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Our full story on New York’s lottery incentive:
New Yorkers could win up to $5m from the New York state lottery if they get vaccinated against Covid-19 at a state-run clinic, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday.
The new incentive, called the “Vax & Scratch”, will allow those who get vaccinated to receive a $20 lottery ticket for the $5m Mega Multiplier Lottery.
Thirteen winners will get a monetary prize ranging from $20 to $5m.
New York’s initiative is one of many incentives that have been recently launched across the US as officials search for new ways to boost the dwindling demand for Covid-19 vaccines:
Brazil has detected its first six cases of the variant first detected in India, in crew members who arrived aboard a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship, officials said on Thursday.
Tests “identified the B.1.617.2 variant of the Covid-19 virus in samples taken from crew of the MV Shandong Da Zhi,” which arrived from South Africa, the health ministry for the northeastern state of Maranhao said in a statement.
“In all, 15 crew members tested positive for Covid-19 and nine negative. Of the six samples with the highest viral load sent for genetic sequencing, all came back positive for B.1.617.2.”
The 360-meter ore carrier is currently in quarantine, anchored off Brazil’s coast. Brazilian health officials have instructed the crew to isolate themselves in their cabins. But three with serious symptoms were taken ashore for treatment. Two have since returned to the ship, while one is in intensive care in the state capital, Sao Luis, the ministry said.
“At this point, no local transmission of the Indian variant has been identified,” it said. All health professionals who have had direct or indirect contact with the patients are being tested and monitored, it added. “We are going to fully trace everyone, around 100 people in all,” state health secretary Carlos Lula told journalists. “Not everyone had contact with them, but we have to be sure.”
Brazil is already struggling with one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks of Covid-19 - fueled in part, experts say, by the so-called Brazilian variant, which emerged around the Amazon rainforest city of Manaus in November and can re-infect people who have had the original strain of the virus.
Like that lineage, the mutation first spotted in India has been dubbed a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization. Scientists say both may be more dangerous than the original strain.
Since the Indian variant was first reported in October 2020, Covid-19 has battered India, which has now reported nearly 290,000 deaths and more than 25 million infections in all. The variant has been detected in more than 40 countries.
Brazil has meanwhile recorded more than 440,000 Covid-19 deaths and 15 million infections. Only the United States has suffered more deaths and infections in the pandemic than the two countries.
“You gotta get poked to win”, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday, unveiling a $5m lottery prize incentive for New Yorkers who get their first Covid-19 vaccination shots next week.
The “Vax & Scratch” program provides free state lottery scratch-off tickets to New Yorkers age 18 and older who get a first dose of the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech shot or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine from 24 to 28 May.
“As vaccination rates slow across the state, we’re going to have to get creative to put even more shots in arms,” Cuomo said in a statement. “The more New Yorkers we get vaccinated, the faster we can return to a new normal.”
Cuomo said 63% of adult New Yorkers and 51% of all New Yorkers have received at least one dose of vaccine, with 54% of adult New Yorkers and 43% of all New Yorkers now fully vaccinated.
The scratch-off lottery tickets being used in the promotion normally sell for $20 and winners stand to take home anywhere from $20 to the grand prize of $5m.
The ticket giveaway program is being offered at 10 mass vaccinations sites open for both walk-ins and appointments in regions across the state, including in New York City, Long Island, Mid-Hudson, Central New York, Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley and Western New York.
It was announced a week after Ohio governor Mike DeWine detailed his “Vax-a-Million” promotion that will give a $1 million prize each week for five weeks in a lottery for residents age 18 and older who have gotten at least one coronavirus inoculation.
The first winner will be revealed on 26 May, and then winners will be announced each Wednesday until 23 June.
A related lottery drawing is open to vaccinated Ohioans age 12 to 17, with five winners each landing a full four-year scholarship to an Ohio state university. With the total attendance cost for an in-state student at more than $24,000 each year, according to the university website, each four-year scholarship is worth more than $96,000.
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Ontario expects to permit outdoor gatherings of up to 10 people and allow non-essential retail to operate at 15% capacity starting the week of 14 June, contingent on certain vaccination rates being met, the premier announced on Thursday.
Canada’s most populous province has been under lockdown since early April when a third wave of the coronavirus threatened to overwhelm hospital capacity.
The reopening will be confirmed closer to the date, the premier Doug Ford said at a briefing in Toronto. The province will reopen outdoor amenities - including playgrounds, basketball courts and golf courses - as of Saturday.
Covid-19 cases have been falling steadily in Ontario, and new modelling from the government released earlier on Thursday showed that if restrictions were maintained until mid-June, cases would likely remain under control.
“We’re now in a position to look at a slow and measured reopening of the province,” Ford said. “This is being done slowly and with extreme caution.”
Step one of a three-step reopening will also include outdoor dining with up to four people per table, a government release said.
Entering step one will require 60% of eligible Ontario adults to have received at least one vaccine dose. Each step will last for at least 21 days, the release said.
The plan is largely in step with what public health officials recommended when explaining the new case modelling.
Ford’s government took heavy criticism from all sides for reopening too soon in March, which resulted in the punishing third wave and overwhelmed the province’s healthcare systems.
“The direction of the pandemic has turned and if we’re careful and cautious, we can maintain this momentum,” Dr Steini Brown, co-chair of Ontario’s Covid-19 science advisory table, said at a briefing before Ford’s announcement.
BioNTech’s chief executive Uğur Şahin said on Thursday the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with Pfizer Inc is expected to be 70% to 75% effective in protecting against infections caused by the coronavirus variant first detected in India, Reuters reports.
“So far we’ve had the chance to test our vaccine against more than 30 variants of the virus. It has proven effective against mutations so far,” said Şahin in televised comments.
Tests this week have focused on the India variant, he said. “We expect [our vaccine] to protect against infections by 70% to 75%,” he said after virtually attending the Turkish government’s science council meeting.
Since the concerning variant, known as B.1.617.2, was first identified in India, it has ravaged that country and spread to at least 26 nations out of the 53 in the World Health Organization’s European Region, the WHO said.
The WHO’s regional director said on Thursday vaccines being deployed in Europe, including the Pfizer/BioNTech shot, appear able to protect against circulating virus variants that have caused concern because they are more easily transmitted.
A BioNTech spokeswoman said lab tests show that when the blood of vaccinated people is exposed to the Indian variant, 25% to 30% fewer antibodies were binding to the virus than would have been the case with the original coronavirus.
That suggests protection against the variant, whether symptomatic or not, is a bit lower but still 70% to 75%. It is about 95% effective against the original version of the virus.
G20 leaders to back Covid-19 vaccine voluntary licensing but no patent waiver
Leaders of the world’s largest economies will adopt on Friday a declaration recommending voluntary actions to boost Covid-19 vaccine production, snubbing a push from the US and other nations on patent waivers, the final text shows.
Several G20 leaders will speak at the summit, one of this year’s major events to coordinate global actions against the pandemic. The US president Joe Biden is not listed among the speakers, with vice-president Kamala Harris representing at the meeting, an EU Commission spokesman said. The White House did not immediately comment.
The EU executive, which co-hosts the summit with the Italian government, is set to announce it will set up three manufacturing hubs in Africa this year to boost long-term production of vaccines, one EU official told Reuters.
The official said drugmakers are also set to announce on Friday they will provide large supplies of at-cost Covid-19 vaccines to poor nations this year to try to redress a global imbalance.
Among the drugmakers expected to announce doses for poorer nations are vaccine partners Pfizer and BioNTech , the official said, adding that at least two other companies are expected to make announcements on Friday.
It is not clear whether the announcements will concern new doses or vaccines already pledged. BioNTech declined to comment and Pfizer was not immediately available to comment.
The draft declaration, whose final version has been seen by Reuters, does not mention vaccine patent waivers as a tool to address the current shortages of jabs in poorer nations.
The Biden administration earlier in May joined India, South Africa and many other developing countries in calling for a temporary waiver of patents for Covid-19 vaccines, in the hope that would boost production and allow for a more equitable distribution of shots across the world.
EU nations and other vaccine-making countries have opposed the patent waiver and urged instead the removal of US trade barriers that they consider the main bottleneck preventing a ramping up of global vaccine production.
The draft document recommends as short-term options to boost output “voluntary licensing agreements of intellectual property, voluntary technology and know-how transfers, and patent pooling on mutually-agreed terms.” It also says solutions should be found within existing global agreements that do not include patent waivers.
Leaders are also set to recognize “the importance of addressing the ACT-A funding gap,” the text says, referring to the ACT-Accelerator, a tool of the World Health Organization (WHO) to distribute Covid-19 vaccines, drugs and tests across the world.
An earlier version of the conclusions had a commitment to fully fund the program, which is still $19 billion short for achieving its goals.
Leaders say that one option to quickly help poorer nations is sharing vaccines that wealthy countries have already purchased, but there are no firm commitments in the final text.
The WHO co-led COVAX program, which is dedicated to equitable global vaccine distribution, is mentioned as one option for providing donated doses to countries. A spokeswoman for Gavi, a vaccine alliance that co-leads COVAX, said the best way to guarantee fair distribution of vaccines across the world is through “sharing doses with COVAX, along with ensuring a fully-funded” program.
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Good evening from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Early evening summary
Here is a quick recap of all the main Covid updates from around the world:
- Northern Ireland’s devolved government has agreed to add Portugal, Israel and Gibraltar to its “Green list” for international travel, according to a letter to lawmakers seen by Reuters.
- The EU has reached a deal on Covid certificates designed to open up tourism across the bloc this summer, the centre-right European People’s Party said.
- Two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are around 85% to 90% effective against symptomatic disease, Public Health England analysis indicates.
- Canada announced it is renewing non-essential travel restrictions along the US border until 21 June.
- Japanese regulators recommended the approval of Covid vaccines developed by Moderna Inc and AstraZeneca PLC.
- Waiving intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines will not be enough to close the huge supply gap between rich and poor countries, the head of the World Trade Organization warned.
- South Korea has said it will conduct a clinical trial that mixes Covid vaccine doses developed by AstraZeneca Plc with those from Pfizer Inc and others
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Dogs are better at detecting Covid-19 in humans than many fast lateral flow tests, a French study found.
Portugal and Israel to be added to Northern Ireland's green list
Northern Ireland’s devolved government has agreed to add Portugal, Israel and Gibraltar to its “Green list” for international travel, according to a letter to lawmakers seen by Reuters.
Those travelling to countries on the green list will have to take two Covid-19 tests- one before departure and one within two days of returning.
Travellers from Portugal and Israel will also need a test on day eight after returning.
EU reaches deal on Covid passes to open summer travel
The EU has reached a deal on Covid certificates designed to open up tourism across the 27-nation bloc this summer, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) said.
The certificate will take the form of a QR code on a smartphone or paper, letting authorities determine the status of a visitor based on records in their home EU country.
It will show if a person had received a vaccine, had a recent negative test or had immunity based on recovery, Reuters reports.
Lawmakers had wanted countries to commit to free testing for the certificate and said that no EU country should set additional quarantine requirements.
Germany and Sweden were among those resisting, EU officials said, though EU countries in general are reluctant to give up their final say on border controls.
In the end, EU countries agreed to refrain from imposing additional restrictions, such as testing or quarantines, unless considered necessary on public health grounds, the EPP said in a statement.
Malta’s government has said it will spend a total of €50m euros ($61.12m) to issue vouchers worth €100 to every resident aged over 16 to kick-start consumer spending after pandemic, Reuters reports.
Following a similar scheme on the island last summer, the economy minister, Silvio Schembri, said vouchers worth €60 would be available to spend in restaurants and tourist establishments, and €40 for shops and other services.
Some 25,000 businesses are eligible to receive payment by vouchers.
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In France, the number of people in intensive care with coronavirus has fallen further by 93 to 3,769 people, while the overall number of Covid patients dropped by nearly 600 to 20,750.
The number of new deaths from Covid in hospitals fell to 133, Reuters reports.
Drugmakers are to announce on Friday they will provide large new supplies of at-cost Covid vaccines to poor nations this year to try and redress the global imbalance, a EU official familiar with the matter said.
Coinciding with a global health summit hosted by Italy and the EU, the bloc will also announce it is setting up three manufacturing hubs in Africa from next year to boost long-term production of vaccines, Reuters reports.
This has been shared by New York governor Andrew Cuomo:
Today's update on the numbers:
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) May 20, 2021
Total COVID hospitalizations are at 1,490.
Of the 186,078 tests reported yesterday, 1,583 were positive (0.85% of total).
Sadly, there were 18 fatalities. pic.twitter.com/iPK0HkovXT
French prime minister, Jean Castex, said France would make Covid-19 vaccinations available to everyone over 18 from 31 May, two weeks earlier than the initially planned date of 15 June, Reuters reports.
The government has recently relaxed conditions and age limits for getting the vaccine in order to stay on track to meet its vaccination targets.
On Wednesday, France had already given more than 21 million people, or 32% of the total population and 41% of the adult population a first injection and and more than 9 million people have also received a second shot.
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The EU will announce that it will fund the setting up of three vaccine manufacturing hubs in Africa on Friday, Reuters reports.
Reuters also reported an EU official as saying that drugmakers would announce on Friday plans to supply a large number of Covid-19 vaccines to poorer nations this year at cost or low cost.
Updated
Italy reported 164 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday against 149 the day before, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 5,741 from 5,506, Reuters reports.
Italy has registered 124,810 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 4.18 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 10,383 on Thursday, down from 11,018 a day earlier.
There were 69 new admissions to intensive care units, edging down from 70 on Wednesday. The total number of intensive care patients decreased to 1,544 from a previous 1,643.
Some 251,037 tests for COVID-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 287,256, the health ministry said.
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India’s Bharat Biotech on Thursday said it would ramp up the production of its Covid-19 vaccine by an additional 200 million doses per year, Reuters reports.
The additional doses of the vaccine, called Covaxin locally, would be manufactured at the company’s plant in Gujarat and would be available by the fourth quarter of 2021.
The Italian government has approved a €40bn (£34bn) financial package to help businesses and households hit by the coronavirus restrictions as well as support young people in buying their first home.
The prime minister, Mario Draghi, said the aid decree was slightly different from previous ones “because it looks to the future”.
He told a press conference that the stimulus would help Italy’s economy to recover alongside the accelerated vaccination programme and as the coronavirus situation improves.
“If the pandemic situation continues to improve, I hope there will no longer be a need for decrees like this later this year,” he added.
About €17bn of the funds will go to companies or self-employed people, while a further €9bn will be allocated to provide credit lines for struggling businesses and €4bn will go to workers in sectors that have been worst hit by the pandemic. Another €3.34bn will be allocated to the tourism sector. Tax incentives will also be provided to businesses who do not fire workers once a ban on layoffs is lifted at the end of June.
The package is expected to push Italy’s expected deficit to about 12% of GDP and public debt to 160% of GDP in 2021, said Wolfango Piccoli, the co-president of the London-based research company, Teneo Holdings.
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Brazilian pharmaceutical company União Quimica has completed production of its first batch of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine using active ingredients and technology supplied by Russia, Reuters reports.
The vaccine will be exported to neighbouring countries in South America, since Brazil has not yet approved the Russian shot for domestic use.
Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, which developed the vaccine, said it had seen to quality control of the vaccine ingredients, which were put into vials and packaged for shipping – a process known as fill and finish – at the União Quimica plant in Guarulhos, just outside the city of São Paulo.
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Two doses of AstraZeneca jab 85%-90% effective against symptomatic disease
Two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are around 85% to 90% effective against symptomatic disease, Reuters reports.
Public Health England (PHE) analysis of data from the rollout of the shot suggested that the estimated effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine, invented at the University of Oxford, was 89% compared to unvaccinated people. This compares with 90% for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
PHE is awaiting further data to publish its findings in a journal.
PHE also said there was a “small reduction in vaccine effectiveness” from 10 weeks after the first dose of the Pfizer shot before the second shot was given. Britain extended the gap between doses to 12 weeks, though Pfizer warned there was a lack of evidence of its efficacy outside the three-week gap used in trials. Last week, Britain cut the gap between doses down to 8 weeks for the over 50s.
Rachel Hall here taking over from Yohannes Lowe. Please do send over any thoughts, tips and ideas to rachel.hall@theguardian.com
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Canada to renew non-essential travel restrictions along US border
Canada has said it is renewing non-essential travel restrictions along the US border until 21 June.
Non-essential travel restrictions have been in place between the two countries since 21 March.
On Tuesday, Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau suggested that easing social curbs more generally would be dependent on vaccination rates and consistently low community transmission of the virus.
We are extending travel restrictions on non-essential international travel and with the United States until June 21st, 2021. We will continue to base our decisions on the best public health advice available to keep Canadians safe from #COVID19.
— Bill Blair (@BillBlair) May 20, 2021
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This has been shared by Dave Chokshi, an American physician and public health official serving as health commissioner of New York City:
📣 FOUR MILLION NEW YORKERS have received at least one dose of the #COVID19 vaccine. This shows tremendous progress in our fight against this virus. Thank you to all the New Yorkers who rolled up their sleeves to get us to this point! pic.twitter.com/UN05IuxHE6
— Commissioner Dave A. Chokshi, MD (@NYCHealthCommr) May 20, 2021
Kazakhstan launches vaccination status app to limit Covid spread
Kazakhstan is rolling out an app which it hopes will limit the spread of Covid-19 by restricting people’s access to places such as bars, cinemas and airports based on their vaccination and infection risk status.
The Ashyq (Open) app assigns each user a red, yellow, green or blue status based on whether they have been vaccinated, or been in contact with an infected person, Reuters reports.
Users must scan a QR code with the app before entering a public place.
The airport of the Central Asian nation’s biggest city, Almaty, will start using it from Friday after a few days of tests.
The app is mandatory for cinemas and theatres and its deployment allows restaurants and bars to stay open until 2am instead of closing at 10pm.
Those with red or yellow status, which is assigned to those currently infected with Covid-19 or who have been in contact with a positive case, will not be able to enter most areas.
Blue status individuals are those with no sign of contact with a suspected case and they have almost full access to sites. Green status is temporarily assigned to those who have had a negative PCR test, or permanently assigned after vaccination.
Almost 2 million of Kazakhstan’s 19 million population have received a first dose of the vaccine – mostly Russia-developed Sputnik V – and more than 800,000 have received both jabs.
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This has been shared by Edouard Mathieu, head of data at Our World in Data:
Our data is updated: https://t.co/03pQ8rRViP
— Edouard Mathieu (@redouad) May 20, 2021
Share of people with at least 1 dose:
🇮🇱 Israel 63%
🇲🇳 Mongolia 55%
🇬🇧 UK 54%
🇦🇪 UAE 51%
🇧🇭 Bahrain 51%
🇭🇺 Hungary 50%
🇨🇱 Chile 49%
🇺🇸 US 48%
🇨🇦 Canada 48%
🇶🇦 Qatar 43%
🇺🇾 Uruguay 43%
🇫🇮 Finland 39%
🇩🇪 Germany 38%
🇧🇪 Belgium 35% pic.twitter.com/BBhjW9QLdA
Reuters reports:
France will bring forward the date from which all people over 18 can get vaccinated against Covid-19 from the originally planned date of 15 June, a government source said on Thursday.
The source said that French prime minister, Jean Castex, will announce the new date during a visit to a vaccination centre later on Thursday.
The government has recently relaxed conditions and age limits for getting the vaccine in order to remain on track to meeting its vaccination targets.
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Nicaragua has approved Russia’s single-dose Sputnik Light Covid vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), responsible for marketing Russian vaccines abroad, has said.
Developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, the slimmed-down vaccine, which the RDIF said is 79.4% effective against Covid-19 and costs less than $10 a dose, has been earmarked for export.
It has been billed as a way to help vaccine supplies go further in countries with high infection rates, Reuters notes.
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Japan health panel approves Moderna and AZ vaccines
Japanese regulators recommended the approval of Covid vaccines developed by Moderna Inc and AstraZeneca PLC on Thursday, Reuters reports.
The recommendations by a health ministry panel precede official approval by the government as early as Friday, said Japan’s health minister, Norihisa Tamura.
Tamura likened the approval of the new vaccines to building extra railway tracks, telling reporters: “It means that the vaccination roll-out will be smoother.”
Supplies of the Moderna doses have already been imported and are planned for use at mass vaccination centres in Tokyo and Osaka from next week.
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A district of northern Thailand has launched a raffle campaign for its vaccinated residents to win a live cow each week for the rest of the year, in an attempt to boost the local vaccination drive.
From next month, one lucky vaccinated villager in the Mae Chaem district of Chiang Mai province will be randomly chosen every week to win a young cow worth about 10,000 baht ($318.78), Reuters reports.
The campaign, set to run for 24 weeks, has been met with enthusiasm in the town of 43,000 since it was announced earlier this week.
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Reuters reports:
India’s output of Covid-19 shots for August-December is likely to be lower than the government’s public estimate, according to internal projections shared with Reuters by two sources.
Lower-than-expected production could delay India’s plans to vaccinate all its adults this year, amid fears the country will face another surge of coronavirus infections in the winter.
India’s ongoing second wave, the world’s worst since the pandemic began, has overwhelmed its health system.
The government last week publicly estimated 1.46bn doses of its three approved shots – AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and Covaxin – would be made between August and December.
Production of the AstraZeneca vaccine, of which the Serum Institute of India is the biggest maker in the world, is expected to reach 100-110m doses a month from July, and stay at that level for the foreseeable future, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
That would be at least 200m doses less than the government’s public forecast of 750m AstraZeneca doses for the last five months of the year, a 27% shortfall.
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Almost 80,000 Olympic officials, journalists and support staff will descend on Tokyo in July, according to media reports in Japan, as organisers press ahead with plans to hold the Games despite overwhelming public opposition in the host country.
An estimated 79,000 people will arrive from overseas to attend Tokyo 2020, the Kyodo news agency and Nikkei business newspaper said on Thursday, citing unnamed sources.
That is about half the number expected before the coronavirus pandemic forced the Games’ postponement last year, and comes after organisers asked national Olympic committees and sports federations to reduce the size of their delegations.
Justin McCurry, the Guardian’s Tokyo correspondent, has the full story here:
According to Reuters, the EU health commissioner has said she is looking towards the summer with optimism, as vaccinations in the bloc gather pace.
Following a video conference of EU health ministers, Stella Kyriakides told a news conference:
Over 20 million vaccinations are taking place every week in the EU, compared to a few hundred thousand per week in January.
“We can now look ahead with more confidence and also look towards the summer with cautious optimism,” she added, noting that 40% of the EU’s adult population had received at least one dose of vaccine, and 17% were fully vaccinated.
Updated
Sweden registered 3,411 new Covid cases on Thursday, health agency statistics indicated, continuing a downward trend in new infections evident in recent weeks.
The country of 10 million people registered 2 new deaths, taking the total to 14,351, Reuters reports.
Updated
WTO chief: vaccine patent waiver not enough to close supply gap
Waiving intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines will not be enough to close the huge supply gap between rich and poor countries, the head of the World Trade Organization has warned.
South Africa and India have urged fellow WTO members to waive IP rights on vaccines to boost production, Reuters reports.
Poorer countries that make up half the world’s population have received just 17% of doses, a situation the World Health Organization head has labelled “vaccine apartheid”.
Last week, US President Joe Biden said he supported the waiver idea, but the EU was among opponents who said it will not increase output.
Speaking to the European parliament on Thursday, WTO director-general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said it was clear that an IP waiver alone would not be enough.
“To have solved the unacceptable problem of inequity of access to vaccines, we have to be holistic. It’s not one or the other,” she said, adding this could not drag out for years.
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South Korea to conduct Covid vaccine mixing trial
South Korea has said it will conduct a clinical trial that mixes Covid vaccine doses developed by AstraZeneca Plc with those from Pfizer Inc and others, Reuters reports.
It comes as a growing number of countries consider using different coronavirus vaccines for first and second doses amid supply delays and safety concerns that have slowed vaccination efforts.
A health official said the trial would include about 500 military personnel who were vaccinated with a first dose of AstraZeneca’s shot.
The study will examine T cells – immune cells that can destroy virus-infected cells – and neutralising antibodies in those who were given a combination of doses, the health official told reporters.
Updated
Dogs can better detect Covid in humans than lateral flow tests - study
Dogs are better at detecting Covid-19 in humans than many fast lateral flow tests (LFTs), according to a French study which could see canines more widely deployed for mass virus screening in crowded places including airports.
The trial, conducted in March and April by France’s national veterinary school and the clinical research unit of Paris’s Necker-Cochin hospital, showed dogs were able to detect the presence of the virus with 97% accuracy.
The dogs were also 91% correct in identifying negative samples, the study showed. A recent review of 64 studies found LFTs correctly identify on average 72% of people infected with the virus who have symptoms, and 58% who do not.
“These results are scientific confirmation of dogs’ capacity to detect the olfactory signature of Covid-19,” the Paris hospital board said, adding that the study – which is due to be published in a scientific review – was the first of its kind.
Jon Henley, the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, has the latest here:
Updated
Reuters reports:
India has ordered tighter surveillance of a rare fungal disease hitting Covid-19 patients, officials said on Thursday, piling pressure on hospitals struggling with the world’s highest number of daily infections of the novel coronavirus.
Mucormycosis, or “black fungus”, usually infects people whose immune system has been compromised, causing blackening or discolouration over the nose, blurred or double vision, chest pain, breathing difficulties and coughing blood.
Doctors believe that the use of steroids to treat severe Covid-19 could be causing the rash of cases because those drugs reduce immunity and push up sugar levels.
The health secretary, Lav Agarwal, said in a letter to state governments that mucormycosis had emerged as a new challenge for Covid-19 patients on steroid therapy and those with pre-existing diabetes.
“This fungal infection is leading to prolonged morbidity and mortality among Covid-19 patients,” he said in the letter reviewed by Reuters on Thursday.
He gave no numbers of the mucormycosis cases nationwide but Maharashtra, one of the states worst hit in the second wave of coronavirus infections, has reported 1,500 cases.
Updated
Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, has tested negative for Covid-19 after a worker at her residence tested positive, the presidential office has confirmed.
“The president is healthy and safe,” it said.
Taiwan is dealing with a spike in domestic Covid infections, Reuters notes.
Updated
Pfizer Inc and its German partner, BioNTech SE, have said they will supply Turkey with 60m additional doses of their Covid vaccine as part of an agreement that includes the option for an extra 30m doses, Reuters reports.
This latest pact follows a deal in December when the companies agreed to supply Turkey with 30m doses of the two-dose vaccine.
Updated
Canada is poised to overtake the US in the proportion of population with one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, following early delays in its rollout. But Canada’s success in quickly vaccinating residents has raised questions over what more it can be doing as the pandemic persists in poorer nations.
For months, Canada has trailed its neighbour in vaccination rates, prompting envy and frustration among residents. In March, the US was vaccinating at a rate three times that of Canada.
Canada’s initial rollout was hampered by limited supply and confusion: in December, officials in Ontario, the country’s most populous province, apologised for shutting down vaccine clinics for the holidays.
But with nearly 47% of its population covered by a single dose and new shipments arriving, the rollout has picked up speed.
You can read the full story by my colleague Leyland Cecco here:
Updated
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…
- WHO’s Europe chief has said that the currently authorised vaccines on the continent are effective against all known Covid-19 variants.
- But Hans Kluge warned: “Right now, in the face of a continued threat and new uncertainty, we need to continue to exercise caution, and rethink or avoid international travel,” Hans Kluge said, adding that “pockets of increasing transmission” on the continent could quickly spread.
- The European commission has said in a statement that it has signed a third contract with pharmaceutical companies BioNTech and Pfizer for an additional 1.8bn doses of Covid vaccine.
- The EU says the deal “will allow for the purchase of 900m doses of the current vaccine and of a vaccine adapted to variants, with the option to purchase an additional 900m doses”. Hungary has opted out.
- The latest data from India shows “a glimmer of hope”. The country recorded 276,110 new cases of Covid and 3,874 deaths in the previous 24 hours – those numbers are both dipping slightly. Data also shows the country’s daily recoveries have trumped the tally of daily cases for the seventh straight day.
- Taiwan has announced one new death and 286 new cases of Covid-19 today.
- China said it was providing Covid-19 vaccines to nearly 40 African countries. The vaccines were donated or sold at “favourable prices”, foreign ministry official, Wu Peng, told reporters.
- Singapore has ordered Facebook and Twitter to carry a correction notice to users of the social media platforms in the country over what it says is a false statement about a new virus variant originating in Singapore.
- Ukraine’s parliament has appointed Viktor Lyashko as the new health minister, urging him to speed up vaccinations against Covid-19.
- Britain’s Prince William has said he has received his first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
- The International Olympic Committee has tried to reassure an anxious Japan that the Tokyo Olympics would be safe for athletes as well as the host community, amid mounting opposition to the Games and fears it will fuel a spike in Covid cases.
- Profits from Covid-19 jabs have helped at least nine people become billionaires, a campaign group said, calling for an end to pharmaceutical corporations’ “monopoly control” on vaccine technology.
That’s your lot from me, Martin Belam. I’m off to do the Thursday quiz. Yohannes Lowe will be with you shortly to continue bringing you the latest coronavirus news from around the globe. Andrew Sparrow has our UK Covid live blog.
Updated
WHO Europe chief: authorised vaccines effective against all variants of concern
Progress against the coronavirus pandemic remains “fragile” and international travel should be avoided, the World Health Organization’s Europe director warned on Thursday, but stressed that authorised vaccines do work against variants of concern.
“Right now, in the face of a continued threat and new uncertainty, we need to continue to exercise caution, and rethink or avoid international travel,” Hans Kluge said, adding that “pockets of increasing transmission” on the continent could quickly spread.
The so-called India variant, which may be more transmissible, has now been identified in at least 26 of the 53 countries in the WHO Europe region, Kluge said during his weekly press conference.
But, AFP report, he said that authorised vaccines were effective against the new strain.
“All Covid-19 virus variants that have emerged so far do respond to the available, approved vaccines,” Kluge said, adding that all Covid-19 variants can be controlled with the same public health and social measures used until now.
So far only 23% of people in the region have received a vaccine dose, with just 11% having had both doses, Kluge said, as he warned citizens to continue to exercise caution.
“Vaccines may be a light at the end of the tunnel, but we cannot be blinded by that light,” he said.
Updated
Uki Goñi reports for us from Buenos Aires:
With both the Brazilian and UK variants circulating widely in Argentina, the patients now being seen by intensive care doctor Vanina Edul at the Fernández public hospital in Buenos Aires are dying faster, and younger: one recent victim was just 42 when he died.
“I am seeing people die in less than a week – young patients unresponsive to treatment. You administer oxygen, do all the mechanics – turn them face down, face up – but it doesn’t work. Then there are other patients whose oxygenation level is not so bad – but they die anyway,” Edul says.
A devastating second wave of Covid cases has caught Argentina off guard, with relaxed restrictions and a low vaccination rate. Cases have risen from a daily total of about 5,000 in early March to a record 35,000 this week, while deaths surged from 112 at the start of March to a record 744 on Tuesday. On Wednesday daily contagions set a new record, just under 40,000 cases, while deaths dropped to 494.
The figures put the country third in daily cases after India and Brazil, and fourth in Covid deaths, after India, Brazil and the US.
Relative to population, Argentina now has the highest number of Covid deaths in the world, with 16.46 Covid fatalities per million, far exceeding its giant neighbour Brazil, which saw 11.82 per million.
Read more from Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires here: ‘People die in less than a week’: Covid wave catches Argentina off-guard
Updated
WHO Europe says authorised vaccines effective against all Covid variants
We’ll have more on this in due course, but there’s a briefing this morning from the World Health Organization about the situation in Europe, and one of the top lines to emerge is the confirmation that the currently authorised vaccines on the continent are said to be effective against all known Covid-19 variants.
#BREAKING Authorised vaccines effective against all known Covid-19 variants: WHO Europe chief pic.twitter.com/Y74uEj5pM9
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 20, 2021
Updated
Our community team are looking to speak to people in the UK and elsewhere who have been affected by the B.1.617.2 variant that originated in India. You can find the details on how to get in touch here:
Regular readers will know that Russia regularly publishes almost exactly the same number of official new Covid cases each day – always within a range of around 7,000 to 9,000ish. It’s a little on the high side today, with Reuters quoting official figures saying there were 9,232 new cases, with 3,312 in the capital Moscow.
The country also reported another 396 deaths, raising the official toll to 117,361. The federal statistics agency maintains separate figures, which put the nation’s death toll so far in excess of 250,000.
EU signs on for another 1.8 billion doses of BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine
The European Commission has said in a statement that it has signed a third contract with pharmaceutical companies BioNTech and Pfizer for an additional 1.8bn doses of Covid vaccine.
The contract requires that the vaccine production is based in the EU and that essential components are sourced from the EU, Reuters reports. The EU says the deal “will allow for the purchase of 900m doses of the current vaccine and of a vaccine adapted to variants, with the option to purchase an additional 900m doses.”
There’s a slight dig at the reliability of AstraZeneca as a supplier in the statement, which says: “Thanks to the well-established cooperation with the companies under the current contracts and arrangements put in place, timely deliveries of the doses are ensured.”
The EU is currently in a legal dispute with AstraZeneca as the manufacturer has failed to deliver the promised number of doses so far.
There’s also a nod to vaccine equity, with the statement saying: “The possibility for member states to resell or donate doses to countries in need outside the EU or through the Covax facility has been reinforced, contributing to a global and fair access to the vaccine across the world.”
Updated
Avik Roy at the Hindustan Times says the latest data from India shows “a glimmer of hope”. India recorded 276,110 new cases of Covid and 3,874 deaths in the previous 24 hours.
Those numbers are both dipping. But crucially, Roy notes: “The data released by the health ministry also shows the country’s daily recoveries have trumped the tally of daily cases for the seventh straight day.”
Andrew Sparrow has launched our UK Covid live blog for the day – you can follow the latest UK developments with him.
I’ll be continuing with the top global lines here.
A quick Reuters snap here that Ukraine’s parliament has appointed Viktor Lyashko as the new health minister, urging him to speed up vaccinations against Covid-19.
Lyashko was a deputy health minister and replaces Maksym Stepanov, who was fired this week after being accused of failing to supply adequate vaccine doses to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
“Overcoming coronavirus disease is my number one priority. We will do everything so that Ukrainians can be vaccinated, work and travel,” Lyashko told the parliament. Setting up domestic manufacturing of vaccines would be a priority, he said.
Updated
China said it is providing Covid-19 vaccines to nearly 40 African countries. The vaccines were donated or sold at “favourable prices”, foreign ministry official Wu Peng told reporters.
Wu compared China’s outreach to the actions of “some countries that have said they have to wait for their own people to finish the vaccination before they could supply the vaccines to foreign countries”, in an apparent dig at the US.
“We believe that it is, of course, necessary to ensure that the Chinese people get vaccinated as soon as possible, but for other countries in need, we also try our best to provide vaccine help,” said Wu, who is director of the ministry’s Africa department.
Associated Press reports China has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccines to more than 45 countries. Four of China’s many vaccine makers claim they are able to produce at least 2.6bn doses this year alone.
Egypt will start locally producing China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine in June, with Sinovac enabling the Egyptian side to obtain the expertise and technical assistance to produce the vaccine, giving the licence to manufacture and pack the vaccine in Egypt.
“Aid alone cannot solve Africa’s vaccine issues. We must support local manufacturing of vaccines in Africa, even though this is difficult due to [low] levels of industrialisation,” Wu said.
Updated
Shapps: next review of international travel 'green list' in first week of June
Grant Shapps has been the UK minister doing the rounds on the media this morning – mostly talking about proposed rail reform, but with a healthy dose of questions about international travel.
In his most recent appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Today he said he wanted to see more countries added to the “green list” for travel.
He attempted to clarify the confusion spread by ministers earlier this week, saying: “The amber list and the red list are not for holidaymakers, that’s not the purpose of those lists at this time.
“We just think that after a year of lockdowns in this country, of people coming forward in record numbers to get their vaccines, we do not want to be in a position of taking risks at this stage about our unlock.”
Asked if he was pushing for the green list to be extended he said: “Of course. The reason for that is we have ended up getting way ahead in terms of our vaccination programme in this country and we are just having to wait for other countries to catch up with us.
“That’s going to gradually happen, obviously, you can see it’s happening, so that list should expand.”
Shapps said decisions on expanding the green list would depend on data showing the state of the pandemic in the various countries.
“We are reviewing this all the time, every three weeks, the next review is in the first week of June and we’ll have to see what happens,” he said.
“But by and large we are just asking people to be a little bit patient as other countries catch up with our world-leading vaccination programme and then people will be able to, I hope, travel.”
The US, China and India have all administered more vaccinations than the UK.
If you are confused about what the rules about face masks are in the US right now, you are not alone. Mike Stobbe, one of AP’s medical writers, has set it out this morning. He writes that “it depends”, mostly on whether or not you are vaccinated.
If you’re fully vaccinated, the latest guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says you no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in most situations. That includes when you’re outside and in many indoor spaces like restaurants, though you still need to follow any local or business rules.
Americans also still need a mask when travelling, including on buses, subways and planes and at airports. The guidance on masks will differ by country.
There are other exceptions. Masks are still needed in select settings including hospitals and nursing homes. And if you have a weakened immune system because of a health condition or medications, the agency says to talk to your doctor before shedding your mask, since vaccines generally don’t work as well in people with weak immune systems.
People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their last required shot.
If you’re not yet fully vaccinated, the CDC still recommends masks in most places outside your home. That includes indoor public spaces, crowded outdoor events like concerts and small outdoor gatherings that include other unvaccinated people.
Vaccinated people might also prefer to continue wearing their masks. Though chances are low, it’s still possible to get infected, even if symptoms are likely to be mild or nonexistent.
Since children younger than 12 aren’t yet eligible for Covid-19 shots, they should continue to wear masks indoors outside the home and in most public places like other unvaccinated people.
Some experts worry the CDC is relaxing its recommendations too soon. David Holtgrave, dean of the School of Public Health at University at Albany said: “A central mistake in public health is easing up infectious disease control efforts just before crossing the finish line.”
Updated
EasyJet has said it can get almost its entire fleet in the air to take holidaymakers to “green list” destinations this summer, as the airline reported a £700m loss and 90% plunge in passenger numbers in the six months to the end of March.
Johan Lundgren, easyJet’s chief executive, said: “With leisure travel taking off in the UK again earlier this week where we are the largest operator to green list countries … With so many European governments easing restrictions to open up travel again, we are ready to significantly ramp up our flying for the summer with a view to maximising the opportunities we see in Europe.
“We have the ability to flex up quickly to operate 90% of our current fleet over the peak summer period to match demand. We know there is pent-up demand,” said Lundgren. “We saw this again when green list countries were released.”
The budget airline said that based on current restrictions, it only expects to fly about 15% of its 2019 capacity between April and June, but said that there had been strong demand for more than 100,000 new seats made available to Portugal after the government’s announcement of green list countries earlier this month.
Read more of Mark Sweney’s report: EasyJet is ready to fly travellers to green list countries using ‘90% of fleet’
Updated
Britain’s Prince William has said he has received his first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
Reuters report that William, 38, who contracted Covid-19 last year, said he had received the shot on Tuesday.
The Prince was at Saturday’s FA Cup final at Wembley in London which saw a limited number of fans able to attend as the UK government gradually allows the reopening of sports events to the public.
Updated
Taiwan announces one new death and 286 new local cases
Taiwan has announced one new death and 286 new local cases of Covid-19 today.
The death was a woman in her 70s who worked in Wanhua - the centre of Taipei’s outbreak - and she died at home, the minister for health and welfare said. Her family have since been hospitalised.
Of the new cases, 157 were in New Taipei City, and 87 in Taipei. The virus has spread to multiple counties and cities. 63 cases have not been sourced, while 84 are connected to travel history to Wanhua. There are also clusters at some Taiwan hospitals.
Taiwan is currently battling its worst ever outbreak, having kept the virus at bay until now with one of the world’s best pandemic responses.
Authorities are now rushing to contain the spread, which began among airline crews last month, and to update their knowledge of the new strains and science around transmission.
The whole island is currently under alert level 3 of a four-tier system, and the government says it will not rise to 4 until there is 14 consecutive days of 10 cases or more, with 50% unsourced.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said more rapid testing stations were being set up at new hotspots, and the positivity rates at those already established in Wanhua were dropping, to below 5%.
The minister has also urged journalists to take more care. Recent days have seen reporters out in hotspot zones interviewing people, or at press conferences wearing PPE but handling multiple microphones and not social distancing.
You can just distance from each other at the press conference, this is a pretty alarming scene to put on TV https://t.co/3bQTyvzyne
— Helen Davidson (@heldavidson) May 20, 2021
Taiwan authorities are largely relying on community compliance rather than lockdowns. Schools are closed, as are public venues, and sport, entertainment and recreation venues. Private gatherings are capped at five indoors or 10 outdoors. But companies have only been urged to establish working from home, and cross-county travel remains allowed although discouraged.
Chen is reminding citizens again to not leave home and go around the city. He urges them to stay home and watch TV or read. He also called on citizens from cutting down gatherings but he tells them to bear with it for a while.
— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) May 20, 2021
PA report that the UK’s transport secretary Grant Shapps has defended the continued availability of direct flights from countries such as India on the coronavirus “red list”.
He told Sky News: “You cannot prevent British citizens from returning home, no country can ban its own citizens.”
That’s not strictly true, of course, because Australia did.
Shapps argued it was simpler to send people to quarantine hotels from a direct flight, saying that people on the flights were only British or Irish citizens, or those with permanent residence, and “it’s illegal come here as a holidaymaker from a red list country”.
If there were no direct flights “you would be forcing a situation where people end up spread amongst many other flights and making it harder to carry out the mandatory hotel quarantine”.
Shapps urged people to be patient and wait for the global coronavirus situation to improve if they wanted to go on holiday to countries which were currently on the “amber list”.
Asked why holidays were still being sold to countries which are on that list, he said the Government had moved away from a system where things were “banned and illegal” to a situation where people were expected to “apply a bit of common sense”.
He urged people to have “a little more patience as the world catches up with our vaccine programme”.
Updated
Wales announces £100 million investment in country's health system
The government in Wales has announced a £100 million investment aimed at reducing the record backlog plaguing the country’s health system and “kick-starting” the industry’s recovery from the pandemic.
Health minister Eluned Morgan said the money will be spent on new equipment, staff, technology and finding new ways of working to help health boards improve services by increasing capacity and cutting waiting times.
PA report Ms Morgan said: “Helping our health and social care services recover from the pandemic is going to take time, investment and a new approach to delivering care.
“The remarkable commitment of our NHS and social care workers has helped us through this pandemic to a point where we can now start to think about the future.
“I am determined that we now provide them the support they need to help the service recover.”
Singapore has ordered Facebook and Twitter to carry a correction notice to users of the social media platforms in the country over what it says is a false statement about a new virus variant originating in Singapore.
The ministry of health said it was aware of the statement circulating online on media outlets and social media platforms, which implied that a new, previously unknown variant of Covid-19 originated in Singapore and risked spreading to India from the city-state.
Reuters report that the move came after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a Twitter post this week that a new form of the virus that was particularly harmful to children was present in Singapore, and urged for a ban on flights.
Both the Singapore and Indian governments have criticised the opposition politician, saying his comments were not based on facts and were “irresponsible”.
The UK’s shadow secretary of state for international trade Emily Thornberry writes for us this morning:
Thousands are still dying every day around the world simply because we are not producing the volume of vaccines we need at the pace we need them to save those lives. And the longer Covid-19 runs rampant among unvaccinated populations, the more likely that aggressive new variants will emerge that threaten the success of existing vaccine programmes.
That cycle needs urgently to be broken through coordinated action at a global level, but where is the leadership coming from to make that happen? Again, not from Johnson’s government.
On one of the central issues, the proposed waiver of vaccine patents, British ministers have not just sat on the fence in the debate, but have kept entirely silent. What they should be saying, as Labour has, is that those talks must move quickly towards concrete proposals, but with the understanding that – on its own – a waiver of patents will not fix this crisis.
In recent weeks, talking to NGOs, scientists and other experts in the field, Labour’s shadow cabinet has explored potential solutions to the fundamental global shortage of vaccine supplies. Today we have written to our counterparts in government outlining the key elements of a comprehensive 10-point plan to transform the volume of vaccine production worldwide.
Read more here: Emily Thornberry – Britain could steer a global vaccination programme – but where is the leadership?
Tokyo Olympics will be safe, says IOC
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) reassured an anxious Japan on Wednesday that the Tokyo Olympics would be safe for athletes as well as the host community, amid mounting opposition to the Games and fears it will fuel a spike in Covid cases, Reuters reports.
Speaking via videoconference that was broadcast alongside senior Japanese officials in Tokyo, IOC chief Thomas Bach said he believed more than 80% of residents of the Olympic Village would be vaccinated or booked for vaccination ahead of the Games set to start on 23 July.
He rejected growing calls to cancel the global sporting showpiece, already delayed once due to the pandemic, saying that other sporting events had proved the Olympics could go ahead with strong precautions.
Bach’s comments came as Japan kept up its battle on a fourth wave of infections, although a slow vaccination campaign has undermined already shaky public confidence that the Games should proceed.
“Together with our Japanese partners and friends, I can only re-emphasise this full commitment of the IOC to organise safe Olympic and Paralympic games for everybody,” Bach said.
“To accomplish this, we are now fully focused on the delivery of the Olympic Games.”
Less than 30% of medics in Japan’s major cities have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, with just 65 days left to the start of the Olympics, the Nikkei newspaper said.
Cabinet figures showed this week that three months into Japan’s vaccination push, less than 40% of its medical workers were fully inoculated.
The problem is especially pronounced in the capital, Tokyo, which plays host to the Games, and other large population centres, where the rate of fully vaccinated medical workers was less than 30%, the Nikkei added.
Covid-19 vaccines have spawned nine new billionaires: campaign group
Profits from Covid-19 jabs have helped at least nine people become billionaires, a campaign group said Thursday, calling for an end to pharmaceutical corporations’ “monopoly control” on vaccine technology, AFP reports.
“Between them, the nine new billionaires have a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion (15.8 billion euros), enough to fully vaccinate all people in low-income countries 1.3 times,” The People’s Vaccine Alliance said in a statement.
The alliance, a network of organisations and activists campaigning for an end to property rights and patents for inoculations, said its figures were based on the Forbes Rich List data.
“These billionaires are the human face of the huge profits many pharmaceutical corporations are making from the monopoly they hold on these vaccines,” said Anna Marriott from charity Oxfam, which is part of the alliance.
In addition to the new mega-rich, eight existing billionaires have seen their combined wealth increase by $32.2 billion thanks to the vaccine rollout, the alliance said.
Topping the list of new vaccine billionaires were the CEO of Moderna Stephane Bancel, and his BioNTech counterpart Ugur Sahin.
Three other neobillionaires are co-founders of the Chinese vaccine company CanSino Biologics.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) reassured an anxious Japan on Wednesday that the Tokyo Olympics would be safe for athletes as well as the host community, amid mounting opposition to the Games and fears it will fuel a spike in Covid cases.
Profits from Covid-19 jabs have helped at least nine people become billionaires, a campaign group said Thursday, calling for an end to pharmaceutical corporations’ “monopoly control” on vaccine technology.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- EU ambassadors have backed plans to allow vaccinated holidaymakers to visit the bloc this summer.
- Thailand has begun vaccinating Buddhist monks against the coronavirus this week in hopes to build up their protection to allow them to perform their spiritual duties safely.
- Berlin joins the growing number of regions in Germany, slowly emerging from the restrictions put in place to break a third wave of the pandemic in March.
- Saudi Arabia has launched an online portal for airlines operating in the kingdom to register immunisation data for all foreigners travelling to the Gulf Arab state.
- Malawi destroyed nearly 17,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that had expired in mid-April, as the health minister blamed ‘propaganda’ for the reluctance of residents to receive the jab.
- The United States will donate a significant number of vaccines through the World Health Organisation COVAX scheme to distribute doses to poorer countries.
- The workers union representing cemetery, crematorium and funeral workers has threatened a national strike in Argentina if it does not reach a deal with the government on vaccines.
- Pfizer to begin vaccine production in Ireland after investing $40m in a vaccine centre that will create 75 jobs, the US drugmaker said in a statement.
- Iceland’s Eurovision entry, Dadi og Gagnamagnid, has pulled out of the live event this weekend after a group member tested positive for Covid-19.
- A year after the late Tanzanian president John Magufuli denied the existence of coronavirus in the country, the government will start reporting the disease’s prevalence.
- Egypt will extend coronavirus safety measures to contain the spread of Covid-19, including early closing hours for shops, until the end of May.
- The UK has launched a study exploring whether a third dose or “booster” shot of the coronavirus vaccine would be a safe and effective way of extending immune protection against Covid-19.
- Covid-19 infections have dropped significantly across the Americas, with the most dramatic improvement in the US due to mass vaccination.
- Thailand aims to administer one dose of a coronavirus vaccine to 70% of its population by September.
