This blog is now closed. Our latest Covid stories are at the link below:
A controversial national cabinet decision to fast track vaccines for Australians approved to travel overseas should be strengthened to make vaccination mandatory prior to departure, the Australian Medical Association has said.
The cabinet decision, aimed at protecting both Australians while overseas and the quarantine system from leaks upon their return, was quietly introduced on a voluntary basis last Thursday. It means Australians under 50, with valid exit exemptions, are now able to receive Pfizer vaccines regardless of the phase they fall under in Australia’s troubled rollout:
Biden orders intelligence report on Covid origins within 90 days
The US president Joe Biden has ordered US intelligence agencies to report to him in the next three months on whether the coronavirus first emerged in China from an animal source or from a laboratory accident, AFP reports.
Agencies should “redouble their efforts to collect and analyse information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House on Wednesday.
According to Biden, agencies are currently split over the two possible sources for the virus that swept the planet over the past year, killing more than 3.4 million people - a figure experts say is undoubtedly an underestimate.
Biden’s order signals an escalation in mounting controversy over how the virus first emerged - through animal contact at a market in Wuhan or through release of the virus from a highly secure research laboratory in the same city.
The answer has immense implications both for China, which says it is not responsible for the pandemic, and for the United States.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) previously funded bat coronavirus research in Wuhan, but has denied supporting “gain of function” experiments that involve modifying a virus so that it becomes more transmissible to humans.
The grant was terminated last year by the administration of former president Donald Trump.
The lab theory has been used by opposition Republicans to attack top US scientists, including the NIH’s Dr Anthony Fauci, and Beijing, which strongly denies the claims.
Biden said that in March he asked for a report on the origins of the virus, including “whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident.”
As of today, the US intelligence community has ‘coalesced around two likely scenarios’ but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question.
White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Biden was informed by the intelligence community of their assessment about a month ago, but it was classified information until now.
Asked about the government’s position on whether the virus was deliberately engineered to become a bioweapon, she said: “We haven’t ruled out anything yet.”
The lab leak theory has angered China, with foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Wednesday hitting out and accusing Washington of “spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation.”
Nevertheless, the idea is gaining increasing traction in the US, where it was initially fuelled by Trump and his aides and dismissed by many as a political talking point.
Citing a US intelligence report, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that a trio from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalised with a seasonal illness in November 2019, a month before Beijing disclosed the existence of a mysterious pneumonia outbreak.
The natural origin hypothesis holds the virus emerged in bats then passed to humans, likely via an intermediary species.
This theory was widely accepted at the start of the pandemic, but as time has worn on, scientists have not found a virus in either bats or another animal that matches the genetic signature of SARS-CoV-2.
This wasn’t the case for SARS and MERS, earlier coronaviruses that crossed to humans and were traced back to civets and camels relatively quickly.
The USand other countries have called for a more in-depth probe into the pandemic’s origins, after a report by an international team sent by the World Health Organization to China earlier this year proved inconclusive.
And calls from independent scientists for more transparency are also growing.
“We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data,” a group of researchers from top US universities wrote in a letter published by leading journal Science in mid-May.
Updated
In case you missed it (!), Dominic Cummings, the former chief aide to the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, made some explosive claims today, including that Johnson is unfit to be prime minister after presiding over a chaotic and incompetent pandemic response that caused many thousands of unnecessary deaths.
In a seven-hour hearing before MPs in Westminster, Cummings gave a damning account of the government’s approach, laying much of the blame on Johnson and health secretary Matt Hancock.
The ousted aide said the prime minister had failed to grasp the gravity of the situation and held out against lockdowns meaning “tens of thousands of people died who didn’t need to die”. He portrayed Johnson as obsessed with the media and making constant U-turns “like a shopping trolley smashing from one side of the aisle to the other”.
Asked whether the prime minister was a fit and proper person to lead the country through the pandemic, Cummings replied simply: “No.” Apologising for what he said were his own failings, he added:
The truth is that senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisers like me fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its government in a crisis like this.
Here is the full story from my colleagues Heather Stewart and Peter Walker:
And here is a summary of all the key moments from Cummings’s excoriating attack:
Brazilian senators conducting a high-profile inquiry into president Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday voted to recall the current and former health ministers for more testimony, as well as summon nine state governors for the first time, Reuters reports.
Senators are grilling government officials and other stakeholders to seek answers as to why Brazil has become the country with the world’s second-highest Covid-19 death toll, with more than 450,000 fatalities.
The probe may pose a headache for Bolsonaro, who has long sought to play down the severity of the virus, ahead of next year’s presidential election.
The current health minister Marcelo Queiroga and his predecessor, Eduardo Pazuello, an active-duty army general, will both be called to testify again in front of the Senate panel.
Former presidential adviser Arthur Weintraub and businessman Carlos Wizard Martins, who was briefly attached to the Health Ministry, will also be called.
In addition, nine state governors are due to explain irregularities in Covid-19 spending in their states.
Wilson Witzel, the former governor of Rio de Janeiro, was impeached in April over alleged graft in the purchase of medical supplies and services to fight the Covid-19 outbreak.
An eight-week decline in Spain’s coronavirus infection rate has begun to tail off, the health minister Carolina Darias said on Wednesday, pointing to younger people who are less likely to be vaccinated as the cause.
“The stagnation of the decline we have been seeing is heavily influenced by the epidemic in population groups below the age of 50,” she told a news conference after a weekly meeting of regional health chiefs.
Reuters reports that unlike neighbouring France, which plans to offer vaccines to all adults from 31 May, Spain is progressively working its way downwards through age groups and has just begun giving shots to people aged 50-59.
Nevertheless, the national incidence of the virus as measured over the past 14 days reached 126 cases per 100,000 people on Wednesday, down 13% in a week. In the coastal region of Valencia, the incidence fell to just 31 cases, among the lowest in Europe.
Health Ministry data showed Spain had administered some 25.3 million vaccine doses and 8.4 million people have received a full course.
The ministry reported 5,007 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the cumulative number of infections to 3.65 million. The death toll rose by 54 to 79,801.
Earlier this month the prime minister Pedro Sanchez said a delivery of some 13 million doses in June would help Spain hit its target of vaccinating 70% of the population by mid-August.
Cyprus recommended on Wednesday that those under 50 should receive so-called mRNA Covid vaccines, joining other countries like France who have set age restrictions for the AstraZeneca shot.
The country had previously no age restrictions for the AstraZeneca vaccine, which it has been using since January. The change follows reports of the death of a British woman administered the shot earlier this month in Cyprus.
The health ministry said it had referred the case to the European Medicines Agency (EMA). European drug regulators said last month there was a possible link between the vaccine and a very small number of cases of rare blood clots.
Individuals who have already taken a single-dose of the Vaxzeveria jab should receive their second dose, provided there were no serious side effects like thrombosis or thrombocytopenia, the ministry said in a statement, citing the “unanimous view” of scientific advisors.
A majority of those, it said, suggested that mRNA vaccines, technology used in the Pfizer/BioNtech and Moderna jab, be recommended for the under 50s.
AstraZeneca’s shot uses a harmless, weakened version of a chimpanzee common-cold virus to deliver instructions to generate an immune response and prevent infection.
Authorities had previously defended their decision not to impose age restrictions on the vaccine by saying people were offered a selection of shots and that they were following EMA guidelines.
But Cyprus had ordered considerably more AstraZeneca vaccines. With other options quickly running out, Vaxzevria was the only one available to thousands of people scrambling to book an appointment on a state-administered vaccine portal.
It had also made the AstraZeneca vaccine the only option available at private practitioners.
About 40% of Cyprus’s population has taken the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 17% has had both doses.
A traveller arriving in Brazil has been diagnosed with the coronavirus variant first discovered in India, São Paulo health officials said on Wednesday, stoking concerns that it could further fuel one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks.
São Paulo health authorities said they requested a complete list of the passengers on the flight coming from India, as well as the names of all airport staff and other people who may have had contact with the passenger, for monitoring and isolation.
The variant, known as B.1.617.2, which is rampant in India, has been detected in 10 countries of the Americas, mainly associated with international travel, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.
Cases have been detected in North, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean, but no community transmission has so far been associated with the variant, a PAHO official said.
Brazil has lost more than 450,000 lives to Covid-19, the worst death toll outside the US, and has struggled to contain transmission of homegrown variants and to accelerate a sputtering vaccination campaign.
Following treatment of crew members with the B.1.617.2 variant on a cargo ship off Brazil’s northern coast last week, the case confirmed on Wednesday raised alarms about the easily transmissible variant passing through two of the country’s busiest airports.
The 32-year-old patient, a resident of Campos dos Goytacazes in Rio de Janeiro state, landed at Guarulhos International Airport near Sao Paulo on 22 May, state officials said.
The passenger was tested on arrival for Covid-19, but by the time São Paulo authorities were informed of the positive result, he had flown to Rio de Janeiro, according to a statement from state officials.
São Paulo’s Adolfo Lutz Institute received the test material and announced the result of the virus sequencing on Wednesday.
Federal health regulator Anvisa said the passenger, who arrived in Brazil with a prior negative PCR test, had been tested at a private lab at the Guarulhos airport.
Anvisa in a statement said the passenger “received a positive result when he was already in Rio de Janeiro. Anvisa was informed of the positive result by the private laboratory.”
Updated
Scientists in Germany claim to have solved the cause of the rare blood clotting events linked to the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines and believe the jabs could be fixed to prevent the reaction altogether, the FT (paywall) reports.
Rolf Marschalek, a professor at Goethe university in Frankfurt who has been leading research into the rare condition since March, said his research showed that the problem lies with the adenovirus vectors that both vaccines use to deliver the spike protein of the virus into the body.
In a preprint paper published today, the scientists wrote that the delivery mechanism means the vaccines send the spike protein into the cell nucleus as opposed to the cytosol fluid found inside the cell where the virus normally produces proteins.
According to Marschalek’s research, once inside the cell nucleus, certain parts of the spike protein splice, creating mutant versions, which are unable to bind to the cell membrane where important immunisation takes place; instead, the floating mutant proteins are secreted by cells into the body, which is what triggers blood clots in roughly one in 100,000 people.
In contrast, with mRNA-based vaccines, such as the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna jabs, the spike’s genetic material is delivered to the cell fluid and it never enters the nucleus. Marschalek told the FT that when virus genes are in the nucleus they can create “some problems”.
He believes there is a “way out” if the vaccine developers can adapt the sequence of the spike protein to prevent splicing.
You can read the FT’s exclusive story here.
Updated
France’s average daily number of new Covid-19 cases fell to its lowest level since mid-September while the number of people being treated for the virus in hospital continued to decline, official data showed on Wednesday.
The daily figure, averaged out over seven days, fell below 10,000, down from a 2021 high of over 42,000 in mid-April.
New confirmed infections rose by 12,646 over the past 24 hours to a cumulative 5.62 million since the start of the pandemic, a slower pace of growth than a week ago, when they rose by 19,000. Four weeks ago the figure was 31,000.
The number of people in intensive care units with Covid-19 fell by 117 to 3,330, while the overall number of people in hospital with the virus fell by 837 to 18,593.
Both numbers have been on a steady downward trend since the end of April. The health ministry also reported 144 new coronavirus deaths in hospitals on Wednesday, compared with 141 a week ago.
Good evening from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Summary
-
Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Covid vaccine is to be limited in Belgium to people aged 41 and over, authorities said following the death of a woman who received the jab.
- Switzerland is to re-open indoor restaurants and people will no longer be required to work from home, the government announced, saying it was lifting restrictions faster than previously planned.
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China accused the US of “spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation” after health chief Anthony Fauci said he was no longer convinced the coronavirus originated naturally – propelling the theory that it emerged from a Wuhan laboratory back into mainstream debate.
- The European Commission demanded an urgent court order requiring AstraZeneca to deliver millions more vaccines to the bloc or face a hefty fine, in a case that may reflect its anger more than its need for doses.
- Slovakia became the second EU country to authorise the use of the Russian-made Sputnik V Covid vaccine, which has not yet been approved by the bloc’s drug regulator.
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France will impose a compulsory quarantine on travellers arriving from the UK because of growing concerns over the spread of the Indian variant of the coronavirus, the government’s spokesman has said.
- Whistleblower protection groups urged the World Health Organization to launch an independent review into the case of an Italian researcher who reported being pressured to falsify data in a now-spiked WHO report into Italy’s coronavirus response.
- Perhaps conveniently for an incumbent candidate, Zambian president Edgar Lungu banned campaign rallies ahead of elections scheduled for 12 August, saying large gatherings risked spreading the Covid-19 virus.
- Vets in several parts of Russia reportedly started vaccinating cats against Covid-19. Russia in March said it had registered the world’s first coronavirus vaccine for animals. Only two animals in Russia, both cats, have so far tested positive for the virus.
European Commission demands court compels AstraZeneca to deliver millions more jabs
Here’s more on the AstraZeneca and European Commission row from our Europe correspondent Jon Henley.
The EC has demanded an urgent court order requiring AstraZeneca to deliver millions more vaccines to the bloc or face a hefty fine, in a case that may reflect its anger more than its need for doses.
“AstraZeneca did not even try to respect the contract,” the EU’s lawyer, Rafaël Jafferali, told a court in Brussels today, saying the EU wanted €10 per dose for each day of delay as compensation for the company’s alleged non-compliance.
Jafferali said the penalty should apply from 1 July if AstraZeneca did not deliver at least 120m doses by the end of June and that the EU would also seek a penalty of at least €10m for each breach of the contract that the judge may eventually decide.
Updated
#BREAKING Biden orders intelligence report on Covid origins within 90 days pic.twitter.com/HxHbWGl63j
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 26, 2021
Laboratory tests have shown that the coronavirus variant first discovered in India is more resistant to neutralising antibodies from vaccinated people, reports Nicola Davis, the Guardian’s science correspondent.
Speaking at the same German Science Media Centre briefing as Prof Neil Ferguson (see earlier post), Prof Ravi Gupta, of Cambridge University, said however that the B.1.617.2 variant is less resistant to antibodies than the variant first identified in South Africa
There are also biological changes in the virus that appear to help it to infected cells and transmit quicker between cells.
That, he said, chimes with data from Public Health England showing that a single dose of a Covid jab is not very effective at preventing infection with the India variant – although protection is much better after a second dose.
“In populations where there is partial immunity either from previous infection or low levels of antibody, then the virus will have that nice sweet spot of an advantage of immune evasion plus greater transmission,” he said, noting that he was surprised at the discovery of a cluster of infections among healthcare workers in India who had been fully vaccinated.
The vaccines are still doing their job, they are still protecting you from severe disease. The worry here is that this is an avenue for virus to persist in a population, and then to reach unvaccinated people or vulnerable people in society.
In the context of opening up society, he added:
I believe that we should potentially be... allowing vaccines to have their full effect, which means waiting a little bit longer to reach more people, get second doses into a lot more people, so that the virus has a very, very strong barrier against it. Right now we have an issue where we are increasing social contacts in the face of an expanding, growth of the virus and so that gives the virus an opportunity to really seed itself within the UK population and it is going to be very difficult to get rid of it once it is there.
Gupta said learning from the situation in India is important, although data on factors such as levels of previous exposure is limited.
The findings in India could very well be explained by transmission in unvaccinated people who have not been infected before, but I think there is an element from what we are hearing from reports from various people, family members... that people who have had previous infection are getting infected again, many of them are getting severe disease, and that includes people who have been partially or fully vaccinated as well.
A majority of people in the US believe discrimination against Asian Americans has worsened in the past year, as many became the target of attacks over the coronavirus pandemic’s link to China.
Six in ten Americans said racism against Asian Americans has increased compared with a year ago, including 71% of Asian Americans, 66% of black Americans, 59% of white Americans and 55% of Hispanic Americans, according to a poll by the Associated Press.
A majority of Asian Americans said they feel unsafe in public because of their race.
In the year to March, more than 6,600 anti-Asian hate incidents were documented by Stop AAPI Hate, a national reporting centre, the AP reported. The attacked ranged from verbal harassment to killings, including the March 16 Atlanta-area shootings that killed six Asian women.
India variant 'driving rise in UK infections'
Neil Ferguson, the British professor whose epidemiological monitoring was influential at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, has said the variant first discovered in India is driving a rise in infections in the UK, reports Nicola Davis, the Guardian’s science correspondent.
Speaking at a briefing run by the German Science Media Centre, Ferguson said:
Like B.1.1.7 – the Kent variant before it – what we are seeing now is this Indian variant B.1.617.2 quite rapidly replacing previous variants in circulation including the Kent one, and that growth has been fairly consistent in the last four weeks or so.
There is a slight uptick now in infection rates in the UK and that is down to B.1.617.2.
But, Ferguson said, the situation is very different late last year when the Kent variant emerged, noting that infection levels in the UK are currently low, while over half the population have received a Covid vaccine.
One difficulty, said Ferguson, is that it is hard to be sure just how much more transmissible the India variant is compared with the Kent variant.
“Effectively they are circulating in quite different population groups,” he said, noting the Kent variant is disturbed across the population but at low levels whereas the India variant entered the country through importation into a small subset of communities and has grown rapidly.
What we can say though is it definitely more transmissible and it could be anywhere from 20% to 80% more transmissible, but we really can’t pin a number on that at the moment.
Documents released by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) suggested it is “a realistic possibility” that the India variant could be up to 50% more transmissible than the Kent variant.
Ferguson added that there is a “hint in the data” that under 21s are slightly more likely to be infected with the India variant compared with other variants in recent weeks in the UK, although the explanation is unclear.
Whether that reflects a change in the biology or reflects what is called ‘founder effects’ – the contacts the people who came into the country with virus made and then seeding of infection in certain schools, colleges, that is impossible to resolve at the moment.
Updated
Vets in several parts of Russia have started vaccinating cats against Covid-19, according to Reuters, citing the RIA news agency.
Russia in March said it had registered the world’s first coronavirus vaccine for animals. Tests showed it generated antibodies against the coronavirus in dogs, cats, foxes and mink.
Only two animals in Russia, both cats, have so far tested positive for the virus.
Ireland has 448 confirmed cases of coronavirus, the country’s department of health reports.
Ninety nine are in hospital; 41 in intensive care.
As of midnight, Tuesday 25 May, we are reporting 448* confirmed cases of #COVID19.
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) May 26, 2021
41 in ICU. 99 in hospital.
*Daily case numbers may change due to future data review, validation and update.
The coronavirus variant first detected in India has been found in 10 countries in the Americas, the Pan Americas Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.
The cases have been detected in North, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean, though no community transmission has been associated with this variant, Sylvain Aldighieri, PAHO’s incident manager, said in a briefing from Washington.
The number of Covid patients in intensive care units in France fell by 19 to 3,330 on Wednesday, the health ministry reported, according to Reuters.
The overall number of people in hospital with the virus was 837, a fall of 18,593.
The health ministry also reported 144 more Covid deaths in hospitals on Wednesday, slightly higher than the 141 reported a week ago.
This is Damien Gayle taking the reins on the live blog for a little bit, while Mattha has a break
A French court has found four students guilty of inciting racial hatred online by posting anti-Asian tweets blaming Chinese people for the spread of coronavirus.
AFP reports:
The four, aged between 19 and 24 and without criminal records, were sentenced to two days of civic education by the Paris criminal court, and ordered to pay €250 euros to each of the seven plaintiffs and up to 1,000 euros in fines. A fifth accused student was found not guilty.
The students posted the tweets after president Emmanuel Macron announced a second round of strict stay-at-home rules on 29 October.
The four were found guilty of “public incitement, not followed by acts, to commit a voluntary offence against the integrity of a person because of their origins”, the verdict read.
Soc Lam, a lawyer for the Association of Young Chinese People in France, said the ruling was a welcome sign the courts were taking online hate speech seriously.
The coronavirus pandemic has led to “new dimensions of anti-Asian racism,” according to study last year by France’s Institute of National Demographic Studies (INED). Critics have accused police of neglecting to address threats against France’s Chinese community.
Swiss indoor eateries to reopen, work from home directive to end
Switzerland is to re-open indoor restaurants and people will no longer be required to work from home, the government has announced, saying it was lifting restrictions faster than previously planned.
AFP has the story:
Switzerland said its fourth wave of easing coronavirus measures would take place on Monday, with the wealthy Alpine nation moving to a stabilisation phase in managing the pandemic, as it eyes completing the vaccination of high-risk groups by the end of May.
“The Federal Council is going further than proposed,” the government said in a statement. “In so doing, it is responding to the improved epidemiological situation.”
The government said the requirement to work from home was now being downgraded to a recommendation, while public and private gathering limits were being raised. “As of Monday, restaurants will once again be able to serve guests indoors,” the statement announced.
Up to four people will be allowed at a table, though contact details will have to be recorded. Masks will have to be worn when moving around inside, and the 11:00 pm curfew is being lifted. Outdoor dining reopened in April.
“Working from home will be a recommendation rather than a requirement for businesses that carry out weekly testing. A return to the office should be gradual,” the government said.
At public events, up to 100 people will be allowed to gather indoors and up to 300 people outdoors (up from 50 and 100 respectively), up to a maximum of half of the capacity of venues.
At private gatherings, 30 people will be able to meet indoors, and up to 50 outdoors - up from 10 and 15 respectively.
Belgium limits J&J jab to over 41s after thrombosis death
Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Covid vaccine is to be limited in Belgium to people aged 41 and over, authorities have said following the death of a woman who received the jab.
AFP has the full story:
The country’s inter-ministerial health body focused on the pandemic said that restriction will be “provisionally” applied pending further guidance from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine.
The move underlined the level of caution EU countries are showing to Covid vaccines, particularly the two adenovirus ones made by Johnson & Johnson and by AstraZeneca. Those two have suspected links to very rare but very serious instances of blood clots coupled with low platelet levels which were seen in several deaths.
Last month the EMA drew a link between rare blood clots and AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson jabs but stressed that the benefits of the vaccines outweighed the risk.
Several EU countries have restricted the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to older people, typically over 55 or 60. Austria is phasing it out and plans to stop using it in June. Denmark has dropped the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from its national vaccination programme altogether.
Non-EU member Norway, which has dropped AstraZeneca, is offering Johnson & Johnson only to volunteers.
In Belgium, the death of the woman - said to be aged under 40 and vaccinated through her employer outside of the country - was the “only case” identified, the inter-ministerial body said in a statement. The woman died on Friday after being admitted to hospital with “severe thrombosis and a deficit of blood platelets”, it said.
Mexico will tomorrow receive more than 2.2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine as part of the global Covax vaccine-sharing plan, foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard has said.
The global programme - co-led by the GAVI vaccine alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO) - aims to provide vaccines for low and middle income countries but has experienced delays amid worldwide vaccine shortages after pharmaceutical companies fell short on their pledges.
Ebrard said Covax has informed Mexico that 2,229,600 doses will arrive from Amsterdam. “This will ensure the [supply of] doses for people 50 years of age and over,” Ebrard said on Twitter.
Whistleblower protection groups have urged the World Health Organization to launch an independent review into the case of an Italian researcher who reported being pressured to falsify data in a now-spiked WHO report into Italy’s coronavirus response.
AP has the story:
The groups, including Transparency International, Whistleblowing International Network and some 30 other public health and anti-corruption groups, sent an open letter to the president of the World Health Assembly. The assembly, WHO’s highest decision-making body, is made up of all WHO member states and is meeting this week.
In the letter, the signatories called for the UN agency to commit to reforming its whistleblowing protection policy. They said the Italian researcher, Dr Francesco Zambon, had suffered retaliatory treatment for having reported the incident within WHO’s internal ethics system.
Zambon resigned in March, saying he had been isolated and marginalised after he complained internally, and then publicly, about the scandal.
Zambon has said he was pressured by a then-assistant director general, Dr Ranieri Guerra, to falsify data about Italy’s preparedness going into the pandemic in a report he and other researchers were writing to help other countries prepare as Covid-19 swept across the globe last year.
Emails and drafts of the report show Guerra wanted the report to say that Italy had “updated and reconfirmed” its pandemic preparedness plan in 2016. Zambon says Italy’s plan dated from 2006 and refused to make the change.
The report was published May 13, 2020, but was taken down from the website a day later, after WHO’s Beijing office flagged politically sensitive problems with a timeline about the virus’ origins in China. Zambon says he corrected the timeline and had the report reprinted, but WHO never re-posted it or distributed it.
🔴The @WHO should reform its #whistleblowing policy and conduct a thorough review of the reports of mistreatment and retaliation against scientist @frazambon ➡️ https://t.co/QwqIGRGgst pic.twitter.com/N4GqFXuhv5
— Transparency Int'l (@anticorruption) May 26, 2021
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez has discussed opportunities for China to co-invest in projects financed by EU pandemic recovery funds with Chinese president Xi Jinping.
Earlier today, Hungary approved a bill essential to the green-lighting of EU’s recovery fund, bringing the bloc a step closer to putting the deal into operation.
Reuters reports that regulators in Brussels and Washington have been wary of China’s increased clout in Europe and frown upon Chinese investment in critical infrastructure.
But the Spanish government said in a statement Sanchez had told Xi he was confident that common ground could be found to ratify a long-awaited investment agreement between Beijing and Brussels, and suggested Spain could play a constructive role in strengthening Sino-EU relations.
With Spain due to receive some €140 billion in pandemic recovery funds in the coming years, Sanchez pointed to investment opportunities in the “green transition, electric mobility, circular economy and digitalisation”.
Reuters also reports that ahead of the first disbursement of the EU cash, Spain has also been courting Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to co-invest on major projects.
Last year, the government passed a decree giving it a veto on foreign acquisitions of stakes bigger than 10% in Spanish companies deemed strategic.
Updated
Thailand is modifying its immunisation strategy to target worst-hit areas and sectors where clusters are most likely to emerge, officials have said.
Reuters has more:
The strategy prioritises the epicentre Bangkok and nearby provinces, tourism hotspots, construction camps and potential spreaders, like public transport workers, the government’s COVID-19 taskforce said.
Thailand reported a daily record 41 deaths today, bringing overall fatalities to 873, about 90% of which were during the current outbreak that started early in April. The outbreak is also responsible for the bulk of its total 137,894 cumulative cases.
Thailand is due to start mass vaccinations next month and of its than 66 million people, only 2.5 million have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, mostly the Sinovac brand.
Thailand has reserved 61 million locally-made AstraZeneca vaccines for its main drive. Vaccine distribution had earlier been based on reservations made by provincial health authorities, some with low cases numbers, said taskforce spokesman Taweesin Wisanuyothin.
The health ministry said two doses of Sinovac vaccine had reduced the risk of infection by 83.3%, according to its study on the holiday island of Phuket, where 22% of the population has received both required doses.
Perhaps conveniently for an incumbent candidate, Zambian president Edgar Lungu has banned campaign rallies ahead of elections scheduled for 12 August, saying large gatherings risked spreading the Covid-19 virus.
True, of course, though the virus travels exponentially faster indoors – where the supermajority of transmissions are believed to occur. Also, he made the comments at a gathering of hundreds of supporters.
Reuters reports:
Opposition parties have pilloried Lungu’s handling of the crisis. Last year, police shot dead two people after the main opposition party leader was summoned for police questioning over a decade-and-a-half old fraud allegation.
Speaking at the launch of his own campaign in the capital Lusaka, clad in dark green jumper and cap representing the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) colours, Lungu told the hundreds of party supporters gathered that he would not hold public rallies, and expected opposition parties to do the same.
“Therefore, in my capacity as head of state and the government, I hereby direct the police service and the ministry of health to ensure enforcement of the Covid-19 pandemic health regulations and guidelines without fear or favour,” Lungu said. “What will it benefit you to be holding rallies, but then sacrifice the lives of our citizens and voters to Covid-19 and death?”
The southern African nation has recorded more than 93,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with more than 1,200 deaths.
Opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema’s spokesman, Anthony Bwalya, told Reuters the party would go ahead with its campaign rallies, saying Covid-19 cases had subsided. “President Lungu is being hypocritical, because the gathering outside the conference centre where he launched his campaign was more like a rally,” Bwalya said.
Tunisia is counting on Russians and eastern Europeans to help rejuvenate its tourist sector, hit hard by the pandemic and leaving employees in the sector facing severe poverty, AFP reports.
“The need to work is stronger than the fear of being contaminated,” said lifeguard Aymen Abdallah, glancing at a half-empty beach in the Mediterranean resort of Sousse where Russians are making a comeback. “If we don’t work, we’ll starve to death.”
The lifeguard is relieved to be back at work after an idle eight months. But “normally, the beach would have been full at this time”, he sighed.
The North African country reopened its borders to tour operators in late April but then ordered a new week-long partial lockdown at the start of May because of a spike in coronavirus cases.
Up to 10 flights a week, mostly from Russia and eastern Europe, have in the past month been touching down at Enfidha, an airport serving Tunisia’s tourism towns. But revenues are down more than 60 percent on 2019, before the pandemic hit.
Hotels are authorised to operate at 50 percent of capacity but are struggling to reach that level. “There’s not much profit with just 30 percent hotel occupancy,” lamented Adel Mlayah, deputy director of the high-end Mouradi Palace in Sousse.
The hotel normally employs at least 260 staff, but this year no more than 120 are working.
While visitors from most West countries are deterred from travel by their governments, those from Russia, the Czech Republic and Poland appeared to have few such qualms.
Slovakia has become the second EU country to authorise the use of the Russian-made Sputnik V Covid vaccine, which has not yet been approved by the bloc’s drug regulator.
The Slovak government asked health minister Vladimir Lengvarsky to make the jab available by 7 June. Slovakia has 200,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccine in stock but had not allowed its use until now.
Hungary is the only other EU nation to use Sputnik V. A secret deal for Slovakia to purchase 2 million Sputnik V shots orchestrated by then-prime minister Igor Matovic triggered a political crisis in March that resulted in the Slovak government’s collapse.
Further extraordinary and incendiary claims are continuing to come out from the UK parliamentary committee hearing where the prime minister’s former chief aide Dominic Cummings is giving evidence.
The latest allegation is that Boris Johnson said in July: “Chaos is not bad. Chaos means that everyone has to look to me to see who’s in charge.”
Here’s our latest coverage, and a link to Andrew Sparrow’s live blog:
A “massive anti-vaccination campaign” has been cited by the European Commission as a reason for social media platforms to intensify their factchecking and revise the internal algorithms that can amplify disinformation.
France: UK arrivals must quarantine due to Indian variant
France will impose a compulsory quarantine on travellers arriving from the UK because of growing concerns over the spread of the Indian variant of the coronavirus, the government’s spokesman has said.
Gabriel Attal told reporters at the end of the cabinet meeting this morning that the government would announce the date when the widely expected decision would come into effect “in the coming hours”.
France requires travellers from 16 countries, including Brazil, India, Argentina and Turkey, to undergo a compulsory 10-day period of self-isolation, with a fine of €1,500 in the event of non-compliance.
Germany on Saturday banned all travellers from Britain from entering its territory from midnight on 23 May from Sunday after designating the UK as a “virus variant area of concern”.
German citizens and residents and their spouses and children are exempt from the measure, along with people travelling for urgent humanitarian reasons, but everyone arriving from the UK must now quarantine for two weeks. even if they test negative.
Updated
The Associated Press has this dispatch from the Turkish city of Mardin, where so-called “vaccination persuasion” teams are working to promote inoculation against Covid among vulnerable people amid apparent reluctancy.
In the medieval Turkish city of Mardin, Medine Ereli calls out to a team of medical workers walking along the town’s cobblestoned main street. Her 59-year old husband refuses to get vaccinated, she tells the doctor and nurse, before leading them to Enver Ereli, who’s on the job as a municipal sanitation worker.
The mobile door-to-door units – equipped with coolers carrying vaccine vials – have been operational in several Turkish provinces since April. At local health offices, more government workers reach people by phone in an attempt to change their minds.
Health minister Fahrettin Koca says 84% of the population age 65 and above who are eligible to be vaccinated have so far received Covid-19 shots. The government aims to bring that figure above 90%.
In Mardin, the team talked Ereli into getting his shot and the nurse administered the first jab while he sat down on a nearby ledge. “I was afraid of getting sick and of being paralysed. But then the medical teams told me it was for my benefit and I believed them and got vaccinated,” Ereli said.
Updated
EU's court case over AstraZeneca vaccine delivery delays opens
A Belgian judge has begun hearing an urgent European Commission request for a court order requiring AstraZeneca to deliver millions more vaccines to the bloc, in a case that may reflect the EU’s anger more than its need for doses.
The court, which will examine in a later case whether the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceuticals company broke its contract with the EU, heard the commission argue on Wednesday that an “urgent need” for the shots warranted an emergency order.
AstraZeneca supplied only 30m of the 120m Covid-19 vaccine doses it was scheduled to deliver to the bloc by the end of March, and the commission says the company is on course to deliver 70m of a promised 180m in the second quarter.
The commission’s lawyer, Rafaël Jafferali, told the court the company now expected to deliver the full 300m doses in its contract by the end of December, but added: “With a six-month delay, it’s obviously a failure.”
Updated
Bahrain is to close shopping malls, restaurants and coffee shops for two weeks starting from tomorrow as part of efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, state TV reported.
Beauty salons, spas and barber shops will also close and no event or conference should be held during this period, it said, citing the national committee to combat the pandemic, Reuters reports.
China has accused the US of “spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation” as Anthony Fauci said he was no longer convinced the coronavirus originated naturally – propelling the theory that it emerged from a Wuhan laboratory back into mainstream debate.
AFP reports:
Led by the US, pressure is mounting for a new probe into the origins of Covid-19 after a World Health Organization (WHO) mission to China, beset by delays and dogged by political baggage, returned inconclusive findings.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has returned to the spotlight after a report in The Wall Street Journal, citing US intelligence, said three lab workers there were hospitalised in November 2019 with coronavirus-like symptoms, a month before the pandemic’s first declared case.
The newspaper also said researchers had collected samples seven years earlier from a mine in southwestern China, where miners had contracted a mysterious illness from a new, bat-borne coronavirus.
Repeating an earlier denial of the report, Zhao Lijian, spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, accused the US of “spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation such as a laboratory leak”.
The theory that the killer virus leaked from a Chinese lab was originally fuelled by, among others, the administration of former US president Donald Trump.
Zhao said it was “disrespectful” to the WHO probe to revive the theory, and risked an “undermining of global solidarity to fight the virus”.
Fauci had said: “I am not convinced about that, I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened. Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favour of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.”
Pakistan has opened up its vaccination campaign to everyone aged 19 or older as it moves to protect more of its 220 million people.
Reuters reports:
Pakistan has had to deal with vaccination hesitancy and a shortage of vaccine supplies and had limited shots to people aged 30 or over. But with purchases and donations from China and allocations from the World Health Organisation and the GAVI Vaccine Alliance, it has now secured more than 18 million doses and is keen to get them out into the population.
“We decided to open up vaccination registration for all 19 years and above,” Asad Umar, minister in-charge of supervising anti-COVID operations, said in a post on Twitter. People can sign up from Thursday, he said. “So now registration will be open for the entire national population which is approved by health experts for Covid vaccination,” Umar said.
Pakistan has reported more than 900,000 coronavirus infections and some 20,465 deaths. Today, authorities reported 2,724 new infections and 65 deaths in the previous 24 hours.
Pakistan has administered 5.3 million vaccine doses with supplies from three Chinese companies - Sinopharm, Sinovac and CanSinbio - and the Oxford-AstraZeneca shots.
UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock has called on warring parties to focus together on the true fight of our lives” against “a common enemy: Covid-19.”
AP reports:
While there were some positive responses to the pandemic, Lowcock said deadly conflicts continued and emerged or got worse including in Ethiopia, Mozambique and between Armenia and Azerbaijan, contributing to a rise in the number of people forcibly displaced in 2020.
“At the same time, insecurity, sanctions, counter-terrorism measures and administrative hurdles hindered humanitarian operations,” he said, and the pandemic made aid deliveries more difficult because of suspended flights, border closures, quarantine measures and lockdowns.
Lowcock noted “multiple reports of atrocities” against civilians caught in conflicts during the pandemic. “By the end of 2020, nearly 100 million people faced crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity as a result of conflict,” he said. “That was up from 77 million the year before,” he said.
Lowcock also cited the impact of conflicts on civilians in urban areas from explosive devices, on farmers from the destruction of agricultural land, and on entire populations from attacks on medical care.
“Last year, attacks on health care across 22 conflict-affected countries killed 182 health workers,” with the highest numbers losing their lives in Burkina Faso, Congo, Somalia and Syria, he said.
In a two-month period this year, Lowcock said, 109 violent incidents against health care were documented in Myanmar, where a military coup took place on 1 February, “accelerating the collapse in the public health-care system when many people needed it most.”
Taiwan has accused China of hindering its efforts to obtain Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines from Germany amid a rise in coronavirus cases.
Today, president Tsai Ing-wen explicitly accused China of being a stumbling block to getting Pfizer shots. “We had almost completed the contract-signing with the German manufacturer at one point but it has been delayed till now because China has interfered,” Tsai said in a post on her Facebook page.
Back in February, Taiwanese officials hinted China was causing difficulties, but officials steered clear of explicitly naming Beijing, which works to keep the island diplomatically isolated.
Tsai’s administration has not detailed why it believes China has been a stumbling block and Beijing has previously denied putting up roadblocks. Pfizer-BioNTech’s distributor for the Greater China region - which includes Taiwan - is Fosun Pharma based in Shanghai.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said “Taiwan’s access to vaccines from the mainland is smooth,” without elaborating further. “We don’t recognise this so-called president, she is only the leader of a region of China,” he added.
Taiwan – population 23.5 million – has so far only received some 726,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine via the Covax global sharing scheme and from the manufacturer itself.
Cases have swiftly risen to 6,000, while deaths have tripled to 46 after an outbreak among airline pilots spread. The government has since brought in strict social distancing restrictions, including closing public venues and schools, until 14 June.
Indian doctors have questioned the free distribution of an ayurvedic medicine to Covid patients by the state of Haryana as the maker of the herbal concoction which has not undergone large clinical trials faced criticism.
The news comes after the state of Goa announced it would give anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin to all adults due to claims, which have raised some eyebrows – not least at the World Health Organisation – that it may help combat the virus.
Reuters has the full story:
The northern state, which is ruled by prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janta Party, said this week it would hand out Coronil to Covid-19 patients. The ayurvedic medicine was launched by yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s company Patanjali Ayurved last year.
The government later said the consumer goods company co-founded by Ramdev, who has a large following in India, could not market the drug as a cure, and it needed to market it as an immunity booster.
There is no scientific basis to Coronil’s use in treating Covid-19 patients, said Ajay Khanna, the state secretary of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) in Uttarakhand, where Patanjali is headquartered.
One small study suggests it could be effective, but experts have said further research would be required to support any such claims.
Ayurveda is an ancient Indian system that includes medicines, meditation, exercise and dietary guidelines practiced by millions of adherents.
Hungary has approved a bill essential to the green-lighting of EU’s recovery fund, bringing the bloc a step closer to putting the deal into operation.
Reuters has the story:
The 27 EU nations made an unprecedented agreement last year to jointly borrow €750 billion euros for the fund. But all 27 must ratify a decision to raise the upper limit for national contributions for the plan to go ahead. Until today, Hungary was one of a handful yet to do so.
Nationalist prime minister Viktor Orban, who has been in power for over a decade, has often been at loggerheads with Brussels over curbs on independent media, academics, courts and NGOs, as well as his restrictive approach to migration.
However, tens of billions of euros worth of funds flowing from the EU into Hungary have helped his government boost GDP growth and will continue to be crucial as the economy rebounds from last year’s recession. Orban has also used public spending to strengthen a loyal business elite, partly using billions of euros worth of EU funds.
Hungary, the only EU country to have approved and deployed Russian and Chinese vaccines before the European Medicines Agency has approved them, has vaccinated over half of its 10 million citizens, and has reopened most the economy.
Other EU states yet to sign off on the EU recovery fund deal are Romania, Austria and Poland.
Hello to everyone reading, Mattha Busby here taking over. Do drop me a line on Twitter with any tips or thoughts.
Today so far…
- The European Medicines Agency will announce on Friday whether it has approved the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus jab for 12- to 15-year-olds, the regulator has said. If approved, it will be the first vaccine to get the green light for young people in the 27-nation European Union.
- The US and other countries have called for a more in-depth investigation of the pandemic origins, after an international mission to China earlier this year proved inconclusive.
- France has set up extra Covid testing centres after a cluster of around 50 people in Bordeaux were found to be positive with a new virus variant described by the regional health authority as “very rare”.
- India’s total coronavirus infections crossed 27 million on Wednesday, swelled by 208,921 new cases over the last 24 hours, while daily deaths from Covid-19 rose by 4,157
- The Maldives will restrict movement to curb a surge in coronavirus infections that is putting pressure on the island’s healthcare facilities.
- Taiwan has reported its highest daily number of Covid-19 fatalities, with 11 deaths recorded on Tuesday, and tightened restrictions on the population.
- In Germany, the rate of infections continues to fall, reaching a seven-month low.
- AstraZeneca and Nipro Corp have signed an agreement to supply the British-Swedish company’s Covid-19 vaccine in Japan.
- The United Arab Emirates said vaccinations against Covid-19 will be mandatory for people attending all “live events” from 6 June.
Easily the biggest news draw domestically at the moment on Covid is Dominic Cummings explaining what he thought were the failings of the UK government to prepare. You can follow that live with Andrew Sparrow here:
I’ll be back tomorrow, Mattha Busby will be here shortly to lead you through the rest of the day’s global Covid news.
The economic impact of Covid has not been evenly distributed in the US, as Alexandra Villarreal reports for us:
Over the first two months of the health crisis, the number of active Black, Latino and Asian business owners plummeted by 41%, 32% and 26% respectively, versus just 17% for white entrepreneurs.
That outsized toll has lasted well into 2021, when half of small and mid-sized minority-owned businesses couldn’t pay all of their April rent on time, according to a recent poll.
And, even as the country reopens, more than a third of Black entrepreneurs say conditions are getting worse for their small businesses, while 37% fear “they may not survive the next three months”, a spring survey by Small Business Majority found.
“We need to start thinking about the recovery – how we actually build back the minority-owned businesses that we lost,” said Carlos Fernando Avenancio-León, an assistant professor of finance at the University of California, San Diego.
Many business people of color went into the pandemic already at a disadvantage, with lower annual revenues than their white counterparts and dismal access to funding opportunities.
Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs are also less likely to have emergency savings tucked away, plus they have fewer stocks and other liquid assets to help them weather an economic downturn.
Read more of Alexandra Villarreal’s report here: ‘Permanent damage’: can minority-owned businesses recover from pandemic’s toll?
Updated
EMA to announce Friday if it has approved Pfizer/BioNTech jab for 12- to 15-year-olds
The European Medicines Agency will announce on Friday whether it has approved the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus jab for 12- to 15-year-olds, the regulator has said.
AFP reports that if approved, it will be the first vaccine to get the green light for young people in the 27-nation European Union. Pfizer is currently authorised for people aged 16 and older.
The EMA will give a briefing on Friday to “cover the outcome of the extraordinary meeting of EMA’s human medicine committee … to discuss the paediatric indication for Comirnaty”, it said in an email.
Comirnaty is the brand name for the vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the German research firm BioNTech.
The US Food and Drug Administration has already authorised Pfizer for 12- to 15-year-olds.
EMA chief Emer Cooke said earlier this month that the Amsterdam-based watchdog was fast-tracking the approval for young people, which was originally expected in June.
She told European newspapers on 11 May the regulator had received Pfizer-BioNTech data and “we’ve been promised data from clinical trials and the study carried out in Canada within the next two weeks, and we are going to speed up our evaluation”.
Updated
Nectar Gan and James Griffiths at CNN have a little more on the information war being waged by China as there are growing calls for a more thorough investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus. They write:
After facing fierce attacks from Republicans, top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci now has a new critic: Chinese state media.
“US elites degenerate further in morality, and Fauci is one of them,” was the headline of a blistering opinion piece penned by Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times this week.
In the article, Hu accused the top US infectious disease expert of “fanning a huge lie against China” by hyping the theory that the coronavirus was leaked from a Wuhan lab. Another article in the Global Times declared that Fauci had “betrayed Chinese scientists.”
The anger is centered on Fauci’s remarks this month that he is no longer convinced the Covid-19 pandemic originated naturally.
“I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened,” said the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at a fact-checking symposium on 11 May.
Fauci’s comments were followed by a Wall Street Journal exclusive, citing a US intelligence report, that said three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.
Unsurprisingly, China has vehemently refuted the report. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the report was “totally inconsistent with the facts” and a director at the lab called the report “a complete lie.”
Read more here: CNN – Chinese state media is turning on Fauci amid Wuhan lab controversy
Updated
Maldives to restrict movement after Covid surge
The Maldives will restrict movement to curb a surge in coronavirus infections that is putting pressure on the island’s healthcare facilities, officials said.
Tanvi Mehta reports for Reuters that people will be allowed out for a few hours each day for essential supplies and a strict curfew will be in place from 4pm to 8am the next day, the Health Protection Agency said.
The restrictions come as the Indian Ocean island has seen a rise in cases and is struggling with a shortage of medical staff, many of whom come from India which is battling its own deadly wave of infections.
“Especially due to the situation in India, which is traditionally the biggest source country, we are finding it difficult to hire new medical professionals to deal with the increased caseload,” Mabrook Azeez, the spokesman for the President’s Office told Reuters.
The Maldives reported 1,004 fresh cases on Tuesday with a tally of 58,345 total infections, according to the health agency, with cases concentrated in the capital Male. Last week, daily cases hit a record 2,194, setting off alarm in the tropical island chain with a population of a little over half a million.
President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih said the country had erred in lifting curbs on public movement. “The easing of restrictions in April was not right. I don’t think those decisions were good enough. However, I am not going to put that responsibility on anyone,” he told reporters.
The country held local council elections in April during which public meetings were held. Family gatherings and congregation alto took place in mosques during the holy month of Ramadan.
Andrew Sparrow has just launched our UK live blog for the day which you imagine will be wall-to-wall Dominic Cummings and how the UK government prepared – or didn’t – for the pandemic.
I’ll be continuing here with leading international developments on the coronavirus.
Covid infections in Germany hit seven-month low
In Germany, the rate of infections continues to fall, reaching a seven-month low. The country’s disease control agency today reported 46.8 new infections per 100,000 people within the space of seven days, the incidence rate dropping below 50 for the first time since October.
Overall, Germany only recorded 2,626 new infections on Tuesday, though a lag in reporting due to a bank holiday could also be a factor behind the latest drop in numbers.
Leading coronavirus expert Christian Drosten has attributed the drop in numbers largely to lockdown measures in the spring and the progress of the vaccination campaign, arguing it was easy to overestimate the impact of the summery temperatures. “Once cannot assume that the temperatures will take care of this thing”, Drosten told broadcaster NDR.
France sets up extra Covid testing in Bordeaux over 50 cases of 'very rare' variant
France has set up extra Covid testing centres after a cluster of around 50 people in Bordeaux were found to be positive with a new virus variant described by the regional health authority as “very rare”.
Although the new strain has been called the “Bordeaux variant”, Prof Patrick Dehail, scientific and medical advisor to the local health authority, says it is actually a mutation of the B.1.1.7 first detected in Kent, known locally as the “English variant”. It has been picked up before now, but this is the first time it has created such a large cluster.
Many of those who tested positive were students at a school in the Bacalan district of the city and their parents. None of them has been hospitalised and Dehail said they showed “the usual symptoms or no symptoms”. He added that all the vaccines being delivered in France – PfizerBioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen – covered this variant.
About 80% of all new Covid cases in France are the “English variant”, a more contagious variation of the original coronavirus.
Updated
The UK’s health secretary Matt Hancock prioritising publicising vaccines rather than speculating about Dominic Cummings while out on his morning run here.
"Today, anyone over 30 can get a vaccine. So get out there and get your vaccine," says Health Secretary Matt Hancock, before running away from reporters as they ask questions on Dominic Cummings' appearance at a joint inquiry on #COVID19.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 26, 2021
Follow live: https://t.co/6O8ETqZ0sB pic.twitter.com/MSp687pYPu
AstraZeneca and Nipro Corp have signed an agreement to supply the British-Swedish company’s Covid-19 vaccine in Japan.
Nipro said the contract was for filling the shot into vials and packaging it, due to start next month. Japan’s government has agreed to acquire 120m doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, enough for 60m people.
The shot was officially approved in Japan on Friday along with the one developed by Moderna.
Japan started its inoculation drive in mid-February, later than most major economies and using imported doses of the shot developed by Pfizer/BioNTech. The Moderna vaccine went into use this week with the opening of mass vaccination centres.
But there are, Reuters report, no immediate plans to use AstraZeneca’s shot in Japan, amid lingering concerns raised internationally over blood clots.
Updated
China’s official vaccination figures continue to dwarf the efforts of others. Reuters report that China administered about 19.5m Covid-19 vaccine doses on 25 May, bringing the total number of doses administered to 546m, according to data released by the National Health Commission on Wednesday.
Updated
AFP has a despatch from Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this morning, where it says residents are still banking on “God’s protection” from Covid. When the coronavirus arrived from Europe in sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest city in March 2020, residents feared the worst.
“Covid should have devastated us. But so far, we have been spared,” said Aimee Rugambo, a nurse at a government Covid treatment centre at Vijana hospital. “God is in control! He protected us.”
But she added: “We must tell people that Covid exists. It is in Kinshasa, and it kills.”
Official national figures show 30,862 cases since March 2020, the vast majority in Kinshasa (21,284), and 779 deaths. The figure, if credible, is negligible in a gigantic country that has suffered war and suffering for the past three decades.
“We will never know the number of infected or dead from corona – most are not tested,” a Congolese journalist noted. “It’s too complicated or too expensive.”
Grappling with so many other scourges on a daily basis, “you only go to the hospital if you are seriously ill”, he said.
Vaccination is free and open to all, but the campaign is not taking off. Last weekend, only 11,000 people were reported vaccinated in Kinshasa, of a national total of 14,434.
“People are sceptical,” lamented Wamba Nice, director of the Vijana hospital. “Many are afraid, mainly because of the rumours on social networks.”
Only two people showed up for the jab at the Vijana treatment centre, both from the Indian subcontinent, who declined to speak. The day before, no one came, but for now it is mainly foreigners who are benefiting from it.
“Few people come … it’s a shame,” Dr Nice said, fearing that some doses will have to be destroyed because they have gone beyond their expiry date.
Updated
Both Conservative transport minister Grant Shapps and Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy have been on BBC Breakfast this morning in the UK. Of Dominic Cummings, Nandy said:
What will be important today is whether Dominic Cummings comes armed with evidence. Either the prime minister is lying, or the prime minister has appointed someone to one of the most senior positions in government who himself is a liar, who made key decisions about Covid and who the prime minister stood by, even when he broke the lockdown rules himself. Either way, this does not reflect well on the prime minister’s judgment or his character.
“This does not reflect well on the PM's judgement”
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) May 26, 2021
On #BBCBreakfast Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy MP says what evidence the PM's former advisor Dominic Cummings presents is critical as he prepares to be quizzed by MPs on handling of the pandemic. https://t.co/k54u9LyClh pic.twitter.com/MWWs63FO2O
Shapps wasn’t particularly flattering either, according to PA Media. Asked whether Cummings was a “trusted adviser”, Shapps said: “He was certainly an adviser of the government. It’s for others to decide the trusted part of it.”
Shapps also accepted that Cummings’ actions last year had damaged the government’s messaging on Covid restrictions. He said: “I accept it was a moment which actually in the public’s mind undermined the wider messages and I accept that.”
Updated
Taiwan reports new record daily Covid deaths, higher daily case numbers
Taiwan has reported its highest daily number of Covid-19 fatalities, with 11 deaths recorded on Tuesday, and tightened restrictions on the population. All fatalities were people aged over 50, with nine connected to the Wanhua cluster in Taipei city.
At a press conference a short time ago, the central epidemic command centre also reported an uptick in daily case numbers, as well as hundreds more positive cases from the past few weeks discovered as they process a backlog of test results.
There were 302 new local cases reported today, and 333 added to previous days’ totals. While cases are now in every county, the vast majority of the new cases and all but eight of the delayed cases are in the northern cities of Taipei and New Taipei.
The updated figures for the past week show daily figures peaked on 17 May with 526 cases. It also revealed delays are still significantly affecting current reporting, with 92 new cases added to yesterday’s total.
Revised cases date as far back as 10 days, though most are from the past few days. Cases are primarily among the same demographic and sources. pic.twitter.com/AW3nMdbDm8
— Tim Culpan (@tculpan) May 26, 2021
Health and welfare minister Chen Chih-Shung said the level 3 alert restricting people’s social movements had been effective but needed to be tighter in light of the continuing daily case cases. He said all restaurants must now offer takeaway only (a rule already enforced by several city governments), and all wedding, funerals and religious services were cancelled.
He also pledged tougher enforcement and punishment for people not wearing masks outside, and recreation businesses operating when they’d been told to close.
Asked about continuing suggestions from health experts that tighter restrictions or lockdowns were necessary to control the outbreak, Chen said they wanted to prevent “Covid fatigue”
“Secondly, it is too costly for our economy to halt all activities. What I can say is that we have been working closely with the Ministry of Economic Affairs to provide a smooth base of operation for crucial industries,” he said.
Transport minister Grant Shapps is the man out and about on the UK media this morning fronting up the government’s pre-damage limitation operation ahead of Dominic Cummings’ appearance this morning – that session starts at 9.30am by the way.
You can expect a steady drip, drip, drip of quotes from Shapps this morning as he goes round TV and radio studios. Already he has dismissed it as a “sideshow”.
PA Media notes that on Sky News, Shapps has said “I’ll leave others to determine how reliable a witness to all this he is. He was there at the time, what his motives would be I will leave to others.”
Shapps definitely appeared to think Cummings was a credible and reliable witness this time last year.
Shapps was one of several cabinet ministers to publicly defend Cummings trip to Barnard Castle last year when the PM stuck his neck out to keep him. pic.twitter.com/MDF8jxHEow
— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) May 26, 2021
Updated
After weeks of slow bookings at the mass vaccination hubs in Melbourne, Australia, there were long queues outside the two hubs in the CBD on Wednesday as the city faced yet another Covid-19 outbreak and the prospect of more restrictions.
For weeks the mass vaccination hub at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton had been relatively idle, with few of those in the eligible phases, such as those over the age of 50, turning up to get the AstraZeneca vaccine.
But a day after Victoria recorded six new Covid cases in Melbourne’s northern suburbs linked to a man who caught the infection from hotel quarantine in South Australia, the queue was stretching down the side of the building, with about 100 people waiting by mid-morning.
“I assume a lot more people turned up today because of what’s going on in Melbourne,” said Nick, who waited in the queue for his jab for 40 minutes past his appointment time. “I actually live nearby, and I come around here quite often, and it’s been quite empty … but it seems like people are getting fired up a bit, which is good.”
Read more of Josh Taylor’s report here: Melbourne’s vaccination hubs see long queues as city responds to Covid outbreak
Updated
NHS in England extends vaccine availability to all over-30s
Right now now on the NHS England website it looks like you qualify to book a jab if you are:
- aged 30 and over
- will turn 30 before 1 July 2021
That’s in addition to the other categories:
- people at high risk from Covid-19 (clinically extremely vulnerable)
- people who live or work in care homes
- health and social care workers
- people with a condition that puts them at higher risk (clinically vulnerable)
- people with a learning disability
- people who are a main carer for someone at high risk from Covid-19
You can book your shot here.
Other nations in the UK can find out the latest status for booking a vaccine here:
Updated
If you are a Westminster-watcher then there is only one game in town in the UK this morning – the anticipation for Dominic Cummings being quizzed by MPs about the way the UK handled the early days of the pandemic. Our political correspondent Aubrey Allegretti writes:
On the eve of the evidence session, Cummings continued to add to a 63-tweet long thread on Twitter, claiming one of the “worst failings” last year was the “almost total absence of a serious plan for shielding/social care” and adding: “There was widespread delusion we HAD a great plan. It turned out to barely exist.”
He also hinted he plans to shine a light on an alleged but firmly denied government strategy of “herd immunity”, meaning enough people gaining resistance to a virus that it no longer spreads unchecked.
He has also promised to provide a “crucial” document on Covid decision-making to the health and science committees chaired by two Tory MPs, Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark.
Whether the public will pay as much heed to a man whose pandemic contribution will mainly be remembered for his flight from London during lockdown remains to be seen.
Read more here: Ministers braced for Dominic Cummings testimony on Covid crisis
UAE: vaccines mandatory for people attending all 'live events'
Good morning, it’s Martin Belam taking over here in London. You can reach me on martin.belam@theguardian.com.
Here’s some news that may significantly alter life for tourists and the attractiveness of business hub Dubai – the United Arab Emirates said vaccinations against Covid-19 will be mandatory for people attending all “live events” from 6 June.
The policy applies to all sports, cultural, social, arts exhibition, activities and events, a spokeswoman for the ministry of health said late on Tuesday.
Attendees must also present a negative Covid-19 PCR test taken at least 48 hours before the event. The policy also appears to apply for weddings of up to 100 people.
Reuters report that the country’s vaccination campaign has consistently been one of the fastest in the world and the UAE said more than 78.11% of the eligible population over 16 years old had now been vaccinated. It wasn’t specified if this was one or two doses.
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along – and stay tuned for more updates from my esteemed colleague Martin Belam.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 2,626 to 3,656,177, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday.
The reported death toll rose by 270 to 87,726, the tally showed.
Lockdowns in some of the world’s poorest countries have seen schools close, households lose their incomes, and, in some cases, a growth in domestic abuse. The result, according to a report, has been a rise in child labour, as children like Gopal have found themselves in often precarious and exploitative work, with long hours, low pay, and scant regard for safety.
Jo Becker, director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), which co-published the report with the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights in Uganda and Friends of the Nation in Ghana, said: “The key driver is the economic situation that so many families are facing because they have lost jobs, they have lost income. The lockdowns in many countries have really dealt a blow.”
The Guardian’s Lizzy Davies and Pete Pattisson report:
Updated
India cases top 27 million
India’s total coronavirus infections crossed 27 million on Wednesday, swelled by 208,921 new cases over the last 24 hours, while daily deaths from Covid-19 rose by 4,157, Reuters reports.
The South Asian country’s overall caseload is now at 27.16 million, while total fatalities are at 311,388, according to health ministry data.
Calls grow for new inquiry into Covid origins
The US and other countries have called for a more in-depth investigation of the pandemic origins, after an international mission to China earlier this year proved inconclusive.
Addressing the World Health Organization’s main annual meeting of member states in Geneva, representatives from several countries stressed the continued need to solve the mystery of how Covid-19 first began spreading among humans.
“We underscore the importance of a robust comprehensive and expert-led inquiry into the origins of Covid-19,” US representative Jeremy Konyndyk told the meeting on Tuesday.
Australia, Japan and Portugal were among other countries to call for more progress on the investigation, while the British representative urged for any probe to be “timely, expert-driven and grounded in robust science”.
Determining how the virus that causes Covid-19 began spreading is seen as vital to preventing future outbreaks:
Updated
Indian Covid-19 variant found in at least 53 territories: WHO
The coronavirus variant first detected in India has now been officially recorded in 53 territories, a World Health Organization report showed Wednesday, AFP reports.
Additionally, the WHO has received information from unofficial sources that the B.1.617 variant has been found in seven other territories, figures in the UN health agency’s weekly epidemiological update showed, taking the total to 60.
The report said B.1.617 had shown increased transmissibility, while disease severity and risk of infection were under investigation.
Globally over the past week, the number of new cases and deaths continued to decrease, with around 4.1 million new cases and 84,000 new deaths reported - a 14 percent and two percent decrease respectively compared to the previous week.
The WHO’s European region reported the largest decline in new cases and deaths in the past seven days, followed by the southeast Asia region.
The numbers of cases reported by the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, Africa, and the Western Pacific region were similar to those reported in the previous week.
“Despite a declining global trend over the past four weeks, incidence of Covid-19 cases and deaths remain high, and substantial increases have been observed in many countries throughout the world,” the document said.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
The coronavirus variant first detected in India has now been officially recorded in 53 territories, a World Health Organization report showed Wednesday.
Additionally, the WHO has received information from unofficial sources that the B.1.617 variant has been found in seven other territories, figures in the UN health agency’s weekly epidemiological update showed, taking the total to 60.
Meanwhile the United States and other countries have called for a more in-depth investigation of the pandemic origins, after an international mission to China earlier this year proved inconclusive.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- At least 77,000 hospital staff in England caught coronavirus during the pandemic, while there were nearly a quarter of a million absences for Covid-related reasons, Guardian research has revealed.
- The number of people with Covid-19 in intensive care units in France fell by another 49 to 3,447 on Tuesday, while the overall number of people in hospital with the virus fell by 271 to 19,430.
- The Biden administration has reaffirmed its support for Tokyo’s plan to hold the Olympic Games this summer despite a new wave of coronavirus cases and the US urging its citizens to avoid all travel to Japan.
- Poland will launch a lottery with prizes of as much as 1m zlotys ($273,000) to encourage people to get vaccinated against Covid-19, the minister in charge of the immunisation programme has said.
- UK trade with the EU collapsed by nearly a quarter at the start of 2021 compared with three years before as Brexit and Covid-19 disruption hit exports, while China replaced Germany as the biggest single import market, according to official figures.
