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The World Health Organization said that a variant of Covid-19 feared to be contributing to a surge in coronavirus cases in India has been found in over a dozen countries, AFP reports.
The UN health agency said the B.1.617 variant of Covid-19 first found in India had as of Tuesday been detected in over 1,200 sequences uploaded to the GISAID open-access database “from at least 17 countries”.
“Most sequences were uploaded from India, the United Kingdom, USA and Singapore,” the WHO said in its weekly epidemiological update on the pandemic.
The WHO recently listed B.1.617 - which counts several sub-lineages with slightly different mutations and characteristics - as a “variant of interest”.
But so far it has stopped short of declaring it a “variant of concern”. That label would indicate that it is more dangerous that the original version of the virus by for instance being more transmissible, deadly or able to dodge vaccine protections.
India is facing surging new cases and deaths in the pandemic, and fears are rising that the variant could be contributing to the unfolding catastrophe. The explosion in infections in India - 350,000 new cases were recorded there on Tuesday alone - has driven a surge in global cases to 147.7 million.
The virus has now killed more than 3.1 million people worldwide.
The WHO acknowledged that its preliminary modelling based on sequences submitted to GISAID indicates “that B.1.617 has a higher growth rate than other circulating variants in India, suggesting potential increased transmissibility”.
It stressed that other variants circulating at the same time were also showing increased transmissibility, and that the combination “may be playing a role in the current resurgence in this country.”
“Indeed, studies have highlighted that the spread of the second wave has been much faster than the first,” the WHO said.
It highlighted though that “other drivers” could be contributing to the surge, including lax adherence to public health measures as well as mass gatherings. “Further investigation is needed to understand the relative contribution of these factors,” it said.
The UN agency also stressed that “further robust studies” into the characteristics of B.1.617 and other variants, including impacts on transmissibility, severity and the risk of reinfection, were “urgently needed”.
Brazil’s congress has launched a parliamentary inquiry into what critics call Jair Bolsonaro’s disastrous and potentially criminal response to a Covid-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 400,000 Brazilians.
The politically charged investigation, which rivals of Brazil’s far-right president hope will torpedo his chances of re-election, will be conducted by 11 of the country’s 81 senators, including several of Bolsonaro’s fiercest opponents.
Officially, their task will be to scrutinise the government’s overall handling of one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks on Earth. Brazil has suffered the world’s third-highest number of infections after the US and India and second-highest death toll, with at least 392,204 fatalities.
The inquiry, which Bolsonaro’s detractors call the “CPI da Morte” or “death committee”, will pursue multiple lines of inquiry. They include why the government promoted ineffective treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, why three health ministers were removed during the pandemic, and what caused January’s devastating healthcare collapse in the Amazon when hospitals ran out of oxygen and patients died of asphyxiation.
Investigators will also examine the government’s failure to impose lockdowns or promote social distancing and the conduct of Bolsonaro’s former health minister Eduardo Pazuello, an army general who was appointed despite having no background in public health.
“Eighty-six per cent of Brazilians know someone or have a relative who has died – we’ve never seen anything like this in Brazilian history,” the Amazonian senator Omar Aziz told senators after being elected the inquiry’s president on Tuesday.
Aziz, whose brother is among the dead, said the investigation was about justice not revenge, and would home in on any official found to have made mistakes, independent of ideology. But observers say the inquiry, known by its Portuguese acronym CPI, is fundamentally about the actions of one man: Jair Bolsonaro.
Full story here:
Children who are hospitalised with coronavirus may be at risk of persistent fatigue and other symptoms of long Covid, according to researchers who examined the health of patients months after they were discharged.
Scientists interviewed the parents of more than 500 children who were admitted to a Moscow hospital with Covid between April and August last year. They found that a quarter had ongoing symptoms more than five months after returning home, with the most common ailments being fatigue, sleep disruption and sensory problems.
The preliminary work from a global team of scientists, including UK researchers on the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (Isaric), is not conclusive, but builds on early data from the Office for National Statistics that suggests some children may have ongoing symptoms after Covid infection.
Full story here:
Summary
As Australia wakes up, here are some of the main developments from the last few hours:
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Vital medical supplies began to reach India as hospitals starved of life-saving oxygen and beds turned away patients, and a surge in infections pushed the country’s Covid death toll close to 200,000. A shipment from the UK, including 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators, arrived in New Delhi. France is sending eight large oxygen-generating plants this week, while Ireland, Germany and Australia are dispatching oxygen concentrators and ventilators. The US president Joe Biden reaffirmed US commitment to sending doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and the World Health Organization said it was working to deliver 4,000 oxygen concentrators to India.
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Portugal’s state of emergency, the highest level of coronavirus alert, will end on Friday, the president announced, as infections drop sharply and the country prepares to further ease a strict lockdown imposed more than three months ago. The fourth and last phase of the easing of the lockdown is expected to start on Monday, with big outdoors and indoors events allowed under capacity restrictions, as well as all sport activities.
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Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven has received his first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and urged Swedes to do the same when offered. The country has vaccinated 28% of its adult population.
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Italy’s lower house of parliament has approved a multi-billion-euro coronavirus recovery plan in what prime minister Mario Draghi said was crucial for the country’s “destiny”. Italy’s economy has been battered by the pandemic, especially its hospitality and tourism sectors. The plan envisages speeding up Italy’s digital and green transformation, as well as investments in education and workforce training, infrastructure, social inclusion and health.
- Iceland will bar travellers from 16 countries considered to be at a “high risk” of Covid-19 infections, the justice ministry said. They include three members of the Schengen zone, notably France, Poland and Sweden. Starting on Tuesday, travellers who do arrive from the 16 countries are to spend five days in quarantine while they await the results of a virus test.
Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, will miss a Southern African regional meeting he had been due to chair on Thursday to discuss recent attacks on Mozambique after a staff member tested positive for Covid-19, prompting him to self-quarantine, his office said on Tuesday.
Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique will be attending a summit of a division of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), where they will receive a report on how they can help Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province following Islamic State-linked attacks there.
Botswana is the current chair of that division, which is tasked with promoting peace and security in the region.
The vice president Slumber Tsogwane will lead Botswana’s delegation to the summit, the president’s press secretary, Batlhalefi Leagajang, said in a statement. Leagajang said the president self-quarantined was “out of [an] abundance of caution.”
Botswana has had more than 45,850 cases of the coronavirus and more than 690 deaths since the pandemic began, according to a Reuters tally.
Vital medical supplies began to reach India on Tuesday as hospitals starved of life-saving oxygen and beds turned away coronavirus patients, and a surge in infections pushed the death toll close to 200,000, Reuters reports.
A shipment from the UK, including 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators, arrived in the capital New Delhi, though a spokesman for the prime minister Boris Johnson said Britain had no surplus Covid-19 vaccine doses to spare.
France is sending eight large oxygen-generating plants this week while Ireland, Germany and Australia are dispatching oxygen concentrators and ventilators, an Indian foreign ministry official said, underlining the crucial need for oxygen.
The US president Joe Biden reaffirmed US commitment to helping India, saying he was expecting to send vaccines there while senior officials from his administration warned that the country was still at the “front end” of the crisis.
India’s first “Oxygen Express” train pulled into New Delhi, laden with about 70 tonnes of oxygen from an eastern state, but the crisis has not abated in the city of 20 million people at the epicentre of the world’s deadliest wave of infections.
“The current wave is extremely dangerous and contagious and the hospitals are overloaded,” said Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, adding that a large public area in the capital will be converted into a critical care hospital.
India’s 323,144 new cases over the past 24 hours stood below a worldwide peak of 352,991 hit on Monday, and 2,771 new deaths took the toll to 197,894.
The World Health Organization said it was working to deliver 4,000 oxygen concentrators to India, where mass gatherings, more contagious variants of the virus and low vaccination rates have sparked the second major wave of contagion.
With vaccine demand outstripping supply in the country of 1.3 billion people, two US drugmakers have offered support.
Gilead Sciences said on Monday it would give India at least 450,000 vials of its antiviral drug remdesivir. Merck & Co said on Tuesday it was partnering with five Indian generic drugmakers to expand production and access to its experimental Covid-19 drug molnupiravir.
India is also negotiating with the US, which has said it will share 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine with other countries. A senior official participating in the talks said the prime minister Narendra Modi had been assured of priority for India.
Supply uncertainty could force Maharashtra, India’s hardest-hit state, to postpone inoculations for people aged between 18 and 45, a government official said.
Biden said he had spoken on Monday at length with Modi, including about when the United States would be able to ship vaccines to India, the world’s second most populous country, and said it was his clear intention to do so.
Portugal’s state of emergency, the highest level of coronavirus alert, will end on Friday, the president announced, as infections drop sharply and the country prepares to further ease a strict lockdown imposed more than three months ago.
Declared in mid-January to tackle what was then the world’s worst increase in infections, the state of emergency allowed the government to impose tough measures to suspend people’s rights and freedoms.
“Without a state of emergency, it is necessary to maintain or adopt all essential measures to prevent setbacks,” Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said in a televised address on Tuesday. “If necessary, I will not hesitate to move forward with a new state of emergency,” he added.
Portugal will transition to a state of “calamity”, which still allows the government to impose some measures to reduce the risk of contagion but the rules it can put in place are more limited and must be justified.
The country of just over 10 million people has reported a total of 16,970 deaths. The total number of coronavirus cases is and 834,991, 353 more than reported the day before. On Monday, it reported no coronavirus-related deaths for the first time since August.
Lockdown restrictions started to be eased in mid-March and schools, restaurants and cafes, shopping malls, museums and other non-essential services have now reopened but under strict rules to reduce risk of contagion.
The fourth and last phase of the easing of the lockdown is expected to start on Monday, with big outdoors and indoors events allowed under capacity restrictions, as well as all sport activities.
“I know that each opening implies more responsibility and that the times ahead will be even more demanding,” Rebelo de Sousa said.
Updated
This report is from AFP.
Six people out of 5,000 who attended an indoor trial concert last month in Barcelona reported testing positive for Covid-19 afterwards, organisers said on Tuesday, giving hope for the revival of the live music industry.
Ahead of the show, everyone underwent mass screening and antigen tests. There were no mass tests afterwards, but 15 days later only six people reported testing positive for Covid-19 according to public medical records of the participants.
“There is no sign that suggests transmission took place during the event,” Josep Maria Llibre, an infectious diseases specialist from the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital told a news conference exactly a month after the 27 March concert. “We can say that it was not a super-spreading event,” he added.
Organised by the hospital and a group of Spanish music promoters, the concert in the Palau de Sant Jordi was billed as Europe’s biggest indoor rock concert since the start of the pandemic. It featured one of Spain’s most popular bands, indie rockers Love of Lesbian.
None of the participants had been vaccinated for Covid-19. They wore FPP2 surgical masks at the concert and capacity at bathrooms was limited to avoid crowding but there was no assigned seating or mandatory social distancing.
Out of the six people who later tested positive, “we are certain that in four of these six cases, transmission did not take place during the concert,” Llibre said.
Boris Revollo, the virologist involved in the design of the health protocols at the concert, said he could not “categorically” rule out that the other two people were infected during the concert but there was a “very high probability” that they had not. “The measures which we implemented were very safe,” he added.
The Palau can welcome 17,000 people, but only 5,000 ticket holders were allowed in for last month’s event.
“With optimised ventilation, antigen tests and the wearing of face masks,” we could guarantee a safe space, Libre said.
The deputy mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, said the results of the study show “it is possible to relax” virus health restrictions and “restart cultural activities”.
The same team carried out another test at a smaller concert in December in another Barcelona, the Sala Apolo with an audience of 500 people.
That time around the concertgoers were tested before the show, as well as another 500 people who acted as a control group, and everybody got tested again eight days later. All of the Apolo concertgoers tested negative while two people in the control group tested positive.
Trial concert or festival events have been held in several European countries, including in Germany and the Netherlands, as part of efforts to allow crowds to form again to see live music.
According to a study published by Spain’s Music Federation, the European music industry lost 76% of its earnings in 2020 as concerts and major music festivals such as the UK’s Glastonbury fell victim to pandemic restrictions.
“The results of the test concert in Barcelona gives us hope, it is a very good thing,” Aurelie Hannedouche of France’s Union of Contemporary Music (SMA), which represents festivals, concert venues and producers, told AFP.
Updated
When India emerged relatively unscathed from its first wave of Covid-19, there was a sense in the country that somehow it was an exception. The prime minister, Narendra Modi, had brought in a strict lockdown and it seemed to have worked: victory against the coronavirus was proclaimed.
On today’s episode of Today in Focus, the Guardian’s south Asia correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, tells Anushka Asthana that the situation now couldn’t be further from a victory against the virus. With a second wave spreading out of control across India, the healthcare system is unable to cope. Shortages of staff, beds and oxygen are compounding the catastrophe.
India’s crisis is also a crisis for us all. As the world’s foremost vaccine producer, it is now constrained in how much it can export due to dealing with this unprecedented domestic disaster.
You can listen to the episode here:
Updated
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 on what we should be covering are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Senior US officials on Tuesday pledged sustained support for India in dealing with its Covid-19 crisis and said the country was still at the “front-end” of the crisis.
White house National Security Council coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell told a briefing call on the US response that president Joe Biden had told Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on a phone call on Monday, “you let me know what you need and we will do it.”
Campbell said helping India respond to the crisis would take a sustained effort on the US part and Washington was committed to this.
The US State Department’s coordinator for global Covid response, Gayle Smith, added, according to Reuters: “We all need to understand that we are still at the front-end of this. This hasn’t peaked yet.”
The Times of India on Tuesday accused rich nations of “vaccine hoarding”, writing the tactic would “backfire as India reels”.
The newspaper writes:
For months, developed economies have hoarded Covid-19 vaccines and the raw materials needed to make them. Now, they’re being forced to act as an explosive outbreak in India raises the risk of new virus mutations that could threaten the wider world.
I’m now going to hand over to my colleague Lucy Campbell.
The Canadian province of Quebec on Tuesday reported the first death of a patient from the AstraZeneca vaccine due to clotting.
Public Health director Horacio Arruda told reporters the death of the patient, a 54-year-old woman, will not change the province’s vaccination strategy, Reuters reports.
Russian developers of Sputnik V rejected Brazil’s criticisms of the Covid-19 shot, saying on Tuesday that its refusal to approve the vaccine for use was not justified on scientific grounds.
Reuters reports:
The board of Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa voted unanimously not to approve [the Covid-19 vaccine] after technical staff warned of flaws in its development along with incomplete data regarding the vaccine’s safety and efficacy.
State governors in Brazil had earlier asked permission to use Sputnik V as they battle a deadly second wave of the virus.
A crucial issue for the Brazilian regulator was the risk of other viruses used to make the vaccine reproducing in patients, which Anvisa’s medicines and biological products manager Gustavo Mendes called a “serious” defect.
Denis Logunov, the main developer of Sputnik V, denied that the two viral vectors, or adenoviruses, used to produce the Covid-19 shot could replicate.
He said every batch underwent rigorous checks both by the Gamaleya Institute and the Russian health watchdog and none had shown the presence of adenoviruses that could replicate.
“The vaccine is clean [...] and it does not contain replication-competent adenoviruses,” Logunov told reporters.
Logunov said the shot went through a four-stage cleaning and filtration process, which he said was rare among vaccine makers.
“This makes our production much more expensive because we lose a part of our product. But we achieve an incredible level of purity,” he said.
Like AstraZeneca’s shot, Sputnik V is a viral vector vaccine. It uses adenoviruses to carry the genetic information needed to generate immunity against Covid-19 into the body but is designed to strip those vectors of the ability to replicate.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which markets the Sputnik V vaccine abroad, said on Monday that Anvisa had been granted full access to Sputnik V research and production sites.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not seen a link between heart inflammation and Covid-19 vaccines, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday.
“We have not seen a signal and we’ve actually looked intentionally for the signal in the over 200 million doses we’ve given,” Walensky said in a press briefing.
She said the CDC is in touch with the U.S. Department of Defense over its investigation of 14 cases of heart inflammation or myocarditis among people who were vaccinated through the military’s health services.
Mexico’s health ministry on Tuesday reported 3,592 new coronavirus cases and 434 deaths, bringing the total number of cases to 2,333,126 and fatalities to 215,547.
Separate government data published in March suggested the actual death toll is at least 60% above the confirmed figure.
At least 50 Mexican travel agencies are offering holiday packages to the US that include vaccination against Covid-19, according to the Mexican Association of Travel Agencies (AMAV).
Association president Eduardo Paniagua told the newspaper Milenio that the agencies began selling the packages two weeks ago.
About 120,000 packages – which cost approximately 20,000 pesos (about US $1,000) per person – have been sold in that period, according to AMAV data.
Venezuelan Covid-19 patients are paying doctors to come to their homes due to the high cost of private clinics and hospitals overflowing with patients and often lacking oxygen and medicine, doctors interviewed by Reuters said in recent weeks.
Family members tend to chip in or launch crowdfunding campaigns for infected relatives, said Laura Martinez, a 55-year-old resident of the lower middle-class Las Acacias neighborhood in western Caracas, whose husband and elderly parents were treated at home.
Patients who receive home treatment for Covid-19 generally purchase respirators, oxygen tanks and anti-viral drugs.
President Nicolas Maduro’s government has said that the country is experiencing a second wave of the virus.
Official data have recorded around 1,000 new cases per day in recent weeks, though many health professionals warn the true toll is likely higher.
As the new wave gathered steam throughout March and April, home care, gained popularity thanks to word of mouth and social media, Reuters reports.
Venezuela’s public hospitals frequently suffer from blackouts and routinely lack running water, according to medical associations who stage frequent protests over the inadequate conditions of the public health system.
French health authorities said on Tuesday that the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units (ICUs) fell by 58 to 5,943, after the ICU tally set a one-year high of 6,001 on Monday.
The total number of people being treated in hospital for the virus also fell by 315 to 30,281, a 17-day low, health ministry data showed.
The ministry reported 325 new Covid-19 deaths in hospitals, compared to 398 on Monday.
Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven has received his first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, he said on Tuesday, and urged Swedes to do the same when offered.
Lofven, 64, was vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine.
“Today it was my turn to get the first dose vaccine against Covid-19. It feels incredibly good and I already look forward to receiving the second dose,” he said on Facebook. “Take your chance when it comes.”
Vaccine uptake has been high in Sweden, with 90% of people aged 80 and above having had a shot, Reuters reports.
Sweden has vaccinated 28% of its adult population.
Fully vaccinated people can safely engage in outdoor activities like walking and hiking without wearing masks but should continue to use face-coverings in public spaces where they are required, US health regulators said on Tuesday.
The updated health advice comes as more than half of all adults in the country have now received at least one jab, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“The release of these new guidelines is a first step at helping fully vaccinated Americans resume activities they had stopped doing because of the pandemic, while being mindful of the potential risk of transmitting the virus to others,” the CDC said.
Reuters reports:
Wearing face masks has been considered by experts as one of the most effective ways of controlling virus transmission. With most Covid-19 transmission occurring indoors, and vaccinations on the rise, the use of masks outdoors has been under public debate for weeks in the United States as Americans look to enjoy the benefits of being fully vaccinated.
New Covid-19 cases have dropped 16% in the last week as the US.surpassed 140 million people having received at least one shot of authorized vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine.
This was the biggest percentage drop in weekly new cases since February, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county data.
You can read more on the US Covid situation in our dedicated US Covid blog:
Updated
Italy’s lower house of parliament has approved a multi-billion-euro coronavirus recovery plan in what prime minister Mario Draghi said was crucial for the country’s “destiny”.
Italy is poised to receive the largest share – about €191.5bn – from the EU’s post-Covid-19 recovery fund. This is expected to be topped up with €30bn from the country’s own borrowing.
MPs voted for a plan, which must be submitted to the European commission by 30 April, that envisages speeding up Italy’s digital and green transformation, as well as investments in education and workforce training, infrastructure, social inclusion and health.
In a speech to parliament on Tuesday, Draghi said the plan “makes possible investments that would have been unthinkable until a few days ago.”
The plan is also expected to pass a vote in the upper house of parliament later on Tuesday.
Italy’s economy has been battered by the pandemic, especially its hospitality and tourism sectors. The country has also recorded the highest Covid-19 death toll – 119, 912 as of Tuesday – in mainland Europe.
Iceland will bar travellers from 16 countries considered to be at a “high risk” of Covid-19 infections, the justice ministry has said.
The north Atlantic island defines high risk as “regions or countries where the 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population exceeds 500 or more or from where sufficient information is not available”, a statement said.
They include three members of the Schengen zone that includes Iceland, notably France, Poland and Sweden.
Some exceptions are to be made for people who live in Iceland and members of their families however, and for those who can present a certificate of vaccination or proof they had previously been infected by the coronavirus.
Starting on Tuesday, travellers who do arrive from the 16 countries are to spend five days in quarantine while they await the results of a virus test.
The country’s chief epidemiologist may grant some exemptions there as well.
Meanwhile, the health ministry presented a four-stage plan to lift domestic travel restrictions depending on progress with vaccinations.
The ministry is aiming for mid June, when it estimates that around 75 percent of those over 16 years of age will have received at least one vaccination dose.
Around 280,000 of Iceland’s total population of 365,000 are aged 16 or over.
A coronavirus “vaccination persuasion” initiative targeting elderly people who have declined invitations to get vaccinated is gearing up to be rolled out across Turkey after proving a resounding success in a district in the country’s south-east.
Since February, doctors and healthcare workers in the mainly Kurdish city of Adıyaman, or Semsûr, have been calling people in age groups already eligible for the vaccine to ask why they have not come to clinics for appointments.
Then, equipped with cooler boxes full of vaccine vials, and occasionally accompanied by muhtars, or community leaders, they fan out across the rural area to visit patients who are still reluctant.
The theory is that a face-to-face conversation will help change people’s minds. It is working, boosting the vaccine take-up rate among the 250,000 strong population scattered across the province’s central district by nearly 30%, according to Dr Hülya Doğan Tiryaki.
“The teams are advised to use calming language and logical arguments over the phone. About half of the people we call then tell us they will come to a clinic for their vaccination,” she said.
The UK government has said a further 17 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Tuesday, bringing the UK total to 127,451.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been 152,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
The Government also said that, as of 9am on Tuesday, there had been a further 2,685 lab-confirmed cases in the UK. It brings the total to 4,409,631.
A man has been arrested in New York following an assault on a Chinese American man which was being investigated by the city’s hate crimes task force against the backdrop of a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic.
Jarrod Powell was charged with two counts of felony assault in Friday’s attack on 61-year-old Yao Pan Ma, police said.
Ma was collecting cans when he was attacked from behind, knocked to the ground and kicked in the head. He was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he remained in a coma on Tuesday, officials said.
Surveillance video showing the attacker kicking Ma and stomping on him, echoing last month’s assault near Times Square in which a Filipina American woman was knocked to the ground and stomped on. A parolee convicted of killing his mother nearly two decades ago was arrested in that attack.
China’s share of global exports has increased during the pandemic to close to 15%, although its dominance may soon peak as domestic demand grows and the cost of labour rises, UN agency UNCTAD said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports:
In 2020, China had the largest share of global exports in goods with 14.7% of the total compared with 13.2% in 2019, according to data from the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development. The United States came second with 8.1% and Germany third with 7.8%.
Early data from this year suggests a continuation of the trend with Chinese exports surging almost 50% year-on-year to $710 billion in the first quarter, the UNCTAD data showed.
“Overall, China is likely to remain the world’s leading exporter for the near future,” the UNCTAD commentary said. “However, its exports dominance in the global economy may be approaching its peak.”
It gave several reasons for this including its growing reliance on domestic, not foreign demand, rising labour costs and increased automation that could spur more manufacturing to “reshore” to developed countries.
It also said that geopolitical tensions and lack of global action to address social and environmental concerns could lead to a “deglobalisation process” that would have stronger-than-average implications for major exporters like China.
One of the major factors that helped Beijing emerge as an export powerhouse was its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, UNCTAD said. At that time, China’s share of exports was less than 5% of the total.
Trade rival the United States has criticised China’s claim for concessions as a developing country under WTO rules given its fast economic growth.
US consumer confidence jumped to a 14-month high in April as increased vaccination against Covid-19 and additional fiscal stimulus allowed for more services businesses to reopen, boosting demand and hiring by companies.
The Conference Board said on Tuesday its consumer confidence index raced to a reading of 121.7 this month.
That was the highest level since February 2020, just before the onset of the pandemic, and followed a reading of 109.0 in March.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index increasing to a reading of 113.0 in April.
Argentina has resumed talks with Pfizer Inc to purchase vaccines against the coronavirus, an adviser to the government said on Tuesday, as the country registers a spike in new infections.
The government had talked with Pfizer last year about the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines but the two sides did not reach a deal on supply of the vaccine it developed with German partner BioNTech SE.
“Negotiations with Pfizer have resumed,” presidential adviser Cecilia Nicolini told local Futurock radio.
The South American country with a population of about 45 million is going through its second wave of coronavirus infections and has had more than 60,000 Covid-19 deaths so far.
Argentina is distributing Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine as well as doses from China’s Sinopharm, the Serum Institute of India, and the UN-led Covax program, Reuters reports.
President Alberto Fernandez intensified restrictions in the middle of the month to try to contain the infection rate.
Nicolini also said that Argentina is in dialogue with the Cuban government about the possibility of conducting clinical trials or producing a Cuban vaccine in the country.
Updated
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has been speaking to a group of 14 representatives from the culture industry in an in-depth discussion about their experiences of living through the pandemic and their struggles to survive.
In the meeting, broadcast live online, bookshop owners, cinema operators, musicians, curators, choreographers and event managers were among those to share their woes.
The conversation covered everything from furlough payments to subsidies, VAT to insurance, as well as what support might be available even years after the pandemic is over as the industry attempts to recover.
Hearing their often emotional pleas, Merkel said she recognised that the cultural industry had been particularly badly hit by the pandemic. ”I hear just how heartfelt you are,” she said. One performer, close to tears, said she was living from hand to mouth, whilst another said he had been locked in a bureaucratic nightmare trying to access government aid and was considering leaving acting to work in a supermarket “just to ensure my daily needs are met”.
Fiona Stevens, a violinist at the Hofkapelle in Munich, urged Merkel to also think of the time after the pandemic. “We will need at least two years to get back on our feet,” she said. Spotting her violin in the background, Merkel told her: “I hope it’ll be heard again soon.”
Merkel said she could understand the artists’ frustration. “Those who can’t sing right now, or speak, who are losing the opportunity to develop their abilities, it’s a very sad time,” she said.
“We did not imagine what we would end up going through,” she said. She stressed that with the coming of summer, and progress in Germany’s vaccination campaign the situation would soon start to improve.
Thomas Siffling, a jazz club owner and trumpeter, told the chancellor he had little understanding for the time spent talking about football matches, whilst events like concerts, appeared not to be given the same importance. “When there’s talk about the European Championships in Munich, yet the cultural institutes have to remain closed, nobody really gets it,” he said.
Merkel replied that no decision had yet been made as to whether any spectators would be allowed into the football stadium for the Euros. She admitted it would be unfair to treat football and concerts differently: “We can’t give football its audience but not you,” she said.
Marion Closman, a cinema operator in Marburg, said what the cultural field was missing was any sense of perspective for the future. “For the cinemas it would be immensely important, to have a perspective as to when we can permanently open up again,” she said. She stressed that opening up for two weeks and having to shut down again due to rising virus rates, was not sustainable. Streaming services had been “hoovering up” all the films and cinemas had been left in the cold.
Merkel said only when incidence levels fell below 100 - currently they are around 168 per 100,000 - would it be possible to talk about openings. The discussion took place in reaction to an online campaign by leading actors #AllesDichtMachen - close everything down - in which in a series of satirical videos they vented their anger and frustration at the government’s policies towards cultural institutes and organisations.
Merkel said she took all the points made over the 90 minute duration “extremely seriously”. “I can’t paint anything in a rosy light,” Merkel said. “Neither do I want to. We can only hope that things will soon be better,” she said.
Updated
The UK health ministry on Tuesday said 33,843,580 people had received a first Covid-19 vaccine dose, adding that a quarter of adults in the country had now received both doses of a coronavirus shot.
Pupil attendance in state schools in England last week was the highest it has been at any point during the pandemic, government figures have suggested.
More than nine in 10 (94%) state school pupils were in school on 22 April, up from 90% on 25 March, an analysis from the Department for Education shows.
Updated
French health minister Olivier Veran said on Tuesday that the South African variant of the Covid-19 virus is on the rise in the Paris area but that no Indian variant has been detected in the region around the capital.
About 250 tour guides from Kenya’s famed national parks lined up in downtown Nairobi are to get vaccinated on Tuesday, as part of a government effort to revive the tourism sector that has been battered by the pandemic.
Reuters reports:
The vaccination drive comes ahead of the annual wildebeest migration across the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The migration typically draws several hundred thousand international visitors but last year drew a far smaller number of local tourists.
Kenya’s tourism sector lost close to $1bn in revenue between January and October of last year, when the number of foreign visitors plunged by two-thirds due to Covid-19, official data shows.
With vaccination campaigns progressing quickly in many western nations whose citizens travel to Kenya for safaris, guides were optimistic that – after getting vaccinated themselves – they could look forward to business picking up.
“This is also an indication to the world and any prospective visitors that Kenya is one of the safest places to come and visit now,” said Willis Sande, the chairman of the Safari Guides Professionals Association of Kenya.
Updated
Amid falling new infections, the Slovak health authorities on Tuesday further relaxed restrictions.
The start of a night curfew has been postponed from 8pm to 9pm, and fans will be allowed to attend professional sporting events from Tuesday.
However, strict hygiene and distancing rules remain in place.
Hospitality venues have been able to serve food and drinks again since Monday, but only outdoors. Shops have been open for a week, subject to conditions.
Although the number of people requiring hospital treatment for Covid-19 keeps declining, the government in Bratislava decided on Monday evening to extend the state of emergency that has been in force since 1 October until the end of May.
The state of emergency enables, among other things, the forced transfer of health workers from one hospital to another, but also a ban on protest rallies, Der Standard reports.
For several weeks, Slovakia was one of the countries with highest deaths per capita rate worldwide. As of Tuesday, 11,572 people in the EU country with a population of 5.5 million have died from Covid-19 since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Iran has found three suspected cases of the coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa, health minister Saeed Namaki said on Tuesday, calling it an alarm bell after a record 496 deaths from Covid-19 were recorded a day earlier.
The country is battling a fourth wave of infections and reported 462 further deaths from the virus on Tuesday.
Iran’s death toll now stands at 70,532, according to official statistics.
Namaki said:
Unfortunately we received a report about three cases of the South African virus, and we are making more checks to confirm this.
We are also checking cases of Indian visitors infected with the coronavirus and hope that they don’t carry the [Indian] mutated virus.
In any case, these alarm bells tell us that we need to increase social distancing and better follow health precautions.
On Saturday Iran barred travellers from India and neighbouring Pakistan to curb the spread of virus variants.
Non-essential businesses in Iran have been under lockdown for the past three weeks, Reuters reports.
The health ministry said on Tuesday that it had vaccinated 90 percent of health workers and it was starting the vaccination of those aged over 80.
Ireland greenlights use of J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines for over-50s
The Irish government has agreed to allow the use of both the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines for people over 50 years old, prime minister Micheal Martin said on Tuesday.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been paused by health authorities and AstraZeneca was only allowed for those over 60.
The country is broadly on target in its rollout, Martin told journalists when asked if he expected to achieve its goal of vaccinating 80% of the adult population by the end of June, Reuters reports.
Updated
French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said the EU’s key challenge now is to implement the European recovery plan as it stands.
At a news conference with his German counterpart, he also said that comparisons between the US and EU stimulus plans are “unfair and inadequate”.
“Let’s be clear: we were very efficient last year in the adoption of the European Recovery Plan and on the decision on common debt issuance,” Le Maire said in an online news conference with German finance minister Olaf Scholz.
“Since then, we have lost too much time. China has resumed its growth. The US is booming. The EU must remain in the race,” he said.
Europe is already suffering from a slow start to its vaccination programme, which has lagged behind the US inoculation drive.
EU governments are supposed to detail by the end of the week how they plan to spend grants and loans from the recovery fund, which will be financed by joint borrowing by the bloc.
The need for long-term planning and reforms, while also meeting requirements that 37% of the EU money goes to fighting climate change and 20% to digitalising the economy, means some countries will not get their payout requests in before mid-May, Reuters reports.
In July last year, EU leaders agreed on a historic €750bn coronavirus pandemic recovery fund – known as Next Generation EU – and their long-term spending plans after days of acrimonious debate at the bloc’s longest summit in nearly two decades.
US president Joe Biden’s administration has passed a $1.9tn recovery plan.
Updated
Vienna will cautiously loosen its coronavirus lockdown next week a month after it was introduced, its leftwing mayor said on Tuesday, criticising the conservative-led government’s plans for a broad countrywide easing of restrictions from 19 May.
From 3 May, retail and personal care services are to reopen in the Austrian capital with a strict mask requirement in place. Museums and zoos will also reopen.
Austria third national lockdown was eased in February, while Vienna reintroduced a full lockdown on 1 April as a rise in infections with the UK variant threatened to overwhelm hospitals.
Reuters reports:
Infections nationally have eased this month but remain stubbornly high at more than 1,500 a day. Despite that, chancellor Sebastian Kurz last week said restaurants, hotels and theatres will reopen nationally on May 19, though provinces can have stricter rules locally if needed.
“The situation is improving but must still be taken very seriously,” Vienna mayor Michael Ludwig of the Social Democrats told a news conference announcing that non-essential shops would reopen on Monday, May 3.
The opposition Social Democrats have increasingly criticised what they say are hasty loosening steps by Kurz’s ruling coalition with the Greens.
Kurz’s conservatives still have a commanding lead in opinion polls but recent surveys show their support eroding.
“Regarding May 19 and the government’s announcement that a lot will be opened at the same time, personally I believe one should act very carefully here,” Ludwig said.
Kurz has said easing restrictions will drive up infections but vaccinating risk groups should limit hospitalisations, and other factors like jobs are also important.
Updated
Belgium bans travel from India, Brazil and South Africa
Belgium on Tuesday became the latest territory to ban travel from India, Brazil and South Africa with the first two grappling with surging infections and new, highly contagious variants of the virus.
Prime minister Alexander de Croo said in a statement:
Passenger travel by air, train, boat, and bus, including transit traffic, from India, Brazil and South Africa to Belgium will be banned.
People with Belgian nationality and people who have their main residence in Belgium can return from India, Brazil, and South Africa to Belgium. They are strongly advised not to travel to these countries.
There will be some exceptions to the ban for essential travel by some transport workers and diplomats, but otherwise the ban will be strictly enforced, AFP reports.
Sammy Mahdi, Belgium’s minister for asylum and migration, welcomed the decision, but said he hoped the measure would be “very temporary”.
“There’s only one thing to do to move towards a normal life where everyone can travel freely, vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate,” he said.
Other European countries have begun to introduce suspensions, bans or restrictions on arrivals from countries with coronavirus variants.
Last week, 20 Indian students in Belgium tested positive for the Indian variant of Covid-19. They had arrived in mid-April on the same bus from France, after landing in Paris.
According to health authorities, the UK coronavirus variant is the most widespread in Belgium – accounting for nearly 86% of cases.
4.9% of infections are with the Brazilian variant and 3.7% with the South African one, according to figures released on Monday by the Brussels region.
• This post was amended on 28 April 2021. South Africa is not dealing with “surging infections” as an earlier version said.
Updated
Israel’s tourism ministry said on Tuesday it wanted to open up to vaccinated foreign tourists starting in May after a dramatic decline in new infections in the country, although the health ministry immediately suggested delaying the move by a month, “in light of the prevalent morbidity situation globally and the discovery of new variants”.
Tourism minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen said Israel would start admitting small numbers of vaccinated tourist groups from 23 May, expanding the quota over several weeks and opening up to tourists travelling alone by July, Reuters reports.
The tourism and health ministers are from rival parties in a broad coalition government.
The health ministry also wants to ban visitors from India and six other countries facing a surge in infections. The plans need approval by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.
Haaretz reports:
Israelis may be barred from travelling to certain Covid-hit countries and required to go into quarantine upon their return even if they are vaccinated, according to a health ministry proposal set to be debated by ministers on Tuesday.
The proposal, seeking to prevent the import of some Covid strains of concern, would place restrictions on traveling to and from Ukraine, Ethiopia, Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico and Turkey, where high coronavirus infection rates have been reported.
Israel, which has fully vaccinated more than half its population, is in talks with several countries to set up travel “corridors” through mutual recognition of vaccine certificates.
After a year of lockdowns and vast numbers of people working from home in the British capital, London’s “Square Mile” financial district plans to convert empty offices into homes and offer lower rents to creative businesses as part of a recovery plan from the pandemic, which has left many once bustling streets deserted.
Reuters reports:
Built around the vast fortress-like Bank of England and home to ancient counting houses, narrow alleyways and Manhattan-style skyscrapers, the City of London is having to adapt to lure workers and companies back to a normal office life.
It set out an action plan on Tuesday to enhance its competitiveness, including broadening its appeal to creative companies more commonly based in trendier parts of the city, improved 5G connectivity and support for small businesses looking to grow.
Catherine McGuinness, the City’s political leader, said she had been listening to businesses of all sizes to understand how they want to work after the pandemic, which has left much of the financial district resembling a ghost town for many months.
“Firms have told us that they remain committed to retaining a central London hub but how they operate will inevitably change to reflect post-pandemic trends, such as hybrid and flexible working,” she said.
A push to attract design firms or start-ups would mark a change for the normally staid City which, as one of the most powerful financial centres in the world, features expensive restaurants alongside venerable old banks, many built in Portland stone.
The proposals in the five-year scheme include forming an ecosystem of high-potential tech-led businesses to act as a network to help others grow, the creation of a small business centre and a switch to residential property.
It said it would aim for at least 1,500 new residential units by 2030.Like its rival financial district in the east of London, Canary Wharf, it is also looking at ways to improve its weekend offerings, when restaurants and cafes in the area are often shut, and exploring night-time cultural events.
Updated
Spain will send just over seven tonnes of medical supplies to India, the foreign minister said on Tuesday, to help authorities cope with a rampant Covid-19 wave that is killing thousands there every day.
“Nobody will be safe until we are all safe,” Arancha Gonzalez Laya told a news conference after the weekly cabinet meeting.
Sweden has registered 14,911 new coronavirus cases since Friday, health agency statistics showed on Tuesday, the lowest weekend figure in five weeks.
The figure compared with 16,692 cases during the corresponding period last week.
“We saw a decrease of some 10-11% last week,” chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told a news conference. “There is still a very high level of spread in Sweden. It is too early to claim any victory,” he said.
Sweden registered 225,000 vaccination shots since Friday, taking the total to over 3 million administered doses. Almost 28% of all adult Swedes have received at least one shot vaccine, Reuters reports.
The country of 10 million inhabitants registered 45 new deaths, taking the total to 13,968. The deaths registered have occurred over several days and sometimes weeks.
Updated
China’s state councillor Wang Yi, who is also the country’s foreign minister, said on Tuesday Beijing will help South Asian countries procure coronavirus vaccines.
In a video conference with the foreign ministers of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Wang also said China was willing to set up emergency supply reserves with South Asian countries in the fight against Covid-19, according to a statement from China’s ministry of foreign affairs.
Thailand reported 15 new coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, setting a daily record for the third time in four days in its worst-outbreak yet.
Bangladesh’s drug regulator on Tuesday approved the Russian Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use, signalling that clearance for China’s Sinopharm shot would follow very soon as a supply line from India falters.
Dhaka, facing a second wave of the pandemic, is racing to secure more vaccines after its bigger neighbour halted exports of the AstraZeneca shot in response to a record surge in domestic infections.
Announcing approval for Sputnik V, Directorate General of Drug Administration head Mahbubur Rahman told reporters: “Hopefully we’ll get 4 million doses of Russian vaccine by May.”
Bangladesh could also approve Sinopharm in coming days, he added.
Updated
Authorities in Delhi ordered a luxury hotel to be converted into a Covid-19 health facility for the exclusive use of high court judges and their families, drawing outrage in a city that has no hospital beds or life-saving oxygen for hundreds of people.
The local government said in a public notice on Monday night that it had received a request from the Delhi High Court because of the rapid rise in coronavirus infections and had reserved 100 rooms at the Ashoka Hotel for the higher judiciary, Reuters reports.
A top city hospital will run the facility, it said.
Jaiveer Shergill, a lawyer and spokesman of the main opposition Congress party, said the government decision flew in the face of the right to equality enshrined in the constitution and the court itself must reject the special treatment.
“For sake of justice, integrity and faith in the judicial system, Delhi’s high Court must quash the order,” he said.
The UK has no surplus vaccine doses at the moment and is prioritising vaccinating its population, a spokesman for prime minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday when asked whether London was planning to export some shots to India.
“We committed in February to sending excess doses from the UK’s supply to the COVAX procurement pool and to countries in need once they are available,” he told reporters.
“Right now, we are moving through the UK prioritisation list for our domestic rollout and we don’t have surplus doses but [...] we will keep this under review.”
As of 4pm GMT on 26 April, the UK had given 33,752,885 first doses and 46,650,008 in total.
Spain, Philippines and Cambodia tighten travel restrictions for arrivals from India
Spain and the Philippines joined other countries on Tuesday in tightening immigration restrictions against arrivals from India.
Spain will enforce a quarantine on all travellers from India in response to the emergence of a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus there, government spokeswoman Maria Jesus Montero said on Tuesday.
As there are no direct flights from India to Spain, the measure will apply to those who travelled via third countries, Montero said.
The Philippines will ban travellers coming from India to prevent the spread of a new variant blamed for a huge surge in cases in the South Asian nation, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Travellers coming from India or those with travel history to that country within the last 14 days before arrival will be banned from entering the Philippines from 29 April to 14 May, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement, Reuters reports.
Cambodia also announced a similar ban, effective Thursday, to also cover people who have been to India as far back as three weeks. Both Cambodia and the Philippines have seen big jumps in case numbers in recent weeks.
Germany delays greater freedoms for fully vaccinated people
There is widespread criticism in Germany over the failure of the government and leaders of the 16 states to come up with concrete proposals over managing the next stages in the country’s vaccine campaign, following an eagerly anticipated meeting.
Campaigners for vaccine passports had hoped that the green light would be given to grant freedoms to those who are vaccinated – at the very least that they would no longer have to produce a negative test result in order to enter non-essential shops.
But chancellor Angela Merkel said last night after three hours of talks, granting such freedoms when only a part of the population is vaccinated, could trigger a “tricky social debate”. The higher the number of vaccinations carried out, the more pressing the question would become, she admitted.
But she said that the government was investigating relaxing restrictions of people who are fully vaccinated, following the findings of the government’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute, that fully vaccinated people and those who have recovered from the disease are at very low risk of contracting it again or passing it on.
But she added: “We will have a transition phase which will not be easy [...] we will have to deal with this question very sensitively.”
Some states have said they will go it alone and replace the need to show an obligatory test if someone can prove they’ve been vaccinated, not least to reduce the number of tests being carried out.
Merkel did announce the positive news last night that vaccine prioritisation according to age group would be lifted by June, potentially allowing every citizen to apply for a vaccination appointment.
So far just over 7% of Germans are fully vaccinated, and 24% have had one jab. The government has promised that every German will have received a vaccine appointment by 21 September.
Frustrations are running high in Germany, in the thick of a third wave of the virus, with many parts of the country having to endure a new raft of restrictions since Saturday – including a controversial nighttime curfew - as a result of an ‘emergency brake’ imposed last week by the federal government.
It was hoped that Monday evening’s ‘vaccine summit’ as it was dubbed, would offer more perspective on the coming weeks and months. That in turn it was hoped, might also encourage vaccine sceptics to be inoculated. But voices speaking out on behalf of younger people said it was unfair on them if they watched older people being able to book holidays and visit restaurants if they were weeks or months away from being able to do so themselves.
Among the editorials criticising the government today, is the liberal daily, Süddeutsche, which wrote:
It’s not the citizens in a constitutional democracy who should have to explain why they want their basic rights back, it’s the state that should have to justify why it wants to take them away. From the point at which it is scientifically proven that those who are vaccinated and who have recovered from the virus are not infectious, it is neither necessary, or appropriate to forbid them from restaurants or beaches.
It added that every day the lockdown continued was costing the German state millions of Euros.
Updated
Organisers of last month’s concert in Barcelona by Catalan rock band Love of Lesbian that was attended by 5,000 people claim the results show that it is a successful model for Covid-safe mass gatherings.
The concert was held on March 27 in the city’s Palau Sant Jordi and was organised by local promoters in conjunction with the regional government and an AIDS research institute. Attendees underwent an antibody test on the morning of the concert.
Those with a negative result received a text message validating their ticket.
All had to wear FFP2 masks throughout and, although there was no social distancing, they were distributed in three areas of around 1,800 people each. Food and drink were served in restricted areas.
At a press conference today, the organisers claimed that 96 per cent of those attending presented themselves for testing 14 days after the concert.
Only six tested positive, of whom four were allegedly infected after the event. This represents a rate of 130 per 100,000 of population compared to 260 per 100,000 in Barcelona over the same period.
Josep Maria Llibre, a doctor involved in the project, said the results show it was safer to be at the concert on March 27 than anywhere else in the city.
The concert follows an earlier clinical trial of 500 people at a concert in the Sala Apolo in the city.
Some Russians who have taken Covid-19 antibody tests and found their antibodies have fallen are having third and fourth shots of the Sputnik V vaccine, but researchers in the country suggest they are unnecessary.
Reuters reports:
Revaccination in effect simulates getting the disease so that the body develops more antibodies to fight it. Researchers have said an immediate rise in antibodies seen by those getting a third or fourth shot suggests they did not need revaccination.
Sputnik V was one of the first vaccines widely used in a population, so Russia’s findings on revaccination will be closely watched elsewhere. The question of how long a vaccine offers protection against Covid-19 will be vital as countries gauge when or whether revaccination will be needed.
Russia has since its January roll-out been giving its citizens two shots of Sputnik V, with the booster following 21 days after the initial dose. Antibody tests are widely available in clinics in big cities.
Scientists at Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, which developed the vaccine, say a fall in antibody levels does not indicate a decline in immunity or that revaccination is needed.
The number of antibodies in the blood is not the only indicator of protection, they say, and memory cells continue to defend the body against Covid-19 for much longer.
The number of people known to have had a third or fourth vaccination is small, as many are side-stepping government policy to get extra shots. Research into their impact is limited.
But Alexander Gintsburg, the director of the Gamaleya Institute, said results from initial, ad hoc experiments showed memory cells were working and Gamaleya scientists expect immunity provided by Sputnik V to last at least two years.
Gintsburg told Izvestia newspaper that some Gamaleya Institute staff members got revaccinated around 12 months after their first doses, and their antibody levels soared within days.
This, he said, confirmed the memory cells were working.
“It was not necessary for them to be revaccinated,” Gintsburg told Izvestia.
Finland should end its Covid-19 state of emergency as infection rates decline, prime minister Sanna Marin said on Tuesday, adding that the issue would go before parliament.
“We see that the conditions no longer call for the emergency powers legislation,” Marin said.
On 9 April, Marin had presented a plan to relax restrictions.
The state of emergency was declared on 1 March because of a third spike in infections that began in late January.
The daily number of coronavirus infections has been decreasing since mid-March and Finland remains among the countries least affected by the pandemic. The nation of 5.5 million people has recorded 86,161 cases, 908 deaths and has 132 people hospitalised with the virus.
Helsingin Sanomat on Monday reported that approximately a third of over 16-year-olds in the country have received at least the first vaccine injection. 50–55-year-olds in Vantaa and 55–59-year-olds in Espoo are now beingh offered vaccines, and in the capital Helsinki, 55–59-year-olds will be able to book a vaccination from today.
The pace of vaccinations is expected to remain on track, largely due to the steady and large deliveries of the vaccine by Pfizer/BioNTech.
Finland is currently receiving 300,000 vaccine doses a week, but this is expected to increase to over 300,000 in May and to almost 500,000 in June, the Helsinki Times reports.
India expects to secure the biggest chunk of the 60 million AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses that the US will share globally, two Indian government sources told Reuters.
On Monday, the White House said 10 million doses could be cleared for export “in coming weeks” and the rest by June. It has not revealed potential beneficiaries, but the sources said India could gain the most.
“The wheels of diplomacy and appeals from WHO and top public health experts changed their thinking and now we have the US ready to send vaccines,” said one of the sources, an aide to prime minister Narendra Modi.
The Biden administration had agreed to ship doses to India after initial reluctance, he added.
“We are not sure how many we will receive. All I can say here is, our bowl is the largest and deepest.”
Speaking to Reuters after a telephone conversation between Modi and president Joe Biden on vaccine raw materials, the second official said India was lobbying hard to get more than 35% of the AstraZeneca doses.
“Our prime minister has been assured that India will be given priority; the ratio of Indian share is being worked out,” said the official, who is involved in the negotiations with the US authorities.
“We are also assuring them that once COVID cases decline, we will manufacture and distribute vaccines to other nations,” the source added, in line with a pact among the Quad group of nations comprising the US, India, Japan and Australia.
American multinational pharmaceutical company Merck & Co Inc said on Tuesday it had tied up with five generic drugmakers in India to expand access to molnupiravir, an experimental antiviral Covid-19 therapy it is developing with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics.
Vital medical supplies poured into India on Tuesday as hospitals starved of life-saving oxygen and beds turned away coronavirus patients, while a surge in infections pushed the death toll towards 200,000.
A shipment from the UK, including 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators, arrived in Delhi, said Reuters partner ANI, while France is sending oxygen generators able to provide 250 patients with a year’s worth of the gas, its embassy said.
The first “Oxygen Express” train pulled into Indian the capital laden with about 70 tonnes of oxygen from an eastern state, but the crisis has not abated in the city of 20 million at the centre of the latest wave of infections, Reuters reports.
Updated
Cricketers at the ongoing Indian Premier League have been told they are playing for “humanity” and remain “totally safe” within the confines of the tournament’s bio-secure bubble as organisers look to stave off further departures.
The IPL’s continuation during India’s huge second wave of Covid-19 cases – one that has seen daily recorded cases top 350,000 in the past week – is coming under scrutiny after Ravichandran Ashwin and three Australians, Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson and Andrew Tye, opted to leave their franchises.
In an email seen by the Guardian, Amin said: “[We] understand that there are few apprehensions and concerns regarding the general situation in India and the withdrawals of certain cricketers. We completely respect the decision taken by the players and extend our support to them in every way. At the same time, we would also assure you that you are totally safe within the bubble.”
Amin goes on to state that the IPL will increase Covid testing for players and support staff to every two days – it was previously every fifth day – while food deliveries to the team hotels have been paused “to strengthen our bio-bubbles”.
Full story here:
Updated
US president Joe Biden marks 100 days in office on Friday, 30 April, and has more than fulfilled his promise of 100m shots of Covid vaccine in Americans’ arms by his first 100 days in office: Two hundred and 90 million shots have been distributed, more than 230m administered, and about 96 million Americans are fully vaccinated, 29% of the population.
In response to the harsh effect of the pandemic on the US economy and rising unemployment, Biden will on Tuesday continue his push for a national $15 minimum wage with an executive order that raises pay to at least that level for hundreds of thousands of federal contract workers, according to senior White House officials.
The move will increase the current minimum wage of $10.95 by nearly 37% by March of next year and continue to tie future increases to inflation, Reuters reports.
It will apply to federal workers, from cleaning and maintenance staff to food service contractors and laborers, sweeping in tipped workers who were previously left out of the last increase under former president Barack Obama.
In 2020, 9.8% of US families included an unemployed person, twice as high as in 2019,when the figure stood at 4.9%, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the first quarter of 2021, full-time workers aged 25 and over without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $613, compared with $792 for high school graduates who didn’t attend college and $1,426 for those holding at least a bachelor’s degree.
Among college graduates with advanced degrees - master’s, professional, and doctoral degrees - the highest earning 10 percent of male workers made $4,355 or more per week, compared with $2,907 or more for their female counterparts.
Updated
Some people in India are rushing unnecessarily to hospital, exacerbating a crisis over surging Covid-19 infections caused by mass gatherings, more contagious variants and low vaccination rates, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
“Currently, part of the problem is that many people rush to the hospital (also because they do not have access to information/advice), even though home-based care monitoring at home can be managed very safely,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told Reuters by email.
I’m Jedidajah Otte and will be at the helm of this blog for the next few hours. Feel free to get in touch with tips and pointers, I’m on Twitter @JedySays or you can email me.
Today so far…
- India has welcomed vital medical supplies as it battles a major surge in cases. The external affairs ministry tweeted pictures of ventilators and oxygen concentrators that arrived in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
- Even though India’s case load was down from Monday’s global record (323,144 new cases, down from 352,991) some medical experts warned it was due to reduced testing, not a reduced infection rate.
- Gilead Sciences said yesterday it will give India at least 450,000 vials of its antiviral drug remdesivir and help boost production.
- The World Health Organization says it is “doing everything we can, providing critical equipment and supplies,” to India as its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters the situation there was “beyond heartbreaking”.
- The WHO said it was sending oxygen, mobile field hospitals and laboratory supplies and had transferred more than 2,600 experts from various programmes, including polio and tuberculosis, to work with Indian health authorities.
- Hong Kong will reopen bars and nightclubs from 29 April for people who have been vaccinated and who use a government mobile phone app.
- A Covid-19 outbreak that forced Fiji’s capital into lockdown after the island nation avoided transmission for a year has been confirmed as the Indian variant, with health officials saying they feared a “tsunami” of cases. Authorities have banned inter-island travel, while national carrier Fiji Airways has suspended all international and domestic passenger flights.
- The World Health Organization said it was still in discussions about the Russian-made Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine and had not yet set a date to evaluate the shot’s clinical data for possible emergency use listing.
- Brazil’s health regulator has denied a request from several states to import the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, saying it did not have the data needed to verify the jab’s safety and efficacy.
- In England, the NHS coronavirus vaccine booking system has opened to healthy people aged 42 and over.
- Also in England, MPs and peers have said that all 85,000-plus Covid fines issued during the pandemic should be reviewed, after more than a quarter of prosecutions in the first two months of the year for breaching the regulations were shown to have been wrongly brought.
- Athletes representing Australia at the Tokyo Olympics and their support staff will be prioritised for vaccination ahead of the July Games.
- Japan – which has been criticised for slow vaccine rollout – will open a mass vaccination centre in central Tokyo next month ahead of the Olympics.
- Thailand reported 15 new coronavirus deaths, setting a new daily record for the third time in four days during a growing third wave of infections that has prompted new shutdowns in Bangkok and other areas.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, this morning. Jedidajah Otte will be along shortly to carry on with global coronavirus news, and if you prefer a UK flavour, than Andrew Sparrow has UK politics live here.
Jessie Yeung writes for CNN this morning that as grim as the numbers coming out of India seem, they may be a vast under-estimation:
Health workers and scientists in India have long warned that Covid-19 infections and related deaths are significantly underreported for several reasons, including poor infrastructure, human error, and low testing levels. Testing has greatly increased in the wake of the first wave, but, the true extent of the second wave now ravaging India is likely much worse than official numbers suggest.
“It’s widely known that both the case numbers and the mortality figures are undercounts, they always have been,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi.
“Last year we estimated that only one in about 30 infections were being caught by testing, so the reported cases are a serious underestimate of true infections,” he said. “This time, the mortality figures are probably serious underestimates, and what we’re seeing on the ground is many more deaths, than what has been officially reported.”
“They are doing close to 2 million tests a day,” said Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist for the World Health Organization (WHO). But “that’s still not sufficient because the national average positivity rate is about 15% – in some cities like Delhi it’s up to 30% or higher,” she said Monday. “That means there are lots of people out there who are infected and not being detected just because of the capacity of testing ... we will know only later how many was really the number of people infected.”
Read more here: CNN – As Covid sweeps India, experts say cases and deaths are going unreported
Australian Olympic team to receive fast-track Covid vaccinations
Athletes representing Australia at the Tokyo Olympics and their support staff will be prioritised for vaccination ahead of the July Games with national cabinet agreeing to divert thousands of doses for the team.
Approximately 2,050 Australian athletes and staff travelling to Japan for the Olympics and Paralympics will now be considered a priority group under 1b of the rollout, the federal government said on Tuesday.
Both Pfizer and AztraZeneca vaccines will be used to fully vaccinate the travelling delegation as some of the team members will be aged over 50.
The Australian Olympic Committee had been pushing the Morrison government to fast-track vaccines for athletes after repeated delays in the rollout meant the initial target to fully vaccinate all citizens by October was abandoned.
The AOC had also called for a “bespoke” quarantine regime for returning athletes – instead of the standard fortnight in hotel quarantine – but Tuesday’s announcement did not detail those arrangements.
The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, said vaccines for athletes would act as a safety assurance for those preparing to represent Australia on the world stage.
“We want to see our athletes head to Tokyo to compete and then return to Australia safely,” Hunt said.
Read more of Elias Visontay’s report here: Australian Olympic team to receive fast-track Covid vaccinations ahead of Tokyo Games
WHO says date to evaluate Russian Sputnik V vaccine 'not yet set'
The World Health Organization said this morning that it was still in discussions about the Russian-made Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine and had not yet set a date to evaluate the shot’s clinical data for possible emergency use listing.
“On Sputnik, we are still waiting, we are still in the back-and-forth stage. So we don’t have a review meeting scheduled yet,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a briefing in Geneva, report Reuters.
Brazilian health regulator Anvisa yesterday rejected importing the Sputnik V requested by state governors battling a deadly second wave. Technical staff highlighted “inherent risks” and serious defects, citing a lack of information guaranteeing its safety, quality and effectiveness. The vaccine’s backers, meanwhile, yesterday released data from its usage in Hungary which they claim shows it is more effective than many of the alternatives.
In Russia itself, deputy prime minister Tatiana Golikova said today that the country has vaccinated 12.1 million people, of whom 7.7 million have had both doses.
Hong Kong to reopen bars and nightclubs for vaccinated people
Hong Kong will reopen bars and nightclubs from 29 April for people who have been vaccinated and who use a government mobile phone app, the Asian financial hub’s health secretary has said.
Reuters report that Sophia Chan told a press briefing the measures extended to bathhouses and karaoke lounges and would enable the venues to stay open until 2am. All staff and customers must have received at least one vaccine dose for the venue to be operational and they must operate at half capacity, she said.
“We all hope life can return to normal but we need to allow some time for everyone to adapt to these new measures,” Chan said.
Chan’s announcement comes as authorities try to incentivise residents to get vaccinated with only around 11% of the city’s 7.5 million population having received their first vaccine dose.
Hong Kong has banned non-residents in the city since March 2020, but announced this week a long-delayed travel bubble with Singapore will begin on 26 May 26, its first bilateral resumption of travel ties with another city.
Under the new rules, restaurants in the city will be allowed to increase the number of diners per table to six from four , provided staff and customers have also received their first vaccine dose. They will be able to dine until midnight, from 10pm now.
The take-up of vaccines has been sluggish since the scheme began in the Chinese special administrative region in February due to a lack of confidence in China’s Sinovac vaccine and fears of adverse reactions. A tracing app pushed by the government has also met with distrust.
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Neha Mehrotra and Aniruddha Ghosal at Associated Press have been talking to medical students in India, who they say feel betrayed by the government’s handling of the Covid crisis there.
Dr Siddharth Tara, they report, has, since the beginning of the week had a fever and persistent headache. A postgraduate medical student at New Delhi’s government-run Hindu Rao hospital, he took a Covid-19 test, but the results have been delayed. His hospital, overburdened and understaffed, wants him to keep working until the testing laboratory confirms he has it.
“I am not able to breathe. In fact, I’m more symptomatic than my patients. So how can they make me work?” asked Tara.
The challenges facing India today are being compounded by the fragility of its health system and its doctors. There are 541 medical colleges in India with 36,000 post-graduate medical students, and according to doctors’ unions constitute the majority at any government hospitals — they are the bulwark of the India’s response.
But for over a year, they have been subjected to mammoth workloads, lack of pay, rampant exposure to the virus and complete academic neglect. “We’re cannon fodder, that’s all,” said Tara.
Jignesh Gengadiya, a 26-year-old postgraduate medical student, knew he’d be working 24 hours a day, seven days a week when he signed up for a residency at the Government Medical College in the city of Surat in Gujarat state.
What he didn’t expect was to be the only doctor taking care of 60 patients in normal circumstances, and 20 patients on duty in the intensive care unit.
“ICU patients require constant attention. If more than one patient starts collapsing, who do I attend to?” asked Gengadiya.
Hindu Rao hospital, where Tara works, provides a snapshot of the country’s dire situation. It has increased beds for virus patients, but hasn’t hired any additional doctors, quadrupling the workload, Tara said. To make matters worse, senior doctors are refusing to treat virus patients.
“I get that senior doctors are older and more susceptible to the virus. But as we have seen in this wave, the virus affects old and young alike,” said Tara, who suffers from asthma but has been doing regular Covid-19 duty.
Nearly 75% of postgraduate medical students in the surgery department tested positive for the virus in the last month, said a student from the department who spoke anonymously out of fear of retribution.
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My colleague Andrew Sparrow has just launched this morning’s UK live blog, which will have an inevitable political focus on the lobbying and sleaze row engulfing the UK government, but has a Covid component with prime minister Boris Johnsons reported – and denied – comments that he wanted “no more fucking lockdowns – let the bodies pile high in their thousands”.
Andrew introduces the day:
Boris Johnson is chairing cabinet this morning, and will reportedly tell his ministers to focus on the “people’s priorities”, but media and political attention is still overwhelmingly focused on the multiple “sleaze” allegations surrounding him. There are the unanswered questions about how the bill for his lavish Downing Street flat refurbishment was settled, controversy about his alleged remarks about his willingness to see thousands of people rather than order a further lockdown, his briefing war with Dominic Cummings and concerns about the government’s approach to lobbying and how it awarded Covid contracts worth billions.
It can be hard to keep up. But one of the attractions about “sleaze” as a concept for the opposition is that it is such an elastic, vague terms that it can embrace almost any revelation with implications for propriety. That’s why, as a label, it can stick.
You can follow the day’s events here…
Fiji outbreak confirmed as 'Indian variant' – inter-island and international travel banned
A Covid-19 outbreak that forced Fiji’s capital into lockdown after the island nation avoided transmission for a year has been confirmed as the Indian variant, with health officials saying they feared a “tsunami” of cases.
The Pacific country had largely dodged community transmission before a cluster emerged this month centred on a quarantine facility in Nadi, the city that is home to Fiji’s international airport.
The permanent secretary for health and medical services, James Fong, said six new cases had emerged in quarantine facilities on Tuesday and events in India showed the threat posed by the strain could not be underestimated.
“We cannot let that nightmare happen in Fiji,” he said in a televised address, AFP report.
“We still have time to stop it happening but a single misstep will bring about the same Covid tsunami that our friends in India, Brazil, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States are enduring.”
Fiji has largely contained the virus through strict isolation measures and border controls, recording 109 cases and just two deaths in a population of 930,000.
Authorities on Tuesday banned inter-island travel, while national carrier Fiji Airways has suspended all international and domestic passenger flights.
The emergence of community transmission is a blow for Fiji’s hopes of opening quarantine-free travel bubbles with Australia and New Zealand, both major sources of international tourists before the pandemic.
Sirin Kale has the latest in our Lost to the virus series today. It features Donna Coleman, 42. She was a devoted and popular member of the teaching staff at Burnley College. At the height of the second wave, working conditions left her terrified of doing the job she loved, as Covid ran riot through the college.
In terms of providing medical relief for the suge of Covid cases afflicting India, Gilead Sciences said yesterday it will give India at least 450,000 vials of its antiviral drug remdesivir and help boost production.
Remdesivir is approved in India for restricted emergency use to treat severe Covid-19 cases, but Reuters report that hospitals are facing supply shortages due to indiscriminate use and the drug is being sold at over 10 times its listed price in the black market. The shortage has raised concerns about hoarding as people queue up outside clinics and hospitals to buy the drug and millions take to social media to secure supplies.
Earlier this month, India banned the export of the drug and the active pharmaceutical ingredients used to make it. Seven Indian companies have licensed the drug from Gilead, with an installed capacity of about 3.9 million units per month. Gilead said all of them were scaling up their batch sizes and adding new manufacturing facilities and local contract manufacturers.
There are some doubts about the drug’s effectiveness in treating Covid-19. The World Health Organization in November issued a conditional recommendation against the use of remdesivir in hospitalised patients, but India has continued to use it.
A senior Indian government health official said last week that remdesivir is only for those patients who need oxygen. “I am appealing that the hype over this medicine should be decreased, and it should be used in a rational manner,” Vinod Kumar Paul said.
Russian pharmaceutical firm Pharmasyntez has said it is ready to ship up to 1 million packs of remdesivir to India by end-May once it received the Russian government’s approval.
There are a lot of retrospective looks at US president Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office knocking around. Zeke Miller at the Associated Press has looked specifically at the new president’s record specifically on Covid. Unlike his predecessor, Biden hasn’t once said “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away.”
He spent his first 100 days in office encouraging Americans to mask up and stay home to slow the spread of Covid-19. His task for the next 100 days, Miller says will be to lay out the path back to normal.
Joe Biden speaks about vaccinations at the White House earlier this month. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
When he entered office, Biden moved swiftly to overcome vaccine supply issues and more than tripled the country’s ability to administer them. But ending the coronavirus pandemic will require more than putting shots into arms. It needs a robust plan to help the nation emerge from a year of isolation, disruption and confusion.
If Biden launched the nation onto a war footing against a virus that infected nearly 200,000 Americans in January and killed about 3,000 of them per day, the next months will be tantamount to winning the peace. Already, deaths are down to fewer than 700 per day and average daily cases are below 60,000. US officials insist there is a long way to go before the country can be fully at ease, but the progress is marked.
Going forward, success will mean finishing the nation’s herculean vaccination campaign – to date 43% of Americans have received at least one shot – overcoming lagging demand and communicating in clear terms what activities can be safely resumed by those who are vaccinated. Key milestones include Biden’s July Fourth pledge that Americans can safely gather with friends and family, and the start of the new school year, when the president hopes to have all schools open safely.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was expected to unveil new guidance on outdoor mask-wearing for unvaccinated individuals today, ahead of a planned speech by Biden later on the state of the pandemic response. Officials said a focus in the coming weeks will be on easing guidance for vaccinated people, both in recognition of their lower risk and to provide an incentive to get shots.
“We’re excited about the progress we’ve made, and the opportunity ahead of us, and because of the vaccination program we built we’re further along than almost anyone predicted,” said White House Covid-19 coordinator Jeff Zients. “It means we’re closer to returning to normal.”
“In this next phase we’ll focus on increasing accessibility, building confidence, continuing to put equity at the center of everything we do,” Zients said of the push to maximize the number of Americans vaccinated in coming months. “It’s not going to be easy, but neither was getting to 200 million shots in less than 100 days, and we did that.”
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Australia's India flight suspension due to Covid crisis leaves thousands in limbo
Sarah Martin has more for us on the consequences of Australia’s suspension of flights to India:
The decision leaves more than 9,000 Australian citizens who have registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs in limbo, 650 of whom are considered vulnerable.
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison said a “concerning” increase in the percentage of cases in Australia’s hotel quarantine that had their origins in India had led to the decision to suspend flights, but the government was hopeful of resuming them after 15 May with a new testing process in place prior to departure.
The new testing requirements prior to “uplift” will include a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, and a rapid antigen test. “This is a rapidly escalating situation,” Morrison said. “We took a series of decisions last week, we believed today we needed to go further with the pause.”
Indirect flights have also been restricted, meaning travel through third countries such as Singapore from India would also be stopped.
Morrison said the government was aware that the current situation would be “highly stressful” for Australians in India, and moved to reassure them that the Australian High Commission would remain in contact, and the government would not “shut them off”.
Read more of Sarah Martin’s report here: Scott Morrison announces India flight suspension due to Covid crisis, leaving thousands in limbo
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Vaccine booking in England extended to those aged 42 and over.
In England, the NHS coronavirus vaccine booking system has opened to healthy people aged 42 and over. The booking system has extended for the second time in a week to allow more healthy adults in their 40s to book their jab.
PA Media notes that people in England who are aged 42 and over, or those who will turn 42 before 1 July, can now arrange their vaccine appointment through the national booking website.
Other nations in the UK can find out the latest status for booking a vaccine here:
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China’s latest vaccination figures are out, and as is usual, they appear to have put everybody else in the shade. Reuters report that the Chinese National Health Commission data reveals that yesterday there were 4.6 million vaccinations against Covid-19, taking the national total up to around 229m doses.
Back in January, the Greek government said it would prioritise immunity on smaller islands, promising they would be fully vaccinated by the end of April.
To that end, jabs are being distributed to inhabitants of dozens of islands in the Aegean sea to the east and the Ionian sea to the west, where municipalities are hungry to reopen fully to tourists next month. Agence France-Presse reporters have been in Elafonisos to see how the plan is taking shape.
“Seventy per cent of the island’s population will be vaccinated before mid-May,” says Elafonisos mayor Efi Liarou, a move she said would “provide a kind of shield for the inhabitants”.
“It’s a very important step that guarantees the launch of the tourist season and sends a message of optimism,” she continues, proud of what she sees as her island’s “Covid-free identity”.
Parked on the island is a medical truck stacked with special boxes full of Covid-19 vaccine doses. Doctor Anargyros Mariolis, in charge of vaccination on Elafonisos, escorted the truck from the mainland by ferry on Friday.
And after finishing a day of giving jabs at the centre, Mariolis begins visits to homebound elderly residents. “Our goal is to create a wall of immunity to get back to normal as fast as possible,” he told AFP.
The jab campaign is completely voluntary and doesn’t apply to anyone under the age of 18.
The health ministry’s secretary general Marios Themistocleous has said: “Soon we will have finished vaccinating on islands with fewer than 1,000 residents. We will then accelerate our efforts on the bigger islands,” he said.
Local business people on Elafonisos are counting on their image as a safe haven from the virus to help draw their customers back. “The Covid-free identity is a privilege for our island,” says Chryssoula Kataga, 43, who owns a restaurant in the island’s port. “It reassures tourists after this whole period of confinement,” she said.
Babis Aronis is finishing renovations on his hotel nearby and says he’s already started getting calls for reservations. “After 14 May, everything will be better,” he says. “We’re going to make it this summer.”
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Public health experts have pleaded with Australia’s political leaders to find an urgent fix to the problems with hotel quarantine, while the Western Australian government calls on the commonwealth to repurpose immigration detention facilities and airbases.
The outbreak in Western Australia has again prompted frustration over the continued problems with transmission in hotel quarantine and the reluctance of the main federal advisory group, the Infection Control Expert Group, to better acknowledge the significance of airborne transmission in spreading Covid-19.
The Australian Medical Association and the Public Health Association of Australia have in recent days called for the ICEG to update its advice to reflect the importance of ventilation and airborne PPE, like N95 masks, in managing the risk during quarantine. They have also called for the upgrading of the quarantine system.
Several states have either built or are attempting to build purpose-built quarantine facilities, to avoid the dangers posed by poorly ventilated hotel quarantine systems. The Northern Territory government-operated Howard Springs facility maintains open air separation between quarantine rooms and has been praised as the “gold standard” for infection control.
Queensland has long been pushing for a similar facility at the Wellcamp airport near Toowoomba, which would be privately owned by the wealthy Wagner family. The state government’s negotiations with the commonwealth on the Wellcamp proposal have stalled, prompting frustration at the state level.
“We will continue to see more lockdowns in our capital cities unless we give due consideration to regional quarantine facilities,” Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Tuesday. “This is absolutely critical, we are by no means out of the woods yet.”
Read more of Christopher Knaus’ report here: Health officials beg Australian government to upgrade hotel quarantine amid Covid leaks
In the UK, PA Media reports that the owner of Premier Inn has revealed the extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic devastated the hotels industry, with sales down 71.4% in the 12 months to 25 February, compared with a year earlier.
Whitbread bosses, however, said they were confident for the recovery – with 92% of hotels in the UK now reopened – and plan to invest 350 million into the business this year. Premier Inn bosses also said they believe there will be a strong internal UK holiday market during the summer holidays.
You can follow all the latest business news – Covid and non-Covid – with my colleague Graeme Wearden on our daily business live blog.
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Brazil’s health regulator denies request to import Russian Sputnik V vaccine
Brazil’s health regulator has denied a request from several states to import Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, saying it did not have the data needed to verify the jab’s safety and efficacy.
“We will never allow millions of Brazilians to be exposed to products without due verification of quality, safety and efficacy, or at minimum, facing the grave situation we are now going through, that the benefits will outweigh the risks,” said Antonio Barra Torres, president of federal health regulator Anvisa.
Agence France-Presse report that Anvisa said its experts had flagged “uncertainties” about the jab, which has not yet been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or the United State’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Anvisa, which received a request last month for emergency use of the Russian formula, has not released its findings, or cited the specific information it determined was lacking.
Russia registered Sputnik V last August ahead of large-scale clinical trials, prompting concern among experts over the fast-track process. But later reviews have been largely positive.
The Lancet medical journal publishing results showing it to be safe and more than 90% effective, and yesterday the vaccine’s backers were bullish about data from Hungary they claim shows it to be more effective than many of the other options.
The government of Hungary, the 1st EU country to start using Sputnik V, released its latest data on safety and efficacy across 5 vaccines. #SputnikV has the best safety (7-32 times fewer deaths cases) and efficacy (2-7 times fewer COVID infections) per 100,000 vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/UKVjsZT8Ws
— Sputnik V (@sputnikvaccine) April 25, 2021
Brazil has recorded more than 390,000 Covid-19 deaths, the second-highest number globally, behind only the US. But the government has struggled to secure enough vaccine doses for the country’s 212 million people. So far, it has managed to administer over 38 million vaccine doses. But the country’s outbreak has continued to surge, pushing hospitals to the breaking point.
The Sputnik vaccine has so far been approved for use in 60 countries, including more than 10 in Latin and Central America.
Argentina signed a deal with Russia earlier this month to become the first Latin American country to produce Sputnik V shots, and will aim for full-scale production to start in June.
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Incidentally, here’s a round-up of what the papers have been saying about British prime minister Boris Johnson and the row over his alleged “let the bodies pile high” comments over imposing a second lockdown late last year.
This morning’s political media round in the UK is almost certainly going to continue to be dominated by the allegations that British prime minister Boris Johnson said “no more fucking lockdowns – let the bodies pile high in their thousands” after reluctantly approving a second England-wide lockdown late last year. Johnson and senior ministers have emphatically denied he said it.
As Jessica Elgot and Robert Booth reported last night, media outlets, including the Guardian, have several sources between them saying that the remark – or something similar – was made:
ITV reported source claims that the “let the bodies pile high” comments were shouted from an office in Downing Street after a crunch meeting with ministers, rather than during the meeting.
Speaking to the Guardian, a source corroborated that account and hinted that the comments had been heard by a small number of people, outside Johnson’s office. A second source, who did not hear the comments directly, said there had been “chatter” about them in Downing Street last year, though the phrase the source expressly recalled was “no more fucking lockdowns … no matter the consequences”.
The source said they understood the comments to have been made in frustration and underlined that the prime minister went ahead with a third lockdown in January.
Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth has this morning called the PM’s alleged remarks – that he was prepared to let “bodies pile high” rather than order a third lockdown – “crass” and “wrong”.
“It’s so upsetting, there is more sources telling the most senior journalists in the country that he did say it,” Mr Ashworth told ITV’s Good Morning Britain, PA Media reports.
There will be so many viewers who have lost a loved one, perhaps lost a mum, or a grandma, a dad, a grandfather, who never got the opportunity to say goodbye properly - probably didn’t have a decent funeral. The remarks are sickening, they are disgusting, they are crass, they are wrong.
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All Covid fines in England should be reviewed, MPs say
All 85,000-plus Covid fines issued in England during the pandemic should be reviewed, MPs and peers have said, after more than a quarter of prosecutions in the first two months of the year for breaching the regulations were shown to have been wrongly brought.
The joint committee on human rights said coronavirus regulations, which have been changed at least 65 times since March last year, were muddled, discriminatory and unfair.
As well as a review of all fixed penalty notices (FPNs), its members suggest no criminal record should result from Covid FPNs, the income of those hit with big fines – the maximum is £10,000 – should be assessed, and there should be a mechanism to challenge future fines.
Harriet Harman, the chair of the cross-party committee, said: “Swift action to make restrictions effective is essential in the face of this terrible virus. But the government needs to ensure that rules are clear, enforcement is fair and that mistakes in the system can be rectified. None of that is the case in respect of Covid-19 fixed penalty notices.
“This means we’ve got an unfair system with clear evidence that young people, those from certain ethnic minority backgrounds, men and the most socially deprived are most at risk. Whether people feel the FPN is deserved or not, those who can afford it are likely to pay a penalty to avoid criminality. Those who can’t afford to pay face a criminal record along with all the resulting consequences for their future development. The whole process disproportionately hits the less well-off and criminalises the poor over the better-off.”
She acknowledged that the police have a difficult job but noted that “since January there have been greater numbers of FPNs as police move more quickly to enforcement action, and because of a lack of legal clarity, likely greater numbers of incorrectly issued FPNs”.
Read more of Haroon Siddique’s report here: All Covid fines in England should be reviewed, MPs say
Japan to open mass vaccination centre in Tokyo
Japan will open a mass vaccination centre in central Tokyo next month ahead of this summer’s Olympic Games.
No decision has been made on which vaccine will be used or how many people will get shots each day, the chief cabinet secretary, Katsunobu Kato, told reporters.
“We will announce the details once the defence ministry and local authorities have come up with a plan,” Kato said.
The government will also support inoculation efforts in Osaka, in western Japan, he added.
Japan imposed a third state of emergency in its major population centres on Sunday, as the country attempts to combat a fourth wave of infections with less than three months until the Olympics begin.
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Thailand sets new daily record for Covid deaths
Thailand on Tuesday reported 15 new coronavirus deaths, setting a new daily record for the third time in four days during a growing third wave of infections that has prompted new shutdowns in Bangkok and other areas.
The health ministry also reported 2,179 new coronavirus cases, bringing total confirmed infections to 59,687 and fatalities to 163.
Parks, gyms, cinemas and day-care centres in the capital Bangkok were ordered to shut from 26 April until 9 May.
The country’s PM, Prayut Chan-o-cha, was fined for not wearing a mask after new restrictions came into force.
Even though India’s case load was down from Monday’s global record (323,144 new cases, down from 352,991) some medical experts warned it was due to reduced testing, not a reduced infection rate.
“Please note that a huge fall in daily cases … is largely due to a heavy fall in testing. This should not be taken as an indication of falling cases, rather a matter of missing out on too many positive cases!” Rijo M John, a professor and health economist at the Indian Institute of Management in the southern state of Kerala, said in a post on Twitter.
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More now on Australia’s decision to suspend flights from India until at least 15 May.
The move was announced by the prime minister, Scott Morrison a short time ago, and will affect two passenger services into Sydney and two repatriation flights into Darwin, involving about 500 people, Australian Associated Press reports.
“This has been a very significant outbreak in India,” he told reporters in Sydney.
He said the decision would be reviewed before 15 May, but passengers on future flights will need to show a negative result on two different types of Covid-19 tests before they get on board.
Further flights will focus on getting vulnerable Australians back home. Indirect flights via such ports as Dubai, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur have also been paused.
Australia will also send India an urgent shipment of medical supplies and personal protective equipment.
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India welcomes international medical supplies
India has welcomed vital medical supplies as it battles a major surge in cases. The external affairs ministry tweeted pictures of ventilators and oxygen concentrators that arrived in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
International cooperation at work! Appreciate the shipment of vital medical supplies from 🇬🇧 including 100 ventilators & 95 oxygen concentrators that arrived early this morning. pic.twitter.com/MBZFwSn4cH
— Arindam Bagchi (@MEAIndia) April 27, 2021
In total, nine airline container loads of supplies, including 495 oxygen concentrators, 120 non-invasive ventilators and 20 manual ventilators, will be sent this week, according to the British high commission in India.
In the past few minutes, Australia became the latest country to pause flights from India. The ban is in place until 15 May, the prime minister, Scott Morrison said.
On Monday the prime minister, Narendra Modi, spoke with President Biden. The US “is providing a range of emergency assistance, including oxygen-related supplies, vaccine materials and therapeutics,” Biden told Modi, according to a statement.
A state department spokesperson, Ned Price, said the US was “working nonstop across the government to do all we can to deliver on an urgent basis the supplies most needed within India, and that includes oxygen assistance and related materials,” he said.
Indian media reported the US CDC was deploying a public health team to work with the US embassy on the ground, India’s health ministries and its epidemic intelligence staff.
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Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus virus, as vital medical supplies begin to arrive in India.
The ministry of external affairs spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi, said 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators had arrived early this morning from the UK.
It comes as the country recorded 323,144 new daily cases of coronavirus and 2,771 deaths.
Here’s a summary of the main news so far:
- The World Health Organization says it is “doing everything we can, providing critical equipment and supplies,” to India as its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters the situation there was “beyond heartbreaking”.
- The WHO said it was sending oxygen, mobile field hospitals and laboratory supplies and had transferred more than 2,600 experts from various programmes, including polio and tuberculosis, to work with Indian health authorities.
- Boris Johnson pledged Britain would do “all it can” to help India.
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France said it would send eight oxygen production units as well as oxygen containers and respirators to India.
- Thailand’s prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was fined for not wearing a mask after new restrictions came into force to try to halt an outbreak that saw deaths hit a record single-day high on Tuesday (15 deaths) for the third time in four days.
- Germany’s coronavirus cases rose by 10,976 on Tuesday, according to the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.
- Japan will open a mass vaccination centre in central Tokyo next month, officials said on Tuesday, part of the country’s bid to speed up its Covid-19 inoculation campaign as the Olympic Games looms.
