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Moderna Inc said on Tuesday it had secured a new Covid-19 vaccine supply agreement with Israel for 2022, under which the country has the option to buy doses of one of the company’s variant-specific vaccine candidates.
The announcement follows two earlier agreements between Israel and Moderna to supply a total of 10 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Moderna’s Covid-19 booster vaccine is in early-stage trials. The company in April said it should be able to provide a booster shot for protection against variants of the novel coronavirus by the end of this year.
Israel has agreed with Pfizer Inc and Moderna to buy 16 million more vaccine doses for the country’s 9.3 million population, the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in televised remarks on Tuesday.
The UK government has launched an antiviral taskforce to find at least two drugs by autumn that people could take at home as pills or capsules at home to stop coronavirus infections turning into serious illness and speed recovery times.
But these will not be the first medicines to have shown promise in the treatment of Covid-19. In this explainer, the Guardian’s health editor, Sarah Boseley, looks at some that been found to help in the pandemic so far:
Canada and the United States on Tuesday extended a land-border closure for non-essential travellers, and air passengers arriving in Canada will continue to be tested for Covid-19 ahead of a hotel quarantine period, authorities said.
The land-border restrictions, imposed in March 2020, have been extended to 21 May, Reuters reports. Now in place for 13 months, they are being renewed month by month. Mexico said late on Monday it was maintaining some of its border curbs too.
The US Department of Homeland Security said it was “engaged in discussions with Canada and Mexico about easing restrictions as health conditions improve”.
The restrictions have hit many border communities and businesses hard. Many US lawmakers have urged loosening the restrictions or setting a road map to resuming normalised travel.
But Canada lags the US on vaccinations against coronavirus, and much of the country is now fighting a virulent third wave with school and business closures.
Canada’s mandatory three-day hotel quarantine following testing at airports, which was introduced as a temporary measure to discourage spring break travel, was also extended to 21 May, health authorities said.
In February, Canada began testing and requiring international air arrivals to pay for a three-day hotel quarantine, a measure criticised by airlines squeezed by the pandemic. More flight restrictions may be coming.
“We are continuing to look at more [measures],” the prime minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference. “I have asked our officials to look carefully at, for example, what the UK has done very recently on suspending flights from India.”
Quebec’s premier Francois Legault also expressed concern on Tuesday about international flights from India and Brazil - two of the world’s worst hot spots for the coronavirus.
Air travellers to Canada are required to have had a test within three days of departure, and then again on arrival. If the airport text comes back negative, they can finish a 14-day quarantine at home.
However, data obtained by Reuters showed that more than 1,000 passengers, or 1.5% of those who arrived from 22 February to 25 March, tested positive for Covid-19, raising doubt about a broad easing of restrictions before the summer travel season.
Reuters reports that authorities in the Indian capital Delhi would start running out of medical oxygen by Wednesday, as the prime minister Narendra Modi said the country faced a coronavirus “storm” overwhelming its health system.
Major government hospitals in the city of 20 million people had between eight and 24 hours’ worth of oxygen while some private ones had enough for just four to five hours, said Delhi’s deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia. Calling for urgent help from the federal government, he said:
If we don’t get enough supplies by tomorrow morning, it will be a disaster.
Modi said the federal government was working with local authorities nationwide to ensure adequate supplies of hospital beds, oxygen and anti-viral drugs to combat a huge second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a televised address to the nation, where he urged citizens to stay indoors and not panic amid India’s worst health emergency in memory, he said:
The situation was manageable until a few weeks ago. The second wave of infections has come like a storm. The central and state governments as well as the private sector are together trying to ensure oxygen supplies to those in need. We are trying to increase oxygen production and supply across the country.
Modi faces criticism that his administration lowered its guard when infections fell to a multi-month low in February and allowed religious festivals and political rallies that he himself addressed to go ahead.
The world’s second most populous country and currently the hardest hit by the virus, reported its worst daily death toll on Tuesday, with large parts of the country now under lockdown amid a fast-rising second wave.
The health ministry said 1,761 people had died in the past day, raising India’s death toll to 180,530 - though experts believe India’s actual toll far exceeds the official count.
“While we are making all efforts to save lives, we are also trying to ensure minimal impact on livelihoods and economic activity,” Modi said, urging state governments to use lockdowns only as a last resort.
One local hospital with more than 500 patients on oxygen has enough supplies for only four hours, Delhi’s health minister Satyendar Jain said late on Tuesday.
Tata Group, one of India’s biggest business conglomerates, said it was importing 24 cryogenic containers to transport liquid oxygen and help ease the shortage in the country.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Protection has said all travel should be avoided to India, while the UK prime minister Boris Johnson cancelled a visit to New Delhi that had been scheduled for next week, and his government said it will add India to its travel “red list”.
Several major cities are already reporting far larger numbers of cremations and burials under coronavirus protocols than those in official Covid-19 death tolls, according to crematorium and cemetery workers, the media and a review of government data.
Delhi reported more than 28,000 fresh infections on Tuesday, the highest daily rise ever, with one in three people tested returning a positive result.
“The huge pressure on hospitals and the health system right now will mean that a good number who would have recovered, had they been able to access hospital services, may die,” said Gautam I. Menon, a professor at Ashoka University.
On Tuesday, the health ministry reported 259,170 new infections nationwide - a sixth day over 200,000 and getting closer to the peak of nearly 300,000 seen in the United States in January.
Total coronavirus cases in India are now at 15.32 million, second only to the US, with epidemiologists saying many more infectious new variants of the virus were one of the main factors behind the latest surge in cases.
Reuters reports that an Argentine firm has produced test batches of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, the first in Latin America, with aims to scale up manufacturing of the drug by mid-year as the wider region grapples with a new surge in infections.
Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF and Laboratorios Richmond said on Tuesday that the Argentina pharmaceutical company had carried out the test production and that the batches would be sent to Russia’s Gamaleya Institute for quality inspection.
“We estimate that, if the process is positive, scale production would begin in June 2021,” Richmond said in a statement, adding it aimed to have the vaccine ready “in the shortest possible time for the country and the region.”
Argentina’s inoculation program has relied heavily on Sputnik V. The South American country was one of the first globally to use the vaccine on scale to inoculate its population and has faced delays getting other vaccines.
The country has seen Covid cases hit daily records highs over the last week, forcing the government to tighten restrictions in and around the capital Buenos Aires and pledge to speed up its vaccination program.
Russian scientist Denis Logunov, a lead developer of the Sputnik V vaccine, said on Friday that the vaccine had proven itself 97.6% effective against Covid-19 in a real-world assessment, based on data from 3.8 million people.
That was higher than the 91.6% rate outlined in results from a large-scale trial of Sputnik V published in The Lancet medical journal earlier this year.
Israel is planning a second round of Covid-19 vaccination in six months, by which point it expects children to be approved by health regulators to receive jabs, the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
Around 81% of Israeli citizens or residents over 16 - the age group eligible for the Pfizer vaccine in Israel - have received both doses in one of the world’s fastest rollouts.
Reuters reports that Israel has said it plans to administer vaccines to 12- to 15-year-olds upon approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Pfizer and its partner BioNTech requested emergency FDA authorisation earlier this month for use in that age group.
In televised remarks on Tuesday, Netanyahu said Israel had agreed with Pfizer and Moderna to buy 16 million more doses for the country’s 9.3 million population, adding:
We are preparing for another vaccination campaign in six months’ time.
Get your shoulders ready and your muscles, if you want, and also the kids, because we estimate there will be approved vaccines by then, for children.
Inoculating children and young people is considered a critical step toward reaching herd immunity and taming the pandemic, according to many experts. Pfizer says its vaccine is safe, effective and produces robust antibody responses in 12- to 15-year-olds.
Pfizer’s chief executive has said that people will “likely” need a third booster shot of the drugmaker’s two-dose vaccine within 12 months and could need annual shots.
Iceland’s government said on Tuesday it would propose tightening some of its border controls in order to ease domestic Covid-19 restrictions, Reuters reports.
Passengers entering Iceland from countries with high infection rates - 1,000 infections per 100,000 inhabitants - will need to go into quarantine, while authorities can also prohibit unnecessary travel to Iceland from those countries.
The changes will take effect from 22 April to 30 June. Rules currently in place regarding vaccine certificates remain unchanged until 1 June.
“The aim is to create conditions that make it possible to lift as many domestic restrictions as possible, despite the widespread spread of the epidemic abroad,” the government said in a statement.
Good evening from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Summary of today's developments
- The European Medicines Agency has stated that the overall benefits of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine outweigh any risks after eight cases of unusual blood clots, including one death, were reported in the US out of 7 million people vaccinated.
- The EU drug regulator also said a warning about very rare blood clots should be added to label of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after finding a “possible link” between the shot and the clots.
- The Netherlands will resume its use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine from Wednesday, Dutch health minister Hugo de Jonge has announced following the European drug regulator’s statement earlier on Tuesday.
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Spanish health officials have rejected a proposal to widen the interval between first and second vaccine doses, Reuters reports, citing an announcement on Cadena Ser radio on Tuesday.
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Yemen started its vaccine rollout on Tuesday, with government-held areas in the war-torn country administering the first doses three weeks after initial supplies arrived.
- The US has warned against travel to India, where cases are rising to staggering levels and a new coronavirus variant has been detected.
- Authorities will impose a strict lockdown this week on India’s western state of Maharashtra, the worst-hit state in India’s latest coronavirus wave, Reuters reports two senior ministers as saying.
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Sweden will give people under 65 who have had an initial AstraZeneca vaccine dose a different vaccine for the second dose, the country’s health agency said on Tuesday.
That’s it from me for today – my colleague Lucy Campbell will be here soon to take you through the rest of the evening. Thanks for reading along.
Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has predicted the country will soon return to normality saying “the health crisis in one way or another is reaching its end”.
Addressing members of his New Democracy party, the centre right leader appeared upbeat this evening declaring the country’s vaccination drive had intensified dramatically.
“Vaccinations will increase even more over the next two months. The weather will help, self-tests will help … it’s only a matter of time, which I think we’ll be in a position to determine with greater precision in the coming days, that we’ll begin to return to normality and economic activity will start to pick up.”
The date on everyone’s calendar, he said, was mid-May – the date set to reopen the country to foreign tourism, provided visitors had been vaccinated against Covid-19 or had proof of testing negative for the virus.
Mitsotakis, whose business-friendly government has put foreign investment high on the agenda, also said he was optimistic about Greece’s economic prospects despite the pandemic’s crippling effects hampering recovery from its long running debt crisis.
“On the one hand we have the Recovery Fund, and on the other European structural funds,” he said referring to the EU’s regeneration plan, post-pandemic, and monies earmarked for infrastructure improvements in the coming years.
Not everyone is convinced. Greece has also struggled to suppress a third wave of the pandemic. While it has fared better than most countries on the continent handling infection rates, the case load in areas including Athens’ greater Attica region has shot up with the Public Health Organisation, EODY, announcing it had risen by 171% in the heavily populated region between 12 –18 April.
Epidemiologists have blamed the rise on large gatherings of mostly young people in squares particularly at night.
The vaccination drive has also affected foreigners struggling to register on a system that has linked the nation’s inoculation program to possession of a social security number.
Spain rejects proposal to extend interval between vaccine doses
Spanish health officials have rejected a proposal to widen the interval between first and second vaccine doses, according to Reuters’ which cites an announcement on Cadena Ser radio on Tuesday.
The interval between doses of Pfizer and Moderna will be kept to the recommended period of three and four weeks respectively.
It follows a report on Monday in Spanish daily El Mundo that the health ministry was considering delaying second doses for under-80s to maximise the number of people who have received at least one shot.
Some 7.2% of people in Spain have been fully vaccinated while almost 20% have received at least one dose.
Netherlands to resume use of Johnson & Johnson vaccine from Wednesday
The Netherlands will resume its use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine from Wednesday, Dutch health minister Hugo de Jonge has announced following the European drug regulator’s statement earlier on Tuesday.
“The Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be used as planned and we’ll start using it tomorrow”, De Jonge said at a news conference, a few hours after the European Medicines Agency stated that the overall benefits of the vaccine outweigh any risks.
The Netherlands received its first shipment of 79,200 doses from the company on 12 April but has yet to use the vaccine.
The Amsterdam-based EMA said that its safety committee had concluded a warning should be added to the vaccine’s product information, but that the shot’s benefits outweighed its risks.
Its review comes after eight instances of serious cases of unusual blood clots associated with low levels of blood platelets, including one death, were reported in the US. More than seven million people have received J&J’s vaccine.
Updated
India has waived import duties on Covid-19 medicine remdesivir until 31 October as the country faces a record surge in infections that has led to a shortage of the drug.
Reuters writes that the government has also scrapped import duties on beta cyclodextrin, which is used to manufacture the antiviral drug.
The move, announced by the finance minister on Tuesday, comes after a senior government official told Reuters on Monday that the government was planning to waive its 10% customs duty on imported Covid-19 vaccines.
The government has urged Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson to sell their vaccines to India as the it prepares to receive doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
India reported its worst daily death toll of the pandemic on Tuesday, recording more than 1,700 deaths and over 250,000 new infections and in the past 24 hours alone.
Large parts of the country are under tight restrictions, with authorities announcing that the badly-hit state of Maharashtra will enter a strict lockdown this week.
Updated
Greece registered a further 3,789 coronavirus cases and 87 deaths on Tuesday, according to media reports, as the country continues to battle its third wave.
Tuesday’s figures compare with 4,017 infections and 93 deaths reported a week ago.
The country’s total coronavirus caseload is 320,629, alongside 9,627 fatalities.A total of 847 patients are in intensive care while 1,963 have been discharged from ICU.
Updated
Europe’s medicines regulator has found a possible link between Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine and very rare cases of unusual clotting disorders that prompted authorities in Europe and the US to pause the shot’s rollout last week.
The Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a statement on Tuesday its safety committee had concluded a warning should be added to the vaccine’s product information, but that the shot’s benefits outweighed its risks.
The EMA said it had examined eight instances of serious cases of unusual blood clots associated with low levels of blood platelets, including one death, that had occurred in the US, where more than 7 million people have so far received the shot.
Italy has reported 390 coronavirus-related deaths – a fall from 476 last Tuesday. The country also registered 12,074 new cases against 13,439 a week ago.
Italy has registered 117,633 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after the UK and the seventh-highest in the world. The country has reported 3.89 million cases to date, according to Reuters.
There were 23,255 Covid-19 patients in hospital (not including ICU) on Tuesday, while the number of patients in intensive care stood at 3,151, including 182 new admissions.
Some 294,045 tests were carried out in the past day.
The EMA’s Dr Emer Cooke stressed that the blood clot cases are very rare, saying that “in the vast majority of cases, these accines are going to prevent death and hospitalisation from Covid-19, and Covid-19 has a very high mortality rate in a number of populations”.
The briefing has ended now.
Updated
A total of 33,032,120 people in the UK have received an initial dose of a Covid-19 vaccine with more than 10 million people having been given both doses, according to government figures released on Tuesday.
A further 33 deaths within 28 days of a positive test and an additional 2,524 cases were also reported.
The EMA was asked about whether Pfizer and Moderna are also being looked at in regard to reports of blood clots – there are 25 cases of CVST among those who have received the Pfizer jab and five cases in those who have had Moderna.
Dr Straus said the number of cases within the vaccinated population is so low that there “is not a real signal” that an investigation is warranted (as the number of cases is not above the average number expected in an unvaccinated group).
Updated
Asked about additional risk factors alongside taking the vaccine, the EMA’s Dr Straus said that one of the eight patients who reported a blood clot after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was taking oral contraceptive, which she notes is “in itself a risk factor” for cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST).
Other than this case, there were “no specific risk factors” that the EMA knows of in these eight cases, Straus said, adding that further research is underway to see if other factors can be identified.
Speaking at the European Medicines Agency’s press conference on its review of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the EMAs’ Dr Sabine Straus has said it is not possible at this stage to know whether cases of very rare blood clots would occur more or less frequently with the J&J jab compared to AstraZeneca’s.
Asked about whether J&J will need to undertake more studies before its vaccine is rolled out across Europe, Dr Strauss said it will consider whether the existing research is sufficient or if additional studies are needed.
Updated
Yemen begins vaccination drive
Yemen started its vaccine rollout on Tuesday, with government-held areas in the war-torn country administering the first doses three weeks after initial supplies arrived.
According to Reuters, the campaign was launched in the government-held southern port city of Aden, with the health minister and the Yemen representative for Unicef, Philippe Duamelle, receiving jabs in order to bolster confidence in the rollout.
The programme will prioritise frontline workers, elderly people and those with certain health problems, Duamelle said.
Cases – both confirmed and suspected – have jumped in the country since mid-February, hitting a health system broken by a six-year war and economic crisis.
Although Tuesday’s rollout involved only government-held areas, a member of the government’s emergency coronavirus committee said the WHO will send 10,000 doses to the Houthi-controlled city of Sanaa.
Updated
That’s it from me for now — Rhi Storer — for this afternoon. I will now hand the liveblog back over to my colleague Clea Skopeliti.
European Medicines Agency has found “possible link” between Johnson & Johnson vaccine and blood clots
Experts at the European Medicines Agency say they have found a “possible link” between the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine and very rare blood clots after a small number of cases were reported in the US.
The agency has said a warning about very unusual blood clots should be added to labels for Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine.
Last week, Johnson & Johnson halted its European rollout of the vaccine after US officials recommended a pause in the vaccine, after detecting six very rare blood clot cases among nearly 7 million people who had been vaccinated.
European officials said they considered all currently available evidence from the US, including eight reports of serious cases of rare blood clots associated with low blood platelets, including one death.
Johnson & Johnson advised European governments to store their doses until the EU drug regulator issued guidance on their use; widespread use of the shot in Europe has not yet started.
The delay is a further blow to vaccination efforts in the European Union, which have been plagued by supply shortages, logistical problems, and concerns over blood clots from those who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Updated
Rahul Gandhi, an opposition Congress party leader, has said he has tested positive for coronavirus after experiencing mild symptoms.
Gandhi, 50, said in a tweet on Tuesday “All those who’ve been in contact with me recently, please follow all safety protocols and stay safe.”
After experiencing mild symptoms, I’ve just tested positive for COVID.
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 20, 2021
All those who’ve been in contact with me recently, please follow all safety protocols and stay safe.
Gandhi last week called off political rallies in West Bengal state where provincial elections are being held.
On Monday, another Congress party leader and former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, also tested positive. He has been hospitalised as a precaution, citing a mild fever on Sunday.
India’s health ministry reported 259,170 new infections and 1,761 deaths on Tuesday. The country has reported daily infections above the 200,000 mark for six days.
Updated
Hi there, this is Rhi Storer taking over from my colleague Clea Skopeliti for the next hour. You can email me your contributions over at rhi.storer@guardian.co.uk, or alternatively, you can message me on Twitter.
Faced with a shortage of foreign migrant workers due to the coronavirus pandemic, Russia is using soldiers to expand its railways, Reuters reports.
Russia’s Baikal-Amur Mainline railway is being extended to transport more coal and metal cargo to ports for export to Asia in a construction project costed at around 6tn roubles ($79bn).
However, the pandemic has seen vast numbers of migrant workers leave the country over the last year. Citing police data, the Tass agency said last year numbers fell to 5.5 million from at least 9 million previously.
Andrei Makarov, deputy general director at Russian Railways, said the state company that runs the national rail network is short of between 3,000 to 4,000 workers due to the pandemic.
Updated
France has become the first EU member state to begin testing a digital coronavirus travel certificate as part of a Europe-wide scheme Brussels hopes will allow people to travel more freely within the bloc by the summer.
The TousAntiCovid app, part of the country’s contact-tracing programme, has been upgraded to store negative Covid-19 test results on travellers’ mobile phones and is being trialled on flights to Corsica and overseas départements from this week.
The trial will be extended from 29 April to include vaccination certificates, officials told Le Monde, and the system could eventually be adopted for public events such as concerts, festivals and trade fairs, although not for bars and restaurants.
Updated
India's Maharashtra state to enter stringent lockdown next week
Authorities will impose a strict lockdown this week on India’s western state of Maharashtra, the worst-hit state in India’s latest coronavirus wave, Reuters reports two senior ministers as saying.
Infections have continued to rise in Maharashtra, home to the financial capital Mumbai, despite restrictions imposed earlier this month, state health minister Rajesh Tope said.
The new lockdown will “be like last year,” Tope said.
The state also plans to import vaccines to hasten the vaccine rollout, he said.
The new variant discovered in India is understood to have begun spreading in Maharashtra between December 2020 and March this year. The variant, named B.1.617, has reportedly risen to more than 60% of cases in the region since then.
The US has warned against travel to India, where cases are rising to staggering levels and a new coronavirus variant has been detected.
India has registered more than 3 million new infections and 18,000 deaths this month, AFP reports, ,making its caseload second only to the US.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that “even fully vaccinated travellers” should avoid travelling to India. It comes after the State Department said on Monday it would advise against travel to about 80% of the world’s countries.
Updated
On Hydra, the Greek isle long famous for an artistic community that once included Leonard Cohen, expatriates are not having a good pandemic.
Roger Green, a British writer who has lived on the island since the early 1990s, says some expats are afraid to leave their homes.
“The vaccination process has passed us by,” he said. “I know people like me who are in their 80s and are afraid to go out at all. We’re not complainers, we love Greece, but for most foreigners here, at least, the system isn’t working.”
Hydra is far from alone. In a country that has linked its inoculation drive to ownership of a social security (AMKA) number, countless overseas residents have reported being in the same predicament. Although desperate to have the jab, many say that, without the number, they’ve been unable even to get to the stage where they can book a vaccine appointment.
Helena Smith and Sam Jones report:
Updated
Swedes under 65 to be given alternative to AstraZeneca for second dose
Sweden will give people under 65 who have had an initial AstraZeneca vaccine dose a different vaccine for the second dose, the country’s health agency said on Tuesday.
“People under the age of 65 who have already received a dose of Vaxzevria should instead be offered a second dose of so-called mRNA vaccine, such as PfizerBiontech or Moderna,” the health agency said in a statement reported by Reuters.
Sweden suspended its use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in March after reports of very rare blood clots among people who had received the jab. Sweden later resumed use but only for people aged 65 or above.
Last week, the country announced it would pause plans to start vaccinations using Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine following reports of rare blood clots similar to those reported with AstraZeneca’s shot.
Updated
Coronavirus infections in Turkey amount to nearly 1% of the country’s working age population, a calculation based on health ministry data has shown as cases surge in the nation of 84 million.
The figure, calculated by Reuters, is based on the fact that there are around 551,000 active cases in the country which has a working age population of about 57 million. It factored in official death tolls, recoveries and total cases.
In the last two days, only India – with a population of more than 1.36 billion – has surpassed Turkey’s number of cases. When taking a slightly longer view with a seven-day rolling average, Reuters data shows India ranks fourth globally in new cases.
It comes as deaths hit the record figure of 341 on Monday, despite more than 20m vaccines doses having been administered, including nearly 8m second shots.
Turkey has relied on Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine, adding Pfizer’s jab to its supplies this month.
Updated
The head of the International Air Transport Association has blasted expensive coronavirus tests required of people travelling to the UK as a “scam”.
The required test packages cost about £100 – often pricier than the cost of a short-haul flight.
“Nobody will object to having systems in place to protect health and making sure that people can travel safely. But everybody should object when we see evidence of people being ripped off,” IATA boss Willie Walsh said during an online conference, AFP reports.
“This is nonsense. It’s a scam, let’s call it what it is,” he added, warning that “we can’t have a situation where only the wealthy are in a position to travel”.
Updated
France administered 2.5m Covid-19 vaccine doses last week, the country’s health ministry has announced, as its vaccination programme gathers pace.
The take-up rate for AstraZeneca stood at 73%, compared with 91% for Pfizer’s jab as of 18 April, according to a statement by the ministry reported by Reuters.
France’s vaccine rollout has picked up speed in recent weeks after a slow start due to supply issues.
It comes as the EU announced it will have enough vaccine doses to cover 70% of its adult population by mid-July due to higher production within the bloc. Internal markets commissioner Thierry Breton told French daily Le Figaro that Europe is now the second biggest vaccine producer in the world after the US, with 53 factories in the EU.
The 70% figure is widely considered to be the threshold for herd immunity.
Updated
Israel and the UK are considering creating a travel corridor given the success of both countries’ vaccine rollouts, Reuters reports Israeli’s foreign ministry as saying.
An Israeli statement said Israeli foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi and British cabinet office minister Michael Gove discussed the possibility during a meeting Jerusalem.
“We will promote, together with the UK, mutual recognition of vaccines in order to allow tourists and business people from both countries to safely return to their routines,” the statement quoted Ashkenazi as saying.
No timeline has been given for the “green travel corridor” as of yet. It is understood that the measure would only apply to vaccinated travellers.
Israel last week said it will start allowing entry to some vaccinated tourists as of 23 May after shutting its borders at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Updated
Johnson & Johnson has requested approval from India’s regulator to carry out a bridging clinical study of its vaccine in the country, the pharmaceutical firm has said in a statement reported by Reuters.
The application comes after India announced last week it would fast-track emergency approvals for vaccines that have been granted emergency authorisation in other countries.
Vaccines authorised by the World Health Organization or in the US, the EU, the UK and Japan “may be granted emergency use approval in India, mandating the requirement of post-approval parallel bridging clinical trial”, the health ministry previously said in a statement.
India is facing a dramatic surge in cases and a new variant of coronavirus that has spread to other countries. The variant, named B.1.617, is understood to have spread in the western state of Maharashtra between December 2020 and March this year.
Updated
Malaysia’s opposition MPs are calling on the country’s king to end the country’s state of emergency so that parliament can resume, AP reports.
The king approved prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s move to place the country into a state of emergency due to the coronavirus crisis in January, but opponents say it was used as a pretext to fend off criticism. Parliament is suspended to 1 August and the government is able to pass laws without parliamentary oversight.
The opposition’s charge is being led by former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, 95, who has submitted a petition for the king to end the emergency. More than 39,000 Malaysians have signed the online petition.
“This declaration of a state of emergency is not about fighting Covid-19. Not at all … it is about a weak government wanting to stay in power,” Mahathir wrote on his blog.
The government’s critics also say that the state of emergency has failed to curb infections, with Malaysia’s total cases more than doubling to over 379,000 since January. Although parliament has remained suspended since January, retail and schools have since been reopened.
Hello, this is Clea Skopeliti taking over the blog for the next few hours. If you want to let me know about a story from your part of the world, you can reach me via email or Twitter DM. Thanks in advance.
Updated
Today so far …
- The EU will have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses to cover 70% of its adult population by mid-July, internal markets commissioner Thierry Breton told French daily Le Figaro in an interview.
- The European Medicines Agency is preparing to present the conclusions of its investigation into possible links between the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine and very rare cases of unusual clotting disorders detected in the US.
- The US state department is planning to drastically ratchet up the warnings it is giving Americans about international travel during the pandemic. Roughly 80% of countries worldwide would soon be marked at the highest warning of “Level 4: Do Not Travel”.
- Osaka prefecture in Japan is expected today to ask the government to declare a state of emergency in the region, the country’s third most populous.
- Some police forces in England and Wales did not follow self-isolation rules after staff came into contact with someone who had coronavirus symptoms, according to inspectors.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson is expected to hold a coronavirus press conference this afternoon, after the UK put India on its “red list” of travel destinations.
- Israel has registered eight cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in India, and believes that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is at least partially effective against it, an Israeli health official said.
- In Australia, it has emerged that less than 7% of disability care residents have received a dose of Covid vaccine, leaving 25,000 residents unvaccinated despite being in the top priority group.
- World leaders are facing a call to act immediately to stop multiple famines breaking out, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and caused by conflict, climate crisis and inequality.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, today. My colleague Clea Skopeliti will be here in just a second to take you through the rest of the day’s global coronavirus developments. If you prefer just the news from the UK, then Andrew Sparrow has our UK covid live blog here.
Updated
Lockdown in Netherlands expected to be eased from next week
Lockdown measures in the Netherlands are expected to be eased from next week as pressure to reopen society mounts despite still-high coronavirus infection rates, Dutch broadcasters reported this morning.
Reuters report that broadcasters NOS and RTL, citing government sources, said that a nationwide nighttime curfew that has been in place for three months will be lifted on 28 April. Bars and restaurants will be allowed to gradually reopen next week.
Prime minister Mark Rutte is set to announce the measures at a news conference planned for 1900 CET (1700 GMT).
The Netherlands has been in varying stages of lockdown for more than six months, as all bars and restaurants have been closed since mid-October and public gatherings of more than two people are banned.
Since the start of the pandemic more than 1.4 million coronavirus infections have been confirmed in the Netherlands, with more than 20,000 deaths.
Opinion polls have shown support for lockdown measures is waning, and hospitality associations and mayors from major cities have argued that the ban on outdoor dining spaces should be removed immediately, citing large numbers of people gathering in parks.
EU will have enough vaccine doses to cover 70% of adults by mid-July
The EU will have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses to cover 70% of its adult population by mid-July due to higher production within the bloc.
“Fifty-three factories are producing vaccines in the EU. Our continent is now the largest producer in the world after the United States,” internal markets commissioner Thierry Breton told French daily Le Figaro in an interview.
“I am now certain of how many doses are currently in production and I know how many millions will be delivered each week,” he said. “This allows me to assure you that we well have by mid-July the number of doses necessary for vaccinating 70% of the European Union’s adult population.”
The 70% number is significant as experts often consider it to be the threshold for herd immunity.
Agence France-Presse notes that EU governments have faced fierce criticism over the bloc’s joint vaccine procurement efforts, which saw a slow start to its inoculation drive even as programmes raced ahead in Britain and the US.
Already half of American adults have had at least one dose, and as of Monday anyone over 18 can sign up for a shot. In the EU, by contrast, just over 20 percent of adults have received at least one jab, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Breton insisted Europe would catch up in the coming months, with production capacity “that will reach 200m doses a month by this summer”.
But he poured cold water on the idea of using Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine anytime soon. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is evaluating Sputnik’s safety and efficiency, but “it still lacks some essential data,” Breton said.
And even if approved, “we’ll have to find production capacity, because the Russians do not have large production sites and are looking for industrial partners in Europe which are already fully mobilised. For all these reasons, I don’t think significant quantities of Sputnik will be available for Europe before the end of 2021,” he said.
Updated
In Australia, less than 7% of disability care residents have so far received a dose of Covid vaccine, leaving 25,000 residents unvaccinated despite being in the top priority group.
Federal health department officials revealed on Tuesday that aged care residents had been prioritised meaning residents of 6,000 disability care facilities were yet to receive even one dose.
The department secretary, Prof Brendan Murphy, confirmed at the Senate Covid-19 inquiry that Australia was still aiming to vaccinate its entire vulnerable population by mid-year. But he refused to provide updated targets for the broader vaccination program citing increased hesitancy and uncertainty of supply.
Murphy conceded a warning against giving AstraZeneca to people aged under 50 due to rare blood clots has caused a rise in vaccine hesitancy, although the chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, argued this was also being driven by decreasing rates of people believing they were at risk of contracting Covid-19.
The Covid-19 inquiry hearing comes as Australia’s vaccination program is being redesigned, with a plan to accelerate the rollout for over 50 year olds set to be approved at national cabinet on Thursday.
Australia’s rollout is structured by priority cohorts, starting with the 1a group that includes quarantine and front-line health workers along with aged and disability care workers and residents.
Read more of Paul Karp and Sarah Martin’s report here: Less than 7% of disability care residents in Australia have received Covid jab
Updated
Overnight Hannah Sampson at the Washington Post brings us the news that the US state department is planning to drastically ratchet up the warnings it is giving Americans about international travel during the pandemic. She writes:
In a statement, the department said roughly 80 percent of countries worldwide would soon be marked at the highest warning of “Level 4: Do Not Travel”. As of Monday afternoon, about 16 percent of countries had that label.
“This alignment better reflects the current, unpredictable, and ever-evolving threat posed by covid-19,” the department said in an email. “We continue to strongly recommend U.S. citizens reconsider all travel abroad, and postpone their trips if possible.”
In a media note, the department said the change doesn’t “imply a reassessment of the current health situation in a given country,” but instead indicates a change in the advisory system to rely more heavily on information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC said earlier this month that fully vaccinated people can travel at low risk. But officials also said they still did not recommend travel because of rising cases in the United States and globally.
Read more here: Washington Post – State Department to designate most countries with ‘Do Not Travel’ advisory
My colleague Andrew Sparrow has launched our UK covid and politics news live blog for today – so if you are after UK news, that is where you can head…
I’ll be here keeping you up to date with coronavirus developments from around the globe.
One of the main set-pieces we are expecting in the diary today is the European Medicines Agency preparing to present the conclusions of their investigation into possible links between the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine and very rare cases of unusual clotting disorders detected in the US.
Maria Cheng tees it up for Associated Press, noting that last week, Johnson & Johnson halted its European rollout of its one-dose vaccine after the US Food and Drug Administration recommended officials pause its use while the rare blood clot cases are examined. Officials identified six cases of the highly unusual blood clots among nearly 7 million people who were immunised with the shot in the US.
Johnson & Johnson advised European governments to store their doses until the EU drug regulator issued guidance on their use; widespread use of the shot in Europe has not yet started. Experts worry the temporary halt on Johnson & Johnson’s shot could further shake vaccine confidence and complicate worldwide Covid-19 immunisation efforts.
Last week, South Africa suspended its use of the vaccine in the wake of the US pause, and countries including Italy, Romania, the Netherlands, Denmark and Croatia put their Johnson & Johnson doses into storage.
The blood clots linked to the J&J vaccine are occurring in unusual parts of the body, such as veins that drain blood from the brain. Those patients also have abnormally low levels of blood platelets, a condition normally linked to bleeding, not clotting.
With the AstraZeneca vaccine, scientists in Norway and Germany have suggested that some people are experiencing an abnormal immune system response, forming antibodies that attack their own platelets. It’s not yet clear if there might be a similar mechanism with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Updated
Already facing one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in Asia, the Philippines has seen a second wave of infections that is stretching health care workers in the capital like never before.
“The situation is more severe now. This is version 2.0. The cases are higher, we are more exhausted,” 28-year-old ambulance nurse Nick Yañez told Reuters
The country has averaged more than 10,400 daily Covid-19 cases since the start of April, nearly double the level in March and far above the 213 per day in April 2020 and 2,169 in the second half of last year, health ministry data showed.
A two-week lockdown of the capital region, an urban sprawl of 16 cities that is home to at least 13 million people, appears to have done little to ease the strain on the medical system.
Intensive-care units in the Manila area are at 84% capacity, while 70% of Covid-19 ward beds and 63% of isolation beds were full as of 19 April 19, government data showed.
The health minister said on Friday more than 1,400 beds would be added in the capital area and more than 100 health care workers from other parts of the country brought in to help.
For Encarnita Blanco-Limpin, a doctor at the Philippine Heart Center, the help is welcome. But she said that contact tracing must be improved and more vaccines distributed to take the pressure off hospitals.
“Our emergency room is running at 200% capacity,” said Blanco-Limpin, who recently was infected with Covid-19. “Many of these coronavirus patients are not on beds, some of them are being treated while in sitting positions.”
Updated
Some police forces in England and Wales did not follow self-isolation rules after staff came into contact with someone who had coronavirus symptoms, according to inspectors.
Amid “confusion” over the requirements and concerns about the “potential adverse effect of losing resources”, some instigated their own regimes that were contrary to national guidance or may have broken the law, a report found.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services said some forces “did not appear to follow the national requirement for self-isolating for test, track and trace”.
Its latest report said: “Forces sometimes saw self-isolation as unnecessary and possibly resulting in relatively large numbers of staff being told to isolate within some teams.
“Some forces therefore created their own systems to reduce self-isolation for staff not displaying symptoms, contrary to national guidance.
“We also heard about force policies where senior officers did risk assessments to circumvent the need to self-isolate. This was after staff told them they had received a direction from the app or the national contact tracing service to self-isolate.
“Again, this was contrary to national guidance and, in the case of a direction from the NHS contact trace service, a criminal offence under the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) Regulations 2020.”
Read more here: Some police forces in England and Wales did not follow Covid rules, say inspectors
AFP offers this as a reminder that the pandemic situation in Japan appears to be worsening, even as the summer Olympics come closer.
The country’s third most populated region is expected today to formally ask the central government to impose a state of emergency. Osaka prefecture only lifted a state of emergency two months ago and restrictions are expected to be tougher this time, possibly involving store and shopping mall closures. That would still fall short of the lockdowns seen in many other parts of the world..
Tokyo and several other areas are expected to follow suit, hoping to avoid the crisis now facing Osaka’s healthcare system, where beds for coronavirus patients in severe condition have run out.
Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura said he had already told the minister overseeing the coronavirus response, Yasutoshi Nishimura, that a state of emergency was needed as measures taken so far “are not enough”.
The request is expected to come later today, with official approval from the government following in the evening. “I believe now is the time to take strong measures for a short period of time,” Yoshimura told reporters.
“The flow of people and the fast pace of the variant strains are causing surges,” he warned, calling for the closure of shopping malls, amusement parks and department stores. He also urged people to move to teleworking, warning that otherwise “we won’t be able to curb the flow of people”.
Osaka is already under virus restrictions that mostly call for restaurants and bars to close by 8pm and urge residents to avoid unnecessary outings.
According to local media, Tokyo also plans to request the government declare a state of emergency this week. And at least two regions neighbouring Osaka are reportedly planning on requesting the measure.
Japan’s government says they will have sufficient supply by September to vaccinate everyone over the age of 16 in the country of 125 million, but a timeline for completing the vaccinations is not yet clear.
Updated
Some advance notice that in the UK we are expecting prime minister Boris Johnson to hold a coronavirus press conference this afternoon.
Finance minister Rishi Sunak has reacted to those earlier jobless figures, saying: “Protecting jobs and the economy has been my main focus since this pandemic began - through the furlough scheme alone we have protected 11.2 million jobs.
“As we progress on our road map to recovery I will continue to put people at the heart of the Government’s response through our Plan for Jobs - supporting and creating jobs across the country.”
Meanwhile Professor Sir Mark Walport, former chief scientific adviser to the UK Government, has told the BBC Breakfast programme that the decision to put India on the travel “red list” may have come a bit late.
“These decisions are almost inevitably taken a bit too late in truth, but what’s absolutely clear is that this variant is more transmissible in India,” he said. “You can see that it’s becoming the dominant variant and the other concern about it is that it has a second change in the spike protein which may mean that it’s able to be a bit more effective at escaping an immune response, either a natural one or vaccine-induced one, so there’s good reasons for wanting to keep it out of the country if at all possible.
“What we need to do is get the population vaccinated and also get booster vaccines prepared that will be able to deal with these new variants - so buying time... against these new variants is really important.”
Asked if he felt confident that the next release of restrictions in England would go ahead on 17 May, PA report he said: “So far, so good. The numbers of case are low, but nevertheless, there are still new cases arising, and it’s why data not dates are what matter.”
(March 8, 2021) Step 1, part 1
In effect from 8 March, all pupils and college students returned fully. Care home residents can receive one regular, named visitor.
(March 29, 2021) Step 1, part 2
In effect from 29 March, outdoor gatherings allowed of up to six people, or two households if this is larger, not just in parks but also gardens. Outdoor sport for children and adults allowed. The official stay at home order ends, but people will be encouraged to stay local. People will still be asked to work from home where possible, with no overseas travel allowed beyond the current small number of exceptions.
(April 12, 2021) Step 2
In effect from 12 April, non-essential retail, hair and nail salons, and some public buildings such as libraries and commercial art galleries can reopen. Most outdoor venues can open, including pubs and restaurants, but only for outdoor tables and beer gardens. Customers will have to be seated but there will be no need to have a meal with alcohol.
Also reopening are settings such as zoos and theme parks. However, social contact rules will still apply here, so no indoor mixing between households and limits on outdoor mixing. Indoor leisure facilities such as gyms and pools can also open, but again people can only go alone or with their own household. Reopening of holiday lets with no shared facilities is also allowed, but only for one household. Funerals can have up to 30 attendees, while weddings, receptions and wakes can have 15.
(May 17, 2021) Step 3
Again with the caveat "no earlier than 17 May", depending on data, vaccination levels and current transmission rates.
Step 3 entails that most mixing rules are lifted outdoors, with a limit of 30 people meeting in parks or gardens. Indoor mixing will be allowed, up to six people or, if it is more people, two households. Indoor venues such as the inside of pubs and restaurants, hotels and B&Bs, play centres, cinemas and group exercise classes will reopen. The new indoor and outdoor mixing limits will remain for pubs and other hospitality venues.
For sport, indoor venues can have up to 1,000 spectators or half capacity, whichever is lower; outdoors the limit will be 4,000 people or half capacity, whichever is lower. Very large outdoor seated venues, such as big football stadiums, where crowds can be spread out, will have a limit of 10,000 people, or a quarter full, whichever is fewer. Weddings will be allowed a limit of 30 people, with other events such as christenings and barmitzvahs also permitted.
This will be the earliest date at which international holidays could resume, subject to a separate review.
(June 21, 2021) Step 4
No earlier than 21 June, all legal limits will be removed on mixing, and the last sectors to remain closed, such as nightclubs, will reopen. Large events can take place.
Peter Walker Political correspondent
Israeli official: Pfizer vaccine has some efficacy against Indian variant
One of the worries with the emergence of new coronavirus variants is how vaccines will fare against them. Reuters has this quick note from Dan Williams on events in Israel.
Israel has registered eight cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in India, and believes that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is at least partially effective against it, an Israeli health official said this morning.
An initial seven cases of the Indian variant were detected in Israel last week among people arriving from abroad and who have since undergone preliminary testing, the health ministry said.
“The impression is that the Pfizer vaccine has efficacy against it, albeit a reduced efficacy,” the ministry’s director general, Hezi Levy, told Kan public radio, saying the number of cases of the variant in Israel now stood at eight.
The ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for more details on the research into the Indian variant. Britain and Ireland have also said they are investigating the variant after detecting it within their borders.
Israel, whose population is 9.3 million, has fully vaccinated about 81% of citizens or residents over the age of 16. Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations are down sharply.
Updated
Somewhat lost in the UK yesterday in the furore over the proposed men’s football European Super League, British prime minister Boris Johnson cancelled his much-touted visit to India to help build up post-Brexit trade ties. Following that news, India was placed on the UK’s travel “red list”.
UK education minister Gavin Williamson has this morning been out in the media defending the delay in putting India on the travel “red list” to protect against coronavirus.
PA Media reports he told Sky News: “It’s standard practice to give people a sort of short window in order to be able to manage their affairs. It’s the right approach to do, it’s the approach we’ve taken with other countries around the world when they’ve gone on to the red list.”
Although the government has announced that India will move to the “red list”, it will not take effect until 4am on Friday 23 April. India has recorded nearly 1.6m new coronavirus cases in a week.
Williamson said: “The government continuously reviews the data, continues to review the information we’re getting from the scientific community in terms of what countries should be put onto the red list, and sadly India has been one of those countries that has had to be added.”
If you arrive in the UK from India before 4am Friday 23 April, you must self-isolate for 10 days in the place you’re staying and take a Covid-19 test on day two and day eight. From 4am Friday 23 April, if you have been in India in the previous 10 days, you will only be allowed to enter the UK if you are a British, Irish or third-country national with residency rights and will need to quarantine in a managed quarantine hotel.
Updated
Authorities in Thailand have been attempting to reassure the public that the country has sufficient hospital beds for the rising number of coronavirus patients.
Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat remind us for Reuters that Thailand has been implementing a “zero tolerance” policy for people who test positive. Even those without symptoms are immediately hospitalised if they test positive, prompting concern about the health system’s capacity in the event of a surge in the number of patients with severe symptoms.
Authorities reported 1,443 new coronavirus cases and 4 new deaths today, bringing total infections to 45,185 with 108 fatalities overall. Thailand has been credited for its swift containment of earlier outbreaks, but has yet to start mass vaccinations.
The current wave affecting the country includes the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 or “Kent” variant, which has been blamed for big jumps in infections in many countries, including the Philippines, where hospitals are struggling.
The health ministry has asked all hospitals to increase by 50% or double their intensive care capacity to prepare for a possible rise in more severe cases. Those with mild symptom are being sent to field hospitals and hotels that are being converted into care facilities.
Updated
Primark enjoyed 'record' sales in first week of reduced lockdown
There’s a couple of bits of UK pandemic economy news going through PA Media at the moment. It wasn’t difficult to find people on social media tutting and disapproving of queues outside Primark as non-essential retail opened the other week. The company say this morning that Primark enjoyed “record” sales in England and Wales in the first week of reduced lockdown restrictions allowing stores to reopen.
The news on jobs this morning is not heartening though. The number of UK workers on payrolls dropped by 56,000 last month and has fallen by 813,000 since March 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic, according to Office for National Statistics figures out today.
Updated
Emma Beddington writes for us this morning on one aspect of life in England slowly returning to normal after many months of the pandemic – teenagers getting up to mischief.
I’m not sure what qualifies as a “spate” (is there official guidance?), but there has been a spate-adjacent number of incidents of teenagers getting stuck in baby swings in York recently, solemnly reported in the local paper. I’m delighted by these incidents and what they represent: teenagers being teenagers and doing stupid stuff.
The re-emergence of teenagers, lounging around children’s play areas, treading on municipal tulips, mock (or not mock) fighting and abandoning their cans has prompted a panicked surge of disapproval. They are using “foul” language and causing a “nuisance” and gathering in groups of more than six, people tut, swerving to avoid them. The neighbourhood app Nextdoor is full of complaints about youths “causing absolute mayhem”, as one user put it. Let he or she who has not spun a mate dangerously fast on a roundabout for infants cast the first stone.
Long may it continue. Read more of Emma Beddington’s piece here: An outbreak of post-lockdown teenage mayhem? I’m thrilled to see it
Agence France-Presse has this despatch from the graveyards of India, where it reports that the workload for gravediggers has grown dramatically in the past few weeks in a brutal second wave that has caught authorities badly off guard.
When reporters visited the Jadid Qabristan Ahle cemetery in the Indian capital – which is in a week-long lockdown – on Friday, 11 bodies arrived within three hours.
By sunset, 20 bodies were in the ground. This compares with some days in December and January, when Mohammed Shamim’s earthmoving machine stayed idle and when many thought the pandemic was over.
“Now, it looks like the virus has legs,” Shamim, 38, told AFP. “At this rate, I will run out of space in three or four days.”
Last year Shamim told reporters: “I’ve been burying the dead for the last two decades. But until now, I’ve never been scared for my own life.”
Around the graveyard, white body bags or coffins made out of cheap wood are carried around by people in blue or yellow protective suits and lowered into graves.
Small groups of men, some in Islamic skullcaps, look solemnly at the ground as the imam, struggling to be heard as dust laced with rain swirls around, recites final prayers.
Sobbing women watch from their closed car windows next to the flashing lights of an ambulance as a yellow digger fills up the graves with the dry brown and grey soil.
“Two days ago someone came to me and said he needs to start preparing for his mother because doctors had given up on her,” Shamim said. “It’s unreal. I never thought I’d see the day where I’d have a request for starting the funeral formalities of a living person.”
Officially, almost 180,000 Indians have died from coronavirus, 15,000 of them this month, although some believe the real number may be higher. Social media and newspaper reports have been flooded with horrifying images of row upon row of burning pyres and crematoriums unable to cope.
In Ghaziabad, outside Delhi, television pictures showed bodies wrapped in shrouds lined up on biers on the pavement with weeping relatives waiting for their slot.
In the western state of Gujarat, many crematoriums in Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Ahmedabad are operating around the clock with three to four times more bodies than normal.
The chimney of one electric furnace in Ahmedabad cracked and collapsed after being in constant use for up to 20 hours every day for the past two weeks. The iron frames inside another in the industrial diamond hub of Surat melted because there was no time to let the furnaces cool.
“Until last month we were cremating 20-odd bodies per day … But since the beginning of April we have been handling over 80 bodies every day,” said a local official at the Ramnath Ghela Crematorium in the city.
Updated
Helena Smith in Athens and Sam Jones in Madrid report for us this morning on a problem facing British immigrants to Greece – that they are unable to get vaccinated because they lack vital government documentation:
Roger Green, a British writer who has lived on the Greek island of Hydra since the early 90s, says some older islanders are afraid to leave their homes.
“The vaccination process has passed us by,” he said. “I know people like me who are in their eighties and are afraid to go out at all. We’re not complainers, we love Greece but for most foreigners here, at least, the system isn’t working.”
Hydra is far from being alone. In a country that has linked its inoculation drive to ownership of a social security (AMKA) number, countless overseas residents have reported being in the same predicament. Although desperate to have the jab, many say without the number they’ve been unable even to get to the stage where they can book a vaccine appointment.
An attempt by the Greek government to resolve the oversight – passing legislation earlier this month that allows foreigners to obtain temporary AMKA registration – has largely failed to address the problem. The law applies to permanent residents and those who have elected to see out the pandemic in Greece.
“Almost no AMKA numbers granted in the 2021 calendar year actually work on the vaccine website,” said Rebecca Lieb, who moved to Greece from New York under the Golden Visa scheme offering residence in return for real estate investments to non EU-nationals.
From her home on the Pelion peninsula, Lieb has become a leading voice in the vociferous campaign to “rectify this wrong”.
In the four months since Athens’ centre-right administration launched its online vaccine site, she has petitioned officials and reached out to the EU ombudsman to make clear that individual member states “have the discretion” to roll out vaccines as they see fit.
“Because of my activism and big mouth, my husband and I got a call offering us temporary AMKA numbers and vaccines,” said the digital media analyst. “As we were in the eligible age group we accepted, with the proviso that this privilege would not silence me.”
Read more of Helen Smith and Sam Jones’ report here: ‘The system isn’t working’: the British immigrants in Greece who can’t book Covid jabs
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My esteemed colleague Martin Belam will be steering you through the rest of the day’s Covid news.
Millions at risk of famine without urgent help, governments warned
World leaders are facing a call to act immediately to stop multiple famines breaking out, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and caused by conflict, climate crisis and inequality.
On Tuesday, hundreds of groups working to combat inequality appealed to governments to respond to increasing levels of hunger caused by “an acute food insecurity situation” around the world.
In an open letter to support the UN Call for Action to Avert Famine in 2021, they said millions of people faced starvation, and billions of pounds in investment was urgently needed.
US ships vaccines for all overseas workforce
The US State Department has delivered Covid vaccines to all of its eligible workforce deployed abroad as of Sunday and is expecting its entire workforce to have been fully vaccinated by mid-May, State Department officials said.
Reuters reports that earlier this year, the department came under fire from its staff as it struggled to vaccinate thousands of diplomats stationed in 220 overseas locations, considered a key human resource in advancing America’s national security interests.
In internal cables dated late February, the department’s senior leadership acknowledged supplies were falling short of the demand, the New York Times reported.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during his visit to Japan and South Korea last month, tried to reassure the embassy staff in virtual town halls that the department was working “as fast as it can” to get everyone vaccinated.
As the rollout of the vaccines within the United States accelerated, so did shipments to the State Department, one senior department official said.
“Within three or four weeks, whether they have Pfizer or Moderna, we will be complete with our vaccine program. So I would say easily by mid-May, anybody overseas that wanted a vaccine would be able to get one,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The department is also pressing ahead with its domestic vaccination campaign, but many employees are being inoculated through their states as vaccines become more widely available.
India records nearly 1.6m cases in a week
India, home to 1.3 billion people, is battling a worrying surge, with record daily case numbers overwhelming already stretched hospitals and medical supplies, Reuters reports.
Its capital New Delhi was locked down Monday for a week, and the government said all adults would be eligible for a vaccine from May as it tries to get a grip on the spike.
Similar measures have been taken in other Indian states, adding to the woes of people already reeling from the economic pressure of the pandemic.
India’s daily cases retreated from record levels on Tuesday, but stayed above the 200,000 mark for a sixth straight day, with cases increasing by 259,170 over the last 24 hours. It has reported 1.59m cases in the last week alone.
Deaths rose by a record 1,761 to reach a total of 180,530, health ministry data showed.
The looming lockdown in Delhi forced tens of thousands of migrant workers to try and flee on Monday, fuelling fears they could spread the virus to their rural hometowns.
“Last year I was stuck here for 50 days,” said tailor Hari Shankar, referring to the strict coronavirus lockdown India imposed last year.
“I didn’t have work and couldn’t send money home... I’m not planning on coming back (to Delhi) until Covid is over.”
Experts have warned that religious festivals, including the Kumbh Mela attended by millions of pilgrims, and packed state election rallies in India had become “super-spreader” events - and some have said mass vaccinations are the only long-term solution.
EU to rule on J&J vaccine safety on Tuesday
Europe’s drug regulator was expected to rule Tuesday on the safety of the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine after fears it could be linked to extremely rare blood clots, while India said it will make shots available to all adults as battles a terrifying wave of infections, Reuters reports.
The United States is also expected to announce its decision on the single-shot J&J vaccine by Friday, as nations around the world try to accelerate their rollouts and revive their pandemic-ravaged economies.
The European Medicines Agency was due to hold a press conference from Amsterdam on Tuesday, after reviewing four cases - one fatal - of rare blood clots reported among people who got the J&J shot.
But the number of reported clots were “extremely small” compared with the 4.5 million J&J shots administered worldwide, the EMA has said.
That comparison echoes the comments by top US pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci, who described the clots as “an extraordinarily rare event”.
Fauci said Sunday he believed the US would resume use of the jab, possibly with some restrictions or warnings.
The J&J vaccine concerns follow similar reports of blood clots in a very small number of people who received the AstraZeneca shot.
The EMA described those clots as a “very rare” side effect, stressing that the AstraZeneca jab’s benefits outweigh the risks.
The leaders of Europe are keen to accelerate vaccinations and expand availability after facing intense criticism over a sluggish rollout and with the public desperate for a return to some degree of normality.
That desire was on display in EU member Slovakia on Monday, where shops, museums, libraries and swimming pools reopened after a lengthy lockdown, bringing big crowds onto the streets.
Hairdressers were in particularly high demand.
“We have been very busy since the morning, but I am very happy that we can cut hair again,” said Martin, a Bratislava barber.
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage f the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
Europe’s drug regulator was expected to rule Tuesday on the safety of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine after fears it could be linked to extremely rare blood clots, while India said it will make shots available to all adults as battles a terrifying wave of infections.
Meanwhile India’s daily cases retreated from record levels on Tuesday, but stayed above the 200,000 mark for a sixth straight day, with cases increasing by 259,170 over the last 24 hours.
Deaths rose by a record 1,761 to reach a total of 180,530, health ministry data showed.
Here are the key recent developments:
- Ireland has recorded its first three cases of a coronavirus variant first detected in India, a senior health official said on Monday in a statement.
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Greece has suspended its planned rollout of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine pending review by the European Medicines Agency on 20 April.
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India will let all citizens aged 18 and over get coronavirus vaccinations from 1 May, the government said on Monday, as cases there surge to record highs.
- The UK reported four coronavirus deaths on Monday – the country’s lowest figure since September, government statistics show.
- The University of Oxford has launched a study wherein participants who have previously had Covid-19 are reinfected with the coronavirus.
- The US has expanded its vaccine eligibility to everyone aged 16 years and above, the country’s health agency said on Monday.
- The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the world has the means to bring the global Covid-19 pandemic under control in the coming months provided countries work “consistently and equitably”.
- The Democratic Republic of Congo has launched its vaccine rollout via the Covax scheme after it was delayed for more than a month over concerns about the AstraZeneca jab’s safety.
- Austria will not use Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine until the European Medicines Agency approves it, chancellor Sebastian Kurz has said.
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