We’re closing this blog shortly but thanks very much for reading. Here is a summary of the main developments over the past 18 hours or so.
- Fully vaccinated Americans no longer have to wear a mask in most settings, the Center for Disease Control said on Thursday. Joe Biden called it “a great day for America in our long battle against coronavirus”.
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UK cases of an Indian variant have more than doubled in the past week, according to Public Health England data. Figures published on Thursday evening show there are 1,313 cases of the VOC-21APR-02 variant in the country, up from 520 the previous week.
- Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, said it was a variant of concern. “We are anxious about it,” he said when asked by reporters.
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The four most worrying variants have been detected in virtually all parts of the Americas, a World Health Organization expert said.
- French health authorities reported 19,461 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, representing a weekly rise of less than two per cent for the first time in almost a year, Reuters reports. The total number of hospitalisations for the disease fell by 598, decreasing for the 10th day in a row to 23,656, the lowest since October 31.
- The Philippines is set to ease of some coronavirus restrictions in the capital and nearby provinces, with daily infections well down from a peak six weeks ago.
- The United Arab Emirates have approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine for children, the government announced.
- Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the country is on track for herd immunity, predicting 33 million people will be vaccinated by mid-August.
- Malaysia has reported its highest number of new coronavirus cases in more than three months.
- The number of cases of the Indian Covid variant in Northern Ireland has increased to at least 12, it has been reported.
- A South African report into excess deaths over the past year suggests more than 133,000 people in the country have died from Covid, far more than the official tally of nearly 55,000.
You can catch up with all our coronavirus coverage here.
Australia has for the World Health Organization to be given greater powers to investigate outbreaks after an independent panel found dithering and poor coordination when Covid-19 emerged in China.
AFP reports:
Australia has been in the firing line from China, its largest trading partner, over steps including backing US-led calls for a probe into Covid’s origins, with Beijing imposing tariffs on key products including wine and cutting off diplomatic and trade talks.
On a visit to Washington, foreign minister Marise Payne praised recommendations of a panel report and said “We absolutely support those being taken very seriously.”
She pointed to recommendations “about increasing the independence and authority of the WHO so that they have explicit powers to investigate pathogens with pandemic potential and to publish information about those potential outbreaks with immediate action without prior approval of national governments.”
British holidaymakers hoping to travel to Portugal when UK travel restrictions ease are facing uncertainty after the nation’s government decided to extend its “state of calamity” until at least May 30,PA reports.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Tuesday that as of May 17 the “stay in the UK” restriction will lift, meaning people will be able to go to green list countries, which includes Portugal.
But guidance published on the Portuguese Government’s website on Thursday stated that ministers had approved a move to continue the current level of lockdown.
Thousands of British football fans are hoping to travel to the city of Porto for the Champions League final between Manchester City and Chelsea on May 29.
UEFA previously confirmed that 6,000 tickets would be made available to each of the finalists, with the final capacity limit at the Estadio do Dragao still to be fixed.
According to the BBC, Portuguese Cabinet office minister Mariana Vieira da Silva said in a briefing she had “no information to give yet” when asked if restrictions on travel from the UK would soon be lifted.
“Work is going on and as soon as there is a decision it will be announced, but no decision was taken in this cabinet meeting,” she said.
All GP practices must offer face-to-face appointments and an in-person reception desk, NHS England has said, bringing an end to the mandatory “total triage” system introduced during the pandemic.
In a letter sent out on Thursday, GPs were told the use of telephone and online consultations can remain where patients benefit from them, but physical appointments must also be available from May 17.
All practice reception desks must now be open to patients, in a Covid-safe manner, so those who do not have easy access to phones or the internet are not disadvantaged when accessing care, PA reports.
Total triage was a system whereby patients were remotely screened and directed to the most appropriate health service for their problems, and was introduced as a Covid-19 precaution.
In the joint letter from Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director for primary care at NHS England and director of primary care Ed Waller, doctors were told patients’ preferences must be respected.
“Patients and clinicians have a choice of consultation mode,” they said.
They added: “Patients’ input into this choice should be sought and practices should respect preferences for face-to-face care unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary.”
Dr Kanani and Mr Waller cited the presence of Covid-19 symptoms as an example of a reason to refuse a face-to-face appointment.
“Patients should be treated consistently regardless of mode of access,” they said.
The UK’s health secretary Matt Hancock said the government “will not hesitate to take further action” amid mounting concern over the spread of the Indian coronavirus variant.
Data from Public Health England (PHE) shows a rise in cases from 520 to 1,313 this week in the UK.
A new rapid response team is being deployed in Bolton, additional surge testing will shortly launch in areas such as Formby, and enhanced contact-tracing is in place across England.
Ministers are looking at options which could include bringing forward second doses of vaccine for eligible groups.
Hancock said: “This data demonstrates why our swift and decisive measures are in place.
“Everyone has a part to play in controlling this variant, from participating in surge testing, to following the rules, to getting the jab.”
The Canadian province of New Brunswick will no longer offer first doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, but will offer second doses using current supplies and future deliveries, Reuters reports.
Most provinces made similar announcements on Monday and Tuesday, mainly citing concerns about supply, though officials in Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick said the move was also based on a rise in the incidence of rare blood clots linked to first doses of the vaccine.
Canada received 655,000 doses of a version of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India on Thursday through the global vaccine buying system COVAX, and will begin distributing to provinces in coming days, officials said.
The four most worrying coronavirus variants have been detected in virtually all countries and territories of the Americas, but although they are more transmissible there is no evidence they are more lethal, a World Health Organization expert said.
The vaccines that are being administered in the region do provide more protection against the variants, Jairo Mendez, a WHO infectious diseases expert said in a webinar by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
“What we still do not know is whether fully vaccinated people who do not become ill can still spread the virus to others. We have a lot to learn,” Mendez said.
The Indian variant, has been detected in cases in eight countries of the Americas, including Canada and the United States, he said.
One case is under investigation, and others with the variants were travelers in Panama and Argentina who had arrived from India or Europe. In the Caribbean, cases of the Indian variant have been detected in Aruba, Dutch St Maarten and the French department of Guadeloupe.
The B.117 prevalent in the UK has been found in cases reported in 34 countries or territories in the Americas, while the South African variant B.1.351 has been reported in 17.
Brazil’s so-called Manaus variant P.1 has so far been detected in 21 countries, the WHO expert said.
Brazil recorded 74,592 further confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 2,383 deaths from Covid-19, the country’s health ministry said on Thursday.
Brazil has registered more than 15.4 million cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 430,417, Reuters reports.
Layla Moran, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, said the UK government should rethink its “flawed” approach to international travel after cases of an Indian variant of Covid-19 more than doubled in the past week, PA reports.
“The latest figures are deeply concerning and suggest the government failed to act swiftly enough to prevent the Indian variant being imported into the UK,” she said.
“Ministers only added India to the red list several weeks after this mutation was identified as a variant of concern, by which time it was too late.
“Our cross-party report has called for countries to be added to the ‘red list’ as soon as variants of concern are identified and for quarantine rules to then come into force with immediate effect.
“The Government must rethink its flawed approach to international travel and focus on preventing the importation of variants, which scientists agree pose the biggest risk to our hard-won progress against Covid-19.”
A summary of today's developments
- UK cases of an Indian variant of coronavirus have more than doubled in the past week, according to Public Health England data. Figures published on Thursday evening show there are 1,313 cases of the VOC-21APR-02 variant in the country, up from 520 the previous week, PA reports.
- French health authorities reported 19,461 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, representing a weekly rise of less than two per cent for the first time in almost a year, Reuters reports. The total number of hospitalisations for the disease fell by 598, decreasing for the 10th day in a row to 23,656, the lowest since October 31.
- The Philippines is set to ease of some coronavirus restrictions in the capital and nearby provinces, with daily infections well down from a peak six weeks ago.
- The United Arab Emirates have approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine for children, the government announced.
- Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the country is on track for herd immunity, predicting 33 million people will be vaccinated by mid-August.
- Asked about concerns over the Indian variant circulating in the UK, Boris Johnson, the prime minister, said earlier: “It is a variant of concern, we are anxious about it.”
- Malaysia has reported its highest number of new coronavirus cases in more than three months.
- The number of cases of the Indian Covid variant in Northern Ireland has increased to at least 12, it has been reported.
- A South African report into excess deaths over the past year suggests more than 133,000 people in the country have died from Covid, far more than the official tally of nearly 55,000.
Surge testing has been deployed in parts of the UK after cases of the Indian variant of coronavirus were confirmed in Sefton, Merseyside.
NHS Test and Trace and Sefton Council are urging everyone over the age of 16 who lives, works or studies in the Formby area to take a PCR Covid test from Friday.
The Department of Health and Social Care said those in Formby with confirmed cases of the B.1.617 variant, which originated in India, have self-isolated and their contacts are being identified.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks outdoors and can avoid wearing them indoors in most places, updated guidance the agency said will allow life to begin to return to normal.
The CDC also said fully vaccinated people will not need to physically distance in most places. The agency also hopes the guidance will prod more Americans to get vaccinated, Reuters reports.
“Big news from the CDC: If you*re fully vaccinated, you do not need to wear a mask * indoors or outdoors, in most settings,” the White House tweeted with a picture that said: “Fully Vaccinated People CAN STOP Wearing Masks.”
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said World Trade Organization negotiations over intellectual property waivers for Covid-19 vaccines is a chance for the divided trade body to make itself relevant to the world’s needs.
Tai, speaking to the House Ways and Means Committee, said she was committed to entering negotiations that take into account concerns from all sides, including drug companies, Reuters reports.
“The WTO has not got a record of moving quickly, or getting to yes, across 164 members who must all agree, very often,” Tai said.
“This is the opportunity for the WTO to show its relevance for mankind.”
For a second day in a row, Tai heard criticism from Republican lawmakers that the intellectual property rights waiver will give critical biopharmaceutical technology to China, Russia and other strategic rivals while failing to increase vaccine supplies.
UK cases of Indian coronavirus strain more than double
UK cases of an Indian variant of coronavirus have more than doubled in the past week, according to Public Health England data.
Figures published on Thursday evening show there are 1,313 cases of the VOC-21APR-02 variant in the country, up from 520 the previous week, PA reports.
Dr Susan Hopkins, COVID-19 Strategic Response Director at PHE, said: “Cases of this variant are rising in the community and we are continuously monitoring its spread and severity to ensure we take rapid public health action.
Greyhound Canada has permanently closed its services in Canada, the inter-city bus operator said, after struggling with sales during the pandemic as more people opt for personal transport.
“A full year without revenue has unfortunately made it impossible to continue operations,” said Stuart Kendrick, senior vice president, of the firm, which is owned by British transport operator FirstGroup.
The move has no impact on Greyhound Lines Inc (USA), which is a separate entity from Greyhound Canada, and will continue to operate cross-border express services when the border reopens., Reuters reports.
French health authorities reported 19,461 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, representing a weekly rise of less than two per cent for the first time in almost a year, Reuters reports.
The total number of hospitalisations for the disease fell by 598, decreasing for the 10th day in a row to 23,656, the lowest since October 31.
The country reported 131 new deaths from Covid-19 on Thursday for an overall toll of 107,205, the eighth highest in the world.
The gliding seven-day average of new deaths fell further to 200, the lowest since Oct 26, from a 2021 high of 450 in early February.
Early evening summary
Here is a quick recap of all the main Covid updates from around the world:
- The Philippines is set to ease of some coronavirus restrictions in the capital and nearby provinces, with daily infections well down from a peak six weeks ago.
- The United Arab Emirates have approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine for children, the government announced.
- Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the country is on track for herd immunity, predicting 33 million people will be vaccinated by mid-August.
- Asked about concerns over the Indian variant circulating in the UK, Boris Johnson, the prime minister, said earlier: “It is a variant of concern, we are anxious about it.”
- Malaysia has reported its highest number of new coronavirus cases in more than three months.
- The number of cases of the Indian Covid variant in Northern Ireland has increased to at least 12, it has been reported.
- A South African report into excess deaths over the past year suggests more than 133,000 people in the country have died from Covid, far more than the official tally of nearly 55,000.
Updated
In response to concerns about the Indian variant in the UK (see earlier post), the Conservative MP Steve Baker has warned against any further lockdown measures.
Baker, deputy chairman of the Covid Recovery Group of MPs, said:
Why on earth would we lock down when the vaccines continue to break the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths? I am glad we are on a one-way road to freedom, as the prime minister has stated, and freedom from Covid regulations, as the health secretary has undertaken to MPs in the House of Commons. We were told the road map was cautious - in spite of the overwhelmingly promising data on the benefits of the NHS vaccine rollout - precisely so it would be irreversible.
Over in Greece, tourism minister Haris Theoharis is detailing how the country plans to re-embrace international travellers “safely” ahead of quarantine restrictions being lifted for all visitors tomorrow.
Major tour operators, starting with TUI, which launches direct flights to popular destinations as of Friday, have predicted that Greece will be among this year’s tourist success stories.
Theoharis, who was given a grilling on BBC’s Hardtalk this week when it was put to him that Greece was not on the UK’s initial green list, elected to emphasise health protocols as he unveiled the plans this evening.
“In 2020 Greek tourism won a difficult bet. We opened and welcomed tourists safely,” he told reporters against a backdrop of the famous temple of Poseidon in Sounio. “The big bet of 2021 is to open with security.”
With its economy so dependent on tourism, Greece has championed the idea of vaccine certificates, first proposing ‘vaccine passports’ to fellow EU member states in January.
In a bid to lure overseas tourists, the country this week begun zealously immunising entire populations on larger islands with destinations such as Corfu, Rhodes, Crete and Zakynthos – perennial favourites among Britons – expected to be fully vaccinated by the end of June when, it is hoped, the first UK holidaymakers will fly in.
Some 32 smaller islands were part of a mass vaccination campaign earlier this year with officials seeking to brand them as the first ‘Covid-free destinations’.
Greece has fared better than much of the rest of Europe registering 369,554 coronavirus cases to date and just over 11,000 Covid-19 deaths, although it has struggled to suppress a third wave of the pandemic.
Earlier today it was announced the Mediterranean nation had one of the continent’s highest vaccination rates with more than four million citizens having received at least one jab.
This has been shared by Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council in England. A spokesperson had earlier said all over-18s could book vaccines (see this post).
The council has now said additional clinics will be opening to help offer more jabs to those eligible:
Vaccine Update 🦠
— BwD Council (@blackburndarwen) May 13, 2021
Additional clinics offering the covid-19 vaccination to eligible people in Blackburn with Darwen will open up from next week! 💉
Contrary to earlier social media and news reporting, vaccines at the clinics will not be widely available to over 18s 🚫
⬇️ pic.twitter.com/8iYxZc0atr
Updated
British Eid al-Fitr celebrations were muted for the second year in a row amid the challenge of holding the religious festival with Covid restrictions in place.
The festival marks the end of Ramadan and typically starts with people attending mosque for morning prayers followed by family and friends getting together for a celebratory meal.
However, families and mosques have had to adapt again this year. The Muslim Council of Britain urged worshippers “to take the utmost care when protecting our loved ones and observing public health guidance”.
You can read the full story here:
This has been shared by Nancy Lapid, Reuter’s medical news editor:
In the latest #COVID19 research roundup from @Reuters:
— Nancy Lapid (@NancyLapid) May 13, 2021
- Pfizer, Moderna vaccines likely effective against India variant
- People with #HIV at risk for more severe COVID-19
- #Heart damage rare with mild COVID-19https://t.co/IPJxj3lQwt
Reuters reports:
Pfizer Inc repeatedly offered to sell its Covid-19 vaccine to Brazil’s health ministry between August and November last year, but got no answer from the government, Pfizer’s chief executive for Latin America told lawmakers on Thursday.
A Senate commission is investigating whether President Jair Bolsonaro’s government mishandled the pandemic by failing to secure vaccines in time to curb a surge that has killed more than 420,000 Brazilians - the worst Covid-19 death toll outside the United States.
Pfizer executive Carlos Murillo said that on 12 September the company’s CEO sent a letter to Bolsonaro and others in his cabinet, including then health minister Eduardo Pazuello, expressing interest in providing Brazil with vaccines.
The letter went unanswered for two months, the parliamentary commission has established.
In France, the number of people treated in intensive care units for Covid fell by 141 to 4,442, a decrease for the 10th consecutive day, health authorities said on Thursday.
In England, Blackburn’s Labour-run council on Thursday told the Guardian it planned to became the first English local authority to offer jabs to all adults, only to row back on the plans by early evening.
Just after 5pm it put out a statement saying it would be sticking to government guidelines and that only those aged 38 or older or in a vulnerable group would be allowed a vaccine.
Updated
Philippines to ease Covid curbs in capital as daily cases decline
Reuters reports:
Philippine’s President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday approved the easing of some coronavirus restrictions in the capital and nearby provinces, with daily Covid-19 infections well down from a peak six weeks ago.
Religious gatherings and dining in restaurants will be allowed in Metro Manila and in the provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Cavite for two weeks beginning on Saturday, but non-essential travels will remain prohibited.
Outdoor tourist attractions may be opened but only at 30% capacity.
The quarantine status of Metro Manila and the adjacent provinces will be reviewed before 31 May.
The Canadian province of Quebec will no longer offer first doses of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine as of Thursday, but will offer second doses using current supplies and future deliveries, the province’s health ministry said in a release.
Several provinces made similar announcements on Monday and Tuesday, with most citing concerns about supply, though the province of Ontario also indicated that it was concerned about the risk of rare blood clots, Reuters reports.
Nearly four out of five residents at older adult care homes in England have received both doses of coronavirus vaccine, according to new figures from NHS England.
The latest data, published on Thursday, showed that 77.9% of residents eligible for the vaccine had received both doses by 9 May.
This compared to 55.9% of staff at older adult care homes, PA Media reports.
Italy has recorded 201 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday against 262 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 8,085 from 7,852.
Reuters reports:
Italy has registered 123,745 deaths linked to COVID-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.14 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 13,608 on Thursday, down from 14,280 a day earlier.
There were 81 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 91 on Wednesday. The total number of intensive care patients fell to 1,893 from a previous 1,992.
Some 287,026 tests for COVID-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 306,744, the health ministry said.
The UK government said a further 11 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, bringing the total to 127,651. The figure of new daily cases stood at 2,284.
UAE approves emergency use of Pfizer vaccine for children
The United Arab Emirates have approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine for children.
In a tweet, the government announced: “The Ministry of Health and Prevention approves the emergency use of the Pfizer Bionic vaccine for the age group of 12 to 15 years
وزارة الصحة ووقاية المجتمع تعتمد الاستخدام الطارئ للقاح فايزر بيونتيك للفئة العمرية من 12 إلى 15 عامًا pic.twitter.com/04FMilqbyC
— UAEGOV (@uaegov) May 13, 2021
Updated
Burberry has predicted it will take several years for long-haul travel to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, with the absence of wealthy tourists a severe blow to its UK shops.
In normal times a shopping trip to Burberry would be on the itinerary of international visitors but the hiatus caused by Covid-19 meant the luxury retailer’s sales in its home market were more than 50% down on 2019 levels in the year to 27 March 2021.
You can read the full story here:
Updated
The Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast features Anand Jagatia speaking to The Guardian’s science correspondent, Nicola Davis, and Prof Ravi Gupta about what we know and how concerned we should be about the India Covid variant.
Tobi Thomas here, covering the blog while my colleague has a break. If you would like to get in touch you can reach me via twitter or my email. Thanks!
Three in ten cases brought under coronavirus legislation in England and Wales were wrongly brought, a review of the first full year of the laws has found.
The Crown Prosecution Service checked 1,821 finalised cases under the Coronavirus Act and Health Protection Regulations between 26 March last year and the end of March this year.
A total of 549 incorrect charges were identified, which were either withdrawn by prosecutors at the first court hearing or returned to the relevant CPS area to be set aside.
This included all 270 charges under the Coronavirus Act, under which the main criminal offence relates to potentially infectious persons who refuse to co-operate with the police or public health officers, when they are required to be screened for Covid-19.
The regulations contain various criminal offences, which over the course of the pandemic have covered numerous restrictions – including on leaving home, social gatherings, self-isolation, travel and the wearing of face coverings.
Of 1,551 prosecutions brought under the Regulations in the first year, just under two in 10 were incorrectly charged. The CPS said errors have typically involved wrong iterations of the rules, which have changed frequently, being used. Some cases were also discontinued due to insufficient evidence.
Last month, MPs and peers on the joint committee on human rights said all Covid fines issued in England during the pandemic should be reviewed and no criminal record should result from Covid fixed penalty notices. It described the regulations as muddled, discriminatory and unfair.
Gregor McGill, CPS Director of Legal Services, said:
We will continue to work closely with police colleagues and other partners to ensure a consistent interpretation of these laws for as long as they remain in place.
This has been shared by Public Health England:
This graph shows the increase in #COVID19 vaccination uptake for the first dose since the rollout began.
— Public Health England (@PHE_uk) May 13, 2021
The graph highlights the progression of vaccine uptake amongst different age groups as the jab was offered to new cohorts. pic.twitter.com/ybYfldvM0w
More than two-thirds of people in England aged 40 to 44 are likely to have had their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, NHS England said.
In this age group, 67.6% of people had received their first jab as of 9 May, PA Media reports.
The figures also suggest 77.9% of people aged 45 to 49 have had their first dose, along with 89.8% of 50- to 54-year-olds and 95.5% of 55- to 59-year-olds.
An estimated 97.2% of people aged 60 and over have had a first dose.
Updated
A surge vaccination campaign could be targeted at areas with a rise in cases of the coronavirus variant first identified in India, Downing Street has hinted, as the prime minister admitted he was “anxious” about how fast cases were spreading in the UK.
While insisting there was no reason yet to delay easing restrictions, Boris Johnson said the variant, which a scientist has estimated could be 60% more transmissible than the most dominant strain in the UK, “has been spreading” in Britain so government advisers are gathering today to “consider exactly what we need to do”.
Johnson said “we are ruling nothing out” and did not deny local lockdowns could return to clamp down on the variant spreading and threatening unlocking progress made by vaccines, which have so far been given to 35 million people (see earlier post).
“There are a range of things we could do, we want to make sure we grip it,” Johnson told broadcasters in an interview on Thursday.
My colleagues Aubrey Allegretti and Rachel Hall have the full story here:
Updated
Covid-19 case rates have increased slightly across most regions of England, according to the latest weekly surveillance report from Public Health England.
PA Media reports:
In the North West, the rate was 32.6 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 9 May, up from 25.5 the previous week, while in the East Midlands it increased from 23.1 to 29.8 over the same period.
Slight increases were also recorded in the East of England, London, North East and South-West, which had the lowest rate at 13.1, up from 12.2.
Yorkshire and the Humber recorded the highest rate at 40.5 cases per 100,000 people, down slightly from 42.5 in the previous week.
Case rates in England have remained stable among most age groups, with a slight rise in children, teenagers and people in their 40s, Public Health England said.
The age group with the highest rates was those aged 10 to 19, with 51.5 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 9 May, up week on week from 42.4, PA Media reports.
Updated
Britain’s economy will “power through in the months ahead”, according to a senior Bank of England policymaker, “moving swiftly from bounce-back to boom”.
The recovery will resemble a bouncing tennis ball and outpace the US and the rest of the G7 this year, said Andy Haldane, the central bank’s outgoing chief economist.
Such is the strength of the likely turnaround from last year’s slump – the worst in 300 years after the pandemic first hit – that inflation could return with a vengeance, wreaking a 1970s-style surge in prices that could turn a boom into a bust.
Phillip Inman, an economics writer for the Guardian, has the latest here:
Updated
This has been shared by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland:
NI #COVID19 data has been updated:
— Department of Health (@healthdpt) May 13, 2021
📊 99 positive cases, sadly 1 death has been reported in past 24 hours
1,515,760 vaccines administered in total
Dashboard➡️https://t.co/YN16dmGzhv
Vaccinations➡️https://t.co/Yfa0hHVmRL pic.twitter.com/Y5S9L0WMy3
On Saturday, Oman will end a nightly curfew designed to curb the spread of Covid-19, but shops and commercial activities will be banned from 8pm until 4am, the supreme committee for combating coronavirus has said.
The Gulf state had banned the movement of people and vehicles between 7pm and 4am on 8 May.
It had also prohibited commercial activity during the day, which will now be permitted, Reuters reports.
New daily cases of the virus have risen in Oman since the start of the year, but in recent weeks have begun to fall.
Updated
Reuters reports:
India’s most populous state will spend up to $1.36bn to buy Covid-19 shots and held early talks this week with companies such as Pfizer and the local partner of the maker of Russia’s Sputnik V, a state official said on Thursday.
The move by Uttar Pradesh, home to more people than Brazil, comes as many Indian states curtail vaccinations due to severe shortages amid a record surge in coronavirus infections, with India recording more than 4,000 deaths for a second straight day as its health system fails to cope.
Uttar Pradesh has also held pre-bid talks with Indian vaccine companies: the Serum Institute of India (SII) – licensed to make the AstraZeneca and Novavax shots – Bharat Biotech and Cadila Healthcare as part of a global tender to buy 40m doses over the next few months, state spokesman Navneet Sehgal told Reuters.
He said Johnson and Johnson could also confirm their participation in the tender by late Thursday via email. Sputnik V’s local distributor, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, has also held talks.
“Money is not an issue, we have a huge budget,” said Sehgal, a senior bureaucrat in the state of 240 million people. “We will spend up to 100bn rupees ($1.36bn).”
Updated
This has been shared by Public Health Wales:
The rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard has been updated
— Public Health Wales (@PublicHealthW) May 13, 2021
💻 https://t.co/zpWRYSUbfh
📱 https://t.co/HSclxpZjBh
Read our daily statement here: https://t.co/u6SKHz0zsG pic.twitter.com/buNccFxUCh
Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration has given emergency use authorisation for the Covid vaccine of Moderna Inc, an FDA official has told Reuters.
The vaccine is the fourth coronavirus vaccine approved so far in Thailand.
Its use is valid for one year from 13 May, Paisan Dankhu, the secretary general of the FDA said.
Spain is on track for herd immunity – Pedro Sánchez
Update from earlier post: “We are on track for herd immunity: 33 million compatriots will be vaccinated by mid-August”, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said, using the term for when most of a population is immune to an infectious disease.
A growing number of people aged over 60 are now getting their second shot, with more than 40% already fully inoculated, and vaccination has also started for those over 50, Reuters reports.
At least three regions – Comunidad Valenciana, Castille and Leon, and Catalonia – have said they would start vaccinating people aged 40 to 50 by mid-June.
Spain has reported 79,208 deaths from Covid-19 and more than 3.5m cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
The number of cases per 100,000 people over 14 days, however, has fallen to 174, from 523 in mid-January.
If the trend upholds, masks could stop being mandatory outdoors by July or August, the leader of the north-western region of Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has said.
Updated
Asked if local lockdowns were possible, Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, has told reporters:
“There are a range of things we could do, we want to make sure we grip it. Obviously there’s surge testing, there’s surge tracing.”
He added:
If we have to do other things, then of course the public would want us to rule nothing out. We have always been clear we would be led by the data. At the moment, I can see nothing that dissuades me from thinking we will be able to go ahead on Monday and indeed on 21 June, everywhere, but there may be things we have to do locally and we will not hesitate to do them if that is the advice we get.
Johnson said more announcements on masks and social distancing would be made before June, according to PA Media.
Updated
UK anxious about Indian variant – Boris Johnson
Asked about concerns over the Indian variant circulating in the UK, Boris Johnson, the prime minister, said: “It is a variant of concern, we are anxious about it.”
Speaking at a primary school in Ferryhill, County Durham, he added:
At the moment there is a very wide range of scientific opinion about what could happen. We want to make sure we take all the prudential, cautious steps now that we could take, so there are meetings going on today to consider exactly what we need to do. There is a range of things we could do, we are ruling nothing out.
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Spain will be ready in June to use Covid certificates that would facilitate travel, said the tourism minister, Reyes Maroto, as he urged the EU to adopt this measure quickly, Reuters reports.
The European Commission expects to soon finish work on a Covid-19 certificate that would allow citizens to travel more easily this summer in the 27-nation bloc, the EU executive said on Tuesday after a meeting with European affairs ministers.
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Thailand reported its largest one-day rise in coronavirus infections on Thursday, with more than half coming from two Bangkok prisons where prominent democracy activists are being detained.
The kingdom is battling a third wave of the virus that has forced the government to impose restrictions on movement, rules on mask-wearing and close public spaces.
There was alarm this week when an activist at the forefront of Thailand’s democracy movement announced she had tested positive for Covid-19 five days after she was released on bail from a Bangkok jail.
You can read the full story here:
Spain will have 33 million people vaccinated against Covid by mid-August, the prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, has said.
The vaccination rollout has sped up in Spain over the past weeks and the country is due to receive 13m doses of the Pfizer vaccine next month, Sanchez said.
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Malaysia's new coronavirus cases highest in 3 months
Malaysia has reported its highest number of new coronavirus cases in more than three months, with the latest rise partly fuelled by highly infectious variants found in recent weeks.
The health ministry reported 4,855 new cases – the highest since 31 January – and 27 deaths. It has seen a total of 458,077 coronavirus cases and 1,788 fatalities, Reuters reports.
Malaysia declared a nationwide lockdown on Monday, prohibiting inter-district travel and shutting down schools.
The southeast Asian country has been under a state of emergency since January to curb the spread of the virus.
Earlier this week, the health ministry warned new daily cases could hit 5,000 by mid-May, a number not seen since late January.
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Almost 5 million people in England are waiting for hospital treatment – the highest number ever – as the NHS struggles to recover from the impact of Covid on normal care.
At the same time the number of people who have been forced to wait more than a year to get into hospital has risen to more than 400,000 – the most since 2007.
The stark figures from NHS England renewed fears that lengthening delays in obtaining care could worsen the health of people with cancer, heart disease and other illnesses.
My colleagues Pamela Duncan and Denis Campbell have the full report here:
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This has been shared by Edouard Mathieu, head of data at Our World in Data:
It's a slow but positive change: in late December, only 20% of French people said they were willing to get vaccinated. Now, slightly more than 50% are either already vaccinated or willing to be.
— Edouard Mathieu (@redouad) May 13, 2021
Source: YouGov & OWID pic.twitter.com/38LmMW2rYk
More Indian variant cases found in Northern Ireland – reports
The number of cases of the Indian Covid variant in Northern Ireland has increased to at least 12, according to BBC News NI.
Last week, the authorities confirmed seven people had tested positive, though it is unclear whether the additional cases are linked.
The BBC reports that the Public Health Agency would not confirm where they were found or how many were connected to travel.
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South Africa's Covid death toll much higher than official tally – report
A South African report into excess deaths over the past year suggests more than 133,000 people in the country have died from Covid-19, far more than the official tally of nearly 55,000, Reuters reports.
The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) has been monitoring excess deaths since May 2020.
In its latest report, published on Wednesday, the SAMRC said South Africa had seen 157,000 excess deaths in the past 12 months and estimated that 85% of them were caused by Covid-19, which means just over 133,000 people have died from the disease.
This compares to an official death toll of 54,968 since the start of the pandemic.
South Africa implemented one of the world’s most restrictive lockdowns from March 2020, when cases were still relatively low, and the SAMRC said increases in weekly deaths due to the pandemic only became evident from May 2020 onwards.
The SAMRC report states the excess death rate per 100,000 population for South Africa was 258 over the past 12 months. This places the country - on an age-standardised basis - in the top five countries for which excess deaths are measured.
Excess deaths are typically defined as the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time periods and expected numbers of deaths in the same time periods.
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Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog until the evening (UK time). As always, feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
Today so far…
- China’s commerce ministry spokesman, Gao Feng, has said Beijing supports a proposal by the World Trade Organization for an intellectual property protection waiver on Covid-19 vaccines to enter the consultation stage.
- Russia has recorded its first cases of the variant of Covid-19 first found in India – there are 16 cases in the Ulyanovsk region, some 700km (435 miles) east of Moscow.
- India had 362,727 new Covid-19 infections over the last 24 hours, while deaths climbed by 4,120, taking the toll to 258,317, health ministry data showed.
- At least two Indian states have said they plan to dose their populations with the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin to protect against severe Covid infections, which goes against World Health Organization guidelines.
- Dozens of towns in Japan have abandoned plans to accept overseas athletes competing in the Olympics from July due to concerns about inadequate resources amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections
- Japan’s Covid-19 vaccine chief has blamed a rigid drug approval system for a slow inoculation campaign that is relying on only one approved shot. Taro Kono, the minister in charge of vaccines, took responsibility for the public frustration with the vaccine system but also said the approval process was a disadvantage in an emergency.
- A new survey has found that more than a quarter of adults in the EU would be unlikely to take the Covid-19 vaccine. Scepticism is higher in eastern Europe than in western and Nordic countries within the bloc.
- Egypt has received a batch of more than 1.7m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the Covax initiative.
- Tens of thousands of people in Cambodia are going hungry under the country’s strict lockdown as Covid cases continue to rise amid criticism from human rights groups.
- Coronavirus infections in England halved in recent months, according to a study, but concerns remain about the threat from new variants. The foreign office minister, James Cleverly, has said the spread of the Covid variant found in India may delay the lifting of restrictions in England.
That is it from me today – you’ll now find me lurking in the comments of our new weekly Thursday quiz. Andrew Sparrow has the UK politics live blog. Yohannes Lowe will be here shortly to oversee the rest of the day’s global coronavirus news alongside the top Covid lines from the UK.
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Tanvi Mehta and Sanjeev Miglani from Reuters bring some slightly more optimistic news out of India’s capital. They report that the surge in infections appears to be tapering off in New Delhi, which has been one of the hardest-hit areas in the country.
Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister of Delhi state, told reporters the ratio of infections to the number of people tested had fallen to 14% from 35%. The demand for medical oxygen, which was in short supply for weeks, had also fallen off, he said.
Elsewhere in the country, at least two Indian states have said they plan to dose their populations with the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin to protect against severe Covid infections as their hospitals are overrun with patients in critical condition.
The moves by the coastal state of Goa and the northern state of Uttarakhand come despite the World Health Organization and others warning against such measures.
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Another suspected effect of Covid – the number of people in England waiting to start hospital treatment has risen to a record high.
Up to 4.95 million people were waiting to start NHS hospital treatment at the end of March – the highest number since records began in August 2007.
Data from NHS England also showed that the number of people having to wait more than a year to start hospital treatment stood at 436,127 in March.
NHS England said the health service had seen almost a quarter of a million people with suspected cancer in March as services “began to bounce back” after the peak of the winter Covid wave.
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Reuters has this news on a survey looking at vaccine hesitancy, which finds that more than a quarter of adults in the EU would be unlikely to take the Covid-19 vaccine when it is offered to them.
The results also suggested a strong link between vaccine hesitancy and the use of social media, particularly where social media is the main source of information, according to Eurofound which carried out the survey.
“Unfortunately, these findings reflect a failure to deliver persuasive and clear communication regarding the efficacy and safety of vaccines,” said Daphne Ahrendt, Eurofound’s senior research manager.
Bulgarians were the most reluctant to get the vaccine, with 67% of adults saying they were unlikely or very unlikely to get it. In Ireland, only 10% of adults said they would not get the shot.
The survey found an east-west divide across Europe. Except for France and Austria, the intention to get vaccinated was above 60% in all western member states – with Nordic and Mediterranean countries, Denmark and Ireland having even higher rates.
The rate of planned uptake in eastern member states was much lower, ranging from 59% in Romania to 33% in Bulgaria.
The survey claims that the main influence on vaccine hesitancy was the time spent on social media. The proportion of those hesitant rises to 40% among those who use social media as their primary source of news. Among people who used traditional media including press, radio and television, only 18% of respondents were vaccine sceptics.
The survey also found that students, employed or retired people were less vaccine hesitant than average, while 39% of unemployed people or those with a long-term disease or disability were more hesitant.
The survey was conducted between February and March 2021, after a full year of living with Covid-19 restrictions across the bloc’s 27 member states.
As a broad caveat, historically data has tended to show that people overestimate how reluctant they will be to take a vaccine. Our science correspondent Nicola Davis reported last night on another study which suggested that emphasising the personal benefits of vaccination against Covid may be an effective way to reduce scepticism in those most hesitant towards having a jab.
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Andrew Sparrow has our UK politics live blog today, which he suggests will mostly be non-Covid, with plenty of domestic politics news flying about. You can read that here…
Rachel Hall, meanwhile, has rounded up a fuller view on what the UK foreign office minister, James Cleverly, has said this morning about the prospects of the Covid variant first found in India delaying the lifting of England’s restrictions.
I’ll be carrying on here with the latest global coronavirus news and the top Covid lines from the UK.
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Covid anguish fuels calls to release human rights activists from India's jails
Hannah Ellis-Petersen report for us from Delhi:
As the deadly Covid-19 second wave has engulfed India, and ripped like wildfire through its overcrowded, under-resourced prisons, there have been growing calls for those deemed political prisoners – the activists arrested as part of prime minister Narendra Modi’s vicious crackdown on dissent – to be granted the bail they have been repeatedly denied.
The impact of the pandemic on prisoners kept in jail on grounds many believe to be politically motivated has already been severe. Siddique Kappan, a Muslim journalist charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) after he was arrested last October while travelling to report on a rape incident in Uttar Pradesh, was infected with Covid-19 in jail in April. Kappan, who has diabetes, was eventually taken to hospital after collapsing, where he was kept handcuffed to a hospital bed for four days and not allowed to go to the bathroom, forced instead to urinate into a bottle. He was later discharged back to prison, still Covid-19 positive and suffering symptoms.
Several anti-citizenship amendment act activists, including Umar Khalid and Khalid Saifi, who are both in jail under UAPA pending trial, have also caught Covid in prison but, according to their families, been denied proper treatment.
Saifi, one of the founders of the activist group United Against Hate, has been in Delhi’s Mandoli jail since his arrest in February 2020. He developed coronavirus symptoms more than 20 days ago but no tests were being done because he said prison officers were worried it would “cause trouble”. After his lawyers raised his case in court, Saifi was finally given a test and expired paracetamol.
Read more of Hannah Ellis-Petersen’s report from Delhi: India – Covid anguish fuels calls to release human rights activists from jails
The UK’s competition regulator has warned the holiday industry it must inform travellers of their refund rights, as it forced Tui, Europe’s largest travel company, to make it clearer that customers can get cash back.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Thursday said it had written to 100 package tour companies reminding them of the need to offer refunds for cancelled holidays and to pay back customers within a fortnight.
The CMA warning comes as the UK government prepares to ease restrictions on holidays. From Monday 17 May travellers from England will be allowed to visit a dozen destinations on the green list, without needing to quarantine. They are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Israel and Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira, and two British overseas territories in the Atlantic.
However, the regulator has been concerned by travel firms’ repeated failures to inform customers of their right to cash refunds if it is forced to cancel bookings. Since March 2020, the CMA has received more than 23,000 complaints from consumers about refund issues, it said.
Read more of Jasper Jolly’s report here: UK package holiday operators warned over consumer refund rights
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Egypt has received a batch of more than 1.7m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the Covax initiative, reports Reuters
Egypt received its first Covax delivery of 854,000 AstraZeneca doses at the start of April. It has also received several batches of the Sinopharm vaccine from China, bringing the total number of vaccine doses delivered to 5m, the health ministry said.
Egypt, with a population of just over 100 million, is trying to contain a third wave of Covid-19 infections and the government has put in place some restrictive measures until 21 May, shortening opening hours and banning large gatherings.
Some 2.7 million people have registered online with the health ministry to receive a vaccine. Egypt had officially confirmed 240,927 coronavirus cases including 14,091 deaths as of Wednesday.
Officials and experts say the real number of infections is far higher, but is not reflected in government figures because of low testing rates and the exclusion of private test results.
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China offers support for vaccine intellectual property waiver plan
Meanwhile in China, the commerce ministry spokesman, Gao Feng, has said Beijing supports a proposal by the World Trade Organization for an intellectual property protection waiver on Covid-19 vaccines to enter the consultation stage.
Supporters of the plan say it will strike a blow for the equitable distribution of vaccines, while pharmaceutical companies and some other governments opposed the idea, saying it would not solve global inoculation shortages.
British and EU officials have been sceptical about the usefulness of the US proposal to waive patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines, while saying they are prepared to discuss it.
“China supports the WTO’s proposal on IP exemptions for anti-epidemic materials such as the Covid vaccine to enter the text consultation stage,” Gao said at a news conference in Beijing, report Reuters.
“China will work with all parties to actively participate in consultations and jointly promote a balanced and effective solution,” he said.
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It says something about the uneven distribution of the pandemic around the globe that in England the issue now is how to have Covid-safe sex, while in other areas of the world countries are still in the full grip of the disease. Likewise vaccination efforts are at disparate stages.
China’s official vaccination figures continue to out-strip all others, with Reuters noting that they claim they administered 11.6m vaccinations on 12 May, bringing the total number of doses administered to 354m, according to data released by the National Health Commission.
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Should you have a lateral flow test before sex? Is it essential to wait until you’re fully vaccinated? Is oral sex more Covid-safe than kissing? I’ve got to be honest, personally I am far too old and boring for these kind of questions to be a pressing issue, however my colleague Zoe Williams writes:
“Hugs,” everybody keeps saying. “Who do you most want to hug on 17 May?” It’s an absurd act of prudishness. The real headline of next Monday is, of course, that this is the first day on which it will be legal (in England and most of Scotland, but not yet Wales or Northern Ireland) to have sex with a stranger since 22 March 2020.
As we look ahead to the post-Covid dating world, the rules are very much a work in progress. From every quarter, one hears the same message: there is no such thing as zero risk. An acceptable gamble to one person will look like outrageous recklessness to another. The pandemic hasn’t treated us all the same, and we’re likely to emerge with different versions of what “moral” and “responsible” look like. Old friends have a hard enough time navigating new schisms, but what about total strangers? How do you meet new people in this scared new world – and what to do if the worst comes to the worst: you also fancy them?
She has spoken to doctors, scientists and other experts to answer the big questions…
Read more from Zoe Williams here: The expert guide to a horny, healthy summer
Japan’s Covid-19 vaccine chief has blamed a rigid drug approval system for a slow inoculation campaign that is relying on only one approved shot. Taro Kono, the minister in charge of vaccines, took responsibility for the public frustration with the vaccine distributed system but also said the approval process was a disadvantage in an emergency.
“Even though we are in a state of crisis, we’re still using the same rules to approve vaccines that we do under normal times,” Kono said in a TBS television interview broadcast on Wednesday, report Reuters. “In the wake of this corona situation, the administration needs to change.”
The government aims to inoculate most of its 36 million people over the age of 65 by the end of July. To reach that vaccination target, the government hopes to deliver about 1 million shots a day, about three times faster than the current pace.
Japan approved the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech in mid-February, two months later than in the United States. This delay, along with a host of logistical problems, has meant Japan has inoculated just 2.9% of its population, the lowest rate among wealthy countries.
About 75% of Japanese are dissatisfied with the vaccine rollout and Japan had the lowest rates of approval of government handling of the pandemic among six major economies in a survey by global consultancy Kekst CNC released on Wednesday.
AFP this morning have a despatch from the Metropolitan Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. There, the hospital has just installed a brand-new oxygen production unit that is capable of producing up to 600 litres of the gas per minute.
Metropolitan CEO Kanyenje Gakombe said the hospital accelerated plans to produce its own oxygen after supplies were squeezed to the limit during the height of the third wave, fanned by the variants of the coronavirus first detected in Britain and South Africa.
At the peak of Kenya’s third wave of Covid-19 in March, hospitals - buckling under the strain of the virus - saw their oxygen reserves fizzle out. Since then, they have been scrambling to increase capacity, fearing the nightmare scenario currently unfolding in India due to oxygen shortages.
“The reserve dwindled, it decreased to the point where we were collecting oxygen 24/7,” recalled Gakombe. At one point “we were down to six hours of reserves and that was a very, very worrying situation.”
The grey-haired doctor admits that in his 27 years at the helm of the 150-bed private institution that targets the middle class, he had rarely worried about the oxygen supply which was “something we took for granted”.
But where a typical patient uses “two to 15 litres” of oxygen per minute, a Covid patient requires “up to 60 litres”, he said. “We wanted to make sure we were self-sufficient, not dependent on third parties to provide us with the oxygen we needed,” he said.
Several other private hospitals in Nairobi, like the MP Shah facility, have also set up or expanded their own production units.
“We have received several requests for different facilities,” said Jeremy Gitau, co-founder of the Emergency Medicine Kenya Foundation, which helps Kenyan hospitals equip themselves with oxygen distribution systems.
Meanwhile the government launched a call for tenders at the beginning of March to supply 16 counties with oxygen, and has urged the repair of numerous production units that are “no longer working”.
Thousands of Cambodians go hungry in strict Covid lockdown zones
Sarah Johnson and Vutha Srey in Phnom Penh report for us this morning on the plight of Cambodians going hungry in strict lockdown zones:
Tens of thousands of Cambodians are going hungry under the country’s strict lockdown as Covid cases continue to rise amid criticism from human rights groups that the government and the UN are being too slow to act.
The south-east Asian country had recorded one of the world’s smallest coronavirus caseloads, but infections have climbed from about 500 in late February to 20,695 this week, with 136 deaths.
A three-week blanket lockdown in the capital, Phnom Penh, was lifted last week but more than 150,000 people are still living in designated red zones in cities across Cambodia, forbidden from leaving their homes other than for specific medical reasons. Many have been living under the country’s most restrictive lockdown measures since mid-April and have not been able to work or get food, medicine and other necessities for weeks.
“This is a humanitarian crisis for the people involved,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “For those stuck at home without enough food or medical support, this is a government-created crisis. There’s a way to deal with public health concerns that does not require people to go hungry.”
Read more here: Thousands of Cambodians go hungry in strict lockdown zones
It is concerns about the coronavirus variant first detected in India that are dominating the morning broadcast media in the UK. Professor James Naismith, from the University of Oxford, has told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the variant may spread “way beyond” the local areas where it has been detected.
“I think we should view it as a country-wide problem. It will get everywhere. We keep learning this lesson, but we know that this will be the case.”
Naismith said he did not believe local restrictions would work to contain the variant. PA report he added: “When we tried locally having different restrictions in different regions that didn’t really make any difference. So I don’t think thinking about a localised strategy for containment will really work.”
Foreign Office minister James Cleverly reiterated on Sky News with regard to any possible delay to easing restrictions in England, that “Scientists on Sage will make their assessments, they will report that to government, and we will make decisions based on the data and the evidence that they provide.
“The prime minister, the health secretary, have always been clear that the easing of restrictions which allow us to get back to normality will be done at a pace and in a way which is safe. We will always be driven by the data.”
There has been considerable criticism of the UK government for delaying putting India on to the travel “red list”, as the rise in Covid cases in India coincided with prime minister Boris Johnson’s plans for a high profile overseas trip there to promote post-Brexit trade which he was anxious not to cancel.
Cleverly, the MP for Braintree, has also insisted on BBC Breakfast that the UK government has learnt lessons throughout the pandemic. Asked about the planned inquiry into the handling of the pandemic, Cleverly claimed “No one is pretending that every decision was perfect, that’s not possible when you are making decisions with an incomplete information picture as we had to, as all governments had to.
“We have been learning lessons, both as a government and scientific community, as the battle against this pandemic has been conducted.”
The aged care sector in Australia has warned the government to drastically improve its vaccine rollout to aged care staff before winter, saying it is vital that workers be “given priority and vaccinated quickly”.
Advocates have also warned that people with a disability, including group home residents and those in regional areas, are still missing out on their Covid-19 vaccinations.
The health department announced on Thursday that almost 2.9m Australians have been vaccinated, including about 279,986 in aged and disability care.
But the department’s daily data releases do not give specific figures on the vaccination of either the aged care workforce or those in disability care, two areas where the rollout is lagging badly.
Leading Age Services Australia, a peak group for aged care, has warned the government the rollout has been too slow for critical aged care staff.
Chief executive Sean Rooney said his organisation has been “disappointed with the timeliness and comprehensiveness of the responses to the issues raised by the Department of Health”.
“We welcome the extended rollout since the beginning of May, especially for residents,” he said in a statement to the Guardian. “But it is vital that the aged care workforce is given priority and vaccinated quickly, particularly as we head into winter.
Read more of Christopher Knaus’ report here: Confusion and fear as Australia’s aged care workers wait to be vaccinated with winter looming
Moderna vaccine clears next hurdle for approval in South Korea
A quick snap from Reuters here that the second of three South Korean expert panels has recommended approval for Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, based on its safety and efficacy in phase three trials in the United States, the drug safety ministry said.
After the pharmaceutical panel’s backing, the next step is review by a third panel, before the ministry makes a final approval decision.
Russia records first case of variant first detected in India – reports
Russia has recorded its first cases of the variant of COVID-19 first found in India, Kommersant newspaper reported today, citing authorities in the Ulyanovsk region.
The regional branch of consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said it had recorded 16 cases of the variant among Indian students at Ulyanovsk State University, which is some 700 kilometres (435 miles) east of Moscow.
Reuters report that Dilyar Khakimov, an official at the watchdog, told Kommersant that the students had been put in self-isolation and were under medical observation.
Deputy prime minister Tatiana Golikova had previously said the country had not recorded any cases of the variant.
The World Health Organization said on Monday that the coronavirus variant first identified in India last year was being classified as a variant of global concern, with some preliminary studies showing that it spreads more easily.
Funeral venues in England still capping mourners, grieving mother says
A grieving mother said she had “nowhere left to turn” after dozens of possible venues for a funeral service near London refused to let her invite more than 30 mourners, despite England’s coronavirus restrictions being about to change.
Stacey O’Donnell, whose 19-year-old son, Tai O’Donnell, was stabbed to death in his home in Croydon on 3 March, said she was “shattered” by her attempts to find a venue for the service.
She had delayed the funeral until after 17 May, when the government’s limit on mourners is to be lifted allowing any number of people to gather as long as venues can comply with social distancing. She wanted to invite 50-60 guests whose lives “had been touched by Tai”.
But dozens of sites in Croydon and the surrounding area in south London, including those with large indoor and outdoor areas that would make social distancing possible, were restricting mourners to a maximum of 30, with many also limiting the service to 30 minutes, O’Donnell said.
She said: “I have a young boy who was very much loved by a lot of people, and it just seems completely wrong that we can’t come together to remember him and give thanks for the moments we shared. I would understand if it was prior to restrictions being dropped … but vaccinations have gone out, the people who are most at risk are covered. So for people to choose to enforce these restrictions just feels wrong.”
Read more of Alexandra Topping’s report here: Funeral venues in England still capping mourners, grieving mother says
Nepal engulfed in political turmoil amid Covid surge
“The leaders have failed us again while people are dying in their homes, street and hospital parking lots while the politicians are fighting on who gets to be the prime minister,” said Hari Sah, a plumber who was trying to buy rice and lentils for his family in the two hours people are allowed to shop during an ongoing virus lockdown.
“These politicians are monsters who come to us for votes but when we really need their help they are busy hatching plans to grab power and indifferent to our sufferings,” said Narayan Magar, a driver who has been without work for months.
These quotes are from the latest Kathmandu despatch from Binaj Gurubacharya at Associated Press. He reports that political turmoil has returned to Nepal, which has had eight different governments in a decade and is experiencing its worst Covid-19 surge with acute shortages of health facilities and oxygen for patients.
The Himalayan nation has seen its highest new cases and deaths for the past few days, on Tuesday recording 9,483 new cases and 225 deaths, a near-30-fold increase in infections in one month.
Several hospitals in Kathmandu have stopped taking in new patients, declaring they have run out of beds and oxygen for patients.
Grande Hospital posted a notice that it wouldn’t accept new Covid-19 patients because the 100 oxygen cylinders per day the government provided was barely enough. Government hospitals are treating patients on corridor floors, in beds on verandas and in waiting rooms while relatives line up to get oxygen.
But the caretaker government isn’t in a position to make major decisions to bring the country through the crisis.
“At the moment, all the political forces should have been working together putting aside all past differences to work to end the coronavirus crisis, but it is unfortunate for the nation and the people that they are focused entirely on who gets to be in power,” said Bhojraj Pokharel, former chief of the election commission in Nepal.
For families whose loved ones died due to Covid-19, and who have been calling on the government to hold a public inquiry for over a year, Boris Johnson’s announcement of a statutory inquiry to start next year came as a bittersweet landmark. Jo Goodman, whose father, Stuart, 72, died last April, and who co-founded the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group almost exactly a year ago, said their campaign had been vindicated, but the battle with the government has caused them “trauma upon trauma” and left a legacy of mistrust.
While the announcement was “a huge relief”, the group warned that the inquiry was starting too late, and called on the government to involve bereaved families in key decision-making, including the choice of chair and terms of reference for the inquiry. Elkan Abrahamson, a Liverpool-based solicitor who has worked for free on the group’s behalf, first wrote to Johnson on 11 June last year, calling for a rapid public inquiry, naming 56 bereaved families. The group emphasised the need for an immediate, “rapid review” inquiry, so that lessons could be learned to avoid a second wave of the virus. Goodman said it was devastating for families to see thousands more people die in the winter, and the group still believes the inquiry should be set up immediately.
“In that first letter, we raised so many issues, including the discharge of people from hospital into care homes, the adequacy of test and trace, the timing of lockdown, that were not resolved by the second wave,” Goodman said. “Bereaved families had experienced other issues, such as inadequate advice from the NHS 111 service, and people being infected in hospitals. But the government refused to hold a rapid inquiry, and Boris Johnson refused to meet us, and it was terrible to see so many more people die and families suffer.”
Until Wednesday, the government had consistently refused to commit to a formal, statutory inquiry, while saying there would be some form of inquiry but never specifying when it would happen. The government did not even respond to the families’ initial letter for five weeks, despite a reminder. When it did come, the reply was not from Johnson or the health secretary, Matt Hancock, but from a senior civil servant, Lee McDonough, at the Department of Health and Social Care. Last July he set out what has effectively remained the government’s position until this week: “At some point in the future there will be an opportunity … to look back, to reflect and to learn lessons. However, at the moment, the important thing is to focus on responding to the current pandemic.”
Read more of David Conn’s report here: ‘Hell on earth’: bereaved families on the battle for a Covid inquiry
US surgeon general encourages vaccination of children aged 12-15
Good morning, it is Martin Belam in London taking over the blog for the next few hours. In the US overnight MSNBC has broadcast a “town hall” style show about vaccination featuring Dr Anthony Fauci, health and human services secretary Xavier Becerra and US surgeon general Dr Vivek Murthy. One of the key topics to come up was the use of vaccination in children. Murthy said:
I would encourage parents who go kids who are 12 and up to go ahead and get vaccinated now. It’s because we now have really good data that’s telling us that these vaccines work in kids to protect them and the rate of adverse effect is extraordinarily low. The most common side effect that the children were experiencing were temporary muscle aches, fatigue and fever that lasted a couple of days and then it went away. What they’re left was protection.
The other thing I just want to emphasize is that we hear a lot that the risk of Covid in kids is in terms of bad outcome is low, right? And that’s true. You know, kids do much better than old folks do.
But if overall we look at our experience, we had 13,000 kids who have been hospitalized in the age, 12 to 17 age range. We’ve got 127 who have died. This is not a benign thing. It’s not harmless in children either. So, when we compare the risks and the benefits, the risks are really, really low. The benefits are really, really high.
Another question asked whether people who had already had Covid should get themselves vaccinated. To this the surgeon general said:
Even if you had Covid, it’s still important that you get vaccinated, and the reason is because your body will build up an immune response from having Covid but what we’ve learned is that the immune response, the protection that you get from the vaccine is actually even stronger and more robust than when you get from being naturally infected.
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That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along.
Here’s a something a little lighter to break up the bad news for a moment before my colleague Martin Belam takes the helm
‘Increasing concern’ over India variant in UK says Boris Johnson
Coronavirus infections in England halved in recent months, according to a study, but concerns remain about the threat from new variants, PA reports.
Prevalence of infections dropped by 50% between March and early May, and is at its lowest since August, new data suggests. But the figures come amid a warning from Boris Johnson that new variants “pose a potentially lethal danger”.
The Prime Minister said there is “increasing concern” in the UK about the variant first identified in India.
Professor Paul Elliott, director of Imperial College London’s React programme, cited that variant when asked whether the study’s latest data supported a move into the next stage of easing lockdown restrictions.
He said: “It is a difficult question because we have low levels of prevalence in the community, and we’ve got low levels of disease in hospitals and deaths, so that’s good.
“But I think that the patterns in the Indian variant are cause for some concern.”
He added that further studies are needed to really understand the characteristics and the spread of the Indian variant which appears to be at least as transmissible as the Kent variant.
The React study looked at variants of coronavirus and found that of 115 positive swabs, 24 cases were identified as the Kent variant, and two of three cases in London were identified as the Indian variant of concern.
The experts said neither participant had been abroad in the previous two weeks.
India reports 362,727 new infections, 4,120 deaths
India had 362,727 new Covid-19 infections over the last 24 hours while deaths climbed by 4,120, taking the toll to 258,317, health ministry data showed.
The South Asian nation’s total caseload now stands at 23.7 million.
Reports that Sage will meet on Thursday to discuss India variant in UK
Evidence is growing that a troubling variant of the coronavirus discovered in India is more transmissible than the variant first detected in Kent and which fuelled the UK’s second wave of infections and spread around the world.
It comes amid reports that Public Health England figures to be released on Thursday could show that the number of cases linked to the variant have tripled in a week. The i newspaper reported that scientists on the Sage advisory committee would hold an urgent meeting on Thursday to discuss the threat:
Japanese towns abandon plans to accept overseas Olympic athletes
Dozens of Japanese towns have abandoned plans to accept overseas athletes competing in the Olympics from July due to concerns about inadequate resources amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Of 528 towns registered to welcome international competitors, about 40 have decided not to accept athletes for training camps and cultural exchanges before the global sporting showpiece, the Nikkei reported citing a government source.
Ibaraki prefecture Governor Kazuhiko Ooigawa said on Wednesday that he rejected the Tokyo Olympics Organising Committee’s request to secure hospital beds for the athletes as the prefecture had to prioritise citizens over athletes.
He has said a further postponement of the Games - which was originally due to be held last year - or outright cancellation should be considered if the pandemic worsened.
The United States’ track and field team has cancelled its pre-Olympics training camp in Japan out of concerns for their safety during the pandemic, the eastern prefecture of Chiba said on Wednesday.
Overseas athletes also will not participate in a test event for the Olympics BMX freestyle cycling, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Thursday, citing an unnamed source. The test event had been postponed from April to May 17 amid the pandemic.
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
As always, you can get in touch with me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
Dozens of Japanese towns have abandoned plans to accept overseas athletes competing in the Olympics from July due to concerns about inadequate resources amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Thursday.
Of 528 towns registered to welcome international competitors, about 40 have decided not to accept athletes for training camps and cultural exchanges before the global sporting showpiece, the Nikkei reported citing a government source.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- The Netherlands expects to further relax coronavirus restrictions next week, giving the green light to sex workers and zoos so long as cases keep falling, prime minister Mark Rutte said Tuesday.
- Major US airlines have weighed in alongside UK carriers to urge the reopening of transatlantic travel, calling on governments in Washington and London to arrange a summit as soon as possible.
- Burger chain McDonald’s has announced it is partnering with the White House to promote vaccination information on its coffee cups. Separately, Joe Biden announced on Tuesday a new program with Lyft and Uber which will offer free rides to anyone going to a vaccination site to get vaccinated.
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Pfizer has asked the UK medical regulator for permission to use its Covid-19 vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds in Britain, the Telegraph has reported.
- Teachers in Buenos Aires are demanding a return to virtual learning due to the increase in cases of coronavirus since the return of students.
- Brazil recorded 72,715 additional confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 2,311 deaths from Covid-19, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
- The Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario said on Tuesday they would stop offering first doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, with Ontario citing evidence that the risk of rare blood clots is somewhat higher than previously estimated.
- Brazil’s federal government on Tuesday nationally suspended the vaccination of pregnant women with the AstraZeneca shot, after an expectant mother in Rio de Janeiro died from a stroke possibly related to the inoculation.
