This blog is closed. Follow the latest updates on the pandemic from around the world:
New Zealand mulling lockdown in Wellington after positive Covid-19 case
New Zealand is considering locking down capital city Wellington on Wednesday after an Australian tourist tested positive for coronavirus after visiting the city over the weekend.
“Everything is on the table,” Dr. Ashley Bloomfield told Radio New Zealand when asked if a lockdown in Wellington was an option being considered to curb any potential outbreak. Bloomfield said the person travelled as a tourist and there would be quite a number of exposure sites.
The person most likely contracted the virus before flying across the Tasman Sea, he added, Reuters reports.
Morgan Stanley’s staff and clients will not be allowed to enter the bank’s New York offices if they are not fully vaccinated, the Financial Times reported, citing an internal memo.
The new policy will come into effect on July 12, the report said, adding that those who do not confirm being fully vaccinated will lose building access. The memo also noted implementation of “vaccine-only” workspaces at some business lines including institutional securities and wealth management, the report said.
California is pursuing an ambitious plan to pay off the entirety of unpaid rent from low-income tenants who fell behind during the pandemic, in what could constitute the largest ever rent relief program in the US.
The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is negotiating with legislators and said the $5.2bn plan would pay landlords all of what they are owed while giving renters a clean slate.
If successful, the rent forgiveness plan would amount to an extraordinary form of aid in the largest state in the US, which has suffered from a major housing crisis and severe economic inequality long before Covid-19.
The US will likely fail to meet president Joe Biden’s goal to deliver at least one Covid-19 vaccine to 70% of adults by 4 July, officials said.
They said the administration is poised to meet the target for adults 27 and older on 4 July, US Independence Day, but will fall short of Biden’s goal for adults 18 and older, Reuters reports.
“Our focus from the beginning has been continuing to redouble our efforts among demographics and groups where we need extra assistance,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
White House Covid-19 senior adviser Jeffrey Zients said it would likely take a few weeks beyond 4 July to meet Biden’s target.
“The country has more work to do... particularly with 18- to 26-year-olds,” Zients told reporters.
“The reality is many younger Americans have felt like Covid-19 is not something that impacts them, and they’ve been less eager to get the shot.”
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A summary of today's developments
- Poland is introducing a mandatory seven-day quarantine for all travellers from Britain in a bid to curb the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, Reuters reports.
- China could keep its border restrictions to control the pandemic for another year amid variant fears and a desire to protect important events from any potential disruption, the Wall Street Journal reported.
- Russia reported 546 coronavirus-related deaths, the most confirmed in a single day since February, amid a surge in new cases that authorities blamed on the new Delta variant. Moscow authorities announced that residents will soon have to present an anti-Covid pass to enter restaurants.
- Cases of the Delta variant with an additional mutation called K417N have been found in multiple countries including the UK, the US, Canada, Portugal, Poland, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, Japan and Nepal. It was briefly, and unofficially, described as the Nepal variant when it first came to light.
- The White House is preparing to acknowledge it will not meet president Joe Biden’s goal of delivering at least one Covid-19 vaccination dose to 70% of US adults by 4 July, a day after it emerged it was expected to fall short of the president’s separate commitment to shipping 80m Covid-19 vaccine doses abroad by the end of June with below 10m doses so far shipped.
- Cuba’s government announced that its three-shot Abdala vaccine has proved to be 92% effective against the coronavirus, without immediately providing details of the clinical testing. President Miguel Diaz Canel denounced the crippling US blockade on the island and said Cuban scientists had “surpassed all obstacles and have given us two very effective vaccines”.
- Tokyo Olympics president Seiko Hashimoto defended the organisers’ decision to allow spectators into Olympic venues, with 30 days to go until the start of an Olympic Games dogged by the pandemic and by controversy,
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Eight members of the Ugandan Olympic team were quarantined in Japan until early July, a local official said, after a coach tested positive for coronavirus on arrival last week despite vaccination and testing before departure.
- Berlin is making permanent the extra bike lanes it added during lockdowns as it seeks to support the cycling boom that started during the pandemic but campaigners say more needs to be done to protect cyclists, with five killed already this year.
Chile is studying the possibility of issuing a third, booster dose of vaccines, its president said, as the country seeks to beat back the latest wave of infections amid questions about how effective the widely used Sinovac vaccine is against more transmissible virus variants, Reuters reports.
President Sebastian Pinera said health experts were examining “many scientific studies” to determine if a third dose would be necessary as he launched the rollout of vaccines among teenagers in Chile.
“As a government we are attentive to today’s problems but also must anticipate and prepare to face the problems of tomorrow,” he added.
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital Kinshasa has tightened its Covid-19 restrictions, banning street hawking and large gatherings in a bid to tamp down rising infections spurred by the Delta variant.
Kinshasa governor Gentiny Ngobila has ordered a ban on gatherings of more than 20 people both indoors and outdoors, according to a decree seen by AFP.
“On public transport, only 50 percent of capacity will be tolerated, and motorbike taxis are authorised to carry no more than one passenger,” said the document signed Monday.
Churches, public administration offices and businesses must also run at a maximum of 50 percent capacity, along with restaurants, which must close at 9pm.
DRC’s daily caseload has risen from 250 recorded infections on 15 June to 404 on Tuesday, 347 of them in the capital, according to the latest epidemiological update.
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Children in England will not be expected to isolate if new rules are introduced that could spare double-jabbed travellers quarantine when they return from amber-list countries, government sources say.
Ministers are expected to discuss the plans at a meeting of the cabinet’s Covid-O committee, likely to be held on Thursday, where they will hear the latest scientific advice about when vaccination rates will be high enough to consider loosening quarantine requirements.
If agreed, the plan could be announced on that day. It could potentially come into force in late July, but government sources said August was more likely – potentially opening up the possibility that families could visit relatives in amber list countries during the school summer break.
Vaccination has not yet been extended to under-18s. One Whitehall source said they would “certainly expect” children to be exempt from the new regime – they would not need to be double-jabbed to avoid quarantine – to avoid the sense that families were being discriminated against.
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Poland announces quarantine for travellers from the UK
Poland is introducing a mandatory seven-day quarantine for all travellers from Britain in a bid to curb the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Britain is currently seeing a rise in cases due to the more contagious Delta variant, which was first identified in India.
“The decisions made on quarantine for travelers arriving from Great Britain are intended to reduce the risk of transmission of the Delta coronavirus variant from the endangered area,” health minister Adam Niedzielski was quoted as saying by state news agency PAP.
“We must take care of our citizens and their security.”
Health ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz said that as of Wednesday, travellers from Britain would be obliged to spend seven days in quarantine even if they had a negative test result before arrival. They would then be required to do a test after seven days, Reuters reports.
The quarantine rules will not apply to travellers who have been fully vaccinated.
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Nigeria’s president has asked parliament to approve 895.8 billion naira ($2.18 billion) as an extra budgetary provision to fund the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines and military equipment, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The government in February said it will draw up a supplementary budget to cover the cost of Covid-19 vaccinations, for which no provision was made in the 2021 finance bill adopted in December. Nigeria had planned to spend 13.6 trillion naira ($33.10 billion) in 2021, a 21% rise from the previous year.
“The availability of Covid-19 vaccines and the procurement terms were still uncertainat the time of finalizing the 2021 budget,” President Muhammadu Buhari said in his letter.
Buhari said the health ministry and primary healthcare agency has developed a Covid-19 program for the country that intends to vaccinate 70% of eligible Nigerians this year and next.
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Italy’s prime minister Mario Draghi has had a second dose of the coronavirus vaccine different from his first, Reuters reports.
The 73-year-old had previously had an AstraZeneca vaccine but switched to Pfizer-BioNTech jab for his second dose.
Draghi’s government earlier this month changed its advice on vaccines, saying those under the age of 60 should no longer have the AstraZeneca jab due to fears over rare blood clots.
The recommendation for those who have already had one AstraZeneca dose to switch to another vaccine sparked a major debate in Italy over whether such a mix-and-match approach was safe.
The Delta variant is the greatest threat to the US’s effort to eradicate Covid-19 in its borders, said US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci.
“The transmissibility is unquestionably greater” in the Delta variant than the original variant of Covid-19, Fauci said, adding that “it is associated with an increased disease severity.”
The US is falling short of its goal of vaccinating 70% of adults by July 4 and will likely need a few additional weeks to hit that target, White House Covid-19 senior adviser Jeffrey Zients said, Reuters reports.
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Today so far...
- China could keep its border restrictions to control the pandemic for another year amid variant fears and a desire to protect important events from any potential disruption, the Wall Street Journal reported.
- Russia reported 546 coronavirus-related deaths, the most confirmed in a single day since February, amid a surge in new cases that authorities blamed on the new Delta variant. Moscow authorities announced that residents will soon have to present an anti-Covid pass to enter restaurants.
- Cases of the Delta Plus variant have been found in multiple countries including the UK, the US, Canada, Portugal, Poland, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, Japan and Nepal. It was briefly, and unofficially, described as the Nepal variant when it first came to light.
- The White House is preparing to acknowledge it will not meet president Joe Biden’s goal of delivering at least one Covid-19 vaccination dose to 70% of US adults by 4 July, a day after it emerged it was expected to fall short of the president’s separate commitment to shipping 80m Covid-19 vaccine doses abroad by the end of June with below 10m doses so far shipped.
- Cuba’s government announced that its three-shot Abdala vaccine has proved to be 92% effective against the coronavirus, without immediately providing details of the clinical testing. President Miguel Diaz Canel denounced the crippling US blockade on the island and said Cuban scientists had “surpassed all obstacles and have given us two very effective vaccines”.
- Tokyo Olympics president Seiko Hashimoto defended the organisers’ decision to allow spectators into Olympic venues, with 30 days to go until the start of an Olympic Games dogged by the pandemic and by controversy,
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Eight members of the Ugandan Olympic team were quarantined in Japan until early July, a local official said, after a coach tested positive for coronavirus on arrival last week despite vaccination and testing before departure.
- Berlin is making permanent the extra bike lanes it added during lockdowns as it seeks to support the cycling boom that started during the pandemic but campaigners say more needs to be done to protect cyclists, with five killed already this year.
The global wealth gap widened during the Covid pandemic, swelling the ranks of the world’s millionaires by 5.2 million as the rich cashed in on surging stock and house prices.
In early April, inmates at Bahrain’s Jau prison crowded into the corridors to protest. They were angry about a lack of medical treatment and fearing for their lives after the death of another inmate. Their sit-in at building 13 lasted 10 days, and spread to other blocks in Jau, an infamous prison complex in the south of the kingdom.
Inmates claim authorities regularly delay or deny vital medical care to prisoners – especially prisoners of conscience. The concern has grown since late March when Covid-19 began to tear through the prison system. Prisoners and rights groups claim authorities failed to prevent the outbreak and have denied some inmates their choice of vaccine.
Dating app Bumble has temporarily closed all of its offices and given staff the week off in response to “collective burnout” among staff.
The BBC reports that its “700 staff worldwide have been told to switch off and focus on themselves” after founder Whitney Wolfe Herd made the decision “having correctly intuited our collective burnout”.
It comes after Bumble – where the onus is on women to initiate conversation with whom they match – floated on the stock exchange and saw a swift growth in user numbers and traffic amid the pandemic as people sought to continue to meet potential lovers.
The company had announced in April “that all Bumble employees will have a paid, fully offline one-week vacation in June”.
A spokeswoman for Bumble told the BBC that a small number of customer support staff would be continue to work in case of any potential issues on the app.
Wales fans will not be allowed to attend their Euro 2020 match in Holland, with the Welsh supporters association chair claiming they had been treated like “second-class citizens”.
Welsh health minister, Eluned Morgan, said today police in Amsterdam had said they would not be “letting Welsh fans into the country”, according to the BBC.
Football Supporters’ Association Cymru chairman Vince Alm said fans had been treated like “second-class citizens”. He told the BBC: “It’s very, very disappointing that we weren’t made aware of this at the start of the competition. I think Uefa should have looked at these venues and made sure there was a level playing field.”
Several hundred Wales fans travelled to Baku in Azerbaijan and Rome in Italy, where their group games were held. But the UK is not on the Netherlands’ safe country list.
• This post was amended on 23 June 2021 to remove the incorrect claim that Denmark fans are not allowed to travel to the Netherlands.
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Reported deaths from Covid-19 in Colombia have passed 100,000, the country’s health ministry said, amid warnings of potential scarcity of treatment drugs and oxygen in hospital.
The country of 50 million people has reported more than 3.9 million cases of coronavirus infections, as well as 100,582 deaths. Colombia has seen record numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths in recent weeks.
Despite the peak, the South American country has lifted many of the restrictions it imposed in March last year to control coronavirus, in a bid to bolster the economy and amid widespread frustration with social distancing measures.
Colombia has administered over 14.9 million vaccine doses, of which more than 4.7 million are second doses. The country hopes to vaccinate some 35 million people - 70% of its population - this year.
According to the World Data Atlas, the all-cause mortality rate in Colombia only slightly increased last year and followed an established trajectory.
Russia reports 546 Covid-linked death, most in single day since February
Russia has reported 546 coronavirus-related deaths, the most confirmed in a single day since February, amid a surge in new cases that authorities have blamed on the new Delta variant.
The government coronavirus taskforce confirmed 16,715 new cases in the last 24 hours, including 6,555 in Moscow, taking the national case total to 5,350,919 since the pandemic began.
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WHO concerned by easing of restrictions in Euro 2020 host cities as Wembley capacity increased
After the UK government and Uefa earlier announced they had agreed that more than 60,000 fans will be allowed into Wembley in London for the semi-finals and final of Euro 2020, the World Health Organization has sounded a note of caution.
WHO official Robb Butler told Sky News:
WHO is concerned about easing of restrictions in some of the host countries ... A few of the stadiums hosting the tournament are now increasing the number of spectators allowed in the stadium to watch a game. In a few of the host cities, Covid-19 cases are already on the rise in the area where matches will be held.
Learning from experience, we must act fast on signals showing increasing cases - expanding testing and sequencing; stepping up contact tracing; and building very high vaccine uptake fast among those vulnerable and most at risk.”
The UK culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, said earlier:
We are thrilled that more fans will now be able to walk through the Wembley turnstiles and enjoy the finals of Euro 2020. As we continue to make progress on our roadmap out of lockdown, keeping the public safe remains our top priority.
We have worked extremely closely with Uefa and the FA to ensure rigorous and tight public health measures are in place whilst allowing more fans to see the action live.
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Nicola Sturgeon has announced that the number of new cases over the past week has been up 40% and Scotland’s restrictions may not be lifted at the end of June.
Me again! Mattha Busby here to take you through another couple of 90 minutes or so of global Covid developments. Thanks to my colleague Caroline Davies. As mentioned earlier, please feel free to drop me a line on Twitter or message me via email (mattha.busby.freelance@guardian.co.uk) with any tips or thoughts about our coverage.
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That’s it from me. Handing back to my colleague Mattha Busby now. Thanks for your time.
Roughly 900 U.S. Secret Service employees tested positive for coronavirus, according to government records.
Associated Press reports that the secret service records, obtained by a government watchdog group, show that 881 people on the agency payroll were diagnosed with Covid-19 between March 1, 2020 and March 9, 2021.
The documents were obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington through a Freedom of Information Act request. They did not include the names or assignments of those who tested positive. But more than half — 477 — worked in the special agent division, which is responsible for protecting the president and vice president, as well as the families of these leaders and other government officials.
CREW noted that the Trump administration took actions that risked exposure to Secret Service workers, but it could not verify a direct connection to possible infections because the identities of those infected remains private.
After President Donald Trump contracted Covid-19, he took a drive in his presidential vehicle as secret service personnel drove and protected him. The former president also held multiple large rallies and events, despite restrictions on public gatherings, AP reports.
In the UK, as of 9am on Tuesday, there had been a further 11,625 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases, official figures show.
A further 27 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Tuesday, bringing the UK total to 128,008, the government said.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have been 153,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
With 30 days to go until the start of an Olympic Games dogged by the coronavirus pandemic and by controversy, Tokyo Olympics president Seiko Hashimoto defended the organisers’ decision to allow spectators into Olympic venues, Reuters reports.
Japanese medical experts said last Friday that banning spectators was the least risky option but also included in their report recommendations on how to host the Games if spectators were admitted. Organisers said on Monday up to 10,000 domestic spectators would be allowed into venues. Foreign visitors are banned.
“We decided that it would be better to do the best preparations we can for a Games with spectators,” Hashimoto said at a media roundtable attended by Reuters on Tuesday, saying the decision was in line with the medical experts’ recommendations. “Of course, I understand that holding the event without spectators would lower the risk, but there is evidence that there have been no clusters at other events and tournaments.”
Prime minister Yoshihide Suga has still not ruled out holding the Games without spectators if Tokyo is put back under a state of emergency, from which it only emerged on 21 June. The Games’ opening ceremony is set for 23 July.
Over the past year organisers have pushed ahead with preparations for the Games, postponed from 2020 because of the pandemic, despite strong concerns among the Japanese public that hosting thousands of delegations from across the globe could result in further outbreaks of Covid-19 infections.
The announcement on spectator caps and media reports that organisers were considering allowing alcohol consumption in Olympics venues provoked a public backlash on Tuesday, with the hashtag “cancel the Olympic Games” garnering tens of thousands of tweets. Tokyo 2020 decided against selling alcohol at the venues following the backlash, Kyodo news agency reported late on Tuesday
In another blow to organisers’ pledge that the Games will be safe, a member of the Ugandan delegation who arrived in Japan at the weekend tested positive for coronavirus despite having been vaccinated and testing negative for Covid-19 before arrival.
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Hi. Caroline Davies here, taking over the blog for a short while. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com
McDonald’s has said its US loyalty programme would be available across the country at participating restaurants from 8 July, but the scheme is likely to face criticism.
The burger chain started testing its MyMcDonald’s Rewards programme, which lets subscribers on its app earn points they can redeem on burgers and fries, late last year in a few markets. It expanded the programme last week to some New York City customers.
Chief executive officer Chris Kempczinski said earlier this month McDonald’s expects to have rolled out the programme in its six biggest markets – including the US, Canada and possibly Germany – by the end of 2022.
However, there has been growing scrutiny on the role of diet in the functioning of a healthy immune system in the era of Covid. Countries with high levels of overweight people, such as the US where the new fast food loyalty scheme is centred, have the highest death rates from Covid-19.
About 2.2 million of the 2.5 million deaths from Covid were in countries with high levels of overweight people, said a report from the World Obesity Federation. Countries such as the US, UK, and Italy, where more than 50% of adults are overweight, have the biggest proportions of deaths linked to coronavirus.
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More than 60,000 fans will be allowed into Wembley for the semi-finals and final of Euro 2020 after a deal was struck between the UK government and Uefa.
The biggest crowds at a British sporting event for 15 months are now in prospect, although details of who will be able to attend the matches, and how, remain unresolved.
Biden to accept failure to meet domestic vaccine goal, after global jab pledge missed
The White House is preparing to acknowledge it will not meet president Joe Biden’s goal of delivering at least one Covid-19 vaccination dose to 70% of US adults by 4 July, US independence day, NBC News reports.
Covid-19 senior adviser Jeffrey Zients is expected to announce the US has vaccinated 70% of adults aged 30 and older, NBC said, citing a copy of his remarks, but that for all adults it had fallen short.
The rate of US vaccinations has increased by less than 1% over the past two weeks and would have to more than double over the next two weeks for the US to hit Biden’s target. But there have been other reports saying demand has been plummeting despite complimentary rides to vaccine sites in places and even free beer and cannabis in some states.
“The reality is, many younger Americans have felt like Covid-19 is not something that impacts them and have been less eager to get the shot,” Zients will say, according to NBC.
It comes after AP reported yesterday that the Biden administration was expected to fall short of the president’s separate commitment to shipping 80m Covid-19 vaccine doses abroad by the end of June. Fewer than 10m doses have so far been shipped around the world.
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Elsewhere in Germany, Berlin is making permanent the extra bike lanes it added during lockdowns as it seeks to support the cycling boom that started in the pandemic.
The easterly capital has marked about 15 miles of extra “pop-up” bike lanes since Covid-19 hit in 2020 as commuters switched to cycling to avoid crowded public transport. Other European cities – like Paris and London – have also been adding bike paths.
Reuters reports that in some parts of Berlin, temporary lanes – often marked by yellow tape stuck on the road – are now being made permanent, widened and better protected, with bollards or low ramps to stop cars or vans blocking them.
The district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, which came up with the idea of the “pop-up” lanes, formally opened a new stretch of bike lane yesterday and began work on making another busy street only accessible by bikes and pedestrians.
The German Cyclists Association says bike traffic rose by 25% in Berlin due to the temporary lanes and the pandemic. It has welcomed making the lanes permanent but says more needs to be done to protect cyclists in Berlin, where five have already been killed this year.
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German chancellor Angela Merkel has received her second coronavirus vaccine dose, a government spokesperson has announced, saying that she received a Moderna jab a few days ago, after getting an AstraZeneca shot on 16 April, DW reports. She did not roll up her sleeve for a photo, this time, which brings my mind back to this lighthearted but incisive piece.
Sweden will offer Covid jabs to all people aged 16 and upwards, the country’s health agency has said, expanding the vaccine roll out which previously was limited to those aged 18 and older.
“Today, we have decided that young people aged 16 and 17 should be covered by the vaccination programme,” health agency head Johan Carlson told a news conference.
More than half of Sweden’s adult population have received at least on shot and just under a third are fully vaccinated.
After a third wave in Sweden in the spring, deaths, new cases and hospitalisations have plummeted in recent weeks.
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Cuba claims its three-shot jab is 92% effective without citing data
Cuba’s government has announced that its three-shot Abdala vaccine has proved to be 92% effective against the coronavirus.
It provided no details of the clinical testing, according to AP. The Abdala is one of the vaccines Cuba is testing. It recently said its Soberana 2 vaccine has shown a 62% efficacy. It comes as Cuba faces its worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic with record new infections.
Cuban president Miguel Diaz Canel tweeted: “In less than 48 hours, Cuban scientists have given our heroic people, who are resisting the criminal blockade exacerbated in a pandemic, two overwhelming results. In two days we will denounce the blockade to the world, counting on two of our own vaccines.”
Golpeados por dos pandemias (#COVID19 y #Bloqueo), nuestros científicos del Finlay y CIGB, han saltado por encima de todos los obstáculos y nos han dado dos vacunas muy efectivas: #SOBERANA02 y #Abdala. pic.twitter.com/4DOfJiRh3o
— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) June 21, 2021
He added that the country has been “hit by two pandemics” – Covid and the ongoing US-led economic blockade of the island – but that its scientists had “surpassed all obstacles and have given us two very effective vaccines”.
Dr Francisco Durán, the island’s director of epidemiology, yesterday reported 1,561 new coronavirus cases for a total of 169,365 cumulative confirmed cases and 1,170 deaths over the course of the pandemic on the island of 11 million people.
Cuba is ready to vaccinate the world. The 60-year-old US embargo stands in the way. The embargo is not only illegal and inhumane. It is incredibly unpopular. pic.twitter.com/HDZ6YDjKbA
— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) June 22, 2021
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Moscow authorities have announced that residents will soon have to present an anti-Covid pass to enter restaurants.
The new restriction is the latest in a series of measures after new daily coronavirus cases tripled in just two weeks, with mayor Sergei Sobyanin attributing the rise to the highly infectious Delta variant.
Sobyanin said that from 28 June restaurantgoers will have to present a QR code showing a negative coronavirus test valid for three days – or proof they have been vaccinated or were sick with coronavirus within the previous six months, AFP reports.
“We must find solutions that will allow us to maximally protect people and reduce the burden on the healthcare system,” he wrote on his blog. However those solutions, he added, could not disrupt the “normal functioning” of the service industry and “other sectors of the economy”.
“Similar rules for visiting restaurants and cafes have been in effect for several months in many European and Asian cities. And the time has come for Moscow to learn from their experience if we want to avoid a new, highly undesirable lockdown,” Sobyanin said.
Unlike many European countries, Russia did not reimpose a lockdown when it was hit with a second wave of infections last fall as it sought to support a struggling economy.
The country instead pinned its hopes of curtailing the pandemic on its four homegrown vaccines – Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona, CoviVac and the one-dose Sputnik Light. But authorities face a vaccine-sceptic population, with one recent independent survey saying that some 60% of Russians do not plan to get a shot.
Even though free jabs have been available since December, only 15.5 million people out of a population of some 146 million have been fully vaccinated, according to the Gogov website, which tallies Covid figures from the regions and the media.
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Since the first Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 was injected into the arm of a British woman in December 2020, hundreds of millions of vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.
German chancellor Angela Merkel is hoping for better coordination on pandemic travel rules among the bloc’s 27 member states. She said it was problematic to have a patchwork of regulations.
“I regret that we haven’t managed yet to have completely uniform action among the member states on travel guidelines – that is coming back to haunt us,” she told reporters after a meeting with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, according to AFP.
She cited the example of Portugal, where the government this month was forced to slow the process of post-lockdown reopening in Lisbon and three other municipalities after a hike in new Covid-19 cases. “That perhaps could have been avoided which is why we need to work harder,” she said. “We have made some good progress in recent months but aren’t where I’d like the EU to be.”
Von der Leyen acknowledged she was “worried” about the spread of the Delta variant, saying it was “only a matter of time” before it became dominant in Europe.
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Eight members of the Ugandan Olympic team have been quarantined in Japan until early July, a local official has said, after a coach tested positive for coronavirus on arrival last week.
The country’s delegation arrived on Saturday just over a month before the pandemic-postponed Games. But despite being vaccinated and testing negative before travel, a coach tested positive during screening at Tokyo’s Narita airport, AFP reports.
The coach was isolated, and the rest of the squad was allowed to leave for their training base in Izumisano, southern Osaka.
“But our local healthcare centre questioned the eight members and designated them as close contacts with the person who tested positive,” a city official told AFP. “Now we are requiring them to stay inside the hotel until July 3,” the official said, adding that the city was still looking into the possibility of allowing training outside the hotel.
The eight members have so far tested negative and are in good condition, the official said. They have not left the hotel since arriving or had contact with others, he added.
The team, which is the second to arrive in Japan for the Games after Australia’s softball players, was originally due to arrive in Japan on 16 June. But their flight was cancelled following a surge in Covid-19 cases in Uganda, local media said.
The coach was the first positive virus case among officials and other Olympic participants arriving in recent days, local media said.
The UK government has denied the G7 summit is behind a rapid rise in Covid-19 cases in south-west England, an increase that is raising significant concern about extra tourism pressures on the region in the summer weeks.
However, Andrew George, the former Lib Dem MP for St Ives who is now a councillor in Cornwall, said the government must publish its risk assessment for the summit, a request he said had been denied.
The correlation between G7 and the tsunami of Covid-19 caseload in St Ives/Carbis Bay and Falmouth is undeniable. It ought to drive public bodies to at the very least maintain an open mind about the connection between the two. Those who were responsible for that decision and for the post-G7 summit Covid-19 case management and assessment should be held to account for their decisions and actions.
China plans to retain border restrictions for another year - report
The Wall Street Journal reports that China could keep its border restrictions to control the pandemic for another year amid variant fears and a desire to protect important events from any potential disruption.
The Winter Olympics is to take place in the country in February, while there will also be a once-a-decade power transition within the ruling party that is set to be less transitional than usual as leader Xi Jinping is expected to seek an additional term, past the two-term limit.
The provisional timeline of the second half of 2022 was set during a mid-May meeting of the country’s state council, the WSJ reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
New visas to enter China are mostly restricted to those who have received a Chinese jab, while arrivals also have to spend at least a fortnight in hotel quarantine. China has not yet approved any of the WHO-approved western vaccines, and vice versa.
It is as yet unclear whether China will follow Japan and not allow foreign spectators for the February games, with only Japanese residents permitted to attend the Tokyo games next month.
Last month, Australia said it would gradually begin to open its borders in mid-2022.
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Thai authorities have approved a pilot model for quarantine-free travel to the beach destination Phuket that will allow the island to reopen to tourists on 1 July.
Its tourism industry has been on tenterhooks since March, when the government floated the so-called “Phuket sandbox” scheme, which would have allowed vaccinated tourists to enter the country without undergoing the usual two week’s quarantine.
But after a third wave of Covid infections in April, the scheme was seemingly delayed but tourism officials and members of Thailand’s Covid taskforce announced last week the sandbox scheme was set to begin on 1 July, Reuters reports.
Today, the government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri said the cabinet of the prime minister, Prayut Chan-O-Cha, had officially given the scheme its blessing. In Phuket, the number of weekly Covid cases cannot exceed 90.
Thailand’s tourism industry previously made up almost 20% of its national income. Its losses have reverberated through other sectors including restaurants, transportation and the service industry.
The PM announced last week that he plans for Thailand to fully reopen to foreign visitors by October – a vow that would require his administration to hit the target of inoculating 50 million Thais in four months, he said.
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About three-quarters of Israelis in eligible age groups have received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. But that includes just 2-4% of 12- to 15-year-olds since they were made eligible this month, according to health ministry data.
But with cases more than doubling to 125 yesterday after outbreaks at two schools, attributed to the more infectious Delta variant, Israel’s two largest healthcare providers say appointment requests for vaccinations for 12- to 15-year-old have risen steeply, according to Reuters.
The country’s health ministry yesterday recommended that 12- to 15-year-olds get vaccinated and is investing in outreach to get parents to bring their children in for shots.
But some parents still see no rush. Eldad Askof, who got the vaccine himself, sat outside a school with his 13-year-old son Amit, both wearing masks. “There was a debate, but at the moment we feel that we don’t want to vaccinate. If we can control it without vaccinating the kids we prefer that,” he said. “We feel that at the moment in Israel that the situation is not too alarming.”
Updated
Rwanda has announced fresh restrictions including a ban on weddings as it struggles to contain a surge in infections.
“All social gatherings including celebrations of all kinds are prohibited,” a government statement said. “Traditional, civil and religious weddings are suspended.”
AFP reports that other measures due to come into force tomorrow include the extension of a nationwide curfew, from 7pm until 4am, restrictions on movement between districts, and the suspension of air travel to neighbouring Uganda where coronavirus cases are spiralling.
“The public is reminded of the critical importance of complying with health measures including physical distancing, wearing face masks, and ensure hand hygiene. Penalties will be applied for non-compliance,” the statement said.
Rwanda has already been enforcing some of the strictest containment measures on the continent and implementing a rigorous regime of testing and contact tracing. But over the last few weeks, cases have increased with authorities counting 662 cases and seven deaths yesterday.
The country of 13 million people has registered a total of 31,435 positive cases and 388 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
The leader of a spurious church which peddled industrial bleach as a “miracle cure” for Covid-19 is claiming that he provided Donald Trump with the product in the White House shortly before the former president made his notorious remarks about using “disinfectant” to treat the disease.
A vaccine “hack” rumoured to alleviate any unpleasant side-effects from the Covid vaccination, which involves swinging your arm like a windmill, has gone viral on TikTok.
A spokesperson for AstraZeneca said they were “loth to rule anything out” in terms of whether the dance might reduce post-jab arm-ache but they were “certainly not aware of it being helpful”.
Azeem Majeed, professor of primary care and public health, and head of the Department of Primary Care & Public Health at Imperial College London, said: “If it raises awareness of the jab and makes it seem like a joyful, playful thing, then that’s a very good outcome to the dance.”
Australia’s most populous state has extended the wearing of masks inside buildings, while New Zealand paused quarantine-free travel with the state.
Ten new locally acquired cases were reported in New South Wales state as officials work to contain a cluster of the highly infectious Delta virus variant. Eight of the 10 were household contacts of previous cases in isolation.
“Given how absolutely contagious the virus is, we expected household contacts already in isolation were likely to get the virus,” said state premier Gladys Berejiklian.
Reuters reports that masks will be mandatory indoors in Sydney, home to a fifth of Australia’s 25 million population, for another week from Thursday morning although officials stopped short of imposing further curbs as the cluster increased to 21 infections in six days.
New Zealand, which in April began letting visitors from Australia enter the country without undergoing hotel quarantine, said it was pausing the “travel bubble” for three days for people flying from NSW.
Neighbouring Victoria state, which emerged from a strict lockdown more than a week ago, reported no local cases today, prompting New Zealand to restart its quarantine-free travel with the state from tonight.
Updated
Most recent Delta variant mutation present across UK, US, Russia, Japan, elsewhere
Cases of the Delta Plus variant have been found in multiple countries including the UK, the US, Canada, Portugal, Poland, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, Japan and Nepal.
It was briefly, and unofficially, described as the Nepal variant when it first came to light because it was found in 13 people who travelled from Nepal to Japan. Whether it originally emerged in Nepal is unclear.
The Delta Plus variant is simply the Delta variant with an additional mutation called K417N. There are at least two separate groups of the variant and these are known as Delta-AY.1 and Delta AY.2. Delta AY.1 appears to be the most widespread.
Public Health England considers all three variants, that is the original Delta variant first spotted in India, as well as Delta-AY.1 and Delta-AY.2 as variants of concern, meaning they may pose more of a risk than the original virus, for example by spreading more easily or being partially resistant to vaccines or immunity from previous infection.
As of 18 June, the agency had identified 36 confirmed and two probable cases of Delta AY.1 infection in England. No AY.2 has been detected in the country.
The mutation of interest, K417N, is also seen in the Beta variant first discovered in South Africa. The mutation is in the virus’s spike protein and is thought to explain at least some of the reason the Beta variant is partially resistant to vaccines.
At the moment, vaccines seem to perform well against the Delta variant, particularly after two shots, so public health authorities are concerned about any newly acquired mutations that could dent vaccine protection, or immunity gained from previous infection with an older form of the virus.
Updated
The US Department of Agriculture was scheduled to begin sending out payments to Black and minority farmers this month, as part of a $4bn loan forgiveness program included in the $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill that passed Congress in March.
But a lawsuit on behalf of white farmers accusing the Biden administration of discrimination has, at least temporarily, stopped the checks, prompting dismay among Black farmers and campaigners.
The EU has decided to take up an option under a supply contract with drugmaker Moderna that allows the bloc to order another 150m of its vaccines.
The European Commission announcement comes a week after CureVac, a German biotech firm, said its Covid-19 vaccine was only 47% effective in a late-stage trial, missing the study’s main goal and casting doubt on the potential delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to the EU, amid continued doubts over AstraZeneca’s jab.
The additional Moderna doses will be delivered next year, the EU executive said in a statement. The shots are part of a contract for 300m doses, approved in February, of which half has already been ordered by the 27-nation bloc.
The EU has also already ordered another 160m Moderna shots under an initial supply contract signed in November. The European Commission said the second contract with Moderna had also been amended to allow the purchase of vaccines adapted to virus variants as well as jabs for paediatric use and boosters.
Updated
One does wonder whether Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, who has threatened to jail people who refuse to be vaccinated against Covid, really cares that much about public health after his bloody and often indiscriminate war on drugs.
Then you scroll down our story and discover his current frustrations do indeed apparently stem from a perceived resistance to the wishes of the state among his compatriots: “I’m just exasperated by Filipinos not heeding the government,” he said.
Updated
France’s fashion houses are returning to the catwalk today for Paris’s men’s fashion week after more than a year of crisis left some wondering if the traditional calendar would ever return.
Only six of 72 brands that make up the official Paris fashion calendar will present live shows this week, though they include two big names in the form of Dior and Hermes. It follows a similarly tentative return in Milan, where only three of 47 – Dolce and Gabbana, Etro, and Armani – offered live events for this week’s spring/summer 2022 show, AFP reports.
New York won’t be back in physical form until September, while the newly gender-neutral London fashion week has also remained fully digital up to now. In Paris, many big names are staying within the confines of computer screens, including Louis Vuitton, Dries Van Noten, Loewe and Tom Browne.
Pascal Morand, the president of France’s Federation of Haute Couture and Fashion, told AFP there was “a very strong appetite to return to the physical”. But he was not ashamed to deploy the word “phygital” for the current state of affairs.
Another major absentee from Paris this week is Hedi Slimane, head designer at Celine. Even before the pandemic, he had declared the fashion calendar “obsolete”, telling Le Monde: “These days, creating a sense of event and rarity seems more essential than an obligatory exercise at a fixed time.”
The Brazilian designer Francisco Terra, from young label Neith Nyer, is also among those not keen to return to the traditional way of doing things, and will be organising his own catwalk followed by a pop-up store “to directly test clients’ reactions”.
“I don’t think we really need the calendar,” he told AFP. “The image of a young brand is made on Instagram, with celebrities and above all outside of the seasons.”
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to everyone reading, wherever you are the in the world. Mattha Busby here to take you through the next few hours of global Covid developments. Thanks to my colleague Martin Belam. Please feel free to drop me a line on Twitter or message me via email (mattha.busby.freelance@guardian.co.uk) with any tips or thoughts on our coverage.
Updated
Today so far…
- European Union governments have supported a plan to extend a mechanism to monitor and potentially limit the export of Covid vaccines from the EU until the end of September.
- Italy will lift a requirement that people wear face masks outdoors from 28 June, the government said late last night, as cases and hospitalisations decline.
- North Korea has told the World Health Organization it tested more than 30,000 people for the coronavirus through June 10 but has yet to find a single infection. There is some scepticism about the figure.
- India administered 8.6m vaccine doses on Monday, which represented a record two-fold jump as it kicked off free inoculation for all adults, reversing a policy for individual states and hospitals to buy vaccines for those aged 18 to 44. However, it will be difficult to sustain this rate. Chandrakant Lahariya, an expert in public policy and health systems, said: “With the currently projected vaccine supply for the next few months, the maximum daily achievable rate is 4 million to 5 million a day.”
- Ireland’s Aer Lingus has said it is losing more than €1m (£860,000) a day, and does not expect the Irish government’s plan to ease travel restrictions from 19 July to give it a significant near term bounce.
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this morning that people who were not vaccinated or who did not have immunity would be unable to work in all workplaces in Russia. “The reality is such that discrimination will inevitably set in. People without vaccination or immunity will not be able to work everywhere. It is not possible. It will pose a threat to those around them.”
- Taiwan has reported 78 new cases today, and six deaths. Lithuania, meanwhile, has said it will donate 20,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Taiwan.
- 1m million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine will be transferred to Vietnam weekly starting next month to fulfil its order of 30m doses within this year, state media has reported, while leaving it unclear where the vaccines are being sourced from.
- Pakistan has made an agreement to procure 13m doses of Covid vaccine from Pfizer, according to the country’s health minister. An exact timeline was not yet available, Faisal Sultan said, but said the doses would arrive by the end of 2021.
- US deaths from Covid-19 have dipped below 300 a day for the first time since March last year during the first wave of the pandemic. Data from federal sources also showed the drive to put shots in arms at home approaching an encouraging milestone: 150 million Americans fully vaccinated.
- A coronavirus outbreak in Fiji is rapidly growing, with 180 new cases reported. New Zealand said this week it was providing an additional $10m New Zealand dollars (£5m) for Covid operations and food supplies in Fiji. New Zealand and Australia have also sent medical teams.
- The UK’s health secretary Matt Hancock has suggested that England is on track to re-open the economy on 19 July – and also hinted at an easing of international travel restrictions for those who have had two vaccination shots. Andrew Sparrow has the latest UK Covid news on his live blog.
- And finally, if you fancy something to listen to this morning, can I recommend today’s episode of our Today in Focus podcast? In it, our health editor, Sarah Boseley, weighs up the race between vaccines and variants and explains why the end of the pandemic does not mean the end of Covid-19.
EU ready to extend mechanism to monitor and limit vaccine export until September
European Union governments have supported a plan to extend a mechanism to monitor and potentially limit the export of Covid vaccines from the EU, a European Commission spokesperson has told Reuters.
The decision paves the way for the Commission to formally extend in the coming days the extraordinary mechanism until the end of September, an EU official said. The mechanism would otherwise expire at the end of June.
Kremlin: unvaccinated people in the workplace 'pose a threat to those around them'
After weeks and weeks of the official case numbers making it look like Russia had their Covid situation completely under control, there’s been a sharp rise in the numbers and a change of tone out of the Kremlin.
Reuters note that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters this morning that people who were not vaccinated or who did not have immunity would be unable to work in all workplaces in Russia, and that those people could be discriminated against.
“The reality is such that discrimination will inevitably set in. People without vaccination or immunity will not be able to work everywhere. It is not possible. It will pose a threat to those around them,” he said.
President Vladimir Putin warned on Monday that the coronavirus situation in some Russian regions was getting worse as authorities began promoting the idea of regular revaccinations to try to halt a surge in new cases.
In countries where coronavirus infections begin to ease off, we very quickly see the agenda switch to economic impacts. In that vein, Ireland’s Aer Lingus has said today that it is losing more than €1m (£860,000) a day, and does not expect the Irish government’s plan to ease travel restrictions from 19 July to give it a significant near term bounce.
Reuters report its new chief executive Lynne Embleton told an Irish parliamentary committee “We’re pleased to see many of the changes announced but the cumulative impact of the ongoing restrictions and the issues we’ve raised does mean our enthusiasm has been dampened. It is looking too little too late to really have a significant bounce that will get us on the right path to restoring connectivity, supporting jobs and connecting Ireland in the near term.”
Updated
A quick one from Reuters here that 1m million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine will be transferred to Vietnam weekly starting next month to fulfil its order of 30m doses within this year, state media has reported.
Vietnam, which has so far received about 4.4m doses of Covid vaccines, has relied heavily on the AstraZeneca brand for its inoculation programme, which started in March.
Its vaccines have come via donations, the Covax vaccine sharing scheme and government procurements.
“Vietnam’s order of 30m doses will be fulfilled within 2021,” Vietnam News Agency reported, although there is no clarity in today’s statement as to the source or sources of the doses.
Uday Sampath Kumar and Bhargav Acharya report for Reuters from Bengaluru that India’s vaccinations over the next few weeks could fall short of the blistering pace set on the first day of a federal campaign.
The 8.6m doses injected on Monday represented a record two-fold jump as India kicked off free inoculation for all adults, reversing a policy for individual states and hospitals to buy vaccines for those aged 18 to 44.
“This is clearly not sustainable,” Chandrakant Lahariya, an expert in public policy and health systems, told Reuters. “With the currently projected vaccine supply for the next few months, the maximum daily achievable rate is 4 million to 5 million a day.”
The inoculation effort in the world’s second most populous nation had covered just about 5.5% of all the 950 million people eligible, even though India is the world’s largest producer of vaccines.
Since May, India has distributed an average of fewer than 3m doses each day, far less than the 10m health officials say is crucial to protect the millions vulnerable to new surges.
Particularly in the countryside, where two-thirds of a population of 1.4 billion lives and the healthcare system is often overstretched, the drive has faltered, experts say.
Widespread vaccine shortages since May have worsened the divide between urban and rural areas, as many younger people in cities turned to private hospitals, paying between $9 and $24 a dose in the rush to protect themselves from the virus.
Over the past 24 hours India reported 42,640 new infections, its lowest figure since 23 March, along with 1,167 deaths.
Andrew Sparrow has launched the UK Covid live blog for today – so head over there for the latest. I’ll be continuing here with global coronavirus news.
Updated
Lithuania will donate 20,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Taiwan, its government said on Tuesday. The vaccines, donated in response to Taiwan’s request, will be transferred by the end of September.
“We’d like to do more, but we do what we can,” prime minister Ingrida Simonyte said during a broadcast government meeting.
Reuters note that the Lithuanian government in May decided to donate 100,000 vaccine doses to Ukraine, 15,000 to Georgia and 11,000 to Moldova.
Updated
Taiwan has reported 78 new cases today, and six deaths. Cases are still mostly in New Taipei (43) and Taipei (25).
Authorities have said a new wave of vaccinations will start on 1 July – they have been going through the priority categories by opening them up for set time periods before moving on to the next, regardless of how many people come forward from that category.
Those aged 65 to 74 will soon be eligible to receive a vaccine, and then workers in close contact with others, like teachers, army personnel, market workers, transport, nursing, childcare, and frontline media. Currently around 7% of people in Taiwan have received at least one dose. Taiwan has received about 5m doses so far, for 23.5 million people.
The central epidemic command centre said it is categorising regions based on risk and consulting with local governments to ensure consistent policies - some local governments have been going it alone when they felt the central authorities weren’t going far enough.
Officials told the press conference this afternoon they are inclined to keep the whole island on the same level of measures, but will announce any change tomorrow. Currently Taiwan is at a level 3 alert, which restricts gatherings, closes most venues, and restricts restaurants to takeaway only.
Updated
Italy to lift outdoor face mask requirement from 28 June
Italy will lift a requirement that people wear face masks outdoors from 28 June, the government said late last night, as cases and hospitalisations decline.
Mandatory masks were imposed in October last year, when the country was entering a second wave of the epidemic and authorities were struggling to curb surging infections.
Mario Draghi’s government has been steadily lifting restrictions since April, opening activities such as restaurants, bars, cinemas and gyms and allowing freedom of movement around the country.
The wearing of masks was one of the last rules to remain in place, and it will still be required in indoor public areas.
The decision will be effective from next Monday when the whole nation is expected to be “a Covid white zone”, the lowest risk level in Italy’s four-tier colour-coded system to calibrate curbs in its 20 regions.
Nineteen of the regions are already white, the exception being the tiny northern area of Valle d’Aosta which is yellow, denoting the second-lowest risk level.
“From 28 June we will leave behind the need to wear masks outside in white zones,” health minister Roberto Speranza posted on Facebook after receiving advice from the government’s board of experts.
Italians should still carry a mask with them when they leave home and be ready to wear it outdoors if there is a crowd, reports Reuters.
Updated
Also on that suggestion people in the UK may have easier international travel if they have been double-vaccinated, health secretary Matt Hancock has once again said that the NHS app will be central to it. PA Media reports he told Sky News:
We can now, all of us, see our vaccine status, see your testing status, on the NHS App. Six million people have now downloaded the main NHS App and on that you can show whether you have had the jabs.
It’s important because we know other countries are going to say that they want proof that you have been vaccinated before you go. So, when travel is opened up, we are going to make sure people have got that ability to prove it.
It is worth noting this is not the same app as the NHS Covid app you may have been using with QR codes to check into venues for test-and-trace.
Updated
UK health secretary Matt Hancock is continuing his set of media appearances this morning and has popped up on Times Radio. He has told them that there will be a “very significant” flu vaccination drive this winter aimed at protecting the NHS. PA Media quotes him saying:
We are worried about flu this winter because people’s natural immunity will be lower because we haven’t had any serious flu for 18 months now. We had a difficult winter in 2019, we didn’t have flu at all really this last winter because of the restrictions that were in place for Covid. So, it is something we are worried about.
We are are going to have a very significant flu vaccination drive this autumn – potentially at the same time you might get your Covid booster jab and your flu jab at the same time. We are testing whether that can be done.
We do need to make sure we protect the NHS this coming winter. We have got time to do the preparation for that now, though, and make sure we are as vaccinated as possible, because that is the way to keep people safe.
Updated
Labour opposition spokesperson Nick Thomas-Symonds has also been on Sky News in the UK, and poured some scorn on health minister Matt Hancock’s earlier floating that there could be some lifting of travel and quarantine restrictions for people who have had two vaccine shots [see 7.44am]. Thomas-Symonds said:
My concern about this proposal is we are yet again going from one particular proposal to another. We lurch from one thing, then we lurch to another. What I’ve been asking for is a comprehensive plan from the government. I’ve been asking for some time that the “amber list” has to effect go into the “red list”. That you need to have a comprehensive hotel quarantine system to protect the gains of the British people over the past 12 months, but also to guard against variants from overseas, which is the big threat to our vaccine rollout.
"We must have a proper strategy."
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 22, 2021
Having two #COVID19 jabs is a "positive thing" but we must firstly protect the vaccine rollout, says shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds when questioned by #KayBurley about quarantine-free travel.
https://t.co/WhA7PlkTJZ pic.twitter.com/5qJZDV4ZM5
Updated
Pakistan has made an agreement to procure 13m doses of Covid vaccine from Pfizer, the country’s health minister said.
An exact timeline was not yet available, health minister Faisal Sultan told Reuters, but said the doses would arrive by the end of 2021, under an agreement the government has made with the manufacturer.
Nearly 13m doses of vaccine have been administered in the country of 220 million people so far, with about 3.5 million people fully vaccinated, according to the National Command Operation Center, which is overseeing the pandemic response.
The country faced initial vaccination hesitancy and a shortage of vaccine supply but it started a mass vaccination campaign late last month that is now open to all adults. It has relied heavily on China for vaccine supplies.
On 29 May, Pakistan received 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine through the Covax facility, but authorities have only administered those to people who are immunocompromised and not suitable for other vaccines.
Updated
If you fancy something to listen to this morning, can I recommend today’s episode of our Today in Focus podcast? In it, our health editor, Sarah Boseley, weighs up the race between vaccines and variants and explains why the end of the pandemic does not mean the end of Covid-19
She tells Anushka Asthana that this time around we are in a very different position with most adults now having had two vaccine jabs. However, there is still a prospect of a sharp rise in Covid cases and with it more hospital admissions and deaths.
You’ll also hear from Gill Tee and Debs Shilling, who have been organising the Black Deer festival, a celebration of Americana and country music. After the UK government’s delay to lifting restrictions, the event has had to be cancelled for the second successive year. The pair say that while they understand the seriousness of the new wave, they and those who had bought tickets are devastated.
Listen to it here: Today in Focus – Do we have to learn to live with Covid-19?
Just as the Covid-19 vaccine rollout began in earnest in the US, the Informed Consent Action Network (Ican) sent its subscribers a “legal update” on its war against employers and schools planning to require the shots.
An unspecified number of organizations had supposedly dropped their mandates – one just after Ican took them to court – and the Texas-based anti-vaccination nonprofit was looking for more plaintiffs.
“If you or anyone you know is being required by an employer or school to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, Ican is pleased to offer to support legal action on your behalf to challenge the requirement,” read the January email.
Ican was founded in 2016 by one of the loudest voices in the US anti-vaccine movement, Del Bigtree, who produced the widely discredited propaganda movie Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe. For the last year, the nonprofit has capitalised on fear surrounding supposed vaccine mandates, going on the offensive months before any lifesaving vaccines became available to the public. Now, as vaccine hesitancy persists, Ican’s legal blitz has fueled disinformation, using costly legal threats to deter schools and businesses from implementing vaccination requirements.
“If you have a limited budget to deal with litigation, it doesn’t matter if you might win at the supreme court level,” said Margaret Foster Riley, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. “The costs of that litigation are so existentially threatening that you’re not going to take the risk.”
Read more of Alexandra Villarreal’s report from Austin: Anti-vax group mounts legal blitz to sow disinformation against vaccinations
Updated
Associated Press report that a coronavirus outbreak in Fiji is rapidly growing, with 180 new cases reported on Tuesday.
The current outbreak began in April and has resulted in seven deaths and numerous restrictions, although so far the island nation has resisted a nationwide lockdown.
New Zealand foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta said this week it was providing an additional $10m New Zealand dollars (£5m) for Covid operations and food supplies in Fiji. New Zealand and Australia have also sent medical teams.
Fiji is home to 940,000 people, and its tourism-dependent economy had already been hard-hit by the pandemic before the latest outbreak. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Fiji has reported more than 2,200 cases and nine deaths.
Updated
Hancock: UK government 'working on' plan for quarantine-free travel for double-vaccinated
The UK’s health secretary Matt Hancock has been doing the morning media round, and he’s been suggesting that England is on track to re-open the economy on 19 July – and also hinted at an easing of international travel restrictions for those who have had two vaccination shots. PA report him telling Sky News:
Thankfully, because of the vaccination programme, we have been able to free up a huge number of the restrictions here at home. We are on track to deliver the Step 4, the further openings, on 19 July, which is good.
We are also looking to see how we can replace the protections that are currently there with the restrictions with protections that come from the vaccine, with respect to international travel as well. But it is more difficult freeing up international travel.
Hancock has said ministers were “working on” plans for quarantine-free travel for double-vaccinated Britons.
This hasn’t been clinically advised yet. We’re working on plans to essentially allow the vaccine to bring back some of the freedoms that have had to be restricted to keep people safe. After all, that’s the whole purpose of the vaccination programme, that’s why it’s so important that every adult goes out and gets the jab.
But don’t hold your breath and start booking yet. Asked if plans could be in place as soon as August, the health secretary replied: “We’ll get there when it’s safe to do so.”
Health Secretary @MattHancock tells @KayBurley that England is "on track" to reopen further on 19 July because of progress with the vaccine roll out, but said easing restrictions on international travel is "more difficult".
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 22, 2021
Latest on #COVID19: https://t.co/kJgnodSSOB #KayBurley pic.twitter.com/LC1zY2S0nd
Updated
A community in the Philippines has been raffling off huge sacks of rice in exchange for getting vaccinated against Covid, after finding it hard to persuade people to get their shots.
Twenty weekly winners who get inoculated in Sucat on the outskirts of the capital Manila have been taking home a 25kg sack of rice each.
Reuters report that local official Jeramel Mendoza said the initiative was targeting mainly poorer residents, who were not so keen on vaccinations.
“Initially, when we conducted our vaccination drive, there were very few people signing up. So we asked ourselves why?” he said. “Why are those rich people or those who live in exclusive villages able to lead the vaccinations, but our poorer sectors do not to join in or participate?”
Sucat village officials said since starting the initiative at the end of May, they have been administering their daily quota of vaccines of up to 2,000 doses, whereas before they were giving only about 400 doses a day.
“It’s a nice initiative and I feel safer after being vaccinated. I’m happy I got vaccinated while winning some rice,” said Almond Gregorio, a firefighter and holder of a winning raffle ticket.
Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte earlier this month appealed to the public to get vaccinated, after data showed the government was far behind on its immunisation targets. This week, he showed less patience, threatening in a televised address on Monday to jail people who refuse to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
About 2 million of the Philippines’ population of nearly 110m are fully inoculated against Covid so far, although the country has had difficulties securing vaccine supplies.
Updated
Good morning, it is Martin Belam taking over here in London. In the UK, Downing Street has denied the G7 summit is behind a rapid rise in Covid-19 cases in Cornwall.
Recent seven-day case rates have risen rapidly for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, increasing from 4.9 per 100,000 people on 3 June to 130.6 per 100,000 people on 16 June.
Outbreaks among students, as well as the impact of people travelling to and from Cornwall during half-term, are believed to have significantly contributed to the rise.
There have been significant outbreaks in Carbis Bay – where the G7 summit was held – as well as nearby St Ives, and Newquay West – where many delegates stayed.
Rates are currently high in Ponsanooth, Mabe Burnthouse and Constantine, where the surge has been linked to an outbreak at the Penryn campus shared by Exeter and Falmouth universities.
Andrew George, the former Lib Dem MP for St Ives who is now a councillor in Cornwall, said the government must publish its risk assessment for the summit, a request he said had been denied.
“The correlation between G7 and the tsunami of Covid-19 caseload in St Ives/Carbis Bay and Falmouth is undeniable,” he told PA Media.
Read more here: No 10 says G7 summit not to blame for rise in Cornwall’s Covid cases
Updated
Aakash Hassan:
At least three states in India have reported cases of Delta Plus, the most recent mutation of Delta variant, which dominated India during the deadly second wave of Covid-19.
Experts in India suggest the Delta Plus or AY.01 could evade both vaccine and infection immunity, because of a mutation known as K417N, originally discovered in the Beta variant in South Africa.
21 cases of this new variant have been reported in Maharashtra, while three cases were reported in southern Kerala and one case in Madhya Pradesh.
The Indian government acknowledged the emergence of this variant on 16 June. Dr VK Paul, a member of NITI Aayog, government public policy think tank, said that the strain was a “variant of interest”, but not yet a “variant of concern”.
Health officials in the state of Maharashtra warned last week that the Delta plus variant could trigger a third wave of infections predicting it could hit the state as early as the next two to four weeks if people did not abide Covid-appropriate behaviour.
The experts are still studying the variant and suggest that there is no evidence as of now to suggest that Delta Plus is more transmissible.
Updated
US average deaths fall below 300 for first time since March 2020
US deaths from Covid-19 have dipped below 300 a day for the first time since March last year during the first wave of the pandemic.
Data from federal sources also showed the drive to put shots in arms at home approaching an encouraging milestone: 150 million Americans fully vaccinated.
Joe Biden was however expected to fall short of his commitment to shipping 80m Covid-19 vaccine doses abroad by the end of June, because of regulatory and other hurdles.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters getting the shots shipped was proving to be “a Herculean logistical challenge” – which the administration has been unable to meet.
The US death toll from Covid-19 stands at more than 601,000. The worldwide count is close to 3.9m. The real figures in both cases are believed to be markedly higher:
Scotland to announce ‘life beyond level zero’
Nicola Sturgeon is due to set out what life in Scotland will look like under the lowest level of coronavirus restrictions, Press Association reports.
The First Minister is to make an announcement at Holyrood on Tuesday as part of the latest review of the route map out of lockdown.
She said last week it was “unlikely” that any area would see restrictions eased on 28 June - the date it had been hoped all of Scotland would move into Level 0 restrictions.
Ms Sturgeon previously said this move would likely be delayed by three weeks.
The Scottish Government will also publish a review on Tuesday of physical distancing requirements, along with a paper which Ms Sturgeon said would set out “what we hope life will look like beyond Level 0 - as we get to the point where we can lift all, or virtually all, of the remaining restrictions”.
This level, the lowest in Scotland’s five-tier system, is only currently in place in the island authorities of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, with all mainland areas having either Level 1 or Level 2 restrictions applied.
North Korea tells WHO it has detected no cases
North Korea has told the World Health Organization it tested more than 30,000 people for the coronavirus through June 10 but has yet to find a single infection, AP reports.
The WHO said in a monitoring report Tuesday that North Korea’s testing figures included 733 people who were tested during 4-10 June, of which 149 were with influenza-like illnesses or severe respiratory infections.
Experts widely doubt North Korea’s claim that it has not had a single case of the virus, given its poor health infrastructure and porous border with China, its major ally and economic lifeline.
Describing its anti-virus efforts as a “matter of national existence,” the North has banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and severely restricted cross-border traffic and trade. The self-imposed lockdown has caused further strain on an economy already battered by decades of mismanagement and crippling US.-led sanctions over the country’s nuclear weapons program.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a political conference last week called for officials to brace for prolonged Covid-19 restrictions, indicating that the country isn’t ready to open its borders anytime soon.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon is due to set out what life in Scotland will look like under the lowest level of coronavirus restrictions. Sturgeon is to make an announcement at Holyrood on Tuesday as part of the latest review of the route map out of lockdown.
Meanwhile North Korea has told the World Health Organization it tested more than 30,000 people for the coronavirus through June 10 but has yet to find a single infection. Experts widely doubt North Korea’s claim that it has not had a single case of the virus, given its poor health infrastructure and porous border with China, its major ally and economic lifeline.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- Phillipine president Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to jail anyone refusing to get the vaccine in a televised address when he expressed how “exasperated” he was by his own citizens.
- Venezuelan doctors said they are having to turn people away from appointments for second doses because they are running so low on vaccines.
- The US reached the milestone of dipping below 300 deaths linked to Covid-19 for the first time since March last year.
- The World Bank will work with the African Union to quickly deliver vaccines by helping to finance purchases under a new initiative. They hope the scheme will help reach 400 million people.
- The Biden administration is expected to fall short of the president’s commitment to shipping 80 million Covid-19 vaccine doses abroad by the end of June, as demand in the US plummets.
- Russian president Vladimir Putin warned that the coronavirus situation in some Russian regions is getting worse, as authorities began promoting the idea of revaccination in an effort to stem new cases.
- India gave out a record 8.3 million vaccine doses today under a federal campaign to inoculate all adults for free after weeks of criticism that a chaotic rollout had worsened a second wave that killed hundreds of thousands.
- The UAE has quietly launched vaccine tourism, with the emirate of Abu Dhabi offering visitors free jabs after approving the inoculation of all those with visas issued by its authorities.
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