We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:
San Marino on Tuesday received a first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccines, government officials said, allowing the tiny state landlocked inside Italy to start its immunisation campaign.
First inoculations are expected to begin as soon as this week on a voluntary basis with priority given to health workers and people over the age of 75.
“We cannot rule out that some people will decide not to use the opportunity”, the health minister Roberto Ciavatta told Reuters. “But we wanted to give them the option”.
The deal was on top of the accord the 24-square-mile enclave managed to seal last month with Italy and the European Commission, granting it access to some of the shots the EU has secured for its member states.
But complex and lengthy bureaucratic procedures and widespread shortages of the shots delayed the process.
“We are still waiting for some authorisations from the pharmaceuticals companies involved to unblock the process,” Ciavatta said. “We are confident we will seen a breakthrough soon”.
In the meantime, San Marino - which recorded around 3,400 coronavirus cases and some 70 Covid-19 related deaths - announced last week the agreement with Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which markets Sputnik V abroad.
The 15,000 doses of Sputnik V could immunise just under a quarter of San Marino’s 34,000 population, as the vaccine is administered to each person in two doses, with the booster shot given 21 days after the first.
The terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but officials involved in the negotiations said San Marino had secured the shots for nearly 130,000 euros.
Israel will impose a night-time curfew for three nights from Thursday evening to curb the spread of the coronavirus during the Jewish holiday of Purim, the government said.
The curfew, from 8:30pm to 5am daily, will be in force from Thursday night until Sunday morning, a joint statement from the prime minister’s office and the health ministry said.
Gatherings will be limited to a maximum of 10 people in closed spaces and 20 people in open spaces, the statement added.
Sometimes dubbed the “fun” Jewish holiday, Purim typically includes costumes and boisterous public celebrations marking a story dating from fourth-century Persia that saw Jews defeat a murderous plot against them. For many it also involves services in synagogues and shared meals.
The holiday will be celebrated Thursday night and Friday.
Last year, gatherings for Purim were banned, but many ultra-Orthodox defied the restrictions, which authorities said contributed to the spread of the virus.
Israel has officially recorded more than 757,000 coronavirus cases and over 5,600 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
The government has begun gradually easing restrictions in place since December, when it imposed its third lockdown.
Israel has administered the two recommended shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to more than three million people, roughly a third of its population.
Argentina expects to receive 904,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm on Thursday, the government said on Tuesday.
The delivery is part of a purchase of 1 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, which will be added to the 1.22 million doses the country has already received of the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia. Argentina has also received 580,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
“Aerolineas Argentinas flight AR1050 departed for Beijing to bring 904,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine to the country. It is estimated that the flight will arrive at Ezeiza International Airport [on the outskirts of Buenos Aires] on Thursday,” the Argentine government said in a news release.
In the country of roughly 45 million people, 2.08 million cases of Covid-19 have been registered, 51,510 of them fatal, according to official data.
Brazil reported a further 62,715 cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, and another 1,386 deaths, the health ministry said on Tuesday. The country has now registered 10,257,875 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 248,529, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the United States and India and its second-deadliest.
Suriname launched a coronavirus vaccination campaign on Tuesday with a small batch of donated doses, as the nation seeks a steady supply of inoculations.
The country, which has a population of about 600,000, has reported 8,869 cases of Covid-19 and 168 deaths. It hopes to bring in 400,000 doses by the end of the year.
It began its inoculation effort with 1,000 doses provided by Barbados and is expecting to receive a donation of 50,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine from India as early as this week, the public health minister Amar Ramadhin said.
“We look forward to negotiating with the Indian government because we know there are more vaccines on their way,” said Ramadhin, a physician who was himself vaccinated in a televised broadcast. “We will use the power of negotiation and friendship between India and Suriname.” About a quarter of Suriname’s population is of Indian descent.
Suriname made a $750,000 down payment in 2020 to the World Health Organization-backed vaccine distribution network, Covax, with the hope of receiving up to 20,000 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines in early February.
That delivery was delayed and Suriname is now expected to receive doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in the first quarter.
It also hopes to receive 10,000 doses through an agreement between the African Medical Supplies Platform, a nonprofit initiative of the African Union, and the Caribbean Community, a regional cooperation organisation.
The vaccinations will first focus on about 1,500 healthcare workers, followed by 2,000 residents of retirement homes. Indigenous people are also a priority.
Air travel is limited to returnees and those with urgent travel needs. Weekend lockdowns remain in place, although schools opened their doors last week for the first time in 2021.
French ICU patients with Covid at 12-week high
The number of patients treated in intensive care units for Covid-19 in France has reached a 12-week peak of 3,435, as regional officials urge for a ban on public gatherings and consider a partial weekend lockdown.
Unlike some of its European neighbours, France has resisted a new national lockdown to control more contagious variants, hoping a curfew in place since 15 December can contain the pandemic.
The country ended its second national lockdown, which ran from 30 October to 15 December. But one of the conditions for the switch from lockdown to a national curfew was that the ICU figures remained between 2,500 and 3,000.
France reported 20,064 new Covid-19 cases, up from the previous Tuesday’s 19,590. The seven-day moving average of cases remained above 20,000 for the third day in a row, at 20,109, the highest since 20,466 on 5 February.
The northern port city of Dunkirk is urging the government to impose a ban on all public gatherings there until 15 March as a “last chance” move to halt a surge in Covid-19 infections.
Dunkirk’s mayor Patrice Vergriete did not advocate a partial weekend lockdown such as in the Mediterranean city of Nice, but added he would not oppose it if the government imposed such a measure.
The health minister Olivier Veran will head to Dunkirk on Wednesday.
The total cumulative number of cases in France rose to 3.63 million, the sixth highest in the world. The number of people who have died from Covid-19 infections rose by 431 to 85,044 - the seventh highest death toll globally - versus a seven-day moving average of 319, a more than one-and-a half month low.
The former Czech president Vaclav Klaus, who has recently made a splash by publicly defying government restrictions to stem the Covid-19 spread, has contracted the disease, his spokesman said Tuesday.
“He wasn’t feeling well and he tested positive for Covid this afternoon,” Petr Macinka, spokesman for the Vaclav Klaus Institute think tank, told AFP.
“He underwent a scan and left for treatment at home,” he added.
The Czech Republic currently has the highest per capita infection rate in the world and is second after neighbouring Slovakia for deaths, according to an AFP tally.
A former liberal economist and staunchly eurosceptic Czech prime minister, Klaus served as president in 2003-2013 after succeeding the late Vaclav Havel.
During his term, Klaus became known for being the last politician in the EU to sign the bloc’s crucial Lisbon Treaty.
Since the pandemic began, the 79-year-old has repeatedly appeared in public without the mandatory face mask, and in January he was handed a fine worth 10,000 crowns (387 euros, $470) for that.
In the same month, he delivered a speech at a rally against the restrictions, saying the government should know that “we have had enough of restrictions and instructions harming our lives”.
He also stood up against Covid vaccination, prompting a response from his successor Miloš Zeman, a veteran left-winger and Klaus’s former political foe.
“Get the vaccine, Vaclav, or you run the risk of catching Covid at your age,” Zeman urged Klaus in a newspaper interview in January.
A growing number of the Polish population is opposed to getting a Covid vaccine, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday, despite government warnings about a rising third wave of infections.
The survey conducted by pollsters CBOS this month found 33% of Poles do not want to get vaccinated, against 55% who said they were in favour.
In a previous poll in January, the proportion had been 30% against getting a vaccine and 56% in favour.
Less than half the respondents aged under 45 want to be vaccinated, according to the latest poll of 1,179 people conducted from 1-11 February.
Coronavirus infection numbers have been rising in Poland and the government warned last week that it expects the trend to continue because of new variants, although it has so far not said it will reverse the recent easing of restrictions.
So far this year, the government has re-opened non-essential shops as well as museums, cinemas, theatres and swimming pools.
“The third wave of the pandemic is already in Poland and it is no longer a question of whether this will happen or not but what the scale will be,” the health minister Adam Niedzielski said on Friday.
The health ministry on Tuesday reported 6,310 new infections and 247 deaths - up from 5,178 infections and 196 deaths on the same day last week.
Michal Dworczyk, the top government official in charge of Poland’s vaccination drive, announced on Twitter on Monday that he himself has tested positive for Covid-19 and urged people to get vaccinated.
W związku z pozytywnym wynikiem testu na obecność COVID-19 w najbliższym czasie będę pracował w trybie zdalnym. Przestrzegajmy zasad sanitarnych i szczepmy się! #SzczepimySię
— Michał Dworczyk (@michaldworczyk) February 22, 2021
Updated
As expected (see 3.19pm), the Netherlands has slightly eased its Covid restrictions, allowing schools and hairdressers to reopen, as the government seeks to relax months of lockdown even as infection rates rise again.
A controversial night-time curfew, which sparked a string of riots when it was introduced on 23 January, would remain in place until at least 15 March, prime minister Mark Rutte said, after the government circumvented a court ruling to drop it due to a lack of legal basis, Reuters reports.
Rutte said:
We are doing something quite unnerving. Easing of measures is not without costs and it certainly is not irreversible. If infections rapidly rise again, all options for restrictions will be on the table again.
An opinion poll earlier this week showed 45% of all Dutch wanted the lockdown to be eased, up from only 21% at the end of January. Restaurant and bar owners on Monday said they would sue the state over its policies. With general elections only three weeks away, pressure on Rutte’s government to open up the country has increased markedly.
Rutte said schools will welcome students for at least one day a week as of next week, following the re-opening of primary schools earlier this month. Non-essential stores, which have been closed since mid-December, can receive a limited number of customers per day.
A majority of Brazil’s supreme court justices have voted for an injunction allowing local state and city authorities to bypass the federal government when it fails to secure Covid-19 vaccines so that they can buy and distribute their own supplies, Reuters reports.
President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing government is under pressure for its slow response in rolling out vaccines despite his country facing the world’s second deadliest coronavirus outbreak. In a virtual session, the court also ruled that local governments can import vaccines when health regulator Anvisa fails to consider an application within 72 hours.
Brazil today fully approved the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, health regulator Anvisa has announced, although it remains to be seen if Brasilia and Pfizer can end a dispute and agree a supply deal (see 1.34pm).
Spain’s coronavirus incidence slipped below 250 cases per 100,000 people - a threshold the health ministry considers as “extreme risk” of contagion - for the first time in two months today, Reuters reports.
The indicator, measured over the past 14 days, fell to 236 cases from 252 the previous day and from a record 900 cases at the end of January, health ministry data showed. It added 7,461 cases to its tally of infections today which now stands at 3,161,432 since the start of the pandemic.
The death toll increased by 443, to a total of 68,079, although most of the newly-registered deaths occurred in the previous days, the data showed. The daily death toll has been in decline for the past month in the country of 47 million.
With a third wave quickly receding and the vaccination campaign in full swing, several regions have relaxed restrictions such as night-time curfews in the past couple of weeks.
Brussels has put six EU member states on notice that their tight Covid border restrictions, including exit and entry bans, should be lifted over fears of a wider breakdown in the bloc’s free movement of people and goods.
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary and Sweden have been given 10 days to respond to the European commission’s concerns that they have breached commonly agreed coronavirus guidelines.
Restrictions imposed by Germany at its border with the Austrian Tirol region have been a particular cause of tension in recent weeks, with the German ambassador in Vienna summoned to justify the “unnecessary measures that do more harm than good”.
Summary
Here are some of the key global developments from the past few hours:
- Scotland is to look to begin a “substantial” easing of coronavirus restrictions from 26 April, first minister Nicola Sturgeon said.
- Ireland is to start reopening some schools next week but is extending other lockdown restrictions until April to prevent another explosion in Covid-19 cases.
- The Netherlands is expected to announce a slight easing of restrictions, allowing schools and hairdressers to reopen (see 3.19pm).
- Israel announced it would send a “token amount” of surplus coronavirus jobs to several countries (see 2.50pm), in the latest move to suggest limited global supplies will lead to a new form of diplomatic currency.
- Spain extends its ban on arrivals from Britain, Brazil and South Africa until 16 March to safeguard against the spread of new coronavirus strains from these countries (see 4.34pm).
- Greek hospital doctors went on strike and dozens marched in Athens to protest “suffocating” conditions at hospitals during the pandemic (see 12.58pm).
- Chinese officials did “little” in terms of epidemiological investigations into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan in the first eight months after the outbreak, according to an internal World Health Organization document.
- French investigators probe manslaughter allegations against Italy’s Costa Cruises over its handling of Covid-19 cases onboard one of its ships, which claimed the lives of three passengers (see 5.34pm).
- Ten orangutans were airlifted back to their natural habitat on Indonesia’s Borneo island, in the first release of the apes into the wild for a year due to the dangers of coronavirus infection.
Updated
Ireland to reopen schools but extend other restrictions till April
Ireland is to start reopening some schools next week but is extending other lockdown restrictions until April to prevent another explosion in Covid-19 cases.
The government has prioritised education and childcare in a cautious new roadmap out of restrictions after a disastrous relaxation before Christmas led to Ireland having the world’s highest rate of infection.
The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, was to announce the revised Living with Covid plan in a televised address on Tuesday evening. Earlier in the day the cabinet agreed to extend the maximum level 5 restrictions until 5 April, which means non-essential retail, bars, cafes, construction, gyms and other sectors will remain closed. A 5km travel limit remains in place, as does a ban on household mixing.
Scepticism over claims that exempting vaccines from patent laws would not speed up distribution
Exempting Covid-19 vaccines from intellectual property rights would not speed up production or distribution of the jabs, a pharmaceutical industry association has claimed.
Proponents of doing away with patents say more companies could produce the vaccine, which could then be used in poorer nations that have yet to receive any jabs.
But Thomas Cueni, the head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), said managing the complex logistics of rolling out vaccines was what was slowing down jabs, not patents.
Taking away patents now or imposing a waiver wouldn’t give you a single dose more ... It is really about the know-how, it is about the skill set ... You still wouldn’t know how to roll them out on a large scale.
His comments come amid a push at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to introduce a temporary IP waiver during the pandemic. The proposal, which was first put forward last year by India and South Africa, has been gaining momentum with the backing of more than 100 countries.
But several nations, including the US and Switzerland along with the EU, oppose the move. The opposition means the proposal cannot move forward in the WTO, which makes decisions by consensus.
There are also fears over vaccines being made to a poor quality, along with the potential consequences of added pressure on supply chains if the intellectual property was democratised.
Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said last week:
G7 leaders are presiding over global vaccine apartheid. First they handed over control of publicly-funded vaccines to big business. Then they hoarded most of this year’s vaccine doses for themselves. Now, under pressure from countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, they’re proposing to donate some of their surplus vaccines at some undefined point in the future – as if this were a village jumble sale.
The elephant in the Zoom today was Big Pharma’s patents, which are preventing most countries from producing the vaccines they need. We know these companies are refusing to share their vaccine recipes with the world, preventing the ramping up of manufacturing that we need.
Our new report shows why we can't trust Big Pharma to deal with #Covid_19 fairly. It’s an industry driven by sky high profits. While public money has produced vaccines in record time, those medicines have now been privatised! (1/12) https://t.co/bgOGth3CqM
— Nick Dearden (@nickdearden75) December 18, 2020
Updated
French investigators are probing manslaughter allegations against Italy’s Costa Cruises over its handling of Covid-19 cases onboard one of its ships, which claimed the lives of three passengers, judicial sources have told AFP.
Passengers onboard the Costa Magica ship in March 2020 claim that for over a week they were kept in the dark about suspected infections onboard. They also contend that the crew encouraged them to use the ship’s shops, spas, restaurants and casino without putting sufficient health measures in place.
Around 850 French passengers, including the families of three passengers who died of Covid-19, later filed a complaint in France against Costa Cruises.
In an interview with the Ouest France newspaper in August, one of the passengers, Stephanie Dubois, complained of a shortage of face masks and hand gel and said that some passengers were so desperate to get off the ship when it dropped anchor off the island of Martinique that they wanted to swim the six kilometres to shore.
Costa Cruises denies that it failed to keep passengers informed of the situation, and insists that the crew acted on the basis of scant information available about the virus at the start of the pandemic.
North Macedonia has said the EU should do more to help the Balkan country acquire Covid-19 vaccines, claiming it had become “collateral damage” of EU procurement policy.
Foreign minister Bujar Osmani told AFP that his country, which is not in the bloc – in part due to Bulgarian opposition – had been able to begin a modest vaccination campaign thanks to donations of a few thousand vaccine doses from Serbia, which made deals directly with pharmaceutical companies.
But he deplored the absence of any EU assistance, saying Brussels was sending “the wrong message” to the Balkans by “leaving the region without vaccines”.
Osmani said North Macedonia had last year ordered and paid for 800,000 Astra Zeneca vaccine doses through the World Health Organization’s Covax system, and ordered another 800,000 doses from the Pfizer group directly but “nothing has come to Macedonia as yet”.
He said “every day we are delaying the vaccines puts more people in danger, in particular the vulnerable ones”, adding that his government was trying to secure Chinese vaccines, with 200,000 Sinopharm doses expected in the coming days.
The country of 2 million people has recorded almost 100,000 Covid cases and 3,076 deaths.
Updated
Hundreds of young Algerians have defied a coronavirus ban on demonstrations to protest in the capital Algiers, a day after major protests to mark the second anniversary of mass anti-government rallies, AFP reports.
The “Hirak” protest movement forced longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika from power in 2019, and before the protests were stalled amid Covid-19 restrictions last year, marches were held every Tuesday.
A mass rally in Algiers was held yesterday to mark the protests that kicked off on 22 February 2019, to oppose Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term. The protests on Monday were the largest since the weekly demonstrations were suspended.
Today, students continued, despite police deploying in force before dawn in the centre of Algiers, especially at Martyrs’ Square, where marches used to begin.
“We are students and not terrorists,” some chanted, according to AFP journalists. “A free and democratic Algeria,” others shouted. The CNLD prisoners’ rights group said three students and five other activists were arrested.
Protesters demand a sweeping overhaul of a ruling system in place since Algeria’s independence from France in 1962.
Updated
EasyJet shares have rallied amid rocketing flight bookings for the British airline, boosted by prime minister Boris Johnson’s plan to ease England’s coronavirus lockdown, AFP reports.
Bookings had soared by 337 percent by late Monday compared with a week earlier, EasyJet said in a statement issued after Johnson’s announcement. EasyJet shares rallied around five percent in late deals on the London stock market - and there were solid gains for European rivals.
“The prime minister... has provided a much-needed boost in confidence for so many of our customers in the UK with demand for flights up 337 percent and holidays up 630 percent already compared to last week,” said EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren.
Shares prices of other major European airlines jumped as well, with Air France KLM gaining 2.8 percent and German giant Lufthansa rising 2.5 percent. British Airways owner IAG, whose portfolio includes also Ireland’s Aer Lingus and Spain’s Iberia, won 2.1 percent.
Spain has extended its ban on arrivals from Britain, Brazil and South Africa until 16 March to safeguard against the spread of new coronavirus strains from these countries, AFP reports.
Only legal residents or nationals of Spain and the neighbouring micro-state of Andorra are currently allowed in on flights from these countries.
The restriction on arrivals from Britain was imposed at the end of December to halt the spread of the highly contagious Covid-19 variant discovered there in November.
The ban on arrivals from Brazil and South Africa came into effect on 3 February. The only exception are passengers in transit who cannot leave the airport nor remain there longer than 24 hours. It is the fifth time the ban on British arrivals has been extended.
Phone an organisation’s helpline today and you are likely to hear a recorded voice telling you that staff are working from home and operating hours have been reduced (apparently from about 9am to 9.15am), writes reporter Peter White.
“But there’s good news!” the one-sided conversation will continue. “There’s not a thing you can’t do more quickly and efficiently by just going to our website.”
Updated
Scotland to significantly ease restrictions late April
Scotland is to look to begin a “substantial” easing of coronavirus restrictions from 26 April, first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said.
AFP reports that the head of Scotland’s devolved government told lawmakers there were “much brighter times ahead”, adding that restrictions were working well alongside a mass vaccination programme that was “motoring”.
We can now see a firm way out of this if we all stick together and stick with it ... From 26 April, assuming the data allows, we will move back to levels with hopefully all of Scotland, that is currently in level four moving to level three.
At that stage, we will begin to reopen the economy and society in the more substantial way that we are all longing for.
The first minister, whose government has devolved powers over health policy, indicated the lifting of restrictions on non-essential business would be more cautious than plans outlined for England by UK prime minister Boris Johnson yesterday.
Johnson yesterday outlined a four-step plan to ease lockdown measures in England, with schools opening again to pupils from 8 March, and non-essential retail from 12 April.
Some fans could be able to attend sporting fixtures from 17 May, while all physical distancing restrictions could be removed from 21 June - all subject to change and depending on scientific data.
Scotland, as well as Wales’ devolved government, has moved faster to reopen schools than England. Primary school students in Scotland aged between four and seven returned to the classroom on Monday.
Updated
Sweden is preparing new measures to try to curb a resurgence in Covid-19 cases as the coronavirus strain first detected in Britain spreads rapidly.
Chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told a news conference:
The British variant is increasing very fast. This variant will with fairly high probability be the dominant one within a few weeks or a month ... We have a package [of national measures] being readied that will be presented tomorrow.
Sweden has avoided lockdowns throughout the pandemic. Health statistics agency figures today showed 10,933 new coronavirus cases had been registered since Friday, a rise from 9,458 in the corresponding period the previous week.
The British coronavirus variant is thought by scientists to be a more infectious strain. Cases of the South African and Brazilian strains have also been detected but are not spreading quickly, Tegnell said.
The centre-left government has laid the ground for potential lockdown measures to an extent not seen earlier during the pandemic.
Several of Sweden’s largest regions, including Stockholm on Tuesday, have also taken steps, such as recommending the use of masks in shops, workplaces and public transport.
This is at odds with the health agency’s past reluctance to broadly endorse such moves because of limited evidence of their efficacy.
Sweden, a country of 10 million people, has registered 12,713 deaths from Covid. The death rate per capita is much higher than its Nordic neighbours’ but lower than in most western European countries that opted for lockdowns.
Updated
Holland set to ease restrictions slightly
The Netherlands is expected to announce a slight easing of restrictions, allowing schools and hairdressers to reopen, even as infection rates rise again.
Reuters reports:
A controversial night-time curfew would remain in place, broadcaster RTL said citing government sources, as health experts warn of a new wave of infections due to the rise of more contagious variants of the virus.
But with general elections only three weeks away, public pressure on prime minister Mark Rutte’s government to open up the country has increased markedly in recent weeks.
The government was last week ordered by a court to immediately drop the 9pm to 4.30am curfew as it was seen to lack a proper legal base, but circumvented the verdict by drafting a new law that kept it in place.
In a first step towards easing the lockdown, primary schools and daycare centres were allowed to reopen earlier this month.
The total number of confirmed infections in the Netherlands since the start of the pandemic surpassed 1 million this month, with more than 15,000 related deaths in the country of 17 million.
Updated
Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been telling members of her parliamentary party that the country is experiencing a “third wave” of the pandemic. That’s according to Reuters, citing sources,
Updated
Israel has announced it will send surplus coronavirus inoculations to several countries, in the latest move to suggest limited global supplies will lead to a new form of diplomatic currency.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced it had received multiple requests from unnamed foreign governments and would send a “token amount” of vaccines.
The office said “it did not expect to have significant ability to assist until the vaccination campaign in Israel is completed”.
However, it added it has accumulated a limited amount of unused vials during the past month and had decided to assist with “a token amount of vaccines”. Batches would go to Palestinian medical staff in the West Bank in a previously announced deal, but also to “some of the countries that have approached Israel.”
Local media reported those state included Honduras and Guatemala, two states that Israel successfully lobbied to move their embassies to Jerusalem to bolster its claim to the divided city.
The Czech Republic, which thrilled Israel in December by announcing plans to open a “diplomatic office” in Jerusalem, was also on the list, according to one report. The prime minister’s office did not confirm the reports.
Israel has secured more than enough vaccine shots for its nine million citizens, half of whom have received at least one shot.
Last week, an Israeli source said the government had agreed to secretly provide coronavirus vaccines for the Syrian regime to sweeten a prisoner swap deal, with reports they would be bought from Russia.
Syria’s rebel-held northwest will receive its first shipment of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine by the end of next month, the World Health Organisation hassaid
The doses were procured through the UN body’s Covax programme, which aims to provide equitable worldwide access to vaccines against Covid-19.
Thirty-five to 40 percent of the vaccines would be made available in the first quarter of 2021, and 60 to 65 percent in the second quarter, a WHO spokesperson told the AFP news agency.
The health directorate for the opposition-held territory said it expected to receive 120,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine by next month.
“They will cover 60,000 people,” starting with front-line health workers, the elderly and chronically ill people, said its spokesman Imad Zahran.
Syria’s northwest, much of which is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, is home to some four million people, including 2.8 million in need of urgent assistance.
Linguists in Germany have collected more than 1,200 new words coined during the pandemic.
From coronamüde (tired of Covid-19) to Coronafrisur (corona hairstyle), the project is documenting the huge number of new words coined in the last year as the language raced to keep up with lives radically changed by the pandemic.
The list compiled by the Leibniz Institute for the German language, an organisation that documents German language in the past and present, has already collected more than 1,200 new German words – many more than the 200 they see in an average year.
It includes feelings many can relate to, such as overzoomed (stressed by too many video calls), Coronaangst (when you have anxiety about the virus) and impfneid (envy of those who have been vaccinated).
Updated
The South African health minister also said that a committee advising the government had grouped Covid-19 vaccines into three groups and those considered for “immediate use” were the Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Moderna shots.
In a second group where South Africa is interested but requires more technical information are Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and shots from China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac, Zweli Mkhize also said.
A third group where vaccines “may not be suitable for immediate use in South Africa” includes the AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines, Mkhize added.
Updated
'Vaccine nationalism' decried by South African minister
South Africa’s Minister of Health Sweli Mkhize has said that the government has proposed that Johson & Johnson’s vaccine is ‘preferentially deployed’ in Southern Africa so authorities can rapidly deal with a coronavirus variant becoming dominant there.
On twitter, Mkhize also said that the procurement of the vaccines
has been a complex process that required negotiations with multinational manufacturers of vaccines in the face of vaccine nationalism and protectionism.
This is Ben Quinn picking up the blog now while Mattha takes a break.
Updated
The head of the Mexican navy, Rafael Ojeda, has said he had tested positive for Covid for the second time.
Ojeda, who said on Twitter he would be working in isolation from home, announced his first positive test in October. The news came less than a week after the head of the Mexican army, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, said he had coronavirus.
Brazil has fully approved the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, health regulator Anvisa announced, although it remains to be seen if Brasilia and Pfizer can end a dispute and agree a supply deal, Reuters reports.
The Pfizer/BioNTech shot is the first vaccine against Covid to receive full approval in Brazil, Anvisa said. Other vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and China’s Sinovac have only been approved for emergency use so far.
The approval is good news for a country whose immunisation campaign has been plagued by delays and political squabbling. However, it is unclear whether the definitive approval of the vaccine will pave the way for a supply deal of a highly effective shot that is already being applied globally.
President Jair Bolsonaro has criticized the terms of a deal proposed by Pfizer, saying it is overly onerous on Brazil as it exempts the US firm from potential liability for unforeseen problems. Pfizer has said other countries, including neighbours in Latin America, have agreed to the terms.
Updated
Ten orangutans have been airlifted back to their natural habitat on Indonesia’s Borneo island, in the first release of the apes into the wild for a year due to the dangers of coronavirus infection, AFP reports.
The animals were flown by helicopter across the island’s dense jungle earlier this month to keep them away from days-long land and sea routes that could expose them to the virus.
Orangutans share 97 percent of humans’ DNA so conservationists have been on high alert for signs of infection. The pandemic has thrown up unprecedented challenges for conservation efforts.
“For an entire year, we have not been able to release orangutans due to the global pandemic,” said Jamartin Sihite, chief executive of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF).
“We have implemented strict health protocols, and introduced mitigation plans to be enacted in the event of an orangutan contracting the virus. The use of a helicopter... helps reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19.”
The fuzzy-haired creatures were sedated with tranquillisers before their flight and were shuttled inside transport cages encased in netting. At least one of the moon-faced animals banged on its cage’s metal walls as it tried to make sense of the airborne mission.
The UN has warned that hunger levels are soaring across much of Central America as countries battle economic crises sparked by responses to the pandemic and extreme climate events, AFP reports.
The UN’s World Food Programme said that levels of hunger had risen nearly four-fold in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, from 2.2 million people affected in 2018 to nearly eight million now.
Of that figure, some 1.7 million people are considered to be in the “emergency” category of food insecurity, meaning they need urgent food assistance, WFP said, urging more international support.
The UN agency said the region, where years of drought and erratic weather had already disrupted food production, had been especially hard-hit by the record 2020 Atlantic hurricane season.
The hurricanes came as the repercussions of responses to the pandemic were already taking a devastating toll, and dealt a severe blow to millions who had previously been relatively untouched by hunger, including people working in the service economy and the tourism sector.
Greek hospital doctors strike over 'suffocating' conditions during pandemic
Greek hospital doctors have gone on strike today and dozens marched in Athens to protest “suffocating” conditions at hospitals during the pandemic.
Reuters reports:
With around 6,000 deaths, Greece has fared better than much of Europe in containing the pandemic and prevented its health service, battered by years of financial crisis, from collapsing.
But intensive care units at state hospitals are operating at roughly 80% capacity and doctors want the government to create new units for COVID-19 patients instead of using already existing ones, as well as to hire more staff and to use resources from the private sector.
“There is a serious risk both for critically ill Covid-19 patients and critically ill patients with other diseases,” the union of hospital doctors, Oenge, said in a statement. It described the situation at hospitals as “suffocating.”
More than 1,200 Covid patients have been through intensive care in Greece since the pandemic began. Today, health authorities reported 880 new coronavirus cases and 24 deaths, bringing total infections to 179,802 since the first case was detected in February last year and Covid-related deaths to 6,297.
Updated
The World Bank has threatened to suspend financing for Lebanon’s Covid-19 vaccination drive in its second week after it emerged that some lawmakers would get their shots in parliament today.
Reuters reports:
The comments from the World Bank came as frustration grew among some residents and doctors that vaccinations were moving slowly and could be riddled with violations.
Lebanon received its first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine - about 28,000 doses - this month with aid from the World Bank, which said it would monitor to ensure the shots go to those most in need.
In its first operation funding the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines, the World Bank reallocated $34 million to help Lebanon start vaccinations.
The bank has warned against favoritism in a country where decades of state waste and corruption triggered a dire financial meltdown. After local media reported that some MPs would get their Covid-19 shots today, the World Bank’s regional director, Saroj Kumar Jha, said that would breach the national plan agreed for fair vaccination.
Upon confirmation of violation, @WorldBank may suspend financing for vaccines and support for COVID19 response across Lebanon!! I appeal to all, I mean all, regardless of your position, to please register and wait for your turn.
— Saroj Kumar Jha (@SarojJha001) February 23, 2021
First in the EU, Hungary is to start vaccinations tomorrow with jabs purchased from Chinese company Sinopharm, the Hungarian government has said.
Hungary’s right-wing government, a strong critic of sluggish EU vaccine rollout, has been the first of the 27 member states to buy and authorise Russian and Chinese vaccines not yet approved by Brussels, Reuters reports.
Hungary announced last month that it had reached a deal with Sinopharm to buy 5 million doses of its vaccine.
Senegal has begun its coronavirus vaccination campaign with 200,000 doses that it purchased from China’s Sinopharm, which it received last week.
Reuters reports:
The first shots were given to government ministers and health workers at the health ministry in the capital, Dakar. The West African country is one of the first in the region to start vaccinating its population against Covid-19. It has so far recorded over 33,099 cases and 814 deaths from the disease.
As a lower-middle income country, Senegal is eligible for about 1.3 million vaccine doses for free through the first wave of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Covax programme, but it is still waiting for them to arrive.
Earlier this month the government said it paid just over 2 billion CFA francs ($3.74 million) for the Sinopharm doses to begin its campaign.
Senegal aims to inoculate about 90% of a targeted 3.5 million people, including health workers and high-risk individuals between the ages of 19 and 60, by the end of 2021. The country’s population is about 16 million.
French health minister Olivier Veran will head to Dunkirk in northern France tomorrow as the government eyes new measures to limit the spread of Covid in the region, the prime minister’s office has said.
Prime minister Jean Castex discussed the local health situation with the Dunkirk mayor earlier today, Reuters reports. “They agreed that in view of the sharp deterioration in health indicators in recent hours, additional measures to limit the epidemic must be taken,” the statement said.
The UN children’s fund Unicef has said it has sent an initial 100,000 syringes for Covid vaccines to the Maldives in preparation for first deliveries of Pfizer and AstraZeneca shots under the Covax vaccine-sharing plan.
Reuters reports:
The syringes, as well as 1,000 safety boxes for vaccine storage, are expected to arrive in the Maldives later, Unicef said. Other recipient countries in the first wave of shipments include Ivory Coast and Sao Tome and Principe.
Today’s shipment will be followed in the next few weeks by deliveries of some 14.5 million 0.5 millilitre (ml) and 0.3 ml syringes to more than 30 countries, Unicef said in a statement.
“It is critical to have adequate supplies of syringes already in place in every country before the vaccine arrives so that the vaccine can be administered safely,” said Unicef’s executive director Henrietta Fore.
This would allow immunisation to start immediately, she said, and “help turn the tide on this terrible virus”.
The Maldives, which has a population of more than 500,000 has had 18,930 confirmed Covid cases and 60 deaths.
California, the largest state in the US, has administered more than 7.3m vaccine doses but is lagging behind other states in vaccine administration. Eligibility is due to dramatically expand in March, but with supplies limited and many doses being used for second shots, essential workers could likely be waiting weeks or longer to get appointments.
The lack of access is particularly frustrating for workers who have faced increasing risks over the last month, as California has moved to reopen parts of the economy and remove restrictions.
Facing severe economic strain eleven months into the pandemic, low-wage workers across the state say they can’t afford to stay home from dangerous jobs – and can’t afford to lose income if they get infected.
Kyrgyzstan has registered Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine for use against Covid, becoming the 32nd country to do so, Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund has said.
Chinese officials did “little” in terms of epidemiological investigations into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan in the first eight months after the outbreak, according to an internal World Health Organization document seen by the Guardian.
The internal WHO travel report summary, dated 10 August 2020, also said the team who met Chinese counterparts as part of a mission to help find the origins of the virus received scant new information at that time, and were not given any documents or written data during extensive discussions with Chinese officials.
The report from last summer, which was written as global infection rates reached 20m, offers new insights into how WHO scientists appear to have been stymied in their early efforts to study the outbreak in China.
The revelation comes after the Biden administration recently issued a pointed statement about its concerns over Chinese cooperation in studying the disease and the need for the WHO to be held to a high standard and protect its credibility.
More than one in five people living in the state of Lagos in Nigeria had Covid-19 antibodies at the end of October, according to a study that suggests infection rates were much higher across the country than previously thought.
Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control (NDCD) and the Institute for Medical Research collected blood samples from more than 10,000 individuals living in a representative sample of households in four states in September and October.
According to findings released yesterday, the prevalence of antibodies was 23% in the states of Lagos – which is home to more than 16 million people – and Enugu, 19% in Nasarawa state, and 9% in Gombe state. Confirmed infections stood in the tens of thousands at the time.
Up to now the country has recorded just 1,800 deaths from Covid, but the head of the NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the study findings meant it was “even more important” that Nigeria secured vaccines.
There are serious questions over a corporate legal immunity provision that has given for-profit nursing homes and hospitals in New York state get-out-of-jail-free cards over Covid deaths, writes New York state Assemblymember Ron Kim.
France’s chance of avoiding a postponement of their Six Nations clash with Scotland on Sunday have improved after the latest round of coronavirus testing returned no further positives, PA reports.
An outbreak amongst the tournament favourites’ squad has produced 10 Covid-19 cases, including star scrum-half and 2020 player of the Championship Antoine Dupont and captain Charles Ollivon. The head coach, Fabien Galthié, and three members of his staff have also tested positive.
Six Nations organisers are to decide on Wednesday if the Stade de France showdown can go ahead, but the results of Monday night’s testing points to an easing of the crisis.
Ukraine has received its first shipment of Covid-19 vaccine doses after several delays, AFP reports.
A plane carrying 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, marketed under the name Covishield and produced at the Serum Institute in India today landed at Kiev’s Boryspil airport.
President Volodymyr Zelensky had faced criticism for failing to obtain vaccines earlier for Ukraine, which suffers from an ageing healthcare system. He has blamed the delay on wealthier Western countries that reserved the Pfizer and Moderna jabs in bulk, and has urged the EU to help eastern European countries source vaccines.
The country of 40 million people is one of the poorest in Europe and one of the last in the region to begin inoculating its population. The government originally announced that it would begin its vaccination campaign in mid-February, but the shipment of the first vaccine doses was delayed. Ukraine is also awaiting delivery of eight million doses promised under the World Health Organization’s Covax programme.
Kiev has said it has also secured 17 million doses of vaccines developed by Novavax and AstraZeneca, including the 500,000 that arrived today. It has also said it signed a contract to receive 1.9 million doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine.
Breakaway regions in the east controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists began a vaccine drive with Russia’s Sputnik V jab in early February. Ukraine earlier this month banned vaccines developed by “aggressor states”, a designation Kiev has applied to Russia since 2015. Ukraine has recorded over 1.3 million cases and more than 25,000 deaths from the virus.
Mattha Busby here, taking over from my colleague Caroline Davies. Do get in touch on Twitter or via email on mattha.busby.freelance@guardian.co.uk with any tips or thoughts. Thanks!
Updated
That’s it from me, Caroline Davies. Handing over to my colleague Mattha Busby now who will guide you through the next few hours. Thank you for your time.
Morning summary
Here are some of the key development in the last few hours.
- More than half a million people have died of Covid-19 in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University. The country had recorded more than 28 million cases and 500,071 lives have been lost as of Monday afternoon. In a somber address to the nation as the US surpassed half a million coronavirus deaths on Monday, Joe Biden urged the country to unify in its battle against the virus.
- Dr Fauci: the political divide added to ‘stunning’ US deaths. Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said political divisiveness contributed significantly to the “stunning” US coronavirus death toll, which on Monday surpassed 500,000 lives lost.
-
Italy allegedly misled the World Health Organization on its readiness to face a pandemic less than three weeks before the country’s first locally transmitted coronavirus case was confirmed.
- Afghanistan has launched a Covid-19 vaccination campaign aimed at inoculating hundreds of thousands. Doctors, security personnel, and journalists were among the first volunteers to receive doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, donated earlier this month by India.
- Syria has authorised the use of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, its embassy in Moscow said Monday. The country is the latest to approve the Russian vaccine, named after the Soviet-era satellite. Sputnik V was registered in August before clinical trials were underway, which left experts wary.
- UK govt eyeing return to normal by end of June. British Prime minister Boris Johnson on Monday set out a four-step plan to ease coronavirus restrictions, expressing hope that life could get back to normal by the end of June.
- Airlines and travel firms are experiencing a surge in demand in the UK following prime minister Boris Johnson’s road map for how coronavirus restrictions will be eased.Johnson said on Monday that a government taskforce will produce a report by 12 April recommending how international trips can resume for people in England.
- Thailand will start vaccinating priority groups including health workers against COVID-19 by the end of this week. It will receive the first 200,000 of two million doses of Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac on Wednesday after the Chinese vaccine was given emergency use authorisation on Monday.
- The Philippines will let thousands of its healthcare workers, mostly nurses, take up jobs in Britain and Germany if the two countries agree to donate much-needed coronavirus vaccines, a senior official said on Tuesday.
- Austria is betting on millions of tests to contain Covid-19. While Austria has struggled to contain the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, it is fast emerging as a world leader in testing as a way to reopen schools and businesses.
- The World Health Organization has agreed a no-fault compensation plan for claims of serious side effects in people in 92 poorer countries due to get Covid vaccines via the Covax sharing scheme, resolving a big concern among recipient governments.
- Guinea will launch an Ebola vaccination drive Tuesday after a flight delayed by a Saharan dust storm arrived carrying thousands of jabs, as the West African country fights to stamp out a resurgence of the deadly virus.
- New Zealand has confirmed three new coronavirus cases – a schoolmate of a person from the original Auckland cluster and their two siblings. One of the siblings had been working at a K-Mart and 31 staff have now been identified as close contacts.
Updated
Philippines will let healthcare workers go overseas in exchange for vaccines
The Philippines will let thousands of its healthcare workers, mostly nurses, take up jobs in Britain and Germany if the two countries agree to donate much-needed coronavirus vaccines, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports that the Philippines, which has among Asia’s highest number of coronavirus cases, has relaxed a ban on deploying its healthcare workers overseas, but still limits the number of medical professionals leaving the country to 5,000 a year.
Alice Visperas, director of the labour ministry’s international affairs bureau, said the Philippines was open to lifting the cap in exchange for vaccines from Britain and Germany, which it would use to inoculate outbound workers and hundreds of thousands of Filipino repatriates.
Nurses are among the millions of Filipinos who work overseas, providing in excess of $30 billion a year in remittances vital to the country’s economy.
“We are considering the request to lift the deployment cap, subject to agreement,” Visperas told Reuters.
The Philippines has yet to start its campaign to immunise 70 million adults, or two-thirds of its 108 million people. It expects to receive its first batch of vaccines this week, donated by China. It wants to secure 148 million doses of vaccines altogether.
The British embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment while calls to Germany’s mission went unanswered.
Updated
A leading Australian epidemiologist has compared the UK’s hotel quarantine system to a sieve with too many holes in a discussion with MPs about lifting lockdown.
Professor Catherine Bennett, of Deakin University in Victoria, said border closure had been one of Australia’s “main tools” in keeping infection rates low and protecting its domestic economy.
Speaking to the All Parliamentary Group on coronavirus she said Australia had tightened up its hotel quarantine system in response to the new variants, including adding extra testing, PA Media reports.
She remarked that the British system of hotel quarantine - which has only just been introduced, is only 10 days long and allows people out for exercise - demonstrates a difference in the way Australia and the UK perceive lockdowns.
“If you’re going to let you have too many holes in the sieve, then why bother with the sieve?” Prof Bennett said.
She added that Australia was now testing hotel quarantine staff daily, including on their days off, and had imposed much stricter conditions on Australian air crews who had previously been allowed to return home between shifts.
Updated
French researchers are using tiny antibody particles extracted from the family of animals that includes camels and llamas to produce a test they say can detect if patients have COVID-19 faster and more accurately than existing methods, Reuters reports.
The prototype test, called CorDial-1, has not been approved for use, but initial trials on 300 samples showed a 90% accuracy rate compared to a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test, the most reliable commonly-used method of detecting COVID-19.
The prototype test can deliver results within 10 minutes, and can be used outside the laboratory, according to the team developing it, while PCR testing typically takes hours and needs lab conditions.
A total of 5,691 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending February 12 mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) - the lowest figure since the week ending January 1.
The figure is also down 22% from 7,320 deaths in the week to February 5. Just over a third (37%) of all deaths registered in England and Wales in the week to February 12 mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate.
Thailand to start vaccinating priority groups
Thailand will start vaccinating priority groups including health workers against COVID-19 by the end of this week, its prime minister said on Tuesday.
It will receive the first 200,000 of two million doses of Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac on Wednesday after the Chinese vaccine was given emergency use authorisation on Monday.
“We will start injecting the target groups within three days after the vaccines arrive,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said
Updated
The number of workers on UK payrolls has fallen by nearly 730,000 since the start of the pandemic and the jobless rate has surged to its highest level since 2016, but official figures revealed “early signs” of a stabilising jobs market.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the number of payrolled workers rose by 83,000 between January and February in the second small monthly increase in a row.
But the data showed the toll taken by the coronavirus crisis on the jobs market, with 726,000 fewer workers on payrolls since February 2020.
The rate of unemployment has also now hit 5.1% between October and December - up from 5% in the previous quarter.
Figures show this is the highest since early 2016 when it was also 5.1%. The rate was last above this in the autumn of 2015, when it was 5.2%.
Tui, the UK’s largest tour operator, recorded a sixfold increase in bookings after the government’s roadmap announcement for England, making Monday its busiest day in more than a month.
The hotspots of Greece, Spain and Turkey from July onwards are the most in-demand locations.
Managing director Andrew Flintham said the government could work with the travel industry to develop a “risk-based framework” that will give holidaymakers “the opportunity to travel abroad this summer”.
He added that there was “huge demand to travel” and “people can look forward to a well-deserved break away after what has been a very difficult year for many”.
Online travel firm Thomas Cook said traffic to its website was up 75% on Monday as people rushed to book holidays for this summer and 2022.
Chief executive Alan French described the announcement as “good news for those of us desperate to get away on holiday”.
Updated
Afghanistan launches Covid-19 vaccination campaign
Afghanistan has launched a Covid-19 vaccination campaign aimed at inoculating hundreds of thousands, as the war-weary nation reels from near-daily attacks by insurgents, AFP reports.
Doctors, security personnel, and journalists were among the first volunteers to receive doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, donated earlier this month by India.
“Today, I congratulate the people of Afghanistan for the launch of the first stage of Covid-19 vaccine [drive] with 500,000 doses of vaccines. This is a big opportunity for the people of Afghanistan,” said the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, as the first jabs were administered.
“We don’t expect any miracles, but let’s help this campaign to be implemented justly,” the country’s acting health minister, Waheed Majroh added.
Afghanistan is believed to have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic in the last year, but limited testing and a ramshackle healthcare sector have hampered its ability to track the virus.
Updated
Russia has reported 11,823 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, including 1,198 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 4,189,153 since the pandemic began.
The government taskforce also reported 417 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 84,047.
Updated
The UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the number of variant cases across the UK had “fallen quite sharply” and suggested this meant measures at the border were “working”.
He told Sky News:
In the last week or so, there were just over a dozen new cases, which is far smaller than we were seeing even a couple of weeks ago.
So the extra measures that we’re taking at the border are working.
He said the review into international travel in the road map would be informed by evidence about vaccine effectiveness against new variants.
We do have to protect against these new variants, and that is a big challenge.
One of the reviews announced yesterday is a review into international travel. And that review will be informed by the evidence that we’re currently collecting on the impact of the vaccine on these, the so-called South Africa and Brazil new variants.
If the vaccine works well against them, then we can be much more relaxed about international travel. If the vaccine doesn’t work against them, then that will be much, much more difficult.
Updated
Airlines and travel firms are experiencing a surge in demand in the UK following prime minister Boris Johnson’s road map for how coronavirus restrictions will be eased.
Johnson said on Monday that a government taskforce will produce a report by 12 April recommending how international trips can resume for people in England.
Foreign holidays could be permitted from 17 May.
In the hours after the announcement, easyJet said bookings by UK customers for the summer season were more than four times higher compared with the same period during the previous week.
The Luton-based firm’s holiday division reported an even larger rise, with demand up sevenfold. The most popular destinations for this summer are beach resorts including Malaga, Alicante and Palma in Spain, Faro in Portugal and the Greek island of Crete.
August is the most booked month, followed by July and September.
The EasyJet chief executive, Johan Lundgren, told PA Media:
We have consistently seen that there is pent-up demand for travel and this surge in bookings shows that this signal from the government that it plans to reopen travel has been what UK consumers have been waiting for.
The prime minister’s address has provided a much-needed boost in confidence for so many of our customers in the UK with demand for flights up 337% and holidays up 630% already compared to last week and beach destinations proving most popular for this summer.
While the summer may be a little while off, we will be working around the clock to ensure we will be ready to ramp up our flights to reconnect friends and family or take them on a long-awaited holiday to remember.
Updated
Air New Zealand will trial a digital vaccine passport in April on flights between Auckland and Sydney with Qantas investigating similar technology.
As vaccination begins in Australia, attention has turned to the potential resumption of international travel and how Australia could track whether potential visitors have been vaccinated.
Several tech companies have been working with the World Health Organization to develop a secure digital vaccination record system that could be used to prove to airlines and governments that passengers have had a Covid vaccine.
One such app, Travel Pass, developed by the International Air Transport Association, will be trialled by Air New Zealand from April to “streamline the health verification process to help customers know what they need to take their next international trip safely”.
When someone is vaccinated or tested, the medical centre or lab can to securely send that information to the app, which can then be cross-checked against the travel requirements for the country they are trying to visit. With the customer’s permission, this health information can then be shared with airlines or border control in order to verify they are eligible to travel.
The airline is still in conversations with governments about integrating the app into vaccination and testing procedures.
Updated
Hi. Caroline Davies here, taking over the blog for the next few hours. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following – and stay tuned for more updates from my colleague Caroline Davies.
If you would like some calm with your pandemic-mandated indoor monotony, might I suggest these poet-recommended Keats poems:
Updated
Summary
Here are the key coronavirus developments from the last few hours:
- More than half a million people have died of Covid-19 in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University. The country had recorded more than 28 million cases and 500,071 lives have been lost as of Monday afternoon. In a somber address to the nation as the US surpassed half a million coronavirus deaths on Monday, Joe Biden urged the country to unify in its battle against the virus.
- Dr Fauci: the political divide added to ‘stunning’ US deaths. Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said political divisiveness contributed significantly to the “stunning” US coronavirus death toll, which on Monday surpassed 500,000 lives lost.
-
Italy allegedly misled the World Health Organization on its readiness to face a pandemic less than three weeks before the country’s first locally transmitted coronavirus case was confirmed.
- Syria has authorised the use of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, its embassy in Moscow said Monday. The country is the latest to approve the Russian vaccine, named after the Soviet-era satellite. Sputnik V was registered in August before clinical trials were underway, which left experts wary.
- UK govt eyeing return to normal by end of June. British Prime minister Boris Johnson on Monday set out a four-step plan to ease coronavirus restrictions, expressing hope that life could get back to normal by the end of June.
- Austria is betting on millions of tests to contain Covid-19. While Austria has struggled to contain the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, it is fast emerging as a world leader in testing as a way to reopen schools and businesses.
- The World Health Organization has agreed a no-fault compensation plan for claims of serious side effects in people in 92 poorer countries due to get Covid vaccines via the Covax sharing scheme, resolving a big concern among recipient governments.
- Guinea will launch an Ebola vaccination drive Tuesday after a flight delayed by a Saharan dust storm arrived carrying thousands of jabs, as the West African country fights to stamp out a resurgence of the deadly virus.
-
New Zealand has confirmed three new coronavirus cases – a schoolmate of a person from the original Auckland cluster and their two siblings. One of the siblings had been working at a K-Mart and 31 staff have now been identified as close contacts.
Updated
In the UK, the government has set out a four-step roadmap for relaxing coronavirus restrictions in England, including likely dates for reopening the hard-hit hospitality industry and non-essential retail. Here we gauge the reaction of businesses to a pathway out of the crisis:
Two new cases confirmed in New Zealand
New Zealand has confirmed two new coronavirus cases – the siblings of the case confirmed earlier on Tuesday, NewsHub reports.
One of the cases had been working at a K-Mart and 31 staff have now been identified as close contacts:
Therefore anyone who was at Kmart Botany, 500 Ti Rakau Drive, Botany Downs, at these times is considered a casual plus contact. If you are a casual plus contact, you are advised to immediately isolate at home and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice on isolation timeframes and testing requirements,” the ministry says.
Thirty-one staff at Kmart have already been identified as close contacts and are isolating and being provided with public health advice.
Other locations of interest for the three cases are continuing to be investigated and will be notified when available.”
Updated
Delayed Ebola vaccination drive to begin in Guinea
Guinea will launch an Ebola vaccination drive Tuesday after a flight delayed by a Saharan dust storm arrived carrying thousands of jabs, as the West African country fights to stamp out a resurgence of the deadly virus, AFP reports.
The outbreak, declared last weekend, is the first in the region since a 2013-16 epidemic left more than 11,300 people dead, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The start of the inoculation campaign had to be delayed by one day after a plane carrying more than 11,000 vaccine doses was unable to land in Guinea’s capital Conakry due to a dust storm.
A special flight carrying the Merck vaccine finally landed in Guinea late Monday, an AFP correspondent reported.
Health authorities said some of the doses would head straight to Nzerekore, the capital of Guinea’s southeastern forest region where five people have recently died of Ebola.
Inoculations are also planned in Conakry on Tuesday.
Ebola causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding. It is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.
As well as Guinea, the disease has also recently reemerged in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A further 8,700 vaccine doses were set to arrive from the United States on Wednesday.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 3,883 to 2,394,811, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Tuesday.
The reported death toll rose by 415 to 68,318, the tally showed.
Vietnam’s government said on Tuesday health workers, diplomats and military personnel would be among the first to be vaccinated against Covid when the country starts its inoculation programme next month, Reuters reports.
The Southeast Asian country with a population of 98 million said it will receive 60 million vaccine doses this year, including half under the WHO-led Covax scheme.
In the first quarter of 2021, Vietnam aims to inoculate 500,000 medical staff and 116,000 others directly involved in the fight against the pandemic, the government said in a statement.
Vietnam was lauded globally for containing the virus for months using mass testing and strict quarantining, though has faced a recent new wave of infections.
Late last month, Vietnam approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use days after the country detected the first locally transmitted cases in nearly two months.
The government said previously it was in talks with Russian and US vaccine manufacturers on potential supply agreements, while it expects a home-grown vaccine to be ready for domestic inoculation by May.
In the second quarter, Vietnam plans to vaccinate 1.8 million more people, including 9,200 customs officials, 4,080 diplomats, 1.03 million military personnel, 304,000 police officers and 550,000 teachers, the government said.
The country intends for 16 million to be vaccinated by the end of the third quarter, including 7.6 million people over the age of 65, the government said.
Vietnam has recorded 803 new Covid cases since the latest outbreak started last month or about a third of its overall caseload of 2,395 infections since infections were first detected a year ago. Vietnam has reported 35 deaths due to the virus.
Oman will not allow people from 10 countries to enter the country for 15 days to curb the spread of the coronavirus, in particular certain mutated strains, the Gulf state’s coronavirus committee said on Tuesday.
The countries are: Sudan, Lebanon, South Africa, Brazil, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia. The decision is effective from Thursday.
Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers have made an appointment for a Covid-19 vaccination in the first nine hours of registration.
Hong Kong authorities launched the online bookings at midnight, and by 9am 42,000 people from the five priority groups had signed up, the city’s chief executive said this morning. Vaccinations for the first priority group will begin next week and run for a fortnight, Carrie Lam said.
“The registration opened at midnight. Most citizens were sleeping, but some of them couldn’t wait and booked their vaccination. The response is enthusiastic,” she said.
While Lam praised the sign-up rate, there are signs of some teething problems. RTHK reports there was a waiting time of more than one hour on the website, and the booking link went to a page only in Chinese. Vaccinations at 18 designated outpatient clinics were also fully booked after the 42,000 registrations, but Lam said there were still appointments available at the five community vaccination centres.
She also said the first shipment of the second vaccine Hong Kong has procured - from Pfizer/BioNtech - would arrive shortly.
The first rollout is of the Chinese-made Sinovac, which has drawn some suspicion from Hong Kongers, amid an already high level of vaccine hesitancy compared to other countries.
A citywide poll conducted in January by University of Hong Kong found only about 30% residents were prepared to take the vaccine supplied by Sinovac. In contrast, 56% of respondents said they’d like to be vaccinated with Pfizer/BioNtech’s vaccine amid concern over Sinovac’s low efficacy.
Another poll by the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s medicine department, also conducted in January, found the overall Covid-19 vaccine acceptance rate for Hong Kong adults was 37%, which is far lower than that of other countries (around 60 – 90%).
In an effort to reassure the public (as many global leaders have done) Lam and key ministers were the first to receive the vaccine yesterday, and she told the Tuesday press conference she was feeling fine.
Lam decried “skilfully crafted” rumours and misinformation on the internet, including claims that she and other ministers were given something other than the Sinovac vaccine.
“We will be on our guard and will monitor the situation around the clock and as soon as we spot any untruthful reports we will swiftly clarify it. The vaccination will not just protect yourself, it will help you protect others.”
Leading Australian scientists have called on the federal government to urgently develop additional onshore Covid vaccine manufacturing capability to protect against supply disruption as the country completes its second day of vaccinations.
In a pre-budget submission published on Tuesday, the Australian Academy of Science said without the ability to produce mRNA vaccines, Australia and the region remain vulnerable to supply limitations:
Japan’s Emperor Naruhito said he was anticipating a “bright future” as Japan began its coronavirus inoculation programme, during an address to mark his 61st birthday on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
Celebrations to mark the Emperor’s birthday have been muted this year because of the pandemic.
“Fortunately, the number of new infections appears to be declining nationwide. Furthermore, coronavirus vaccinations have started,” Naruhito said, speaking to reporters at the imperial palace from behind a large transparent partition.
“I look forward to a bright future ahead, as our people overcome the coronavirus crisis by sharing the pain and helping each other, “ Naruhito said.
Japan’s Covid vaccination started this month, but one of the world’s most rapidly ageing societies faces challenges with the programme.
There will be limited supplies of vaccine doses for the first months of the rollout and shots for the elderly will be distributed gradually, the inoculation chief said on Monday.
On the Emperor’s birthday, visitors usually come to the imperial palace to offer good wishes and sign a guestbook – a practice that dates back to 1948. The Emperor also appears on a palace balcony with other members of the imperial family to speak to visitors.
Those events were cancelled this year. Naruhito’s new year public appearance last month was also replaced by a video message.
Naruhito, the grandson of Emperor Hirohito in whose name Imperial troops fought World War Two, is Japan’s first monarch born after the war. He ascended the throne in 2019 after his father, Akihito, abdicated
Papua New Guinea’s Covid-19 tsar has tested positive for the coronavirus.
David Manning, PNG’s pandemic response controller and police commissioner, tested positive, along with two family members, over the weekend.
He said, given the nature of his work, and his high level of exposure, infection “was bound to happen sooner or later”.
I have been telling people to be tested for Covid-19 and as the controller I had to take the test. I am glad I did, so I am now taking measures to protect my family.
I urge everyone to go to your nearest health centre and get tested. It is by knowing your status you can then take steps to protect your loved ones, especially the most vulnerable including the old and those with existing medical conditions.
Manning reiterated concerns about the low number of Covid-19 tests conducted across PNG.
“Our Covid-19 response is more than 12 months in place but we have only tested about 50,000 people. This is roughly 0.5% of the PNG population.
“I want to see more tests being done around the country so that we can have a fair idea of where the pandemic is in PNG and take measures to mitigate and contain it.”
PNG has had only 1056 confirmed cases, and 10 known deaths from Covid-19, but the actual rate of infection and death is likely significantly higher.
WHO agrees compensation fund for serious Covax vaccine side effects
The World Health Organization has agreed a no-fault compensation plan for claims of serious side effects in people in 92 poorer countries due to get COVID-19 vaccines via the Covax sharing scheme, resolving a big concern among recipient governments, Reuters reports.
The programme, which the WHO said was the first and only vaccine injury compensation mechanism operating on an international scale, will offer eligible people “a fast, fair, robust and transparent process”, the WHO said in a statement.
“By providing a no-fault lump-sum compensation in full and final settlement of any claims, the Covax programme aims to significantly reduce the need for recourse to the law courts, a potentially lengthy and costly process,” the statement said.
Questions of how compensation claims would be handled in the event of any serious Covid vaccine side effects, which are likely to be very rare, had been a worry for countries due to get Covid shots via the COVAX plan.
Countries funding their own Covid vaccine procurement also plan their own liability programmes.
The WHO-agreed plan, which has been under discussion for several months, is designed to cover serious side effects linked to any Covax-distributed vaccines until June 30, 2022, to Covax’s Advance Market Commitment-eligible economies - a group of 92 poorer states which includes most African and Southeast Asian countries.
Austria bets on millions of tests to contain Covid-19
While Austria has struggled to contain the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, it is fast emerging as a world leader in testing as a way to reopen schools and businesses, AFP reports.
The small nation with a population of just under nine million tested three million people last week alone, with the mass-testing strategy forming a key plank for getting pupils back into the classroom.
Half of those three million tests were administered in schools, where twice-weekly tests have been mandatory since in-person lessons restarted earlier this month.
Only a tiny percentage of parents have refused to have their children tested under the scheme - and those children are not allowed to return to school.
The other 1.5 million tests were carried out at more than 500 dedicated centres, around 900 pharmacies and roughly 1,000 companies.
Biden on reaching 500,000 US Covid deaths: ‘We must not become numb to the sorrow’
In a somber address to the nation as the US surpassed half a million coronavirus deaths on Monday, Joe Biden urged the country to unify in its battle against the virus.
“I ask all Americans to remember those we lost and those we left behind. But as we all remember, I also ask us to act, to remain vigilant, to stay socially distanced, to mask up, get vaccinated when it’s your turn,” the president said in his address from the White House.
Biden used the speech to urge Americans to overcome partisanship and follow public health guidelines as his administration races to distribute vaccines and end the pandemic:
China reported 10 new Covid cases on 22 February, down from 11 cases a day earlier, the national health authority said on Tuesday.
The National Health Commission said in a statement all of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose to nine from eight a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed Covid cases in mainland China now stands at 89,852, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,636.
Australia will ramp up its Covid immunisation drive with more shots to be rolled out from next week, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Tuesday, after a second shipment of the vaccine reached the country overnight.
Reuters: About 166,000 doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and Germany’s BioNtech arrived late Monday, authorities said, as the country entered the second day of a nationwide inoculation programme.
Total weekly doses will be raised to 80,000 next week from 60,000 doses this week, with the number expected to reach 1 million a week by the end of March when CSL Ltd begins to locally produce the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Australia on Monday began mass Covid vaccinations for its 25 million people after the arrival last week of a first batch of more than 142,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine.
All of New Zealand is in alert level 1 after a cluster of coronavirus cases in the community in Auckland was successfully contained, but prime minister Jacinda Ardern is under renewed pressure to reassess the country’s border controls.
Nick Wilson, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Otago, and the opposition National party are both calling for a purpose-built managed isolation and quarantine facility instead of converted hotels.
Wilson told the Herald the border response was “highly problematic” and in need of an overhaul: “The failure rate is just so unsustainably high, with now 11 border failures since last August.”Wilson is set to meet with ministers this week to discuss his concerns.
National’s Chris Bishop has said that a dedicated quarantine facility, with separate ventilation systems for each room and facilities on-site for staff, could be built on land outside Auckland airport, far from the central city. Victoria state premier Daniel Andrews announced plans for such a facility last week.
But Ardern has so far resisted the idea, saying that the bespoke building would be a “significant ask” and not necessarily effective in preventing transmission – while the vaccination rollout could change what’s required at the border.
More on New Zealand now:
Auckland has now joined the rest of the country at alert level 1, mask wearing is now compulsory on all trains, buses and planes around the country. Experts have been urging for the measure for months, but Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins told Radio New Zealand the government had to weigh up conflicting advice over whether they were effective as a precautionary approach.Hipkins said the government would take a “fairly light-handed approach” to enforcement initially to give people and transport providers an opportunity to comply.
Cabinet has also decided against making checking into venues mandatory, despite falling numbers of scans (which would prove crucial to contact tracing in the event of an outbreak). Hipkins said compulsion posed issues with enforcement, such as with people who do not own phones.
The government would be looking at ways to increase QR code scans as a preventative measure – but Hipkins was cheered by the vaccination programme, getting underway as of this week.
New Zealand confirms new Covid case
New Zealand’s Ministry of Health has confirmed a new positive Covid-19 case in the community, a schoolmate of one from the original Auckland cluster.
The girl had had limited exposure to the original case but, as a fellow student at Papatoetoe High School, had been asked to seek testing and self-isolate at home.
The school was closed last week as part of precautions; when it reopened yesterday, the girl and her sibling had stayed home.
“Despite the rest of the country moving down alert levels, Papatoetoe high school and their community have stayed at a heightened state of alert more than akin to level 3,” said Covid-19 minister Chris Hipkins.
Hipkins has asked all students and teachers and some household members to present to the school for another test and that people elsewhere in New Zealand, “be kind”.
“This is the early phase of the investigation into this particular case and we ask people not to pass judgement on others.”
The cases now associated with the most recent Auckland outbreak is nine. Waste water testing from the Papatoetoe area as well as nearly 70,000 tests processed since Sunday has give
UK govt eyes return to normal by end of June
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday set out a four-step plan to ease coronavirus restrictions, expressing hope that life could get back to normal by the end of June, AFP reports.
In a statement to parliament, he outlined a “gradual and cautious” approach to lifting curbs in England, starting with the reopening of schools from March 8 and non-essential retail from 12 April.
Some fans could be able to attend sporting fixtures from 17 May, while all social distancing restrictions could be removed from 21 June - all subject to change and depending on scientific data.
The announcement is the first big step towards restoring normal life, nearly a year after Johnson imposed the first of three stay-at-home orders that have devastated Britain’s economy.
Johnson told MPs that with a mass vaccination programme easing pressure on overstretched hospitals, “the end really is in sight”.
“A wretched year will give way to a spring and summer that will be very different and incomparably better than the picture we see around us today,” he added.
The Conservative leader, who was accused of acting too late and relaxing curbs too early last year, said the plan would be “cautious but irreversible”, ensuring no more lockdowns.
Opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer urged Johnson not to buckle in the face of pressure from Conservative lawmakers for a faster return to normality.
Such a move would “waste all the sacrifices of the last 12 months”, Starmer warned.
Most of the reduction in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions last year is likely to be wiped out as transport rebounds after Covid-19 lockdowns and farming recovers from the long-term-drought, according to an audit of national climate data.
Scott Morrison told the National Press Club earlier this month the government was “getting on with” reducing emissions, citing official data that found emissions were down 3% in the year to June to their lowest levels since 1998. He declared “these are the facts”.
An audit by Hugh Saddler, an energy consultant and honorary associate professor at ANU’s Crawford school of public policy, suggests at least some of the drop is likely to disappear:
Syria approves Russia’s Sputnik Covid vaccine
Syria has authorised the use of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, its embassy in Moscow said Monday, AFP reports.
The country is the latest to approve the Russian vaccine, named after the Soviet-era satellite. Sputnik V was registered in August before clinical trials were underway, which left experts wary.
But leading medical journal The Lancet published results showing the jab to be safe and 91.6 percent effective.
“The Syrian Arab Republic has completed all registration procedures for the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus infection and allowed its use on its territory,” the Russian TASS news agency cited the Syrian embassy as saying in a statement.
More than 30 countries have approved the vaccine, according to the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which financed its development.
Syria in December also signed on to the World Health Organisation’s Covax initiative to procure vaccines.
The WHO, together with the UN children’s agency UNICEF and Gavi, will support Syria in acquiring jabs to initially cover at least three percent of the population and aim for 20 percent by the end of the year.
Syria has recorded 15,179 coronavirus infections and 998 fatalities from the virus in government-held areas.
Territories under Kurdish control in the country’s northeast have recorded nearly 8,600 cases and 311 deaths, while the rebel-held northwest has reported 21,121 infections and 408 fatalities.
Russia backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s long-running civil war.
Italy 'misled' WHO about pandemic preparedness weeks before Covid confirmed locally
Italy allegedly misled the World Health Organization (WHO) on its readiness to face a pandemic less than three weeks before the country’s first locally transmitted coronavirus case was confirmed.
Each year, countries bound by the International Health Regulations (IHR) – an international treaty to combat the global spread of disease – are required to file a self-assessment report to the WHO on the status of their preparedness for a health emergency.
Italy undertook its last self-assessment report on 4 February 2020. In section C8 of the report, seen by the Guardian, where countries have to evaluate their overall readiness to respond to a public health emergency, the author marks Italy in ‘level 5’, which is the highest status of preparedness.
The category states that a country’s “health sector emergency response coordination mechanism and incident management system linked with a national emergency operation centre have been tested and updated regularly”.
However, it emerged last year that Italy had not updated its national pandemic plan since 2006, a factor that may have contributed to at least 10,000 Covid-19 deaths during the first wave and which is a key element in an investigation into alleged errors by authorities being carried out by prosecutors in Bergamo, the Lombardy province that was severely affected in the pandemic’s early stage:
Fauci says political divide added to 'stunning' US deaths
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said political divisiveness contributed significantly to the “stunning” US coronavirus death toll, which on Monday surpassed 500,000 lives lost, Reuters reports.
The country had recorded more than 28 million Covid cases and 500,054 fatalities as of Monday afternoon, according to a Reuters tally of public health data. In an interview with Reuters, Fauci on Monday said the pandemic arrived in the United States as the country was riven by political divisions in which wearing a mask became a political statement rather than a public health measure.
“Even under the best of circumstances, this would have been a very serious problem,” Fauci said, noting that despite strong adherence to public health measures, countries such as Germany and the UK struggled with the virus.
“However, that does not explain how a rich and sophisticated country can have the most percentage of deaths and be the hardest-hit country in the world,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a top adviser to President Joe Biden.
“That I believe should not have happened.”
While the United States has just about 4% of the global population, it has recorded nearly 20% of all Covid-19 deaths.
Fauci said the emergence of more contagious variants of the coronavirus, especially ones from South Africa and Brazil that have been shown to reduce the immunity from natural infections and vaccines, have made it challenging to predict when the nation will be able to put the pandemic behind it.
Fauci and Biden have said the United States should return to something approaching pre-pandemic normal life around Christmas. That could change, he cautioned.
The variants also change the equation when it comes to herd immunity, in which a population becomes protected from infection because of high levels of immunity from vaccines or infections.
Asked whether that is still achievable, Fauci said, “I think we can get herd immunity at least against getting sick.”
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus developments for the next few hours _ as always, you can find me (and a movie recommendation) on Twitter, too @helenrsullivan.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, said political divisiveness contributed significantly to the “stunning” national Covid-19 death toll, which on Monday surpassed 500,000.
Meanwhile Italy allegedly misled the World Health Organization (WHO) on its readiness to face a pandemic less than three weeks before the country’s first locally transmitted coronavirus case was confirmed.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- More than half a million people have died of Covid-19 in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University. The country had recorded more than 28 million cases and 500,071 lives have been lost as of Monday afternoon.
- US president Joe Biden is set to mark the latest tragic milestone of Covid deaths in the US on Monday night, with a candlelit commemoration and moment of silence for the 500,000 who will have lost their lives.
- The US has administered 64,177,474 doses of Covid-19 vaccines as of Monday morning and delivered 75,205,940 doses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
-
Italy allegedly misled the World Health Organization (WHO) on its readiness to face a pandemic less than three weeks before the country’s first locally transmitted coronavirus case was confirmed.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson has set out a four-stage plan for England to come out of lockdown that could pave the way for nightclubs to reopen, sports fans to fill stadiums once again and staycations to return.
- Real-world evidence from the Covid vaccination programmes in England and Scotland show that one dose of vaccine gives high protection against severe disease and admission to hospital – and protects against even mild disease with no symptoms in younger people.
- France reported a further 333 deaths from Covid-19, as well as 4,646 new infections, an increase from last Monday’s daily case tally of 4,376.
