This blog is now closed. You can keep up to date with the latest Covid news at the link below:
Evening summary
Here is a summary of some of the key developments over the past few hours.
- The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Europeans could look forward to travelling this summer if coronavirus cases continued to decline on the continent.
- According to an AFP compilation of official data, the coronavirus outbreak has killed at least 3,272,332 people since December 2019.
- Italy plans to lift quarantine restrictions for travellers arriving from European countries, including Britain and Israel, as early as mid-May to revive the tourism industry, the foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, said on Saturday.
-
Turkey’s daily Covid-19 cases fell below 20,000 for the first time since 17 March, with 18,052 infections over the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed. Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced a “full lockdown” until 17 May to curb a surge in infections and deaths after the country eased restrictions in early March.
- Ireland has removed Italy and Austria from its list of countries that are subject to mandatory hotel quarantine.
- B.1.617.2, the variant first detected in India, has been detected in South Africa. The Department of Health announced on Twitter that four cases had been identified in the country and 11 cases of the variant first discovered in the UK.
That’s all from me tonight; I hope you all have a good evening!
Updated
New Zealand has extended its suspension of quarantine-free travel until midnight on Sunday when it will restore regular travel links with New South Wales.
The country enacted the pause on Thursday in response to two new community cases of Covid-19 in Sydney. NSW health officials still have not identified the missing link between the positive tests and quarantine.
However, New Zealand’s Covid-19 minister, Chris Hipkins, is satisfied that the risk to residents has dissipated.
He said: “There has been close liaison between the health agencies.”
Hipkins added that the NSW risk assessment was that “the two community cases in Sydney are contained and that there is no evidence of widespread undetected community transmission”.
More here:
Updated
Updated
Brazil recorded 63,430 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 2,202 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said.
The latest numbers have raised the total number of confirmed cases in Latin America’s largest country to 15,145,879, and the official death toll to 421,316.
The Biden administration is examining ways to ensure that a waiver of Covid-19 vaccine patents to aid developing countries will not hand sensitive US biopharmaceutical technology to China and Russia, US and industry officials say.
Currently, vaccines have overwhelmingly gone to wealthier nations who scooped up contracts for them earlier this year.
Meaning that, while infection rates in wealthy countries have dropped as vaccination rates increased this year, infections are still rising in 36 countries, with India’s daily cases skyrocketing to nearly 400,000 a day.
Reuters reports:
Albert Bourla, chief executive of Pfizer, said on Friday the proposed waiver would disrupt progress made so far in boosting vaccine supplies.
“It will unleash a scramble for the critical inputs we require in order to make a safe and effective vaccine. Entities with little or no experience in manufacturing vaccines are likely to chase the very raw materials we require to scale our production, putting the safety and security of all at risk.”
Many companies and now some US officials fear the move would allow China to leapfrog years of research and erode the US advantage in biopharmaceuticals.
A senior Biden administration official said that while the priority was saving lives, the US “would want to examine the effect of a waiver on China and Russia before it went into effect to ensure that it’s fit for purpose”.
[…]
The document’s contents were read to a Reuters reporter by an industry representative who said the Biden administration believed it could address those concerns through the WTO negotiations but did not specify how.
The source added that some agencies in the Biden administration had conflicting views on how to address the concerns in negotiations that were expected to take months.
The White House and the US trade representative’s office had no immediate comment on the matter.
Updated
A man who travelled from India and tested positive for Covid-19 in Western Australia has been taken to hospital after falling ill, AAP reports.
The man, in his mid-30s, was rushed into Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, where he was reported to be in a stable condition.
Western Australia reported no new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, and the state is monitoring 22 active cases.
Indian Covid-19 variant detected in South Africa
B.1.617.2, the variant first detected in India, has been detected in South Africa.
The Department of Health announced on Twitter that four cases have been identified as well as 11 cases of the variant first discovered in the UK.
The Network for Genomic Surveillance in SA (NGS-SA) confirmed today that 2 variants of concern, other than the B.1.351 already dominating in South Africa, have been detected. These are: B.1.1.7 (first detected in the UK)- 11 cases. B.1.617.2 (first detected in India)- 4 cases. pic.twitter.com/EigBCcgaJs
— Department of Health (@HealthZA) May 8, 2021
Updated
Declining demand for Covid-19 vaccines in the US is causing states to refuse their total allocations of doses from the federal government, despite concerted efforts to raise national take-up rates.
Reduced demand, which contributes to a growing stockpile of doses, comes as nearly 46% of the US population has received at least one dose of a two-shot vaccine.
About 34% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
Last week, President Joe Biden announced a plan to get at least one dose of vaccine administered to 70% of the nation’s adult population by 4 July – a date also floated for a full-economic and social interaction re-opening of America.
However, on Saturday, hours before a pre-recorded message from Biden to a Global Citizen Vax Live event, it was reported that the nation’s vaccination rate dropped to 2m shots a day, a 20% decrease from the week before.
More on US states vaccine decline here:
Updated
As India records 4,000 deaths, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has urged an end to vaccine export limits.
Macron told reporters at an EU summit in Porto: “I call very clearly on the United States to put an end to export bans not only on vaccines but on vaccine ingredients, which prevent production,” referring to a de facto US ban on the export of vaccine raw materials.
AFP reports:
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said the EU had exported much of its own production and the United States should follow suit.
“I do not think that a patent waiver is the solution to make more vaccines available to more people,” she said in Berlin.
“Rather, I think that we need the creativity and the power of innovation of companies – and to me, that includes patent protection.”
Earlier, Pope Francis had focused on his desire to see patent waivers to “allow universal access to the vaccine”.
He called for the temporary suspension of intellectual property rights, condemning the “virus of individualism” that “makes us indifferent to the suffering of others”.
The call for waivers has gained momentum after the US announced surprise support for such a scheme to enable adequate vaccine supplies to fight Covid-19.
Updated
The US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) reports US total deaths at 577,857, up 816 from yesterday’s total of 577,041. Cases are up by 43,756, with today’s total cases at 32,446,915 compared with yesterday’s figure of 32,403,159.
Updated
France recorded 176 new coronavirus deaths in the hospital on Saturday, down from 226 the previous day. The number of new cases rose to 20,745 from 19,124 the previous day, the health ministry said.
Coronavirus will not be circulating in the UK by August, the outgoing chief of the country’s vaccine rollout has claimed.
Dr Clive Dix, who led the programme from December until he stepped down last week, said he believed the UK population would be protected from the virus and its known variants by the summer.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Dr Dix said the UK was on track to meet its target of administering at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine to all adults by the end of July.
When all adults have been vaccinated against the virus, Dix said the UK would have “probably protected the population from all the variants that are known, and we’ll be safe over the coming winter”.
The departing vaccine chief said it was his personal prediction that by some time in August, “we will have no circulating virus in the UK”.
My colleague Molly Blackall has more here:
Ireland has removed Italy and Austria from its list of countries that are subject to mandatory hotel quarantine but have kept the measures in place for three other European Union member states.
Reuters reports:
Ireland has some of the toughest travel restrictions in Europe and is the only one of the EU’s 27 countries that forces arrivals from certain countries to pay almost €2,000 (£1,740) each to quarantine for up to 14 days in a secure hotel.
The European Commission last month urged Dublin to pursue less restrictive measures and sought clarifications as to why some fellow member states were subject to the rules and others were not. Belgium, France and Luxembourg remain on the list.
Arrivals from Armenia, Aruba, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Curaçao, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, North Macedonia and Ukraine will also no longer have to quarantine in a hotel, the Irish health minister, Stephen Donnelly, said in a statement.
The Irish government has said it hopes to ease the restrictions once the EU rolls out digital health passes that will permit vaccinated citizens to travel.
Updated
Turkey’s daily Covid-19 cases fall below 20,000
Turkey’s daily Covid-19 cases fell below 20,000 for the first time since March 17, with 18,052 infections over the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed.
Last week, President Tayyip Erdogan announced a “full lockdown” until May 17 to curb a surge in infections and deaths after the country eased restrictions in early March, Reuters reports.
The data showed a further 281 deaths on Saturday, raising the total toll to 42,746. Total cases have now exceeded 5 million despite a recent fall in infections and deaths during the lockdown.
The number of Covid-19 patients in French intensive care units (ICU) has fallen for the fifth day in a row, health ministry data showed. The number fell to 5,005 from 5,106 on Friday, the ministry said
Italy plans to lift quarantine restrictions for travellers
Italy plans to lift quarantine restrictions for travellers arriving from European countries, including Britain and Israel, as early as mid-May to revive the tourism industry, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said on Saturday.
After meeting Health Minister Roberto Speranza to discuss the easing of restrictions for countries where vaccination levels are high, Di Maio said, quarantine requirements may also be scrapped for those arriving from the United States from June.
People entering Italy from other European countries and Israel face five days of quarantine and mandatory testing before arrival and at the end of their isolation period.
For travellers coming from the U.S., the required quarantine period is 10 days.
In a Facebook post, he wrote:
Tourism is an important key to Italy’s restart, and we need to plan the summer well so that health, economy and work are not put in danger.
With Minister Roberto Speranza we had a first confrontation on reopening measures to foreign tourists who want to visit our country this summer.
The aim is to reopen to visitors to foreign countries that have reached a high level of vaccination, loosening some measures as early as mid-May.
We’re working on overcoming the ′′ mini quarantine ′′ for anyone from European countries, the UK and Israel, if they’ll be equipped with a negative swab, vaccination certificate or if they’ve been cured of the past 6 months.
Same thing for the USA, where the covid free flights will be enhanced and since June we aim to overcome the ′′ mini quarantine ′′ on arrival.Also, we’re organizing some covid free flights to Dubai as well, where EXPO will start from October.We keep working hard to reopen safely.”
The German chancellor Angela Merkel said Europeans could forward to travelling this summer if coronavirus cases continue declining on the continent.
While the European Union is developing a vaccine certificate, valid throughout the 27-nation bloc, summer holidays should be possible again for people who haven’t had their shots against the virus, the chancellor said.
Merkle added, ‘If you look at the low incidence (of COVID-19) that some of our European partner countries already have,...then I’m very hopeful that we can also generally afford to do what was possible last summer, too.’
AP reports,
Merkel said that Germany also appears to have broken its most recent outbreak.
“Step by step, more will be possible in Germany, too, wherever the incidence drops, and that will hopefully be the case for all of Europe,” she said.
Merkel spoke to reporters in Berlin, from where she took part remotely in a two-day EU summit that discussed, among other issues, the effort to develop a “green certificate” that would facilitate travel across the region this summer.
Even if case numbers drop, some countries will likely impose restrictions - such as mandatory testing and quarantine - for travellers who can’t prove they’ve been vaccinated or recovered from infection.
EU leaders discussed the technical requirements for such a certificate, which would record a person’s vaccine status and outstanding questions about how to treat people who received vaccines that weren’t approved for use in the bloc.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said Saturday that the certificate was on track to be launched in June.
So far, about 30% of adults in the EU have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
According to an AFP compilation of official data, the coronavirus outbreak has killed at least 3,272,332 people since December 2019. Based on the latest reports, the countries with the newest deaths were India with 4,187 new deaths, followed by Brazil with 2,165 and the United States with 826.
The United States remains the worst-affected country with 580,901 deaths from 32,652,028 cases.
Italy records 10,176 coronavirus cases and 224 deaths, up from yesterday’s death toll of 207, the health ministry said.
Since the outbreak first emerged, Italy has registered 122,694 deaths linked to Covid-19, the second-highest death toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh highest globally.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19, not including those in intensive care, stood at 15,799 on Saturday, down from 16,331 a day earlier.
There were 110 new admissions to intensive care units (ICU), from 109 on Friday. The total number of intensive care patients fell to 2,211 from a previous 2,253.
The Covid-19 variant first discovered in the UK now accounts for up 70% of infections across Pakistan, a research centre studying the disease in the country said.
Prof Muhammad Iqbal Chaudhry, director at the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi, told Reuters, “There is a 60% to 70% prevalence of the UK variant in Pakistan (today).”
He added that this figure was 2% in January.
B.1.1.7, also known as the UK variant, is believed to be more transmissible than other previously dominant coronavirus variants. However, Chaudhry said that it was yet to be established whether the variant was more deadly.
Also adding that a variant found in neighbouring India, which has seen a massive surge of cases in recent weeks, had not been detected in Pakistan yet, but that was because they did not have the kits needed to detect it.
Pakistan has seen a daily death toll of more than 100 in recent weeks.
With officials worried that the strained healthcare system could reach a breaking point if more contagious variants begin to spread, as they did in India.
Updated
The UK records 2,047 new cases and five new deaths in the past 24 hours. As of today, 35,188,981 people have now received a first vaccine dose and 17,214,436 have had both jabs.
Updated
Hi, I’m Edna Mohamed; I’ll be taking you through the latest Covid-19 developments across the globe for the next few hours. If you have any tips, you can message me on Twitter or email me at edna.mohamed.casual@theguardian.com
Summary
Key developments in our coronavirus coverage in the UK and around the world so far on Saturday include:
- Pope Francis has offered his support for waiving coronavirus vaccine patents to boost supply to poorer countries. In a recording made for the Vax Live concert, Francis backed “universal access to the vaccine and the temporary suspension of intellectual property rights”. He voice adds further weight to a call by the US president, Joe Biden, to waive patents.
- But Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, reiterated her rejection the call to waive the patents for Covid-19 vaccines, instead urging the US to export its domestically produced vaccines. Speaking at a press conference after a meeting with other EU leaders, Merkel doubled down on her claim that a patent waiver would harm innovation.
- The European Union has signed a new contract to buy a further 1.8bn doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines for 2021-23. Supplies will cover booster shots, donations and reselling of doses, the European commission said on Friday. Ursula von der Leyen, head of the commission, said on Twitter: “Other contracts and other vaccine technologies will follow.”
- The population of the UK will be protected from Covid-19 by this summer, according to the departing chief of the country’s vaccine task force. Clive Dix, who stepped down last week, said he believed that by August no virus would be left circulating in Britain. Dix told the Daily Telegraph: “We’ll be safe over the coming winter.”
-
India has recorded a new daily record for coronavirus deaths. The 4,187 new deaths reported on Saturday, took the overall toll to 238,270 since the pandemic started. It added another 401,078 new cases in 24 hours taking its caseload to nearly 21.9m. Experts say India may not hit a peak in its current surge until the end of May.
- An Eid shutdown has been imposed in Pakistan in a move to prevent an increase in coronavirus infections during the Muslim religious holiday. Businesses, hotels and restaurants as well as markets and parks will be closed, while public transport between provinces and within cities has been halted.
That’s it from me, Damien Gayle, for today.
Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, has reiterated her rejection of a call by Washington to waive the patents for Covid-19 vaccines, instead urging the US to export its domestically produced vaccines.
Pointing out that the EU has exported a proportion of vaccines made in the bloc, Merkel said:
Now that a further part of the American population has been vaccinated, I hope that we can come to a free exchange of components and an opening of the market for vaccines.
Speaking at a press conference after a meeting with other EU leaders, Merkel doubled down on her claim that a patent waiver would harm innovation:
I do not think that a patent waiver is the solution to make more vaccines available to more people. Rather, I think that we need the creativity and the power of innovation of companies, and to me, that includes patent protection.
Vaccines were “highly sensitive” products, Merkel said, adding that manufacturers were already working at high speed to ramp up capacities, including through licensing partnerships.
Germany is home to BioNTech, the company that co-developed with Pfizer the first Covid vaccine to be approved for use in the west late last year, and another German company, Curevac, is in the final stages of clinical trials and eyeing authorisation for its Covid jabs in the EU in the coming weeks.
Updated
England reports more than 500,000 new vaccinations
A total of 43,907,911 Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England between 8 December and 7 May, according to NHS England data, including first and second doses – a rise of 522,249 on the previous day.
NHS England said 29,441,213 were the first dose of a vaccine, a rise of 107,518 on the previous day, while 14,466,698 were a second dose, an increase of 414,731.
Updated
Researchers from the London School of Economics have said the UK government has “consistently failed” to consider gender in its response to Covid-19 despite men and women being affected in distinct ways by the pandemic, writes Hannah Summers for the Observer.
While more men have died from the virus, women have suffered more due to the impact of policies introduced to prevent disease transmission.
Yet the subject of gender was largely absent from crucial meetings that informed the government’s response to the crisis, say academics, who analysed the minutes from 73 meetings held in 2020 by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).
“Despite mounting evidence women have been disproportionately furloughed or made redundant while absorbing more of the unpaid work associated with the pandemic, we were concerned we weren’t seeing policy changes to reflect that, particularly ahead of the third lockdown,” said Clare Wenham, co-author of Why We need A Gender Advisor on Sage.
A first batch of coronavirus vaccines has arrived in Madagascar, one of the last countries in Africa to receive the injections after the president insisted on holding out for months.
Andry Rajoelina shunned the vaccines for a long time, instead touting a locally brewed herbal drink, based on the anti-malarial plant artemisia, as a cure for Covid-19. The tonic was distributed for free among the population, but a sharp increase in infections last month forced Rajoelina to finally relent.
A plane carrying a first shipment of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines, provided through the World Health Organization’s Covax scheme, arrived in Madagascar on Saturday, where it was met by government officials and UN representatives. Rajoelina himself did not greet the flight in person.
The health minister, Jean Louis Hanitrala Rakotovao, said vaccines would be distributed across the country in two phases, without providing further detail, according to the AFP news agency.
“The inoculation is among several efficient preventative measures that will be added to strategies already implemented by the state,” he said.
Madagascar has been grappling to contain a spiralling second wave of coronavirus infections, with more than a third of the country’s total coronavirus cases recorded in the past month alone. Health facilities in the capital Antananarivo have been overwhelmed by a rising number Covid-19 patients compounded by oxygen shortages.
To date the country of 27 million inhabitants has registered 38,874 infections, including at least 716 deaths.
Updated
India must consider a new federal lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, an editorial in the Lancet has said, as it warned Narendra Modi and his government risked “presiding over a self-inflicted national catastrophe”.
The article published on Saturday said the current second wave of infections in India, which has left hospitals and crematoriums overwhelmed, had been worsened by complacency on the part of the government, saying:
At times, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government has seemed more intent on removing criticism on Twitter than trying to control the pandemic.
A botched vaccination campaign in the country now needed to be rationalised and extended beyond urban centres, with a potential new nationwide lockdown needed to calm the pandemic while it is implemented, said the Lancet.
Local governments have begun taking disease-containment measures, but the federal government has an essential role in explaining to the public the necessity of masking, social distancing, halting mass gatherings, voluntary quarantine, and testing. Modi’s actions in attempting to stifle criticism and open discussion during the crisis are inexcusable.
Daily Covid-19 deaths surged past 4,000 for the first time in India on Saturday.
Updated
In UK politics, the Labour party, seeking excuses for an abysmal showing in former heartlands at this week’s elections, has blamed coronavirus for preventing it from setting out its “vision for the country”.
Speaking on Saturday after punishing results on Friday across the north of England and the Midlands, including the loss of the Hartlepool byelection, the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, said the pandemic had restricted the opportunities for the Labour leader, Keir Starmer.
At a point of national crisis, yes, of course, you criticise the government when it was appropriate to do so, but it was also appropriate to do things like support the government on the furlough scheme or support the government on its public health messaging and not, for party political reasons, try to create confusion around that. What that has also meant is that it’s restricted the opportunities for Keir to set out his vision.
Jessica Elgot, the Guardian’s deputy political editor, has written the story:
Updated
Some have missed out on adventure, others on university places – but as well as turmoil, the pandemic has thrown up some surprising consolations. Sally Williams writes how the Covid pandemic has turned young people’s lives upside down.
UK travel firms have hailed the “best day” for holiday sales in months after the release of the government’s “green list” of destinations people can travel to without having to quarantine when they return to England.
On Friday, the Department for Transport revealed a list of 12 destinations – including Portugal – that people can travel to from 17 May.
Tui, the UK’s largest holiday company, spoke of seeing a rise in customer demand after the announcement, particularly for trips to Portugal.
A spokeswoman said: “We’ve had the best day of sales for summer 2021 holidays since the initial road map announcement in February. Sixty percent of all holidays sold yesterday were to Portugal.”
The firm said new flights and extra holidays had been added for people who want to get away as quickly as possible.
Hays Travel, the UK’s largest independent travel agent, said the earlier speculation around the announcement prompted its busiest week since the pandemic began.
Dame Irene Hays, chair of Hays Travel, said: “This week, Hays Travel branches all over the UK have been at their busiest since the pandemic began, helping our customers to book a holiday for when and where it’s safe to do so. More customers are now booking for this year to make sure they don’t miss out on choice or price.”
“And they are choosing to spend a little more, treating themselves to better destinations or accommodation, or finally booking that bucket list dream holiday.”
But other smaller firms were more hesitant, saying there were not enough destinations to spark a real surge in bookings, PA reports.
Mark Pollard, managing director of Tony Sheldon Travel in Maidenhead, said: “One of the problems with this list is it’s very limiting, the only major tourist destination is Portugal, this is all too little and too early to say.
“It’s a damp squib announcement, there isn’t enough there to prompt the kind of interest the industry is desperate for. I think it’s more of a tick box announcement to just give us some destinations and keep us all happy.”
Updated
Pakistan on Saturday received its first batch of 1.2 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from the Covax programme, Unicef said in a media release.
“Today Pakistan received its first shipment of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines (SII-AZ AZD1222) from the Covax Facility,” it said.
Covax, a global programme to provide vaccines mainly for poor countries, has recently been plagued by supply problems, because of export bans, vaccine hoarding by richer countries, and after the Indian government restricted exports from its largest manufacturer in response to a catastrophic second wave.
Updated
Egypt will require all visitors arriving from “countries where variants of the virus have appeared” to take a rapid Covid-19 test upon arrival, its health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The statement did not specify the countries from which passengers would take the 15-minute DNA test, called ID Now, Reuters reports.
Egypt’s new coronavirus cases have been steadily rising in recent weeks. On Saturday it reported 1,125 new cases and 65 deaths, although experts say that reflects only a fraction of total cases.
In a statement on Saturday, Egypt’s tourism ministry said restaurants and coffee shops attached to hotels were exempt from a recent decree that such outlets as well as malls and stores would close at 9pm local time in order to not affect tourism.
I’m Jedidajah Otte and will be taking over for a bit. Feel free to get in touch with tips and updates, I’m on Twitter @JedySays or you can email me.
Updated
A senior European Union official has countered a US call to waive vaccine patents by pushing for Washington to come up with a commitment to export vaccines.
Charles Michel, the Belgian president of the European Council, the body that sets Europe’s policy agenda, said the bloc was ready to discuss a US offer to suspend patent protection on vaccines – once the details were clear.
“We are ready to engage on this topic, as soon as a concrete proposal would be put on the table,” Michel said, as EU leaders discussed the issue at a summit in Porto, Portugal. Michel, who represents the EU’s 27 national leaders, cautioned however that the bloc had doubts about the idea being a “magic bullet” in the short term, AFP reported.
The quickest solution to ramp up the distribution of vaccines globally was exports, and the EU encouraged “all the partners to facilitate the export of doses”, he said.
The World Health Organization, India and South Africa have all called for patents to be temporarily suspended. But the day before at the summit, Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, said: “An IP waiver will not solve the problems, will not bring a single dose of vaccine in the short- and medium-term.”
EU officials briefing journalists in Brussels on the issue said the hoarding of crucial ingredients needed for vaccines was a larger obstacle.
The US is not in a position to export Covid vaccine doses to countries in need because of contracts it signed with vaccine-makers preventing their use outside the US, and a Defense Production Act that restricts exports until Americans are vaccinated first.
That contrasts with the EU, which has sent more than 200m doses abroad – as many as it kept for itself – prompting von der Leyen to describe the bloc as “the pharmacy of the world”.
Updated
The European Union has signed a new contract to buy a further 1.8bn doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines for 2021-23, Reuters reports.
Supplies will cover booster shots, donations and reselling of doses, the agency quoted the European commission, the EU’s executive, as saying on Friday.
Announcing the deal, Ursula von der Leyen, head of the commission, said on Twitter:
Happy to announce that @EU_Commission has just approved a contract for guaranteed 900 million doses (+900 million options) with @BioNTech_Group @Pfizer for 2021-2023.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) May 8, 2021
Other contracts and other vaccine technologies will follow.
Updated
Thirsty drinkers in Belgium, the heartland of European beer, have braved the rain to gather around outside tables at café terraces in Brussels and across the country this morning.
AFP, the French state-backed news agency, has the story:
In Châtelain, a popular bar and restaurant district in the capital, early arrivals huddled in winter coats under awnings, but were delighted to support their local businesses.
“Typical Brussels weather,” grinned American expat Amy Marshall, 42, returning to a favourite brunch spot – the Poz Café – near her home.
Belgium was one of the hardest-hit countries in the first wave of the epidemic last year, and locked down harder than some when the later surges hit.
Now a national vaccination campaign has begun to make progress, infection numbers are down and the government has begun a phased return to business as usual.
For long-standing bar owners and restauranteurs it’s a relief, for new entrants in the market it’s a moment of hope – and of some tension.
“I picked my moment, it’s ideal!” joked Thomas Mamakis, 31, as he opened up L’Altitude, which he hopes will become the bar of the moment in Forest, a southern Brussels district.
The welded joints on the steel cladding in the kitchen are still warm from the heat of their installation, but the chef was in the kitchen knocking together dough for tacos and the tables are out.
While the 50 square metre terrace is in use, with the tables spaced one and a half metres apart under the drizzling rain, the larger interior area was closed to customers.
Mamakis’s frustration at the slow opening reflects that of veteran rivals, who insist that the industry has enough experience of distancing to protect its clientele. “Putting 15 people in an office or an Ikea is possible, but for small businesses it’s not?” he asks, ironically.
“We have 100 square metres here, they could let us have 10 people.”
Belgium, a country of only 11.4 million people, has had more than a million confirmed Covid-19 cases and 24,483 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Cases are down, but daily deaths have been averaging at about 39 per day for several weeks.
Updated
Pope Francis backs vaccine patent waiver
Pope Francis has used a video message to the forthcoming Vax Live event to offer his support for waiving coronavirus vaccine patents to boost supply to poorer countries.
In the recording, made in his native Spanish, Francis backed “universal access to the vaccine and the temporary suspension of intellectual property rights” and he condemned the “virus of individualism” that “makes us indifferent to the suffering of others”. He said:
A variant of this virus is closed nationalism, which prevents, for example, an internationalism of vaccines.
Another variant is when we put the laws of the market or intellectual property above the laws of love and the health of humanity.
The move is fiercely opposed by major drugmakers because they say it would set a precedent that could threaten future innovations, and insist the move would not speed up production.
Updated
The pope has backed the call by Joe Biden to waive intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, several agencies are reporting.
Pope Francis’s move to join the call to open the books on how the vaccines are made puts him at odds with several European countries, including Germany and the UK. I’ll bring you more on this as it comes.
Updated
A UK doctors union leader has warned that NHS workers are facing “unacceptable levels of exhaustion”, after a survey found that nearly six in 10 had worked extra shifts during the pandemic – a quarter of them unpaid.
According to the poll of British Medical Association (BMA) members, more than half of doctors (58%) surveyed in the UK had worked extra shifts as part of the Covid-19 response, of which 28% were unpaid. The BMA’s Covid-19 tracker survey in April also revealed 44% of doctors felt pressured by their employer to work additional hours.
Of the 5,500 doctors who responded to the survey, more than a third (36%) said they had either skipped taking full breaks or taken them on rare occasions, with nearly 60% reporting a higher than normal level of fatigue or exhaustion.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA’s council chairman, said:
To learn that an already depleted and now exhausted workforce feels forced into doing more and more hours, with many reporting higher levels of fatigue than ever, is extremely worrying.
It is putting them at risk and their patients.
Working ‘flat out’ without a change to rest and recuperate is simply unsustainable and unsafe.
The results from the latest BMA’s Covid-19 tracker survey show that far too many colleagues across the NHS are experiencing unacceptable levels of exhaustion while being pressured to work extra shifts, and this needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
Governments should be doing all they can to ensure staff have an opportunity to rest and reset – no-one should feel pressured to take the NHS backlogs on a goodwill basis.
Updated
An Eid shutdown has been imposed in Pakistan, curbing travel to tourist hotspots in a move to prevent an increase in coronavirus infections during the Muslim religious holiday.
The new restrictions, which come amid a third wave of infections and increasing nerves over the pandemic crisis in neighbouring India, are the strictest since a one-month lockdown was imposed in April last year.
Eid, which comes at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, usually sees the mass movement of people around the country and tourist spots crowded with Pakistanis. Last year there was a spike in cases in the country in the weeks after the celebrations.
In a tweet, Asad Umar, the planning minister, who has been leading the government response to the outbreak, said:
These measures have been necessitated by the extremely dangerous situation which has been created in the region with the spread of virulent mutations of the virus.
Businesses, hotels and restaurants as well as markets and parks will be closed, while public transport between provinces and within cities has been halted.
The military has been mobilised to monitor the restrictions.
Mosques, however, which have been packed each night throughout Ramadan - with few people wearing masks - will remain open. Authorities fear curbs on places of worship could ignite confrontation in the deeply conservative Islamic republic.
Pakistan has recorded more than 850,000 infections and 18,600 deaths, but with limited testing and a ramshackle healthcare sector, official figures may not cover the true extent of the impact on the country from Covid-19.
Updated
More European holiday destinations should be added to England’s green travel list, the chief executive of EasyJet Holidays has said.
An easing of international travel restrictions was announced by Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, on Friday evening, with Portugal and Israel among those placed on England’s first ever “green list”.
Travellers arriving from countries on the green list will not have to quarantine upon their return to the UK, while those on the amber list must self-isolate at home for 10 days, but can be released at day five if they get a negative Covid test result. The red list country rules remain that only UK residents and nationals are allowed in – and all must quarantine in a hotel for 10 days.
Responding to the easing of the rules, Garry Wilson, EasyJet’s CEO, told BBC Breakfast:
The good news is travel is reopening and our customers can look forward to those well-earned breaks in the summer that they’ve been waiting many months for.
I think the very disappointing news is just the number of countries that are on the list, and if you look at European countries there’s very few, and of those European countries the major holiday destination is Portugal.
So we did think it was very cautious and it is really not aligning with the approach the government has taken to open up domestic travel and we don’t think it is backed up by the science or the data.
So we’re really expecting to see very soon a lot of the other major European holiday destinations opening up.”
Updated
India has recorded a new daily record for coronavirus deaths, with the number registered on Saturday exceeding 4,000 for the first time.
The 4,187 new deaths took India’s overall toll to 238,270 since the pandemic started. It added another 401,078 new cases in 24 hours taking its caseload to nearly 21.9m.
Experts, who have expressed doubts about the official death toll, say India may not hit a peak in its current surge until the end of May.
Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust, the healthcare research organisation that has taken a global lead in the coronavirus pandemic, has said the world’s wealthier countries “should be sharing vaccines today”.
Speaking on CNN to Christiane Amanpour, Farrar described the US support for waiving vaccine patents as an “historic moment”, but he said that a difference would not be made until the US and European countries distribute their huge stockpiles of vaccines beyond their own populations.
The US supporting waiving vaccine patents “is a historic moment,” says @JeremyFarrar. “But in the short term, it’s not going to change the vaccine access, I’m afraid.” It is urgent, Farrar argues, that “we should be sharing vaccines today.” pic.twitter.com/hqIu1jXKne
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) May 7, 2021
This comes back essentially to a small number of countries. It’s essentially through the G8, through the G20, and a small number of other countries and regions - the European Union is part of this as well - to vaccinate their own populations, we all understand the need to do that. But many countries have now made great progress in that.
Here in the UK an incredible number of people have now been vaccinated, same in the United States, transmission is now very low; the number of people in hospital, dying with Covid, in the US, the UK and increasingly in Europe, is now very, very low. We should be sharing vaccines today.
Updated
Vietnam has reported 176 new confirmed coronavirus infections from several outbreaks, the health ministry has said. After a month with no local infections, cases from several outbreaks have spread to 19 provinces in the past 10 days.
In Hanoi, the national hospital of tropical diseases, which has been the country’s Covid-19 frontline, has been sealed off after a doctor, two nurses and more than 20 patients tested positive earlier the week, the Associated Press reports.
Meanwhile, the city’s K hospital, which is designated to treat cancer patients, also closed Friday after 11 people were found to be infected with the Sars-CoV-2 virus.
In a government meeting broadcast on national television on Friday, the health minister, Nguyen Thanh Long, said:
The situation is alarming because we are having multiple outbreaks scattered across the country with unclear sources of transmission and multiple variants of the virus.
Early on in the pandemic, health authorities in Vietnam were able to keep the spread of the virus contained through strict controls and, since the start of the pandemic, Vietnam has recorded just 3,137 confirmed cases and 35 deaths.
Curbs have been reimposed in areas with outbreaks. In the 19 provinces and cities with Covid-19 cases, schools have been closed and classes moved online. In Hanoi, authorities urged people to refrain from gathering while city parks and food stalls were closed. In southern Ho Chi Minh City, gatherings of more than 30 people were banned starting this weekend. The city has also closed bars, clubs, gyms and buffet restaurants.
Meanwhile, a 35-year-old nurse died of a severe allergic reaction after receiving a shot of AstraZeneca on Friday evening, the health ministry said.
Updated
Germany’s anti-lockdown movement has co-opted the image of Sophie Scholl, the Germany resistance fighter who was born 100 years ago on Sunday, to the dismay of their opponents.
Scholl, who was executed by the Nazis for distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets, is an emblem of courage and a national hero in Germany. She has, perhaps inevitably, been adopted by protesters who believe they are facing a new medical dictatorship.
One of her nephews, Julian Aicher, has spoken at anti lockdown demonstrations, including on a stage decorated with white roses - evoking the name of Scholl’s resistance group.
On 22 February, 1943, Scholl and her older brother Hans, both members of a small resistance group called the White Rose, were beheaded in the Stadelheim prison in Bavaria following a summary trial. They had been found guilty of distributing pamphlets on the grounds of Munich University, having converted to the resistance after being members of Nazi organisations in their teens.
Sophie Scholl, born on 9 May, 1921, has become the most famous face of the resistance movement, with surviving photos showing her distinctive cropped hair and determined smile. Hundreds of schools and streets now bear her name, and in 2003 she was named the nation’s fourth favourite German behind Konrad Adenauer, Martin Luther and Karl Marx.
And now the resistance campaigner’s image has been hijacked by protesters against coronavirus restrictions in Germany, who have sought to compare themselves with victims of the Nazis.
“I feel like Sophie Scholl, because I’ve been active in the resistance for months,” one protester told a rally against virus restrictions in Hanover in November, leading to widespread condemnation.
Updated
The population of the UK will be protected from Covid-19 by this summer, according to the departing chief of the country’s vaccine task force. Clive Dix, who stepped down last week, said he believed that by August no virus would be left circulating in Britain.
More than 50m doses of a Covid vaccine have been distributed in the UK, 16.7m of which are second doses, according to government figures. Commenting on the success of vaccine distribution, Dix told the Daily Telegraph:
We’ll have probably protected the population from all the variants that are known. We’ll be safe over the coming winter.
Earlier this week, Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, said scientists are looking at a range of options for an autumn booster vaccination campaign to protect against a third wave of coronavirus. But Dix said he felt this could be pushed back into the new year:
“We may decide that we need to boost the immune response, and we’ve got the vaccine to do that. Whether we’ll need to or not, I would think probably not, but we might still do it in case.
“I really don’t think it should be autumn. We should be thinking about boosting in maybe January or February, because the immune response will be strong.”
Updated
Good morning, this is Damien Gayle writing from rainy London, from where I’ll be keeping you up to date with the latest coronavirus news and updates from around the world today.
Already this morning it looks like more bad news from India, where two southern states have become the latest in the country to announce lockdowns amid increasing numbers of infections.
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu imposed lockdowns after record numbers of new coronavirus infections on Friday. India now accounts for nearly half of the world’s new known cases according to a tally by AFP, the French state-backed news agency, and it reported a national record 4,187 new deaths Saturday.
Updated
