. Do get in touch if you’d like to share updates or flag anything you think we should be covering, I’m on Twitter @JedySays.
Today so far…
- The European Medicines Agency will give a briefing at 1600 CET (1500 GMT) on the safety of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and its possible links to blood clots. Yesterday it denied it had already established a causal connection between the vaccine and a rare blood clotting syndrome.
- The Castile and León region in Spain has suspended using AstraZeneca shots on people under 65 until it receives further clarification from the European Medicines Agency.
- The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK is also expected to issue an update.
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The UK meanwhile is beginning to rollout a third vaccine – the Moderna shot – in Wales today. 24 year old unpaid carer Elle Taylor got the first jab at the West Wales General Hospital in Carmarthen.
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Brazil’s coronavirus catastrophe has deepened further after more than 4,000 daily deaths were reported for the first time. “It’s a nuclear reactor that has set off a chain reaction and is out of control. It’s a biological Fukushima,” said Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian doctor and professor at Duke University in the US, who is closely tracking the virus.
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One in three people who were severely ill with coronavirus were subsequently diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition within six months of infection, a US study has found.
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Poland is to extend its coronavirus restrictions until 18 April. Kindergartens, shopping centres, hotels, cinemas and theatres will remain closed. The health minister said that 90% of cases in Poland were the more infections B.1.1.7 variant.
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The B.1.1.7 variant has been detected for the first time in Thailand, where at least ten cabinet ministers and dozens of lawmakers are self-isolating today after coming into contact with positive coronavirus cases.
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Restrictions on exporting its Covid vaccines have left India’s Serum Institute needing financial help from the government, its CEO said. Without the higher prices charged for vaccines going out of the country, it says it is unable to invest in increasing production.
- It is World Health Day, and the director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been hammering home on social media his message that global inequality has exacerbated the impact of the novel coronavirus, and that an inequitable distribution of vaccines could prolong the effects of the pandemic.
That’s it from me – Martin Belam – today. I’ll be back tomorrow. My colleague Jedidajah Otte is taking over now to see you through the next few hours…
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has cancelled his weekly national televised address due to an increase in active cases of Covid-19 among his staff, including some of his security detail, government officials said.
The Philippines has seen new daily cases surge in recent weeks, surpassing 15,000 on 2 April, most of those in the capital Manila.
“The physical safety of the president remains our utmost concern,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement, adding they were also concerned for the wellbeing of staff.
Many people working for the president have tested positive for Covid-19, including the secretary of defence and some members of the presidential security group, Christopher Go, a sitting senator and Duterte’s closest aide, told reporters. He did not specify how many were infected.
Reuters report that Go attempted to reassure the public that Duterte was in good health. “Nothing to worry about,” Go said. “In fact, we are together and he continues working.”
Czech prime minister Adrej Babis will replace the health minister today, bringing in a fourth health sector manager since the start of the pandemic, which has hit the central European country hard amid rows over how to respond.
Reuters report that Jan Blatny took the job in October just as Covid-19 infections were spiking, and three peaks of the pandemic since have claimed more than 27,000 lives and put the country of 10.7 million at the top of global rankings for deaths per capita, according to the Our World in Data website.
A government spokeswoman said Petr Arenberger, a Prague hospital director, would replace Blatny. Babis has reprimanded Blatny in the past month over issues such as a lack of support for new Covid-19 medicines and the ministry’s handling of plans to use rapid testing to re-open schools, while Blatny was faced with overflowing hospitals and pressure to keep factories open and to reopen businesses.
Blatny was also a staunch opponent of using the Russian vaccine Sputnik V before European Union regulators approve it. Babis has made several U-turns over possible purchases of the Russian vaccine, and was quoted as saying last week that a lack of vaccines in the bloc could push his country to seek the Russian shots.
Restaurants, non-essential retail shops and most school classrooms have been shut almost continuously since October, except for a few weeks in December when things re-opened before Christmas only to see another resurgence of the virus.
With cases easing and the strain on hospitals lifting somewhat, the government plans to re-open some school classrooms from Monday and allow free travel around the country, which has been forbidden since March.
Poland to extend Covid restrictions until 18 April
Poland will extend its Covid-19 restrictions until 18 April, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski has said, as the health system struggles to cope with a third wave of infections.
Reuter reports that kindergartens, shopping centres, hotels, cinemas and theatres will remain closed under the restrictions.
Niedzielski also said that around 90% of the cases in Poland were the B.1.1.7 variant which was first detected in the UK.
Updated
While debate over the safety of the AstraZeneca shot continues – the EMA will hold a press conference about whether it is linked to blood clots at 1600 CET today (1500 GMT) - in the UK the PR push for the Moderna shot has begun in earnest.
Rod Minchin reports for PA that Elle Taylor, a 24-year-old unpaid carer from Ammanford, got the jab at the West Wales General Hospital in Carmarthen. She works at a further education college in Llanelli as well as caring for her 82-year-old grandmother.
Speaking afterwards, Miss Taylor said: “I’m very excited and very happy.
“I’m an unpaid carer for my grandmother so it is very important to me that I get it, so I can care for her properly and safely. My grandmother has had her first dose and she is going for her second dose on Saturday.”
Miss Taylor said she only found out on Tuesday evening that she was to be the first Briton to receive the Moderna jab in the UK. “It was great, the nurses were lovely and it didn’t hurt,” she said. “I feel thrilled and really happy and honoured, and I just hope it goes well for everybody.”
It is World Health Day today, and as part of efforts to boost confidence in Covid-19 vaccines, UNICEF have enlisted the help of renowned artists from Africa including Angelique Kidjo, Calema, Cobhams Asuqo, Magic System and Safiath. They are featured in a series of videos on the subject.
“We have a critical window of opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of Covid-19 immunization efforts, to combat misinformation and address vaccine hesitancy,” said UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Marie-Pierre Poirier.
“Rumours and misinformation literally cost lives by discouraging people to seek vaccination, the best tool available to avoid contracting and spreading deadly vaccine-preventable diseases, including Covid-19. I applaud the commitment of national governments, and of these talented artists and influential community members, who are calling for everyone to support Covid-19 immunization efforts.”
You can watch the videos here.
I mentioned Thailand earlier, where at least ten cabinet ministers and dozens of lawmakers were self-isolating today after coming into contact with positive coronavirus cases, amid a sharp increase in infections in the capital Bangkok. [See 7.33am].
There’s another development being reported by Reuters, that Thailand has for the first time detected 24 cases of coronavirus variant B.1.1.7.
It is the first reported domestic transmission of the highly contagious variant which first originated in Britain. “This variant is very viral and can spread 1.7 times faster than the usual strain,” Yong Poovorawan, a senior virologist from Chulalongkorn University told a health ministry briefing.
Castile and León to suspend AstraZeneca shots to the under-65s pending further EMA clarification
Another quick Reuters snap on the AstraZeneca vaccine – the Castile and León region in Spain has suspended using AstraZeneca shots on people under 65 until it receives further clarification from the European Medicines Agency.
The agency is giving a briefing on the topic at 1600 CET today (1500 GMT).
Updated
The US federal government will launch a funeral assistance programme that will provide up to $9,000 to cover the burial costs of each American who died of Covid-19. Mary Jordan and Mary Jordan report for the Washington Post:
The program is open to families regardless of their income, as long as they show documentation and have not already received similar benefits through another program.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has reimbursed burial costs before, but it has never offered as large a payment to so many people. In 2017, for example, FEMA paid $2.6 million to 976 people for funeral costs of victims of three hurricanes – an average of $2,664 per applicant.
But the novel coronavirus’s immense toll means a burial assistance program of an unprecedented scale is now being assembled. Because the number of people who will be eligible is not known, neither is the program’s ultimate cost – but it will easily be several billion dollars.
“Although we cannot change what has happened, we affirm our commitment to help with funeral and burial expenses that many families did not anticipate,” acting FEMA administrator Bob Fenton said in a statement.
Read more here: Washington Post – Biden administration to launch massive funeral assistance program for Covid victims
Updated
European Medicines Agency expects to hold briefing on AstraZeneca this afternoon
A quick snap from Reuters that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will hold a briefing this afternoon on the AstraZeneca vaccine at 1600 CET (1500 GMT).
Yesterday it denied it had already established a causal connection between the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and a rare blood clotting syndrome, after a senior official from the agency said there was a link.
In a statement to Agence France-Presse, the EMA said on Tuesday it had “not yet reached a conclusion and the review is currently ongoing”, adding that it expected to announce its findings on Wednesday or Thursday.
Marco Cavaleri, the EMA’s head of vaccines, had earlier told Italy’s Il Messaggero newspaper that in his opinion “we can say it now, it is clear there is a link with the vaccine … But we still do not know what causes this reaction.”
Concerns over rare but serious blood clotting events in a small number of recipients have dogged the shot in recent weeks, with more than a dozen European countries briefly suspending its use last month pending an EMA investigation.
India’s Serum Institute appeals for government financial aid amid vaccine export curb
Restrictions on exporting its Covid vaccines have left India’s Serum Institute needing financial help from the government, its CEO said last night, with the world’s largest jab manufacturer under pressure at home from soaring cases.
AFP report that the pressure has meant production capacity at SII is “very stressed, to put it quite frankly”, the firm’s CEO Adar Poonawalla told NDTV late Tuesday.
“The globe needs this vaccine and we are prioritising the needs of India at the moment and we are still short of being able to supply … to every Indian that needs it.”
The company now requires additional funding of 30bn rupees ($408m) to ramp up capacity and has asked the government for financial help, he added.
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s government last month put the brakes on exports of AstraZeneca jabs made by the SII as the nation of 1.3 billion people experienced an alarming new wave of infections.
“This was never budgeted or planned initially because we were supposed to export and get the funding from export countries but now that that is not happening, we have to find other innovative ways to build our capacity,” Poonawalla said.
SII, which produces over 2m doses of Covishield – the local name for the AstraZeneca vaccine – a day, is providing the jab at a subsidised rate of around 150 rupees to India, significantly less than what it charges for exports.
“The price that is set is profitable, however it is not profitable enough to reinvest substantially in building capacity,” Poonawalla said.
The firm has also struck a deal to supply 200m doses to Covax, a World Health Organization-backed effort to procure and distribute inoculations to poor countries.
Updated
Wales will start using Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine today just as the UK’s rollout of other shots has fallen to its lowest level this year due to a supply crunch caused by manufacturing problems at AstraZeneca.
Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton report for Reuters that Britain has surged ahead of the rest of Europe in the race to vaccinate its population, with almost half of its citizens receiving a first dose, but supply issues from its main Oxford-AstraZeneca shot have slowed progress in recent days.
Britain distributed almost 96,000 shots on Sunday and just over 105,000 on Monday, the lowest figures since the government started publishing daily numbers in January.
“The Moderna vaccine rollout begins today, starting with Carmarthen in Wales,” prime minister Boris Johnson has said. “We have ordered 17m doses that will be going into arms across the UK in the coming weeks. Please get your jab as soon as you are contacted.”
Moderna, whose shots are already being used in the US and other parts of Europe, will become the third vaccine to be used in Britain after the AstraZeneca shot and one from Pfizer-BioNTech. It uses the same mRNA technology as Pfizer’s shot but can be stored at normal fridge temperatures.
Junior business minister Paul Scully told Sky News the Moderna shot would reach the rest of the United Kingdom in the coming days. “You’ve heard the vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi talking about the third week of April. We’re already just about to start the second week of April so that’s not too long to wait.”
Updated
More on the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine from PA Media here. Ravi Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases, has told Sky News the vaccination programme should continue until more is known on blood clots and the AstraZeneca vaccine.
He said people in their “20s, 30s, 40s and 50s” are at risk of severe Covid “and there is an argument for vaccination to continue in those individuals because the rate of this blood clot disorder is extremely low, although slightly elevated against background levels.”
He said vaccinating children was done to “cut down transmission in the community in the main” and therefore the decision to stop the study on them until more was known was “good practice”.
Asked if he would take the jab, he said: “I think that’s on balance at the moment – there’s still transmission of Covid, and there is a risk to all of us of being infected, particularly as the economy is being opened up and society’s opening up, we are at risk of getting severe infection. So I would certainly be going forward for that vaccine in the current situation.”
Earlier, Prof Calum Semple, part of Sage, said he is “not worried one little bit” about headlines around the AstraZeneca vaccine, asking people to compare the risks to crossing the road.
“This vaccine is safe. What do I mean by safe? You can look right, look left, look right again cross a road, it’s safe to cross because you don’t see any cars but you can trip, you can stumble. Nothing is risk-free, but is the vaccine safe? I would say yes.”
Updated
Just a very brief note from Reuters here that China says it administered about 2.59m doses of Covid-19 vaccines yesterday, bringing the total number of doses given so far in the nation to 145.39m, according to the data released by the National Health Commission.
Updated
Tess McClure in Auckland reports for us on the joy that the planned opening of the trans-Tasman travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand has brought:
Hundreds of thousands of families straddle the trans-Tasman border, with an estimated 600,000 New Zealanders living in Australia and about 60,000 Australians based in New Zealand. For the past year, border closures due to Covid-19 have meant many of those families have been divided – parents unable to see children, children unable to visit sick parents, and families unable to attend the funerals of loved ones.
Jolene Vella, a New Zealander living in Brisbane, says she’s over the moon to be seeing her parents again. They had been living in Australia for around 17 years, but had to return to New Zealand after her mother had a stroke. Jolene was booked to go over for her mother’s 60th birthday in March – but the borders closed two days before they were due to fly out.
“I’ve spent the year hoping,” she said. “When you live knowing that people’s lives are finite, when you don’t have the freedom to go and see them, it’s really emotionally draining”
“I just want to hug my mum and dad,” she says, tearfully. “Give them a kiss, lay my eyes on them, and know that they’re OK.”
When she priced up a two-week trip for her and her daughter last year – including the cost of flights, two weeks in quarantine in either direction, and lost income – she says it came to $16,000, an unaffordable sum.
“So many people have missed funerals, missed people they love passing, people’s births, there’s so much that we’ve missed in each other’s lives,” she said. “This is massive. This means we can start connections again. We can see each other … This is the beginning of life again.”
Read more of Tess McClure’s report here: ‘Full of emotions’ – trans-Tasman travel bubble to let families finally grieve, rejoice and hug
The travel industry in the UK and beyond has also been deeply affected by pandemic restrictions. However, Ryanair has said this morning that it expects losses for the year to be slightly lower than first thought.
No reason for the revision was given, and Ryanair also said Easter travel restrictions and the slow rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines had led to a delay in passenger numbers recovering.
Simon Neville, PA Media’s City editor, reports that passenger numbers fell to 27.5 million in the year to 31 March, compared with 149 million a year earlier.
Ryanair said: “Easter travel restrictions/lockdowns and a delayed traffic recovery into the summer season, due to the slow rollout in the EU of Covid-19 vaccines, means that traffic is likely to be towards the lower end of our previously guided range”.
It added: “While it is not possible to provide meaningful 2021-22 profit guidance, we do not share the recent optimism of certain analysts as we believe that the outcome for 2021-22 is currently close to break-even.”
The update comes days after bosses from leading airlines urged British prime minister Boris Johnson to give them the green light for international travel within weeks. Ministers have made it clear the ban on foreign travel will be in place until at least 17 May. When it is lifted it will be replaced by a risk-based “traffic light” system, with red, amber and green ratings for countries around the world.
You can keep up to date with the latest business news over on our dedicated live blog which is being helmed by my colleague Kalyeena Makortoff today:
Updated
Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale, has added its voice to dissent in the UK from the hospitality sector over a lack of government clarity over “vaccine passport” plans and restrictions on how pubs in England can operate from next week.
The consumer group for drinkers says in a statement that it is “concerned that the hospitality sector is yet again being singled out with draconian and unevidenced restrictions – such as banning service outside from traditional hatches, and the possibility that venues will not be allowed to take payment at the bar, both of which were allowed last summer.”
Camra’s national chairman, Nik Antona, said: “As consumers, we’re all looking forward to pubs in England starting to reopen outdoor areas on 12 April, and the opportunity to support our locals and enjoy the social wellbeing benefits of pub going.
“It is important to recognise that only around a third of pubs will be able to open on the 12th, and many of these will not be able to trade viably. Camra wants to see support offered for as long as pubs and clubs are trading at reduced levels, as well as long-term investment measures, including a preferential rate of duty for draught beer so that our locals can thrive in the future.
“The impact of the pandemic on pubs will continue to be felt long beyond reopening, and it is vital that this is recognised by the government.”
Updated
Brazil’s coronavirus death toll passes 4,000 a day for first time
Here’s the latest from our Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro:
Brazil’s coronavirus catastrophe has deepened further after more than 4,000 daily deaths were reported for the first time since the outbreak began in February last year.
At least 4,195 people were reported to have lost their lives on Tuesday, taking Brazil’s total death toll – the world’s second highest after the US – to nearly 337,000.
Brazil also reported 86,979 new infections. Experts fear a record 100,000 Brazilians could lose their lives this month alone if nothing is done.
“It’s a nuclear reactor that has set off a chain reaction and is out of control. It’s a biological Fukushima,” said Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian doctor and professor at Duke University in the US, who is closely tracking the virus.
Despite the growing crisis, Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, continues to resist the idea of a lockdown and downplay the epidemic. “In which country aren’t people dying?” he said last week.
Brazil, which has 212 million citizens compared with the US’s 328 million, is expected to overtake the US weekly average for daily deaths in the coming days.
Many governors, mayors and judges are reopening parts of the economy despite lingering chaos in overcrowded hospitals and a collapsed healthcare system in several parts of the country. Local authorities nationwide claim that numbers of cases and hospitalisations are trending downward after a week of a partial shutdown.
Miguel Lago, the executive director of Brazil’s Institute for Health Policy Studies, which advises public health officials, said reopening was a mistake that he feared would bring even higher death numbers, though he thought it unlikely to be reversed.
“The fact is the anti-lockdown narrative of President Jair Bolsonaro has won,” Lago said. “Mayors and governors are politically prohibited from beefing up social distancing policies because they know supporters of the president, including business leaders, will sabotage it.”
Read more of Tom Phillips’ report from Rio de Janeiro: Brazil’s coronavirus death toll passes 4,000 a day for first time
Updated
The news in the UK is likely to be dominated by two issues today – the safety of the AstraZeneca shot, and what the government’s plans are for so-called “vaccine passports” or “vaccine certification”. A government review on Monday appeared to rule out banning the latter from use by private companies, as “an unjustified intrusion on how businesses choose to make their premises safe”.
There’s a growing backlash to that from the UK’s hospitality sector, and a Liverpool comedy club has already pulled out of a planned pilot event after receiving abuse over the issue.
On the issue of the safety of the AstraZeneca shot, there’s been discussion on the airwaves this morning. The former chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said he has “no reservations” about the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Prof Sir Kent Woods told LBC radio: “The risks of Covid are much higher. The reason it is so difficult to be certain whether or not there is a cause-and-effect relationship, even in younger people, between the vaccine and these thrombotic events, these clotting events, is that there are such clotting events occurring in the background anyway. It’s not an unknown event.”
“Covid itself – the infection itself – is known to be associated with a substantial increased risk of blood clots of various kinds. We can say I think, that if there is a connection, it’s a very, very rare one and this is why I am not concerned about the fact that relatives of mine have had the AstraZeneca vaccine in their 40s.”
PA Media also report that Adam Finn, a professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol and who also sits on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said concerns over the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab are being taken “very seriously” and “very thoroughly” investigated.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What stands out about them is that we see thrombosis, including thrombosis in the cerebral veins, all the time, but we don’t normally see them in association with a low platelet count – which is a small blood cell which is involved in blood clotting – and so that makes them stand out and makes us think that this is something a little bit different and out of the norm.”
Finn said this meant they wanted to understand why this was being caused and whether it is linked to the vaccine. There had been 30 cases of this kind of blood clot and seven deaths amid more than 18 million people receiving the jab. He said it “could potentially” affect the rollout of the vaccine.
He said: “Those figures quoted were up until 24 March and I think we’ll hear shortly what’s happened subsequent to that in terms of numbers of cases, but we can expect there will have been more in the interim.”
Finn highlighted that the risk of Covid-19 is greater for older people and therefore it likely favours them receiving the vaccine, adding: “What we urgently need to understand, if this is a causal thing, is whether that risk-benefit ratio stands up when you get down to younger ages.
Updated
It is World Health Day today, and the director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been hammering home on social media his message that global inequality has exacerbated the impact of the novel coronavirus, and that an inequitable distribution of vaccines could prolong the effects of the pandemic.
Today is #WorldHealthDay. #COVID19 has exacerbated inequalities both between and within countries. While we have all undoubtedly been impacted by the pandemic, the poorest and most marginalized have been hit hardest - both in terms of lives and livelihoods lost. #HealthEquity pic.twitter.com/CXivrrb0Mj
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) April 7, 2021
The 🌍 must make 5 vital changes to achieve #HealthEquity:
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) April 7, 2021
-Invest in equitable production & access to #COVID19 tools
-Invest in primary health care
-Prioritize health & social protection
-Build safe, healthy, inclusive neighbourhoods
-Enhance data & health information systems pic.twitter.com/dRzWeronPk
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At least 10 Thai cabinet ministers and dozens of lawmakers were self-isolating on Wednesday after coming into contact with positive coronavirus cases, amid a sharp increase in infections in the capital Bangkok, report Reuters.
Transport Minister Saksiam Chidchob told local television he had tested positive for Covid, while his Bhumjaithai party said other ministers, lawmakers and coalition politicians had been in contact with confirmed cases.
Infections in Thailand have risen in the past week, although numbers are still low in comparison to some of its regional neighbours, owing to more than a year of strict border controls, quarantine, testing and contact-tracing protocols.
Authorities recorded 334 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, with no new deaths, bringing Thailand’s case total to 29,905 and 95 fatalities.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha changed a weekly get-together of his 36-member cabinet to a virtual meeting on Wednesday and urged ministers to avoid exposure to the virus.
He said the public should exercise caution ahead of Thai new year celebrations next week, where crowds traditionally gather across the country. The boisterous holiday tradition of hoards of people cramming into streets to hurl water over each other has been prohibited this year to prevent a major contagion.
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Yesterday, US president Joe Biden announced that all US adults would be eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine by 19 April, and that the nation had administered 150m vaccine doses since he took office on 20 January. However, the US may still face an uphill battle to reach the level of vaccination required to reach herd immunity. Giovanni Russonello writes for the New York Times:
A sizable minority of skeptics remain wary of being vaccinated, polls suggest, with questions about the vaccine’s safety lying at the heart of their doubt.
Nearly half of American adults reported that they gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, according to an Axios/Ipsos poll, but there is reason to believe that the rise in vaccinations may taper off soon. Among those who had not gotten a shot, people were more likely to say they would wait a year or longer (25 percent) than to say they’d get the vaccine within a few weeks of it being available (19 percent). Thirty-one percent of Republicans said they were not at all likely to get the shot. Partly driving that is deep-seated wariness among white evangelical Christians, a core part of the Republican base, whom polls have shown to be among the most vaccine-averse populations.
A separate poll released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Washington Post revealed that more than one-third of the country has little confidence that the Covid-19 vaccines have been “properly tested for safety and effectiveness.” Health care workers tracked evenly with the rest of the population in terms of vaccine skepticism: Thirty-six percent of them were not confident.
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A couple of bits of vaccine news from around the world. South Korea’s food and drug safety ministry has granted final approval for the use of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine as the country pushes ahead with its vaccination campaign, report Reuters.
A panel of South Korean advisers last week recommended that the single-dose shot was safe and effective – the country has already approved the AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines for use.
Papua New Guinea, meanwhile, has said it will receive 132,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from India next week. The government told Reuters this is happening even as India moves to curb exports.
Papua New Guinea, which has a population of roughly 9 million, has started a modest vaccination programme using just over 8,000 doses sent by Australia.
It was due to receive 588,000 AstraZeneca doses through the Covax scheme by the end of June, before export restrictions were placed on vaccines produced by the Serum Institute of India. It is unclear how the schedule has been disrupted.
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UK begins rollout of Moderna Covid vaccine in Wales
Yesterday, the UK minister for vaccine rollout Nadhim Zahawi said that the UK was planning to rollout use of the Moderna vaccine as a third option towards the end of April. It’s come around a bit faster than that, and the Moderna vaccine will begin use in Wales today, report Reuters.
“I’m delighted we can start the UK rollout of the Moderna vaccine in west Wales today,” health secretary Matt Hancock said this morning. “Today we start with the third approved vaccine. Wherever you live, when you get the call, get the jab.”
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That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Martin Belam is waiting in the wings. I’ll see you on Thursday.
Osaka and the neighbouring prefectures of Hyogo and Miyagi started targeted lockdown measures for a month from Monday in a bid to rein in a more virulent strain of the virus that has been spreading.
Osaka’s infections have exceeded those in the much larger city of Tokyo in recent days.
Prime minister Yoshihide Suga said on Sunday emergency measures employed in the Osaka area could be extended to Tokyo and elsewhere if needed.
Japan’s vaccination drive is far behind that of most major economies.
About 1 million people in Japan have had at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot since February, which is less than 1% of the population, compared with almost 2% in South Korea, which started its campaign after Japan.
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Osaka expected to declare medical emergency amid case highs
The Japanese metropolis of Osaka is to declare a medical emergency as new Covid-19 infections climb to all-time highs, the Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday.
Reuters: New infections will likely exceed 800 a day and authorities in the prefecture are preparing to declare an emergency as the medical system comes under increasing strain, Kyodo reported, citing officials.
A spokesman for the Osaka prefecture could not confirm that infection figure when contacted by Reuters and said an emergency declaration was still being considered.
Health authorities are worried that variants of the coronavirus are causing a fourth wave of infections with just 107 days until the Tokyo Olympics are due to begin and while a vaccination drive is still in its early stages.
The Osaka government reported 719 new cases on Tuesday, the highest since the pandemic began. Some 70% of hospital beds for severe cases are now occupied, according to official data.
Former Philippine President Joseph Estrada, who is battling Covid, has been put on a ventilator, his son said Tuesday.
AP: The 83-year-old Estrada, the most prominent Filipino politician to test positive for the coronavirus, was hospitalized more than a week ago and initially was recovering well, said his son, former Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.
But on Monday, “my father’s condition suffered a setback,” he said in a medical bulletin posted on Facebook, adding that doctors decided to put the former president on a ventilator “to improve oxygen delivery as well as to prevent the tiring of his respiratory mechanism.”
“My father has always been a fighter and I hope that with the help of your prayers, he will win this battle,” he said.
Another Estrada son, former Sen. JV Ejercito, also appealed for prayers, saying in a tweet that “Covid is unpredictable.”
Estrada, a former action film star and veteran politician, won the presidency in 1998 with one of the largest margins in Philippine elections. But his six-year term was cut short after he faced allegations of plunder and was ousted in January 2001 during massive military-backed protests. He denied the charges, which he said were fabricated by his opponents.
One in three Covid survivors diagnosed with mental health condition
One in three people who were severely ill with coronavirus were subsequently diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition within six months of infection, a study has found.
The observational research, which is the largest of its kind, used electronic health records of 236,379 patients mostly from the US and found 34% experienced mental health and neurological conditions afterwards. The most common being anxiety, with 17% of people developing this.
Experts warned that healthcare systems need to be resourced to deal with patients affected by this, which could be “substantial” given the scale of the pandemic. They anticipate that the impact could be felt on health services for many years:
Australia says EU asked it to withdraw Covid vaccine export permit applications
Australia said on Wednesday the European Union asked it to withdraw export permit applications for AstraZeneca PLC’s Covid-19 vaccine, ratcheting up its dispute with Europe over access to pre-purchased inoculations, Reuters reports.
The Australian government has blamed the delay of 3.1 million AstraZeneca doses, that were scheduled to be delivered by the end of March, for falling behind in its own vaccination programme.
The European Union on Tuesday denied blocking the shipments of the vaccine to Australia, and said it was not responsible for AstraZeneca’s failure to uphold commitments to other countries.
The dispute underscores massive shortfalls of the AstraZeneca shot across the EU and the impact of any vaccine export curbs on countries that had pre-ordered doses.
“The EC is arguing semantics but at the end of the day, all we want is what Australians have ordered so we can get more vaccines in arms,” the Australian government said in a statement on Wednesday, referring to the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission.
Canberra said the EC requested Australia withdraw export permit applications and that AstraZeneca has told Canberra that it has not been able to secure an export license from Europe to send the pre-purchased doses to Australia.
“The EC has been absolutely clear in their public and private statements that no further doses of (the AstraZeneca vaccine) are to be released until they have had their own orders fulfilled,” Canberra said.
Australia received an initial shipment of 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in late February, which it said was the last received. It has also imported doses of Pfizer Inc’s vaccine.
The AstraZeneca vaccine arriving from Europe was to underpin the early stages of Australia’s vaccine drive, supplementing 50 million shots of the vaccine that will be produced locally by CSL Ltd.
Australia has recorded just 909 Covid-19 deaths since the pandemic began, a small number compared to most nations.
But its inoculation programme is running behind schedule with only about 670,000 people vaccinated against an initial target of 4 million by March-end.
AstraZeneca did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.
EU drug agency to respond to AstraZeneca blood clot concerns
Europe’s drug regulator has denied it has already established a causal connection between the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and a rare blood clotting syndrome, after a senior official from the agency said there was a link.
In a statement to Agence France-Presse, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Tuesday it had “not yet reached a conclusion and the review is currently ongoing”, adding that it expected to announce its findings on Wednesday or Thursday.
Marco Cavaleri, the EMA’s head of vaccines, had earlier told Italy’s Il Messaggero newspaper that in his opinion “we can say it now, it is clear there is a link with the vaccine … But we still do not know what causes this reaction.”
Concerns over rare but serious blood clotting events in a small number of recipients have dogged the shot in recent weeks, with more than a dozen European countries briefly suspending its use last month pending an EMA investigation:
New Delhi under pandemic night curfew
The Indian capital on Tuesday imposed an immediate night curfew one day after the nation posted a record coronavirus surge, with financial hub Mumbai also introducing similar restrictions, AFP reports.
Alarm has grown since India passed more than 100,000 new cases in a single day for the first time on Monday.
New Delhi, home to 25 million people, and other major cities have all ordered a clampdown on public movement.
The Delhi regional government said the “sudden increase in Covid-19 cases” and “high positivity rate” meant a night curfew was needed.
The ban will be in place each night from 10:00 pm to 5:00 am through the end of April, with only essential services or people travelling to and from vaccination centres allowed on the streets.
After the start of the curfew late Tuesday, shops and street vendors that would usually be open were closed, but there was still a regular amount of night traffic on some roads.
Delhi reported 3,548 new positive cases on Monday, still below its peak of nearly 9,000 in November, when it was one of the worst-hit cities across the nation of 1.3 billion people.
The government has so far shied away from a repeat of the nationwide restrictions imposed in March last year - one of the world’s toughest lockdowns - as it seeks to revive the country’s devastated economy.
But India’s wealthiest state Maharashtra, which includes Mumbai, on Sunday announced a weekend lockdown and night curfew on its population of 110 million.
The state currently accounts for more than half of new cases reported each day nationwide.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
Europe’s drug regulator has denied it has already established a causal connection between the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and a rare blood clotting syndrome, after a senior official from the agency said there was a link. It expects to announce its findings on Wednesday or Thursday.
Meanwhile in India, Delhi’s government has imposed a night curfew taking effect from today until 30 April. The curfew will be in place from 10pm to 5am every day.
- AstraZeneca jab trial on children paused as UK regulator investigates rare blood clots in adults. A vaccine trial into the safety and efficacy of the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine in children has been paused while the UK medicines regulator investigates a possible link to rare blood clots in adults who had the jab.
- Brazil breaks national daily Covid deaths record. Brazil’s coronavirus catastrophe has deepened further after more than 4,000 daily deaths were reported for the first time since the outbreak began in February last year.
- France logs highest number of intensive care Covid patients in a year. France’s health ministry reported on Tuesday that the number of people in intensive care with Covid-19 had increased by 193 in the space of 24 hours to 5,626, the highest number for almost a year.
- For time being ‘no evidence’ benefit-risk assessment for AstraZeneca jab needs changing, WHO says. The World Health Organization (WHO) expects there will be no reason to change its assessment that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19 outweigh any risks, its regulatory director said on Tuesday.
- Turkey records highest ever daily infections tally. Turkey recorded 49,584 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed on Tuesday, the highest level since the start of the pandemic.
- Canada gripped by ‘very serious’ third wave, PM says. Canada’s Covid-19 hospitalisations are surging, intensive care beds are filling up and coronavirus variants are spreading as a third wave of the pandemic sweeps across much of the country, the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said on Tuesday.
- “Travesty” that some countries lack access to Covid vaccines, WHO says. It is a travesty that some countries still have not had enough access to vaccines to begin inoculating health workers and the most vulnerable people against Covid-19, the head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
- Indonesia reports first case of new contagious, more vaccine-resistant virus variant. Indonesia has reported its first case of a more transmissible new variant of the coronavirus known for reducing vaccine protection, but the government on Tuesday said vaccines being used in the country could withstand the mutation.
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