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AstraZeneca has reported a threefold rise in sales of its Covid-19 vaccine from the first quarter of 2021 to the second – but its earnings remained significantly below those of its US rival Pfizer.
Britain’s biggest drugmaker revealed that it had generated $894m from Covid-19 vaccine sales in the three months to the end of June, following $275m in the first three months of the year. It has pledged to provide the jab, which it developed with Oxford University, on a not-for-profit basis during this pandemic.
The figures came a day after Pfizer said it made $7.8bn from the Covid jab it developed with Germany’s BioNTech in the second quarter, more than doubling its first-quarter takings of $3.5bn. It raised its 2021 sales forecast for the vaccine to $33.5bn from $26bn, as the Delta variant spreads rapidly and scientists debate whether people will need booster shots. Pfizer and BioNTech have tweaked their mRNA vaccine to target the Delta variant and will begin testing the modified jab on humans next month.
Moderna will reveal next Thursday how much it made from its coronavirus jab between April and June. The US drugs company brought in $1.7bn from sales of its Covid vaccine between January and March, helping it to its first quarterly profit since its foundation in 2010. In May, the firm forecast revenues of $19.2bn from the vaccine this year, but that estimate could rise next week.
GlaxoSmithKline posted £276m of Covid-19 sales on Wednesday, mainly from sales of its adjuvant – which boosts the efficacy of vaccines – to other drug makers. The UK’s second biggest pharmaceutical firm has not developed its own coronavirus shot, but is working with France’s Sanofi and Germany’s CureVac on new vaccines.
AstraZeneca said about $572m of vaccine sales came from Europe during the first half of 2021, in a period when the company was embroiled in a court battle with the European Commission over delivery delays, and a further $455m from emerging markets.
Read more here:
Ministers in the UK are facing growing criticism for putting France on the new “amber plus” travel list, after concerns were raised about whether they focused too much on variant cases in its Réunion Island territory 5,700 miles (9,180 km) from Paris.
The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, admitted on Thursday the decision to impose tougher restrictions on millions of fully vaccinated French citizens and Britons holidaying or living across the Channel was partly due to the prevalence of the Beta variant on Réunion.
He defended the move, saying it was “not the distance that matters” but rather “the ease of travel between different component parts of any individual country”.
France was put on England’s amber plus list two weeks ago, after the government took advice from the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC).
At the time, the reason given by the Department of Health and Social Care was the “persistent presence of cases in France of the Beta variant”, but a diplomatic row with France began gathering pace.
In a stern rebuke of the JBC, Mary Gregory, a deputy director at the Office for Statistics Regulation, wrote to the organisation, criticising it for “not making the data and sources clear” for its advice on France.
She said there was confusion about “whether cases from overseas territories had been excluded for France” and that refusals to publish clear evidence underpinning the decision “fall short of our expectations on transparency”.
Gregory said the JBC had confirmed one of the ways it tracked variants was the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (Gisaid), which showed there had been 1,023 Beta cases in Réunion – equal to about a third of the total number discovered across mainland France, 2,974.
Réunion is still on England’s normal amber list even though the ratio of Beta cases to people is much higher, granting anyone travelling from the island who is fully vaccinated exemption from isolation on arrival, so long as they get two negative tests.
The Gisaid figures revealed the number of Beta cases across France had grown by just 1.9% in the past four weeks – significantly less than Spain, where they have risen 14.2% across the same period.
Read more from my colleagues Aubrey Allegretti and Natalie Grover here:
Joe Biden was poised on Thursday to announce that all civilian federal workers must be vaccinated against the coronavirus or face regular testing and stringent physical distancing, masking and travel restrictions.
Facing a political test as the Delta variant cuts a swath through unvaccinated Americans, the president was set to put the government in a position of leading by example and offer a potential model to corporate employers.
But not for the first time, the pandemic response in the US is hampered by its internal political divisions. Biden’s intervention was likely to produce a renewed backlash from Republican politicians warning against government encroachment on individual freedom.
The highly infectious Delta variant hascaused coronavirus cases and hospitalisations to rebound in many parts of the US, which is averaging nearly 62,000 new Covid-19 cases a day. The vast majority of those hospitalised and dying have not been vaccinated.
Biden missed his goal of having 70% of adults get at least one shot by 4 July; the latest figure is 69.3%. About 60% of American adults have been fully vaccinated meaning that, despite a head start, it now has a lower share of fully vaccinated people than the European Union and Canada.
Public opinion on the vaccines seems to have solidified, with a recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finding that among American adults who have not yet received a vaccine, 35% say they probably will not, and 45% say they definitely will not.
Anthony Fauci, the top infectious diseases expert, told Reuters: “It’s the just unfortunate conflation of two things, and that is a virus that has evolved to be extraordinarily efficient in transmitting from person to person … superimposed upon an almost inexplicable resistance to vaccinations.”
Read the full story here:
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Northern Ireland is to follow the rest of the UK in allowing fully vaccinated travellers from EU amber countries and the US to enter without the need to quarantine.
The Stormont executive decided on Thursday to relax Covid-19 travel rules from 1 August. Ministers also agreed to let international cruise travel operate in Northern Ireland from Saturday, and to let UEFA VIP guests and Villarreal fans attend the Super Cup match against Chelsea in Belfast on 11 August without isolating.
The announcements came despite Covid-related pressure on hospitals and a warning that the region could face a more severe infection wave than other parts of the UK because of slumping vaccination rates.
The chief scientific adviser, Ian Young, told the Stormont assembly’s health committee that people in Northern Ireland appear less willing to receive a jab than elsewhere in the UK.
Patricia Donnelly, the head of the vaccination programme, said uptake rates had plunged since the rollout opened to under-30s.
However evidence that increasing positive case numbers may have plateaued this week appears to have emboldened the executive to relax rules.
The five-party coalition agreed to ease social distancing to one metre in certain contexts, such as shopping centres, from 6pm on Friday.
“The Executive remains concerned about the spread of the virus and its transmissibility,” it said in a statement. “The virus remains a risk to our health and economic wellbeing and the steps taken today must be seen in that context.”
Read more here:
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Today so far...
- Campaigners said the global vaccine rollout may represent “the most lethal profiteering in history”, as the People’s Vaccine Alliance published an analysis suggesting pharmaceutical companies are charging at least five times above cost price. More than 4bn doses of Covid vaccines have now been administered around the world, eight months after the vaccination drive started, according to an AFP count, but distribution has been extremely skewed towards wealthier countries.
- Israel is to begin offering a third shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to people over 60, local media said. The campaign will in effect turn Israel into a testing ground for the companies’ booster, which is likely to seek approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), amid significantly waning efficacy of the jabs.
- The British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has said it is considering its future in the vaccine market after it Covid jab generated $1.2bn in sales in the first half of the year, with quarterly sales tripling. They had decided to make the jab available at cost, after entering into an exclusive licensing agreement with Oxford University, who initially sought to work with manufacturers to produce without paying royalties.
- Pakistan is to controversially ban air travel for anyone without a Covid-19 vaccine certificate from August and will require all public sector workers to get vaccinated by the end of next month, the government announced along with a host of other draconian restrictions. From 31 August, unvaccinated staff will no longer be allowed to enter government offices, schools, restaurants or shopping malls.
- A “substantial chunk” of 9m Covid jab doses to be donated by the UK to developing states in the coming weeks expire at the end of September, “setting up African countries to fail”. Dr Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the Africa Union Vaccine Delivery Alliance, said the donations were comparable to a “Trojan horse” and that “the limited shelf life could actually be detrimental to all of our efforts to contain this pandemic”.
- The Biden administration announced it will allow a nationwide ban on evictions to end on Saturday, claiming that its hands are tied after the supreme court signalled it would only be extended until the end of the month - putting millions at risk of eviction amid a sluggish distribution of promised support funds.
- Health authorities in China set up checkpoints and reportedly suspended flights in the eastern city of Nanjing in the country’s worst coronavirus emergency in months. More than 170 people have been diagnosed with the Delta variant in the past 10 days.
- The Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, said officials should detain those who refuse to be vaccinated against Covid inside their homes. Legal experts said the move would be unconstitutional and reflected his “militaristic mindset”, after Duterte claimed responding to the pandemic was more important than laws guaranteeing freedom of movement
- An alleged Sydney anti-lockdown protester accused of punching a police horse will remain behind bars after refusing a Covid test that was a prerequiste for him to appear in court. His barrister, Hollie Blake, claimed in court that corrective services officers were making it impossible to gain access to her client.
France’s Indian ocean territory of La Reunion will be put into a partial lockdown at the weekend due to a surge in Covid-19 infections.
AFP reports that there is growing concern among officials in Paris over the infection rates in France’s overseas territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Pacific where vaccination uptake is far lower than the mainland average.
La Reunion will from Saturday for the next two weeks go into partial lockdown, with movement only allowed 10km from people’s home in the daytime, said its top official, prefect Jacques Billant.
In the evenings, there will be a curfew from 6pm at night until 5am in the morning, with no movement allowed expect for essential reasons, he added. Cafes, restaurants and gyms will also close for the next two weeks.
He described the situation as “worrying”, saying that there was “unprecedented exponential growth of the epidemic” with 350 out of every 100,000 inhabitants infected.
The situation on La Reunion is being particularly closely watched after Britain said it was the main reason why travellers from France - unlike all other non-red list destinations - were still being obliged to quarantine for 10 days on arrival in the country.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC that this was due to the prevalence of the Beta variant on La Reunion, which is off Madagascar and over 9,000km from Paris. “It’s not the distance that matters, it’s the ease of travel between different component parts of any individual country,” he explained.
A spokesman for Brittany Ferries, which runs ferries across the Channel, however said this logic is “like France hammering British holidaymakers due to a Covid outbreak on the Falkland Islands.”
French European affairs minister Clement Beaune earlier lambasted the British restrictions as “discriminatory towards French people” and making “no sense in terms of health policy”.
A leading Israeli health provider has said it would soon begin offering a third, booster Covid-19 shot to patients over the age of 60 who have already been vaccinated.
Maccabi, one of Israel’s four publicly funded health maintenance organisations, said its members could already register and the vaccinations would start on Sunday.
The announcement came shortly ahead of a nationally televised news conference by prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who is expected to unveil a nationwide booster shot program. It would make Israel among the first countries to launch a widespread campaign offering its vaccinated citizens a third dose.
The Associated Press reports that early this year, Israel carried out one of the world’s most aggressive and successful vaccination campaigns. Over 57% of the country’s 9.3 million citizens have received two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and over 80% of the population over 40 is vaccinated.
The vaccination program allowed Israel to reopen its economy ahead of other countries. But there are signs that the vaccine’s efficacy significantly wears off over time, and Israel has seen a spike in cases of even among people who are vaccinated.
People over the age of 60 who were vaccinated more than five months ago will be eligible for the booster, Maccabi said.
A preprint not yet peer-reviewed yesterday reported that the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech fell from 96% to 84% over six months.
Stat News reported that an ongoing Pfizer study of more than 44,000 people, the vaccine’s efficacy in preventing any Covid-19 infection that causes even minor symptoms appeared to decline by an average of 6% every two months after administration.
The Pfizer study, which enrolled volunteers in Europe and the Americas, did not address whether the vaccine is less effective against the Delta variant.
The pharmaceutical company’s chief of research and development said he expected a third dose to be “somewhat more long lasting” than second dose.
The World Health Organization said earlier this month it is not clear whether Covid-19 booster vaccines would be useful to maintain protection against the virus, but that it would monitor emerging data.
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Portugal has said it would lift a night-time curfew and restrictions on restaurants’ opening hours from Sunday, with around half of the population fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
“Vaccination has contributed very significantly to [allow] these measures... but we cannot ignore the fact that... the virus continues to circulate.... the pandemic has not disappeared,” said the prime minister ,Antonio Costa.
Costa also said the compulsory use of masks in crowded outdoor areas would end in the beginning of September and nightclubs and bars, which have been shut since March last year, would be able to reopen the following month, Reuters reports.
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Millions of Americans at risk of eviction as suspension to end, White House attempts to shift blame
Following on from our reports earlier, the Biden administration has announced it will allow a nationwide ban on evictions to end on Saturday, claiming that its hands are tied after the supreme court signalled it would only be extended until the end of the month.
The White House said President Joe Biden would have liked to extend the federal eviction moratorium due to spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, the Associated Press reports. Instead, Biden called on “Congress to extend the eviction moratorium to protect such vulnerable renters and their families without delay”.
The moratorium was put in place last September by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Given the recent spread of the Delta variant, including among those Americans both most likely to face evictions and lacking vaccinations, President Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the CDC to further extend this eviction moratorium to protect renters at this moment of heightened vulnerability,” the White House said. “Unfortunately, the supreme court has made clear that this option is no longer available.”
The court mustered a bare 5-4 majority last month to allow the eviction ban to continue through the end of July. One of those in the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, made clear he would block any additional extensions unless there was “clear and specific congressional authorisation”.
By the end of March, 6.4m American households were behind on their rent, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As of 5 July, roughly 3.6m people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in June this would be the last time the moratorium would be extended when she set the deadline for 31 July. It was initially put in place to prevent further spread of Covid-19 by people put out on the streets and into shelters.
Housing advocates and some lawmakers have called for the moratorium to be extended due to the increase in coronavirus cases and the fact so little rental assistance has been distributed.
“The confluence of the surging Delta variant with 6.5m families behind on rent and at risk of eviction when the moratorium expires demands immediate action,” said Diane Yentel, executive director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
“The public health necessity of extended protections for renters is obvious. If federal court cases made a broad extension impossible, the Biden administration should implement all possible alternatives, including a more limited moratorium on federally backed properties.”
Some Democratic lawmakers had demanded the administration extend the moratorium.
“This pandemic is not behind us, and our federal housing policies should reflect that stark reality,” Democratic representatives Cori Bush of Missouri, Jimmy Gomez of California and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts said in a joint statement. “With the US facing the most severe eviction crisis in its history, our local and state governments still need more time to distribute critical rental assistance to help keep a roof over the heads of our constituents.”
But landlords, who have opposed the moratorium and challenged it repeatedly in court, were against any extension. They have argued the focus should be on speeding up the sluggish distribution of rental assistance.
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The World Health Organization has said the Delta variant has led to a “surge” in coronavirus outbreaks triggering a “fourth wave” in the eastern Mediterranean region.
AFP reports that the global health body said the highly transmissible Delta strain, first detected in India, has been recorded in 15 out of the 22 countries of the region under its purview, stretching from Morocco to Pakistan.
“The circulation of the Delta variant is fuelling the surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths in an increasing number of countries in WHO’s eastern Mediterranean region,” it said in a statement.
“Most of the new cases and hospitalised patients are unvaccinated people. We are now in the fourth wave of Covid-19 across the region,” said Ahmed al-Mandhari, director of the region for WHO.
Infections have increased by 55% and deaths by 15% in the last month compared with the month before. More than 310,000 case and 3,500 deaths have been recorded weekly, though AFP did not report how many of these cases represented excess deaths.
The WHO noted the rapid spread of the Delta variant was quickly making it “the dominant strain” in the region.
According to a recent paper in the journal Virological, the amount of virus found in the first tests of patients with the Delta variant was 1,000 times higher than patients in the first wave of the virus in 2020, greatly increasing its contagiousness.
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Pakistan to ban air travel for unvaccinated in raft of hard-line measures
Pakistan is to controversially ban air travel for anyone without a Covid-19 vaccine certificate from August and will require all public sector workers to get vaccinated by the end of next month, the government announced along with a host of other draconian restrictions.
From 31 August, unvaccinated staff will no longer be allowed to enter government offices, schools, restaurants or shopping malls, said Asad Umar, who heads National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), a military-run body that oversees the pandemic response, at a joint news conference with the health minister in Islamabad.
Teachers and students above 18, public transport and retail staff will also be required to get vaccinated, they said, amid rising cases, though the risk of death among children verges on statistical insignificance.
“If you’re not vaccinated you can’t go to teach at schools and colleges from 1 August,” Umar said. “We can’t put our children’s lives at risk just because that you’re not ready to get the vaccine.”
Reuters reports that after a sluggish start, the government ramped up its national vaccination drive, especially in the heartland Punjab province, with 850,000 doses administered yesterday across the country. Umar said the target is to touch one million doses a day.
According to the NCOC, over 27.8m have now received at least one vaccine shot, while 5.9m have been fully vaccinated out of a population of 220m.
It said Pakistan registered 4,497 new cases and 76 deaths in the last 24 hours, with over 3,000 people in critical condition. So far 23,209 people have died of Covid-19 in Pakistan in the near 18 months of the pandemic.
Only 13% of testing sites for fully vaccinated critical workers to free themselves from isolation are up and running, the UK government has admitted.
My colleagues Heather Stewart and Aubrey Allegretti report that an effort to avoid a major hit to the economy due to hundreds of thousands of people needing to quarantine after being identified as a close contact of a positive Covid case, the government set a target of establishing 2,000 sites where critical workers could get tested daily instead of having to isolate.
With the legal requirement to isolate if “pinged” or contacted by test and trace set to fall away after 16 August, ministers heralded the scheme as a way of avoiding further disruption to services including public transport, bin collections and food supply.
No 10 said on Thursday just 265 testing sites had been established, with a further 800 due to open within the next week – but gave no specific date for when the 1,000 or so centres remaining would follow suit, raising concerns about whether people would still be unnecessarily forced into isolation.
Statistics released on Thursday showed a record 689,313 people in England and Wales were contacted by the NHS Covid app and asked to self-isolate in the week to 12 July, underlining the widespread disruption caused by surging case rates.
Official data from the app showed an 11.4% increase in the number of people “pinged” over the previous week.
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China’s new envoy to the US, Qin Gang, struck a conciliatory tone in his debut press conference upon arrival in Washington DC yesterday.
“I believe that the door of China-US relations, which is already open, cannot be closed,” Qin said, adding he would “endeavour to bring [bilateral] relations back on track, turning the way for the two countries to get along with each other … from a possibility into a reality.”
Meanwhile, Biden is expected to announce a vaccine mandate for federal employees later today.
You can join my colleague Joan E Greve for the latest US-focused updates.
US president, Joe Biden, has asked Congress to extend the eviction suspension to protect renters and their families amid rising coronavirus infections, the White House has said.
Biden also asked the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs to extend their respective eviction bans through the end of September, it said, to protect Americans living in federally insured, single-family properties.
It comes after the leading US residential landlord association yesterday said it was suing the federal government over the stoppage on evictions during the pandemic.
The National Apartment Association claims that the national freeze cost owners about $27bn not covered by existing aid programs, with the moratorium set to expire in less than a week.
The New York Times reports that analysts cited in the landlords’ suit adjudged that 10m tenants owed $57bn in arrears by the end of 2020, and that another $17bn had since gone unpaid.
It is hoped by the group that the action would accelerate the disbursement of $47bn in emergency rent relief included in federal pandemic relief packages.
“If the government takes a hardline approach, renters and rental housing providers will suffer credit damage and economic harm that could follow them for years to come,” Robert Pinnegar, the association’s president, told the NYT.
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The US health regulator has expanded the emergency use authorisation for Eli Lilly’s Covid-19 drug baricitinib, saying it could now be used without taking Gilead’s drug remdesivir along with it, Lilly has said.
In November, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Lilly and Incyte’s arthritis drug, baricitinib, in combination with remdesivir, to treat Covid-19 patients.
“Based on the increasing body of evidence, we are confident in the potential of baricitinib as an important treatment for the hospitalised Covid-19 patient population requiring supplemental oxygen,” Lilly said.
FDA’s expanded use for baricitinib was based on results from a trial done by the company in April.
The trial did not meet the main goal of preventing progression to ventilator use in hospitalised Covid-19 patients, Reuters reports. However, the study showed baricitinib-treated patients were less likely than those receiving standard of care to progress to ventilator use or death.
The study enrolled 1,525 hospitalised Covid-19 patients who received either baricitinib or a placebo, along with the standard of care, which included corticosteroids and remdesivir.
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The world is witnessing the emergence of more infectious variants of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, write several World Health Organization envoys, but a stuttering race to ensure equitable access to vaccines has seen a handful of countries streak ahead, immunising their own populations, leaving many of the world’s vulnerable people in their wake.
Countries with the greatest stocks of vaccines should not hoard them and push to cover their entire populations while other countries do without. It is not even in their best interests, since the intense circulation of the virus in countries with no vaccines increases the possibility of more transmissible and dangerous variants, threatening to make current vaccines less effective.
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The increasing polarisation and disinformation around the Covid-19 vaccine has led to some people attempting to “disguise their appearance” and get vaccinated in secret, according to a Missouri doctor.
Dr Priscilla Frase, a hospitalist and chief medical information officer at Ozarks Healthcare in West Plains, said physicians had experienced a number of people who have asked to covertly receive the vaccine to avoid conflict with vaccine sceptical family, friends and co-workers.
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Vietnam is to speed up its vaccine rollout in Ho Chi Minh City and build more field hospitals, authorities have said, as it battles a worsening wave of infections.
After successfully containing the virus for much of the pandemic, Vietnam has been facing record daily increases in infections since late April, Reuters reports. The health ministry said in a statement it will simplify procedures in order to speed up vaccinations in Ho Chi Minh City where it is aiming to administer at least one shot to 70% of the city’s 9 million residents over the next month.
The city currently administers between 70,000 and 80,000 coronavirus vaccine doses per day.
“It must be done quickly, using up all the vaccines as they arrive,” the health minister, Nguyen Thanh Long, said on Thursday during a meeting with municipal authorities.
Vaccination centres will remain open late in the evening and more medical staff will be deployed to the city, the ministry said. Procedures before and after the shots will be shortened.
Vietnam, with a population of 98 million, has so far administered over 5.3 million vaccine doses, but fewer than 500,000 people have been fully vaccinated.
It reported 7,594 new infections on Thursday, raising its overall caseload to 128,413, with at least 630 deaths. More than 40% of those cases were recorded over the past week.
Rising infection numbers have also forced labour-intensive businesses, including Nike and Adidas suppliers, in Ho Chi Minh City and neighbouring industrial provinces to halt production.
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Greece’s south Aegean islands have been marked “dark red” on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s Covid-19 map after a rise in infections, meaning all but essential travel to and from the area is discouraged.
“We’re waiting to see how the [tourist] markets will react,” said Manolis Markopoulos, the president of the hoteliers association of Rhodes, where more than 90% of tourists are from abroad, referring to the ECDC decision.
Reuters reports that despite a strong June in terms of arrivals to the Greek islands, which brings in significant revenues for the country, uncertainty remains over how the season will unfold.
The cluster of 13 islands includes Greece’s most popular destinations for foreign tourists - Mykonos, Santorini and Rhodes - which, combined, draw millions of people every summer. Germany and Britain are the biggest sources of visitors to Greece.
The dark red zones on the ECDC map help distinguish very high-risk areas and also helps EU member states uphold rules requiring testing on departure and quarantine upon return, Reuters reports.
Last week it downgraded Crete, Greece’s biggest island and another popular destination, to the dark red zone.
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On the topic of the AstraZeneca jab, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England, has told BBC News that new research suggested that vaccines had prevented 22m coronavirus infections and 60,000 deaths in England.
He was speaking shortly before the publication of Public Health England’s latest vaccine surveillance report (pdf), which contains the figures. It says:
Estimates suggest that 60,000 deaths and 22,057,000 infections have been prevented as a result of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, up to 9 July.
You can keep up with all the latest UK-focused updates with my colleague Andrew Sparrow.
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The British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has said its Covid jab has generated $1.2bn in sales in the first half of the year as global vaccination programmes accelerated.
AFP reports that sales more than tripled to $894m in the three months to June, from $275m in the three months to March, it said in a statement. AstraZeneca shipped 319 million doses in the first half, including $572m of sales in Europe and $455m in other markets.
It comes after the US drugmaker Pfizer lifted its annual revenue and profit projections on surging demand for its rival Covid-19 vaccine made with Germany’s BioNTech.
“We have made dramatic progress with our Covid-19 vaccine Vaxzevria,” said the AstraZeneca chief executive, Pascal Soriot. “As of today, AstraZeneca and our partners have released 1bn doses to more than 170 countries.”
The development of the vaccine with scientists at Oxford University, and their decision to make it available at cost without making a profit, has made the Anglo-Swedish firm a household name.
Due to this decision, AstraZeneca’s performance is dwarfed by that of Pfizer, which forecasts $33.5bn in Covid jab sales this year. AstraZeneca added that group net profit jumped 40% to $2.1bn in the first half. Total revenues increased by almost a quarter to $15.5bn.
But at least 97% of the funding for the development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine has been identified as coming from taxpayers or charitable trusts, according to research, the Guardian has previously reported.
The overwhelming majority of the money, especially in the early stages of the research, came from UK government departments, British and American scientific institutes, the European Commission and charities including the Wellcome Trust.
Oxford University initially said any vaccine it developed would be open to qualified manufacturers to produce without paying royalties, and priced either at cost or at a small profit. However, by August 2020, reportedly at the urging of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, the university decided to change course. It entered an exclusive licensing agreement with AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca entered into several licensing agreements with large manufacturers, including the Serum Institute of India, to try to ensure the vaccine is widely produced.
But the company reserves the right to raise the price of the vaccine when it decides the Covid-19 pandemic has ended – which will lead to a potential windfall if regular booster shots are required in the years ahead to maintain immunity against the virus and its variants.
The AZ jab has faced safety doubts and suspensions in some European nations over reports of rare blood clots. The World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency have declared, however, that the benefits outweigh any risk.
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Two pole vaulters, including the US world champion, Sam Kendricks, have tested positive for Covid-19 in the Olympic Village, raising concerns of a potential domino effect among athletes.
Kendricks’s father, Scott, broke the news on Instagram that his son had become the most high-profile athlete to test positive. Shortly afterwards another pole vaulter, the Argentinian Germán Chiaraviglio, revealed he was also out of the Games after a positive test.
All 63 of Australia’s track and field team were immediately confined to their room, but it was later announced they had all been cleared. No Team GB members are understood to be affected.
Last week, teams were warned that anyone testing positive would have to self-isolate for 14 days in a quarantine facility just outside the village before flying home.
On his Instagram account, Scott Kendricks said: “He feels fine and has no symptoms. Love you son. See you soon.”
The BBC has queried whether an emergency hospital for Covid patients built in a converted industrial unit in the north of England at the reported cost of £23.5m was worth the outlay after it did not treat a single person.
Sunderland’s 460-bed Nightingale hospital, one of seven emergency hospitals established to take coronavirus patients, was built as a contingency in case existing local hospitals were overwhelmed – a situation the BBC said did not materialise. It is now a vaccination centre with 150,000 people receiving a jab there so far.
Emma Lewell-Buck, the Labour MP for South Shields, told the BBC the “ill thought out” hospital “was not money well spent” and a “shambles from the outset”.
She added that “there are other places that could be used as vaccination centres”.
Dr Paul Williams, a GP who was Labour MP for Stockton until 2019 and a candidate in the recent Hartlepool byelection, said: “The NHS didn’t need these extra buildings. They needed extra staff in order to be able to cope with the problem.”
But Stephen O’Brien, a Liberal Democrat councillor for Sandhill on Sunderland city council, said the government was right to have given “some sort of provision for overspill”.
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Israel to offer booster shot of Pfizer jab amid waning efficacy - reports
Israel is to begin offering a third shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to people over 60, local media have said.
The campaign will in effect turn Israel into a testing ground for the companies’ booster, which is likely to seek approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Pfizer said yesterday it believed people needed a third dose to keep protection against coronavirus high. The efficacy of the jab developed with BioNTech fell from 96% to 84% over six months, according to a preprint not yet peer-reviewed release yesterday based on company data.
The Israeli media outlets Kan and Channel 13 said the director general of Israel’s health ministry informed the heads of health maintenance organisations that have been administering the two-dose Pfizer vaccine that they could provide, as of Sunday, booster shots for people over the age of 60.
The ministry said earlier that it would make an official announcement about a booster campaign later in the day.
Since the Delta variant began spreading in Israel in June, the health ministry has twice reported a drop in the vaccine’s effectiveness against infection and a slight decrease in its protection against severe disease.
The World Health Organization said earlier this month it is not clear whether Covid-19 booster vaccines would be useful to maintain protection against the virus, but that it would monitor emerging data.
Updated
Duterte threat to detain unvaccinated in homes 'unconstitutional', reflects 'militaristic mindset'
The Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, has said officials should detain those who refuse to be vaccinated against Covid inside their homes.
Legal experts said the move would be unconstitutional and reflected his “militaristic mindset”, after Duterte claimed responding to the pandemic was more important than laws guaranteeing freedom of movement, the New York Times reports.
“If they don’t want to be vaccinated, they should not be allowed to go out of their homes,” Duterte said. “They may say there is no law, but should I wait for a law knowing that many will die?”
He added that for people who don’t want to be vaccinated, “well, for all I care, you can die anytime.”
Duterte said that local officials should prevent people who would not be vaccinated from not leaving home, despite increasing evidence that the jabs do not prevent infection or transmission in a significant amount of cases.
Vaccine hesitancy in the Philippines was bolstered in 2017 when a dengue immunisation drive led to dozens of deaths, the NYT reports.
Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in the Philippines, said that the order was unconstitutional and dangerous, and that demand for vaccines actually outstripped supply.
“There are actually many wanting to be vaccinated but are just waiting to be called by the government,” Olalia told the NYT. “The point is, is the vaccine rollout sufficient? Anecdotally, no. There have been long queues.”
Less than 6% of the population of 108 million in the Philippines have been fully vaccinated, according to the NYT. There has been a recorded total of 1.57m cases and 27,401 deaths.
Updated
Facebook and Google are mandating that all employees returning to their offices must be fully vaccinated against Covid, while Netflix is doing similarly for all actors in their own productions – the first studio to do so.
The US streaming company is reportedly to require that “zone A” personnel – actors and crew in close contact with them – must get jabs.
A CNN anchor says these moves, among others, show that even as evidence grows of the flaws of the vaccines, corporate America is sending a stark message: “Get vaccinated or get out.”
"Get vaccinated or get out. That is the message from corporate America this morning," @brikeilarcnn says. "Many companies are not just recommending that employees get the covid vaccine, they're mandating it for those who are returning to the office..." pic.twitter.com/LGwAG2BOc4
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 29, 2021
Updated
China seeks to stifle small Delta variant outbreaks with overwhelming response
China has reported small coronavirus outbreaks driven by the Delta variant in three provinces as a cluster linked to an eastern airport spreads despite mass testing and a vaccination drive.
AFP reports that the flare-up, which began after nine workers at the Nanjing airport tested positive on 20 July, has seen 171 cases detected in Jiangsu province, while infections have spread to at least four other provinces.
It is geographically the largest spread for several months, challenging China’s aggressive containment efforts which have relied on mass testing, lockdowns and swift contact tracing, according to AFP.
The virus first emerged in the central city of Wuhan, but China has extolled its success in largely extinguishing the pandemic inside its borders, allowing the economy to rebound.
Officials in Jiangsu have locked down hundreds of thousands of residents, Lu Jing, a member of the epidemic prevention taskforce, said. “Internet cafes, gyms, cinemas and karaoke bars and even libraries in Nanjing have been shut down,” he added.
The city has tested all 9.2m residents twice, he said, adding that the highly contagious Delta variant is posing challenges to containment efforts.
The southwestern province of Sichuan reported three new cases today while Beijing reported two locally transmitted infections, the first in six months. The Beijing patients – a married couple – living on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, tested positive after returning from a tourist hotspot in central China, a health official said. More than 650 close contacts have since been identified and quarantines imposed.
Most of the patients testing positive in the latest outbreak have already been vaccinated, according to AFP, raising concerns about the efficacy of vaccines against new variants.
The European Commission has said it has agreed with Hungary to extend a deadline for Budapest to meet demands on its €7bn coronavirus recovery plan.
“The commission is working together with Hungary constructively, with an aim to finalising the assessment by the end of September,” a spokeswoman said. “The commission requested an extended deadline and Hungary did not object.”
The EU executive is responsible for paying out the bloc’s €750bn pandemic recovery fund and has yet to give Hungary the green light for its plan despite this month missing a deadline to do so.
The stalemate comes after tensions between Hungary and its EU partners blew out into the open over a controversial anti-LGBTQ law that critics say equates paedophilia with homosexuality, AFP reports.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán portrays the legislation as protecting children and refuses to withdraw it despite the criticism and legal action from the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm.
The EU insists that its appraisal of the recovery plan does not involve the LGBTQ law and that the delay is due to shortcomings by Hungary on anti-corruption commitments and guarantees on the independence of the courts. But Hungarian officials have said they believe the EU was under pressure to refuse the plan because of the LGBTQ law.
Updated
UK vaccine donations 'sets up African countries to fail' due to short shelf-life
A “substantial chunk” of 9m Covid jab doses to be donated by the UK to developing states in the coming weeks expire at the end of September, “setting up African countries to fail”.
The Telegraph reports that about 5m of a pledged 100m surplus jabs to be donated by June 2022 would be sent to the Covax distribution scheme, while others will be given directly to allies and former colonies such as Kenya and Jamaica.
It says it understands “a substantial chunk of the shots arriving in countries in August will expire at the end of September”.
Dr Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the Africa Union Vaccine Delivery Alliance, told the Telegraph the donations were comparable to a “Trojan horse” and that “the limited shelf life could actually be detrimental to all of our efforts to contain this pandemic”.
Nanjala Nyabola, a political analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya, told the paper:
We are setting up African countries to fail with leftover vaccines. This should never have happened – if the vaccines were made available to purchase fairly none of this would even arise. Expecting a system in a poor country to distribute 817,000 vaccines in a matter of a few weeks, in the context of all these other challenges, is setting them up to fail.
Updated
An alleged Sydney anti-lockdown protester accused of punching a police horse called Tobruk will remain behind bars after refusing a Covid test that was a prerequiste for him to appear in court.
Kristian Pulkownik, 33, is yet to formally apply for bail after he was arrested on Saturday following a march in Sydney’s city centre where thousands of people defied coronavirus restrictions to attend, the Australian Associated Press reports.
He did not appear on screen for a second time this week at Sydney’s central local court today when his matter was mentioned. His barrister, Hollie Blake, claimed in court that corrective services officers were making it impossible to gain access to her client.
The Surry Hills man allegedly struck a police horse and faces four charges of affray, animal cruelty, joining an unlawful assembly and failing to comply with a Covid-19 direction.
Mark Richardson, the magistrate, read out a note from Parklea prison indicating that Pulkownik could not be brought up to a video link area to appear because he was “refusing to be tested”.
“Your client is in custody and has been in the community and is a risk to others as he could be Covid-positive,” the magistrate said. “Your client is in isolation.”
Updated
Big Pharma 'holding world to ransom' over high vaccine prices, say campaigners
Campaigners have said the global vaccine rollout may represent “the most lethal profiteering in history”, as the People’s Vaccine Alliance today published new analysis suggesting pharmaceutical companies are charging at least five times above cost price.
New analysis by the Alliance, published by Oxfam, shows that the firms Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are charging governments as much as $41bn above the estimated cost of production – effectively holding countries “to ransom” as the prices of Covid vaccines soar way above those of previous jabs.
Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have sold over 90% of their vaccines so far to developed countries, charging up to 24 times the potential cost of production, they say.
It comes after the UK and Germany lead efforts this week at the World Trade Organisation to prevent a patent waiver, supported by the US, which could transfer technology to developing countries and allow for a swifter global vaccine rollout.
The People’s Vaccine Alliance statement said:
Analysis of production techniques for the leading mRNA type vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna ― which were only developed thanks to public funding to the tune of $8.3bn ― suggest these vaccines could be made for as little as $1.20 a dose.
Yet Covax, the scheme set up to help countries get access to Covid vaccines, has been paying, on average, nearly five times more. Covax has also struggled to get enough doses and at the speed required, because of the inadequate supply and the fact that rich nations have pushed their way to the front of the queue by willingly paying excessive prices.
Without pharmaceutical monopolies on vaccines restricting supply and driving up prices, the Alliance says the money spent by Covax to date could have been enough to fully vaccinate every person in low- and middle-income countries with cost-price vaccines, if there was enough supply. Instead at best Covax will vaccinate 23% by end of 2021.
Before the pandemic, developing countries paid a median price of $0.80 a dose for all non-Covid vaccines, according to analysis by the World Health Organization. While all vaccines are different and the new vaccines may not be directly comparable, even one of the cheapest Covid-19 vaccines on the market, Oxford/AstraZeneca, is nearly four times this price; the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is 13 times; and the most expensive vaccines, such as Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and the Chinese produced Sinopharm, are up to 50 times higher.
Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s health policy manager, said:
Pharmaceutical companies are holding the world to ransom at a time of unprecedented global crisis. This is perhaps one of the most lethal cases of profiteering in history. Precious budgets that could be used for building more health facilities in poorer countries are instead being raided by CEOs and shareholders of these all-powerful corporations.”
Maaza Seyoum, from the African Alliance and People’s Vaccine Alliance Africa, said:
Enabling developing country manufacturers to produce vaccines is the fastest and surest way to ramp up supply and dramatically drive down prices. When this was done for HIV treatment, we saw prices drop by up to 99%. What possible reason then do the governments of the UK, Germany and EU have to ignore the repeated calls from developing countries to break the vaccine monopolies that could drive up production while driving down price?
Updated
Over 4bn vaccine doses now administered globally, but rate slowing
More than 4bn doses of Covid vaccines have been administered around the world, eight months after the vaccination drive started, according to an AFP count.
Global injections have slowed slightly, with the fourth billion reached in 30 days, while it took only 26 days to reach the previous one. The first and second billion were reached after about 140 and 40 days respectively.
Some 40% of the 4bn shots have been administered in China (1.6bn), while India (451m) and the US (343m) have seen the second and third most jabs.
In terms of population among countries with more than one million people, the United Arab Emirates is the leader, with 168 first and second doses administered per 100 inhabitants. Uruguay follows (137), then Bahrain (134).
The UAE is close to having 70% of its population fully vaccinated while Uruguay and Bahrain have both reached more than 60%.
After this the leading countries are Qatar, Chile and Canada (129 shots per 100 inhabitants), Israel (128), Singapore (125), the UK, Mongolia and Denmark (124) and Belgium (121). These countries have all fully vaccinated more than half their populations.
The vaccination coverage remains very unequal: high-income countries have administered an average of 97 doses per 100 inhabitants compared with just 1.6 doses in low-income countries.
Updated
India’s southern state of Kerala has announced a two-day lockdown as federal authorities planned to send experts to help stem the spread of infections in the country’s leading Covid-19 hotspot.
Kerala, with an active case load of about 154,000, accounts for 37.1% of India’s total active cases, and the pace at which infections are spreading is now the country’s highest, Reuters reports.
“Special intensified stringent restrictions are being implemented in the areas where the test positivity rate is high,” the state’s department of disaster management said in a statement announcing a “complete lockdown” from Sunday.
During the last four weeks, seven of Kerala’s 14 districts reported an increasing trend in daily new infections, government data released earlier this week showed.
Today, the federal government said it was sending half a dozen experts to monitor Kerala’s worst-hit areas and work with state authorities on strategies to contain the outbreak.
India’s central government has left decisions on lockdowns and reopenings to local state authorities, leading to an uneven response that experts say has allowed new hotspots to develop even as infections fall in previous epicentres, according to Reuters.
Updated
Indonesia’s regional Covid-19 deaths vastly outnumber its national tally, an independent organisation which collects data on the southeast Asian country’s coronavirus outbreak has said.
Indonesia is Asia’s Covid-19 epicentre and has over the last week reported over 1,500 deaths a day, including a record 2,069 deaths on Tuesday. That tally does not include all regional deaths, however, meaning the true toll could be much higher, according to the Lapor Covid-19 data monitoring group, Reuters reports.
“This gives a false sense of security ... because the data hides thousands of real deaths,” Lapor Covid-19 co-founder Irma Hidayana said in a statement.
An official at the health ministry’s data department did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment. The ministry collects Covid-19 data from regional hospitals and agencies which report via a centralised system.
A senior health ministry official, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, told BBC Indonesia yesterday that some regions had not reported all Covid-19 deaths to that system. Lapor Covid-19 said some provinces, including West and Central Java, had reported significantly higher death tolls on their websites.
But in a statement, West Java’s ruling body said the Lapor Covid-19 data was misleading.
Hello and greetings to everyone reading, wherever you are in the world. Mattha Busby here to take you through the next few hours of global Covid developments. Thanks to my colleague Miranda Bryant for covering the blog up until now. Please feel free to drop me a line on Twitter or message me via email (mattha.busby.freelance@guardian.co.uk) with any tips or thoughts on our coverage.
Updated
Summary of today's latest developments
- The Japanese government is reportedly considering putting Osaka and three prefectures around Tokyo under a state of emergency. It comes after a surge of infections nationwide.
- Daily coronavirus cases in Olympics host Japan have exceeded 10,000 for the first time. It comes after the metropolitan government of Tokyo, the Olympics host city, reported a record high 3,865 new infection cases in the capital today.
- Russia has reported a record 799 coronavirus deaths for the third time in the last month as cases surge in the country. The coronavirus task force also reported 23,270 new daily cases, including 3,356 in Moscow.
- A French minister has accused England’s travel rules of being discriminatory after it announced it would keep quarantine measures for travellers coming from France – but not those from other EU countries.
- Coronavirus cases and deaths hit an all-time high in Thailand today with 17,669 new infections reported and a daily death toll of 165. The latest figures bring the total number of cases to 561,030 and the death toll to 4,562.
- British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said the UK will be “safer” for giving away excess Covid vaccine supplies to poorer countries as it prepares to start distributing 100m doses.
- On the eve of the start of the Olympics track and field, members of Australia’s track and field team have been sent into isolation in Tokyo after American pole vaulter Sam Kendricks tested positive for coronavirus.
- Sydney reported a record one-day rise in coronavirus cases on Thursday and warned the number of infections would rise as the military was brought in to enforce the city’s lockdown.
That’s it from me on the blog for today. I’m handing over to my colleague Mattha Busby. Thanks for reading!
Updated
Burundi’s government has said it will accept Covid-19 vaccines – but that it will not take responsibility for any side effects – becoming one of the last countries in the world to do so.
Health minister, Thaddee Ndikumana, said yesterday that the vaccines would arrive with the support of the World Bank, reports the Associated Press.
“The vaccine will be given to those who need it,” the health minister said, adding that the government would store the doses but not take responsibility for any side effects.
Updated
More on Malaysia, the prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, is facing calls to resign after the king’s public criticism of the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Here’s the latest from Reuters:
Malaysian prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin faced calls to resign on Thursday from the opposition and the biggest bloc in the ruling coalition, after a rebuke by the king over the government’s handling of emergency ordinances.
Muhyiddin’s government said earlier this week that on July 21 it had revoked all ordinances that had come into effect since a national state of emergency was imposed in January.
King Al-Sultan Abdullah imposed the emergency on the advice of Muhyiddin, who had said it was needed to curb the spread of Covid-19. But critics have slammed the move and accused the premier of trying to cling to power amid a slim majority.
Muhyiddin has governed with a razor-thin majority and led an unstable ruling coalition since coming to power in March 2020.
In a statement on Thursday, the palace said the revocation of the ordinances was done without the king’s consent and thus ran counter to the federal constitution and the principles of law.
“His majesty is of the opinion that as head of state, he has the responsibility to present advice and criticism if an act by any party contravenes the federal constitution, especially in carrying out the functions and powers of his majesty as the king,” the palace said.
Updated
Japan reportedly considering putting more areas under state of emergency
Daily Covid cases in Olympics host Japan exceed 10,000 for first time
Daily coronavirus cases in Olympics host Japan have exceeded 10,000 for the first time, reports Reuters.
It comes after the metropolitan government of Tokyo, the Olympics host city, reported a record high 3,865 new infection cases in the capital today (see 09:15).
Until this month, Senegal had recorded less than 44,000 cases and 1,166 deaths. But since the beginning of July, infections have soared, with more than 15,000 cases and 139 deaths in this month alone.
Reuters reports:
After comfortably weathering the first two waves of the virus, health services were now stretched dangerously thin, said Dr Khardiata Diallo, head of infectious disease at Fann hospital in Dakar.
“Patients, particularly young ones, are arriving in respiratory distress,” Diallo said, her voice cracking with exhaustion. “We’ve never had this number of cases, deaths and severe cases. Frankly, this third wave threatens to drown us.”
Many infections outside clinics were going undiagnosed, while post mortems were not routine, she said. “The situation is much more serious. What we see here is only the tip of the iceberg.”
In Dakar, the current epicentre of the epidemic in Senegal, every bed with supplemental oxygen for patients in severe respiratory distress was taken, she said.
Diallo said the hospital was not short on oxygen, although demand was so high that delivery workers said some of them were working night shifts to keep up.
Like many African countries facing a third wave of infections, Senegal is more vulnerable because so few people are vaccinated. It has administered fewer than 1 million doses to a population of around 16 million people, according to government data.
Overall, cases in Africa have exploded in recent weeks, hitting a fresh record of nearly 50,000 new daily infections in early July.
The Senegalese health ministry has vowed to ramp up vaccinations and this week welcomed fresh deliveries from China’s Sinopharm and Johnson & Johnson as well as a shipment of AstraZeneca doses under the Covax global distribution programme.
The West African nation plans to build a plant to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines. Production is expected to begin later this year. The facility will produce 25 million doses per month by the end of 2022.
At Yoff hospital, hundreds of people queued for a vaccine on Wednesday. Many had arrived before dawn and expected to spend most of the day in line.
“We’re seeing 13-year-olds infected, people in their twenties dying,” said 58-year-old Ndeye Dia, who had been queuing for a shot since 6 am. “It’s total panic now.”
For UK-focused coronavirus news, Andrew Sparrow’s live blog is now up and running:
The King of Malaysia has criticised prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s government for misleading parliament over coronavirus emergency measures.
Muhyiddin obtained royal consent to declare emergency in January which meant he could pause parliament and rule without legislative approval.
On Monday, parliament reopened for the first time this year following pressure from the King, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, and law minister Takiyuddin Hassan said the emergency laws had been annulled on July 21.
But the King said he did not approve the proposed annulment and that Takiyuddin’s statement was “inaccurate and has confused” members of the legislature, reports the Associated Press.
The King’s comments mark a severe blow for Muhyiddin, who is struggling to fend off leadership challenges.
Russia reports record 799 Covid deaths for third time in a month
Russia has reported a record 799 coronavirus deaths for the third time in the last month as cases surge in the country.
The coronavirus task force also reported 23,270 new daily cases, including 3,356 in Moscow, reports Reuters. The latest figures bring the total number of cases to 6,218,502.
French minister accuses England of discrimination
A French minister has accused England’s travel rules of being discriminatory after it announced it would keep quarantine measures for travellers coming from France - but not those from other EU countries.
It comes after England said it would allow fully vaccinated travellers from the EU and the US to enter the country without quarantining from next week but that rules for France were still under review.
“It’s excessive, and it’s frankly incomprehensible on health grounds ... It’s not based on science and discriminatory towards the French,” French Europe minister Clement Beaune said on LCI TV, reports Reuters. “I hope it will be reviewed as soon as possible, it’s just common sense.”
Beaune said France did not plan to employ retaliatory measures “for now”.
The British government has said it is keeping quarantine rules for French visitors due to the prominence of the Beta variant. But officials in France say most of Beta cases come from the island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean.
Tokyo reports record 3,865 new cases as Olympics approaches second week
Olympics host Tokyo today reported 3,865 new coronavirus cases - a new record.
It comes after the city registered 3,177 new cases on Wednesday and a record 9,750 across Japan.
The British foreign secretary Dominic Raab has said that the UK government “cannot guarantee” that US and EU travellers will not attempt to use fake vaccination certificates - but that he thinks it “highly unlikely” - in what he said would be a “modest opening up” of international travel.
It comes after it was announced that from Monday millions of fully vaccinated passengers from both regions will be able to travel to England, Scotland and Wales without quarantining.
Raab told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We can’t guarantee that some people might not do it. I think it is highly unlikely.
The point here is that, with both the European countries and the US, we are talking about high-trust countries with whom we have not just an intuitive level of high trust, we have active co-operation, so we know that we can straighten out any discrepancies we might come across pretty quickly.
He said there is a “double lock” of written certification and proof of US residency for US travellers.
He added:
Both domestically with our rollout but also internationally we want to open up, we want to move the country forward, but we want to do it irreversibly and we need to take solid, surefooted steps forward.
We feel this is a modest opening up of international travel but one that has the reassurances that we can take further steps forward as we build confidence in the system.
Updated
British covid patient and former vaccine sceptic Abderrahmane Fadil has urged people to get vaccinated, saying the virus “nearly cost me my life”.
Fadil said he did not get vaccinated because he believed it was propaganda, but after getting coronavirus, which he said was almost a “one-way ticket” for him, has changed his mind.
“I advise everybody to go for the vaccine,” he told Sky News.
West End musical The Prince of Egypt has become the latest victim of Britain’s “pingdemic” after it was forced to close because several members of the cast were told to self-isolate.
The show, which reopened in London on 1 July, shut down yesterday after one person tested positive and 15 were required to self-isolate, reports Sky News.
Other West End shows that have been closed include Cinderella and Hairspray.
Covid cases and deaths hit new record high in Thailand
Coronavirus cases and deaths hit an all-time high in Thailand today with 17,669 new infections reported and a daily death toll of 165.
The latest figures bring the total number of cases to 561,030 and the death toll to 4,562, reports Reuters.
British foreign secretary says UK will be "safer" after giving away its excess Covid vaccines
British foreign secretary Dominic Raab has said the UK will be “safer” for giving away excess Covid vaccine supplies to poorer countries as it prepares to start distributing 100m doses.
He told Sky News:
At the start of the pandemic, when we did our vaccine programme, we secured multiple sources and supplies and overall the volume of vaccines to make sure we had security of supply.
We have already given a huge amount through Covax, through the financing of Covax, but we can now, from domestic supply, start to give 100 million, which will get the world vaccinated.
We have got moral reasons for doing that. You look at Jamaica, Laos, Cambodia, some of the countries - Kenya - we are vaccinating and we feel a sense of moral responsibility.
But we also know, bluntly, that we are safer when the rest of the world is safer, whether it is for people going on holiday or whether it is just the ordinary course of international trade that we need and we rely on.
He also rejected suggestions that rapid testing alone could be used to release travellers to the UK from self-isolation. While he said many elements of the pandemic have been “inconvenient”, he said overall reopening is “going in the right direction”.
He said:
We are doing daily testing, but I think the answer to your question ‘why do it now not in say, two-and-a-half weeks’ time?’ is we know and we can project how many people broadly we’ll have double vaccinated and that is the level of reassurance we want to get to.
I know it has been frustrating, I know it has been an inconvenience, there’s been lots of things in this pandemic that have been inconvenient.
But the truth is the whole tide - whether it is domestic restrictions, international - is going in the right direction of opening but we do need to just be careful, make sure we are doing it at the right time.
Updated
Australia's Olympic track and field team isolating in Tokyo
On the eve of the start of the Olympics track and field, members of Australia’s track and field team have been sent into isolation in Tokyo after American pole vaulter Sam Kendricks tested positive for coronavirus.
Mike Hytner reports:
Members of the team were confined to their rooms and undergoing Covid testing on Thursday afternoon, less than 24 hours out from the start of track and field events on Friday in Tokyo.
“Members of Australia’s track and field team at the Tokyo Olympic Games are isolating in their rooms as a precautionary measure following news of a Covid positive finding with a member of the US track and field team,” an AOC statement read.
“Members of the Australian track and field team are now undergoing testing procedures in line with Australian Olympic team protocols.”
Australian vaulter Kurtis Marschall had been training with Kendricks before the American’s withdrawal and the Commonwealth Games gold medal winner now faces an anxious wait to learn his test results.
The men’s pole vault heats begin on Saturday at the Olympic Stadium.
Two-times world champion Kendricks earlier withdrew from the Games after returning a positive Covid test, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee confirmed.
“The health and safety of our athletes, coaches and staff is our top priority,” the USOPC said in a statement.
For more, here’s the full story:
More from Olympics hosts Tokyo, which reported a record-breaking rise in Covid cases for two consecutive days (see 06:37), where officials are sounding the alarm.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said: “We have never experienced the expansion of the infections of this magnitude.” He also said new cases are soaring across Japan, reports the Associated Press.
Tokyo reported 3,177 new cases yesterday, up from 2,848 on Tuesday, and setting an all-time high. It is the first time daily cases have exceeded 3,000.
Updated
In England, public health workers in Newcastle say they are struggling with misinformation that is preventing young people from getting vaccinated.
BBC Radio 4’s Today reports that peer pressure and social media are preventing 25-30-year-olds from getting vaccinated.
Vaccine bus workers say they have passers by shouting at them and calling them murderers.
Meanwhile, in London, Tower Hamlets says it is also facing similar difficulties. Sam Everington, the chair of Tower Hamlets clinical commissioning group, says they are writing to young people, collaborating with West Ham Utd and using raffles in an attempt to encourage them to get vaccinated.
In the UK, theme park Thorpe Park will today be offering Covid vaccines to visitors in a bid to encourage young people to be get inoculated, reports Sky News.
Sydney sees record one-day rise in Covid cases
Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, reported a record one-day rise in coronavirus cases on Thursday and warned the number of infections will rise as the military was brought in to enforce the city’s lockdown.
Despite entering its sixth week of lockdown, the city has struggled to contain the outbreak and today saw its biggest daily rise in cases since the start of the pandemic as New South Wales recorded 239 cases in the past 24 hours.
“We can only assume that things are likely to get worse before they get better given the quantity of people infectious in the community,” said New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian, reports Reuters.
Berejiklian said one person had died - bringing the death toll for the current outbreak to 13 and overall nationally to 921.
Over two million residents across eight hotspots in Sydney will now be required to wear masks outdoors and remain within five kilometres (three miles) of their homes.
Hi, this is Miranda taking over the blog from Helen. Please get in touch with any tips or suggestions: miranda.bryant@guardian.co.uk
Cambodia locks down provinces bordering Thailand
Cambodia is set to launch a lockdown in eight provinces bordering Thailand from midnight on Thursday, in a bid to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.
Prime Minister Hun Sen signed an order late on Wednesday for the lockdown, which bans people from leaving their homes, gathering in groups and conducting business, except for those involved in operating airlines.
“The temporary lockdown... aims to prevent community-based transmission of the new Covid Delta variant,” Hun Sen said in the order posted on Facebook.
Border checkpoints with Thailand will also be closed except to allow for the transport of goods and in emergencies, Hun Sen said, adding the lockdown was due to run until 12 August.
The provinces affected are Koh Kong, Pursat, Battambang, Pailin, Banteay Meanchey, Oddar Meanchey, Preah Vihear and Siem Reap.
Cambodia managed to largely contain the virus for most of last year, but an outbreak first detected in late February has driven up total cases to 75,152, with 1,339 deaths.
Neighbouring Thailand has also faced a stubborn outbreak driven by the Delta variant, which was first detected in India, and has repeatedly reported record numbers of daily infections in recent weeks.
Fears in Japan after record case rise
Japan faces its most serious situation since the pandemic began, the country’s top medical adviser warned on Thursday, urging the government to send a “clearer, stronger message” about growing risks, including to the medical system.
Reuters: Olympic host city Tokyo recorded 3,177 new Covid cases on Wednesday, hitting a daily record high for a second straight day as a spike in infections puts pressure on hospitals. Nationwide new cases topped 9,500 for the first time, media reported.
“The biggest crisis is that society does not share a sense of risk,” top medical adviser Shigeru Omi told a parliamentary panel. “The numbers (for Tokyo) surpassed 3,000 and this may have some announcement effect. Without missing this chance, I want the government to send a stronger, clearer message.”
The spike in infections adds to worries about the Games, which are taking place under unprecedented conditions including a ban on spectators in most venues.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
Japan faces its most serious situation since the pandemic began, the country’s top medical adviser warned on Thursday, urging the government to send a “clearer, stronger message” about growing risks, including to the medical system.
Olympic host city Tokyo recorded 3,177 new cases on Wednesday, hitting a daily record high for a second straight day as a spike in infections puts pressure on hospitals. Nationwide new cases topped 9,500 for the first time, media reported.
Meanwhile Cambodia is set to launch a lockdown in eight provinces bordering Thailand from midnight on Thursday, in a bid to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- France will from 9 August enforce controversial new laws making a health pass compulsory to visit a cafe, board a plane or travel on an inter-city train, the government’s spokesman has said.
- The UK has begun exports of coronavirus vaccine doses to poorer countries, announcing that 9m will be delivered this week around the world as its domestic programme slows.
- The new president of Tanzania, which under the former president was one of the world’s last countries to embrace Covid-19 vaccines, has publicly received a dose and urged others to do the same.
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Guatemala president Alejandro Giammattei cancelled an order of a second batch of eight million Russian-made Covid-19 vaccines due to lengthy delays.
- Children in Israel aged five to 11 at “at significant risk of serious illness or death” can be vaccinated against Covid-19 as of 1 August, health officials have said.
