Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock
A summary of today's developments
- Brazil had 98,832 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours and 2,495 deaths, the health ministry said on Friday, Reuters reports. The South American country has now registered 17,801,462 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 498,499, according to ministry data.
- US president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris have urged Americans to get Covid-19 vaccines on Friday, as the country looks likely to miss the White House’s goals for vaccination next month.
- Face masks will mostly no longer be required across the Netherlands and other restrictions will ease from next week, after a drop in Covid-19 cases, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. Most limits on group sizes will also be lifted from June 26, as long as people can keep at least 1.5 metres (5 ft) apart.
- Canada said on Friday it will extend restrictions that bar non-essential travel at US land borders until at least 21 July.
- The trend of Covid-19 cases in Africa is very concerning, a senior World Health Organization official said on Friday. Absolute numbers do not make Africa look in bad shape, said Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergency expert, adding that in the last week it had recorded just over 5% of global cases and 2.2% of deaths.
- AstraZeneca must deliver Covid-19 vaccines to the EU also from a factory in Britain if it is needed to meet its commitments with the EU, a judge ruled on Friday, according to a lawyer representing the EU. The company had said it could not immediately deliver to the EU doses from an Oxford Biomedica factory in Britain because it had to supply the UK first.
- Indonesia on Friday reported 12,990 new infections, the highest number since late January, taking its overall total to 1,963,266. It also logged 290 further deaths, the highest daily toll since 4 April, bringing total fatalities to 54,043.
- The World Health Organization’s chief scientist said the Delta variant of Covid-19, first identified in India, is becoming the globally dominant variant of the disease. “The Delta variant is well on its way to becoming the dominant variant globally because of its increased transmissability,” WHO’s Soumya Swaminathan told a news conference.
- Uganda’s president Yowreri Museveni has introduced sweeping new anti-coronavirus measures including a ban on all vehicular movement except for essential workers to help curb a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reports
US NFL player Cole Beasley leaned into the sharp backlash from statements he has made critical of the coronavirus vaccine on Friday, disclosing that he is not vaccinated and pledging to “live my one life like I want to regardless”.
“I will be outside doing what I do,” he wrote in a statement posted to social media.
“I’ll be out in the public. If your (sic) scared of me then steer clear, or get vaccinated. Point. Blank. Period. I may die of covid, but I’d rather die actually living.
Almost two-thirds of workers in England seeking grants to help them self-isolate are being refused help, sparking warnings from trade unions that a key policy to limit Covid-19 is “failing” in the face of rising infections.
Councils are continuing to refuse more than six out of 10 applications despite the government increasing funding for the vital anti-Covid system in March to £20m a month, freedom of information requests by the Trades Union Congress found.
Workers in the UK must be given a right to do their jobs from home, Labour has demanded as it piled pressure on the UK’s government not to let its consultation on flexible working be kicked into the long grass.
In the first major announcement made by Angela Rayner since gaining the portfolio of shadow cabinet minister for the future of work, she said employers should not be able to “dictate terms” to staff when the guidance urging people to work from home is expected to be lifted next month.
A right to disconnect, meaning workers would have a reasonable expectation of not having to work or check calls and emails outside their normal hours, is also being supported by Labour, to ensure homes do not become round-the-clock offices.
The announcement comes as attention turns to how to hold on to some of the positive benefits experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic, which for some have included home working – saving time and money on commuting and being able to spend longer with their families.
Brazil had 98,832 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours and 2,495 deaths, the health ministry said on Friday, Reuters reports.
The South American country has now registered 17,801,462 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 498,499, according to ministry data.
Canada extending a ban on non-essential travel with the US and the rest of the world until July 21 has triggered frustration from businesses and US legislators.
“The inability of the U.S. and Canadian governments to reach an agreement on alleviating border restrictions ... is simply unacceptable,” said U.S. Representatives Brian Higgins and Bill Huizenga, co-chairs of the Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Group.
Harley Finkelstein, president of Canadian e-commerce company Shopify Inc, tweeted the extended border closure was the wrong decision.
“We need to open the border for fully vaccinated travellers immediately,” Reuters reports.
US president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris have urged Americans to get Covid-19 vaccines on Friday, as the country looks likely to miss the White House’s goals for vaccination next month.
At the current pace, the US seems unlikely to hit Biden’s goal of 70 percent of adults receiving at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by July 4, the Independence Day holiday. As of Friday, around 65.1 percent of people had gotten at least one jab and that mark has increased by less than one percentage point over the past two weeks, Reuters reports.
A summary of today's developments
- Face masks will mostly no longer be required across the Netherlands and other restrictions will ease from next week, after a drop in Covid-19 cases, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. Most limits on group sizes will also be lifted from June 26, as long as people can keep at least 1.5 metres (5 ft) apart.
- Canada said on Friday it will extend restrictions that bar non-essential travel at US land borders until at least 21 July.
- The trend of Covid-19 cases in Africa is very concerning, a senior World Health Organization official said on Friday. Absolute numbers do not make Africa look in bad shape, said Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergency expert, adding that in the last week it had recorded just over 5% of global cases and 2.2% of deaths.
- AstraZeneca must deliver Covid-19 vaccines to the EU also from a factory in Britain if it is needed to meet its commitments with the EU, a judge ruled on Friday, according to a lawyer representing the EU. The company had said it could not immediately deliver to the EU doses from an Oxford Biomedica factory in Britain because it had to supply the UK first.
- Indonesia on Friday reported 12,990 new infections, the highest number since late January, taking its overall total to 1,963,266. It also logged 290 further deaths, the highest daily toll since 4 April, bringing total fatalities to 54,043.
- The World Health Organization’s chief scientist said the Delta variant of Covid-19, first identified in India, is becoming the globally dominant variant of the disease. “The Delta variant is well on its way to becoming the dominant variant globally because of its increased transmissability,” WHO’s Soumya Swaminathan told a news conference.
- Uganda’s president Yowreri Museveni has introduced sweeping new anti-coronavirus measures including a ban on all vehicular movement except for essential workers to help curb a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reports.
Uganda introduces sweeping anti-Covid rules
Uganda’s president Yowreri Museveni has introduced sweeping new anti-coronavirus measures including a ban on all vehicular movement except for essential workers to help curb a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reports.
“The country has seen a more aggressive and sustained growth of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Museveni said. He said the daily number of people testing positive has jumped to over 1,700 from less than 100 just three weeks ago. “We are experiencing very high hospitalization rates and deaths for COVID-19 patients among all age categories.” In new measures to curb the pandemic, he banned movement of both public and private vehicles except those transporting patients and those used by essential workers like health workers. An existing curfew that began at 9 p.m. was brought forward to 7 p.m. while venues like busy shopping centers, churches and sports arenas were closed. The new restrictions will last 42 days, Museveni said. To date, Uganda has registered a total of 68,778 Covid-19 cases and 542 deaths.
Updated
Bolivia striker Marcelo Martins has been banned for one game and fined $20,000 by the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) after criticising the organisation for hosting the Copa America in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic.
Martins was one of three Bolivia players who tested positive for COVID-19 on the eve of their 3-1 opening loss to Paraguay, Reuters reports.
He missed the game and posted some sharp words on social media about CONMEBOL*s last-minute decision to host the tournament in Brazil, a nation that has seen almost 500,000 people die from the virus.
“Thanks for this CONMEBOL,” Martins wrote on Instagram. “All the blame is totally yours. If someone died what are you going to do??? The only thing that*s important to you is MONEY. Is a player*s life worth nothing?”
He took down the comments and apologised but CONMEBOL banned the 34-year old from Bolivia’s next game against Chile on Friday.
Since Martins made the comments two more Bolivia players have tested positive for Covid-19.
Brazil’s health ministry said 27 players and officials have tested positive for coronavirus so far.
Updated
German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron have urged caution in allowing fans to crowd Euro 2020 stadiums while the coronavirus pandemic still posts major risks, AFP reports.
“We can’t act as if corona were over” despite dropping infection rates in much of Europe, Merkel told reporters when asked about plans for the upcoming matches.
“You can see based on the example of Lisbon how quickly things can change,” referring to a recent resurgence of Covid-19 cases in the Portuguese capital.
She noted that fully vaccinated people were still in the minority in most European countries “which is why caution is still necessary”.
Merkel said that applied in particular to “big events”.
“In Munich for example you had 14,000 fans (for the Germany-France match on Tuesday)“ under strict hygiene rules, she said.
“But when I see fully packed stadiums in other European countries, I am a little sceptical whether that is the right thing in the current situation.”
Updated
Prime minister Mario Draghi has urged Italians to get fully vaccinated against coronavirus, acknowledging that a government decision to ban AstraZeneca doses for people aged over 60 had created confusion.
The government unexpectedly restricted the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week following the death of a teenager who had developed blood clots after receiving a first dose, Reuters reports.
Italy’s medicine agency AIFA said on Monday that those aged under 60 who had received a first dose of AstraZeneca could be given a different vaccine when they got their second dose.
However, officials have said the vaccination campaign saw a drop off in numbers over the past week, with many people apparently worried about mixing shots.
Draghi said he himself would be getting a different type of vaccine next week after tests showed that he had developed few antibodies after receiving an initial AstraZeneca shot in March.
Netherlands to ease restrictions next week
Face masks will mostly no longer be required across the Netherlands and other restrictions will ease from next week, after a drop in Covid-19 cases, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.
Most limits on group sizes will also be lifted from June 26, as long as people can keep at least 1.5 metres (5 ft) apart, he told a news conference. Reuters reports. No new limits will be set on the number of guests allowed in stores, bars and restaurants, Rutte said, as long as they keep their distance, or show that they have been vaccinated or have a negative test. People will still need to wear masks on public transport and in airports, where distancing is not possible.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) cancelled a deal on Friday to receive soon-to-expire Covid-19 vaccines from Israel after an initial Israeli shipment showed an expiration date sooner than had been agreed, the PA health minister said.
Israel and the PA announced a vaccine swap deal earlier on Friday that would have seen Israel send up to 1.4 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses to the PA, in exchange for receiving a reciprocal number of doses from the PA later this year, Reuters reports.
The doses were due to “expire soon”, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office said in a statement announcing the deal. The PA said they had been “approved in order to speed up the vaccination process” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
“They told us the expiration date was in July or August, which would allow lots of time for use,” PA Health Minister Mai Alkaila said.
“But (the expiration) turned out to be in June. That’s not enough time to use them, so we rejected them,” she said.
The PA cancelled the deal over the date issue, a PA spokesman said, and sent the initial shipment of around 90,000 doses back to Israel.
The US administered 316,048,776 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 377,935,390 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 314,969,386 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by June 17 out of 377,215,060 doses delivered, Reuters reports. The agency said 176,290,249 people had received at least one dose while 148,459,003 people are fully vaccinated as of Friday.
French president Emmanuel Macron, at a joint press conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Friday, said European Union countries need to better coordinate their border reopening policies.
“Some countries have reopened their borders earlier for tourist industry reasons, but we must be careful not to re-import new variants,” Macron said.
My colleagues Jessica Elgot and Aubrey Allegretti have written up a piece about UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s enthusiasm for domestic Covid passports, which were ultimately deemed unworkable.
A “huge number” of poorer countries have had to suspend their coronavirus vaccination programmes due to a lack of doses, the World Health Organization said Friday.
AFP reports:
The shortages often mean people who have received one dose of Covid-19 vaccine have to wait too long before they can get their second jab.
“We have a huge number of countries that have had to suspend their rollout of their second doses of vaccine,” said Bruce Aylward, the WHO’s frontman for the international Covax scheme which provides vaccine doses to poorer countries.
“If I remember correctly, it’s over 30 or 40 countries that could have been targeted for second doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, for example, who will not be able to do that,” Aylward added.
The countries affected by this problem are spread throughout the Indian subcontinent, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, the WHO expert said.
Countries around India, like Nepal and Sri Lanka, have been “particularly hit hard” and face “a severe wave of disease”, he added.
The Serum Institute of India (SII), producing AstraZeneca doses, was supposed to be the backbone of Covax’s supply chain - but India restricted exports to combat its own devastating coronavirus surge.
“We are now urgently trying to work with AstraZeneca itself, as well as SII, the government in India to restart those shipments so that we can get those second doses into those populations because we are running to a longer interval than we would have liked in that regard,” said Aylward.
He bemoaned that “only countries right now that have got the financial resources, who are producing the products, actually have access to vaccines”.
On Monday, the WHO warned that coronavirus is moving faster than the vaccines, and that the G7 nations’ vow to provide a billion doses for poorer nations is simply not enough.
In Africa only about one percent of the population is fully vaccinated, according to WHO figures.
As of Thursday, the Covax scheme had provided just 88 million vaccine doses, spread out over 131 countries, far less than originally planned.
As a three-day coronavirus travel ban came into force around Lisbon on Friday afternoon, drivers stopped by police asking them their reason for travelling said they felt concerned about the worrying rise in infections.
Reuters reports:
People living in the 18 municipalities of Lisbon’s metropolitan area will be banned from leaving from 3 p.m. on Friday until 6 am on Monday. Those living outside the area will not be allowed in.
Portugal, population 10 million, posted over 1,000 new Covid-19 cases for the third day in a row on Friday and the number of daily infections are back to late February levels, when the country was still under lockdown.
Most new cases were reported in the Lisbon area.
A lockdown was imposed in January to tackle what was then world’s worst coronavirus surge but most restrictions have since been lifted. The jump in infections comes less than a month after Portugal opened to visitors from the EU and Britain.On highways around the Lisbon region, police stopped drivers and asked them why they were travelling. Most had a valid reason, including work. But some of the drivers were not impressed with the new rule.
“It doesn’t make sense for this measure to only be in place during the weekend - the virus circulates all week,” said 43-year-old Sergio Ribeiro after the police gave him the green light to continue his journey.
Portugal’s health system was on the verge of collapsing earlier this year and some hospitals in the city are already gearing up to treat more patients if needed.
The number of people in hospital has slightly increased in recent days.
The head of Portugal’s Bar Association, Luis Menezes Leitao, said the measure to confine people to Lisbon’s area over the weekend was unconstitutional because the country is no longer under a strict lockdown.
Russia believes it is expedient to resume flights to Turkey, a popular tourist destination, starting from 22 June, thanks to improved anti-Covid measures in the country, Russian deputy prime minister Tatiana Golikova said on Friday.
She also said Russia has decided to resume flights to some other countries, including the US and Belgium, Reuters reports.
Golikova added that 16.1 million Russians have been inoculated with two Covid-19 jabs as of 18 June, and that 19.7 million have got at least the first dose of the vaccines.
Updated
The US has administered 300 million Covid-19 vaccinations in 150 days, a White House official said on Friday ahead of president Joe Biden’s scheduled update on his administration’s vaccination programme.
I’m taking back over from my colleague Rachel Hall now, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with relevant updates or if you have anything else to flag you think we should be covering, I’m on Twitter @JedySays.
Updated
Italy has reported 35 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday against 37 the day before, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 1,147 from 1,325.
Reuters reports:
Italy has registered 127,225 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eight-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.25 million cases to date.
Updated
The World Health Organization has warned of surging Covid-19 cases across Africa, with new more contagious variants spreading amid dangerously low vaccination rates.
AFP reports:
“It’s a trajectory that is very, very concerning,” WHO’s emergencies chief Michael Ryan told reporters from the organisation’s headquarters in Geneva.
According to WHO data, the number of new Covid-19 cases in Africa rose to over 116,500 in the week ending June 13, up from nearly 91,000 the previous week.
Ryan stressed that in terms of absolute numbers, the region did not necessarily look like it was in bad shape, accounting for just over 5% of new global cases and 2.2% of global deaths last week.
However, he warned, across the continent, the trajectory was pointing straight up, with over 100% increases in a range of countries, and over 50% in others.
“This is a phenomenon occurring across the continent,” he said.
Updated
The EU has lost its attempt to require AstraZeneca to deliver more Covid-19 vaccines to the European Union, Reuters reports.
Reuters reports:
AstraZeneca said that the EU had lost its legal case, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the court ruling supported its view that the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant had failed to honour its commitments.
The row plunged the EU into crisis earlier this year as states scrambled for shots, highlighting the pressure on them to speed up vaccinations. Brussels has since largely cut ties with AstraZeneca, choosing not to buy any more of its shots for now.
The drugmaker had committed to do its best to deliver 300 million doses to the 27-nation bloc by the end of June, but production delays led it to revise this to 100 million vaccines.
However, the judge ruled that AstraZeneca must deliver only 80.2 million doses by a deadline of Sept. 27. The drugmaker said it would “substantially exceed” that by the end of June.
The court said in a statement that AstraZeneca must deliver 15 million doses by July 26, another 20 million by Aug. 23 and a further 15 million by Sept. 27, to reach a total of 50 million doses, which are in addition to 30 million that had been given to the EU when the legal case began.Should it miss the deadlines in the ruling, AstraZeneca would face a penalty of “10 euros ($11.8) per dose not delivered”, the judge said, less than the 10 euros per dose per day fine the EU had sought in bringing its legal action.
AstraZeneca will remain bound to do its best to deliver 300 million doses to the EU, without a precise timetable, and a new hearing is to be held in September when compliance with the contract will be assessed again, the ruling said.
An EU lawyer also said the judgment meant that as a proof of best effort AstraZeneca will have to deliver COVID-19 vaccines from a factory in Britain, if needed to meet its EU commitments.
The company had said it could not immediately deliver to the EU doses from an Oxford BioMedica factory because it had to supply Britain first.
The ruling said that AstraZeneca may have committed a serious breach of the contract by reserving Oxford BioMedica’s output for the British market. However a final decision on this will be made in a second legal case.
AstraZeneca said the court had found that the EU had no exclusivity or right of priority over other parties.
“The judgment also acknowledged that the difficulties experienced by AstraZeneca in this unprecedented situation had a substantial impact on the delay,” it said in a statement.
This is Rachel Hall taking over from Jedidajah Otte, do email anything we’ve missed to rachel.hall@theguardian.com.
Updated
Official data in Britain reported 10,476 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday and 11 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, Reuters reports.
The figures showed 42.5 million people had received their first vaccine dose and 30.9 million had received both shots.
Fresh Covid-19 vaccine supplies are accelerating inoculations in Oman, which has had the slowest rollout in the Gulf due to procurement difficulties, a government health official said, as a surge in cases puts hospitals under pressure.
“The situation is now changing, we are regularly now receiving stocks of vaccine [...] the campaign again has started,” Zahir Ghassan al-Abri, of the General Directorate of Primary Health Care at Oman’s Ministry of Health, told Reuters.
Since it began vaccinating in May, Oman has given at least one dose to around 15% of the eligible population, Abri said. Ministry of health data on Tuesday shows 720,199 doses have been given in the country of around 4.5 million people, with 184,621 people having received two doses.
Reuters analysis, based on the number of vaccinations administered per total population assuming every person needs two doses, shows Oman to be lagging far behind its neighbours.
The UAE’s more than 14 million administered doses is enough to have vaccinated about 72.6% of the country of around 9.8 million. Oman by comparison has administered enough to have vaccinated about 6.1% of the country.
Kuwait, which also experienced some procurement delays, has administered enough to have vaccinated about 21.6% of the country.
Abri said the slow campaign was due to supply difficulties.
“As with other countries the delivery of these vaccines has not been met through the agreed timeline for different reasons.”
Oman offers the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines. It has not approved the shot produced by China’s state-owned Sinopharm, which the UAE used in its early, rapid rollout after hosting Phase III clinical trials.
Asked whether Oman plans to introduce other vaccines, including Sinopharm, Abri said they would be considered as long as they met government standards.
“The strategy adopted by the ministry of health since the beginning is selecting vaccines based on reports of efficacy and safety, as approved by research and guidelines published by different international organisations.”
Cases in Oman have trended upwards since January, with a pronounced surge since a dip in early May.
It has recorded 242,723 cases and 2,626 deaths in total. On Thursday it reported 2,015 new cases.
Oman’s media this week said hospitals nationwide were straining under rising cases. A main field hospital in the capital Muscat was at more than 90% capacity, state media said.
Aiming to vaccinate everyone 12 and over by the end of the year, Oman will on Sunday offer shots to people over 45.
Russia’s government on Friday blamed the country’s low uptake of Covid-19 vaccinations on “nihilism”, Reuters reports:
Five months into the campaign, and a growing battery of threats as well as incentives, by June 2 only 18 million Russians had received at least one dose of vaccine.
Vaccinations are even available in department stores. But at just one-eighth of the population, that figure, the most recent available, is far lower than in most Western countries.
The hold-outs have proved impervious not only to cash payments and chances to win a car or even an apartment, but also to loss of earnings and threats of dismissal.
And unlike most countries, Russia is not short of vaccines, having approved four domestically made shots, and finding willing buyers around the world for the most widely available, Sputnik V.
The city of Moscow, where daily infections hit an all-time high on Friday, this week took one of the most radical steps anywhere by making vaccination compulsory for all service sector workers. On Friday, it said people who had not been vaccinated would be refused non-emergency hospital treatment.
Russians often cite a general fear of new medical products as their reason for refusing the vaccination - not helped by a general distrust of authorities and negative media reports about foreign-made vaccines - and the fact that more than 5 million people have already been infected and developed resistance.
Peskov rejected the idea that distrust was pervasive, blaming the surge on the low vaccination level, the virus’s mutations, and “total nihilism”.
But the hesitancy is a fact.
“This product is the most in-demand in the world right now,” said the head of one Russian vaccine manufacturer.
“But here it’s like: ‘Why did you give me this damned caviar, when I wanted bread?’.”Moscow - which recorded more than 9,000 new cases on Friday, over half the national total - has had to reintroduce curbs that had been scrapped, including ordering bars and restaurants to shut by 11 p.m.
It has also taken the dramatic step of making vaccination mandatory for a range of people in public-facing jobs - from hairdressers and taxi drivers to bank tellers and teachers.
Several regions have followed Moscow’s lead and made vaccination compulsory for workers in certain sectors, but most are for now using an eclectic mix of tactics to get the numbers up.
Turkey has sharply accelerated Covid-19 vaccinations this week, delivering more than 1 million a day since Monday, raising hopes of a strong economic performance in the second half of the year.
Reuters reports:
The vaccination programme has been constrained since its launch in January by sporadic vaccine procurement, but fresh supplies arrived this month. On Friday inoculations passed the 40 million mark and 40% of adults had had at least one dose, according to a Reuters tally.
Since Monday more than 6 million had been vaccinated, Health Ministry data showed, 5 million of them receiving a first dose.
The stepped-up pace has helped raise forecasts for Turkey’s economic recovery following a full lockdown in May. JP Morgan revised its full-year economic growth forecast upward to 6.8% this week, citing the Covid-19 inoculations.
“Turkey managed to accelerate the vaccination pace sharply,” it said in a note to clients. “Despite the slowdown in loan growth and higher interest rates, such a recovery encouraged us to revise our full year GDP growth forecast to 6.8% from 6.1%”.
Turkey’s tourism sector is facing a second summer in the doldrums because of international travel restrictions, but could get a late boost if the vaccination pace continues and Covid-19 cases, now around 7,000 a day, are contained.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 1.5 million people were vaccinated on Thursday - 12 times the 120,000 daily average until early June.
Turkey administers the vaccines developed by China’s Sinovac and by Pfizer and Biontech. Turkish health ministry had also granted an emergency use authorization for Russia’s Sputnik V.
Canada said on Friday it will extend restrictions that bar non-essential travel at US land borders until at least 21 July.
Reuters reported this week the US is expected to issue a new extension of restrictions at the Canadian and Mexican borders that are set to expire on 21 June.
The restrictions were first imposed in March 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and have been extended in 30-day increments.
The US held initial working group meetings this week with both Canadian and Mexican officials, sources told Reuters.
Africa's Covid trajectory 'very, very concerning', WHO expert says
The trend of Covid-19 cases in Africa is very concerning, a senior World Health Organization official said on Friday.
Absolute numbers do not make Africa look in bad shape, said Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergency expert, adding that in the last week it had recorded just over 5% of global cases and 2.2% of deaths.
But given the level of underdiagnosis, he told a news conference: “It’s a trajectory that is very, very concerning.”
AstraZeneca must deliver vaccines to EU from UK factory if needed, judge rules
AstraZeneca must deliver Covid-19 vaccines to the EU also from a factory in Britain if it is needed to meet its commitments with the EU, a judge ruled on Friday, according to a lawyer representing the EU.
The company had said it could not immediately deliver to the EU doses from an Oxford Biomedica factory in Britain because it had to supply the UK first.
The EU lawyer said the judge decided that that factory must be used for EU supplies.
However, AstraZeneca could meet its commitments with the EU without using that factory.
The company is not obliged to deliver doses by a timetable in the contract until the end of June, but must still deliver a total of 300 million doses to the EU, the judge ruled.
The EU lawyer added the EU will analyse the situation before deciding whether to go ahead with second legal case, Reuters reports.
Updated
Indonesia reports highest daily rise in infections in nearly 5 months
Indonesia on Friday reported 12,990 new infections, the highest number since late January, taking its overall total to 1,963,266.
It also logged 290 further deaths, the highest daily toll since 4 April, bringing total fatalities to 54,043.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Monday ordered the Jakarta administration to fast-track its Covid-19 vaccination drive so that Indonesia’s capital can reach herd immunity by August, as cases in the city continue to rise exponentially following the Idul Fitri holiday last month, the Jakarta Post reports.
Governor Anies Baswedan reacted with confidence to the presidential order, and said he expects millions of Jakartans to receive the vaccines by mid-August.
But health experts are skeptical, saying it is an “unrealistic” target. The President said he wanted Jakarta to vaccinate 100,000 people a day starting next week.
Updated
Delta variant becoming globally dominant, WHO says
The World Health Organization’s chief scientist said on Friday that the Delta variant of Covid-19, first identified in India, is becoming the globally dominant variant of the disease.
“The Delta variant is well on its way to becoming the dominant variant globally because of its increased transmissability,” WHO’s Soumya Swaminathan told a news conference.
Swaminathan added that results from the CureVac Covid-19 vaccine’s initial trial were disappointing.
German biotech firm CureVac’ vaccine proved only 47% effective in an initial trial read-out.
“It was disappointing to see the results from CureVac,” the WHO’s Swaminathan told a news conference.
Updated
Here some more detail on the AstraZeneca/EU court case which both sides now claim to have been vindicated by from Reuters:
AstraZeneca said on Friday the European Union had lost a legal case against the pharmaceutical firm over the supply of COVID-19 vaccines, with a court in Brussels rejecting an EU request for more deliveries by the end of June.
But European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Friday’s ruling supported the EU’s view that AstraZeneca - against which the bloc has recently launched a second lawsuit - had failed to meet its commitments.
The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant committed in a contract to do its best to deliver 300 million doses to the 27-nation bloc by the end of June, but production problems led the company to revise down its target to 100 million vaccines.
The supply cuts delayed the EU’s vaccination drive in the first quarter of the year, when the bloc had initially bet on AstraZeneca to deliver the largest volume of its shots.
That led to a bitter dispute and to the EU’s legal action to get at least 120 million doses by the end of June.
But AstraZeneca said a judge had ruled that it should deliver only 80.2 million doses by a deadline of Sept. 27.The company said it would “substantially exceed” that amount by the end of June.
The court said in a statement that AstraZeneca must deliver 15 million doses by July 26, another 20 million by Aug. 23 and another 15 million by September 27, for a total of 50 million doses.
Should the company miss these deadlines it would face a penalty of “10 euros ($11.8) per dose not delivered”, the EU Commission said.
AstraZeneca said other measures sought by the Commission had been dismissed, and the court had found that the EU had no exclusivity or right of priority over other parties the drugmaker had contracts with.
“The judgment also acknowledged that the difficulties experienced by AstraZeneca in this unprecedented situation had a substantial impact on the delay,” AstraZeneca said in a statement.
“AstraZeneca now looks forward to renewed collaboration with the European Commission to help combat the pandemic in Europe.”
The European Union last month launched a second lawsuit against the drugmaker seeking financial penalties for the delays to vaccine supply.
“This decision confirms the position of the Commission: AstraZeneca did not live up to the commitments it made in the contract,” Commission President von der Leyen said on Friday.
British prime minister Boris Johnson has declined to confirm whether he will be allowing thousands of fans into the country for the Euro 2020 semi-finals and final next month.
Wembley Stadium in London is hosting several international matches in June and July, including the final on 11 July.
When asked about this at Kirklees College in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, Johnson said:
We’ll do what we have to do to keep the country safe from Covid – that’s obviously going to be our priority, and we’ll be talking to Uefa about what they want and see if we can make some sensible accommodations.
But the priority obviously has to be public health.
Updated
Err, it seems the EU doesn’t feel it has lost its legal challenge against AstraZeneca, as the company had announced a short while ago.
Commission president Ursula von der Leyen tweeted: “Good results for Europe! The court judgment ordering AstraZeneca to deliver to us rapidly 50 million doses is good news for our vaccination campaign. It is also a clear recognition that our Advance Purchase Agreements have a legal basis.”
Good results for Europe!
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) June 18, 2021
The court judgment ordering AstraZeneca to deliver to us rapidly 50 million doses is good news for our vaccination campaign. It is also a clear recognition that our Advance Purchase Agreements have a sound legal basis.
Our vaccines strategy delivers. https://t.co/wD8OeR8vjy
EU commissioner for health and food safety Stella Kyriakides tweeted:
“I welcome today’s decision by the Belgian Court of First Instance ordering #AstraZeneca to urgently deliver 50 million doses to, as follows: 15 million doses by 26 July, 20 million by 23 August, 15 million by 27 September.
“The Court has also decided a penalty of €10 per missing dose. This decision is based on the fact that #AstraZeneca has committed a serious breach of its contractual obligations with, and contractual commitments should be followed.”
Social distancing rules in the Netherlands are set to be eased next week, allowing people to leave off their face masks on many occasions and for bigger groups to meet, broadcaster RTL reported on Friday, citing government sources.
Reuters reports:
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is set to announce the further easing of measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic at a televised news conference at 1900 local time (1700 GMT).
As of 26 June, face masks will no longer be required if people can keep a distance of at least 1.5 metres (5ft) between them, RTL said, limiting the requirement to wear one to public transport and airports.
Bars and restaurants are expected to be allowed to receive up to 100 customers at a time, while at home people will be allowed to receive eight visitors, up from four.
Coronavirus infections in the Netherlands have dropped to their lowest levels in nine months in recent weeks as the rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations has gathered pace.
Earlier this month this already allowed for bars and restaurants to reopen.As the vaccine rollout gains momentum, many other countries are planning a gradual return to normal, with France and Spain planning to ditch face masks outdoors.
Up until Friday around 13 million vaccinations were given in the country of 17.5 million, and the government expects to have offered at least one injection to all Dutch adults by mid-July.Since the start of the pandemic almost 1.7 million coronavirus infections have been confirmed in the Netherlands, with over 27,000 deaths.
Updated
England's R and growth rate for Covid remain unchanged week-on-week
The latest R range for England is 1.2 to 1.4, unchanged from the range estimated last week, and the country’s growth rate for Covid-19 is now between 3% and 6% per day, also the same as last week’s estimate.
An R value between 1.2 and 1.4 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 12 and 14 other people.
A growth rate of between 3% and 6% means that the number of new infections is growing by between 3% and 6% every day.
These estimates represent the transmission of Covid-19 two to three weeks ago, due to the time delay between someone being infected, developing symptoms, and needing healthcare.
Updated
EU has lost legal challenge against AstraZeneca over vaccine deliveries, company says
Covid-19 vaccine maker AstraZeneca said on Friday the EU had lost a legal case against the pharmaceutical firm over the supply of vaccines to the bloc as a court in Brussels rejected an EU request for more deliveries by the end of June.
Reuters reports:
The Anglo-Swedish firm committed in a contract to do its best to deliver to the 27-nation bloc 300 million doses by the end of June, but production problems led the pharmaceutical company to revise down its target to 100 million vaccines.
The cuts in the supplies delayed the EU’s vaccination drive in the first quarter of the year, when the bloc had initially bet on AstraZeneca to deliver the largest volume of jabs. That led to a bitter dispute and to the EU’s legal action to get at least 120 million doses by the end of June.
But the judge said the company should only deliver 80.2 million doses by a deadline of 27 September, AstraZeneca said.
Updated
Germany removes France, Greece, Spain and other countries from its low risk travel list
Germany has removed popular summer holiday destinations France, Greece, Switzerland and parts of Spain from its list of coronavirus risk areas, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases said on Friday.
This means that people entering Germany from these regions will no longer be required to quarantine for ten days.
Belgium, the southern part of Denmark, Estonia, Jordan, Lithuania, three provinces in the Netherlands, Norway, the Palestinian Territories, several regions in Slovenia and St. Lucia were also removed from the risk list.
Italy introduces 5-day quarantine for arrivals from UK
Italy has introduced mandatory testing and a five-day quarantine for all travellers coming from the UK, the Italian health minister Roberto Speranza said on Friday in a Facebook post, as concerns grow over increasing cases of the Delta variant in Britain.
The new measures will come into effect on Monday, a health ministry spokesman said.
The Italian government simulatenously lifted restrictions for travellers from the US, Canada, Japan and EU countries if they have a Covid-19 green pass.
On Thursday, prime minister Mario Draghi signed a decree that will facilitate the issuing of digital green passes that will enable hassle-free participation in public events, access to health care facilities and travel throughout the country.
Updated
South Korea has pledged to donate a total of $200 million to the COVAX programme that is supplying coronavirus vaccines for lower-income countries, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) said on Friday.
COVAX, backed by GAVI and the World Health Organization (WHO), aims to secure 2 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021.
“The Republic of Korea pledges a contribution of a total of $100 million this year, and in 2022 another $100 million in the form of a combination of financial and in-kind contribution,” South Korean president Moon Jae-in said in a statement by GAVI.
While wealthy nations with robust vaccination campaigns have inoculated large swaths of their population, much of the world lags far behind, raising concerns of more Covid-19 waves that could spawn new virus variants.
Leaders from the Group of Seven rich nations agreed over the weekend to pledge 870 million vaccine doses, with the aim of delivering at least half by the end of this year. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed this on Monday but said many more doses were needed and quickly, Reuters reports.
The British government will deliberate whether people who have received both Covid-19 vaccines could be exempted from having to quarantine upon return from an amber listed country.
The Times reports:
The Cabinet’s Covid-O committee, which takes the key operational decisions on how to handle the virus, will discuss this late next week. One option is to allow those who have been double-vaccinated to travel to amber-list countries such as France and Spain without having to self-isolate on return.
Given that neither [health secretary] Matt Hancock nor [cabinet office minister] Michael Gove, normally the two Covid hardliners in cabinet, oppose the idea it is likely to get the go-ahead. Government insiders predict that the system may well be in place as early as the end of next month.
The scheme would offer a further incentive to people to get both of their vaccines.
Boris Johnson 'confident' remaining restrictions will be lifted on 19 July
British prime minister Boris Johnson said on Friday he was very confident that he would be able to lift remaining coronavirus restrictions in England on his new target date of 19 July, based on the most recent data.
Johnson told broadcasters:
I am very confident that we’ll be able to go through with step four of the roadmap on the timetable that I’ve set out with treating July 19, as I’ve said, as a terminus date.
I think that’s certainly what the data continues to indicate.
On Monday, Johnson had announced a four-week delay to the lifting of all remaining restrictions that had been scheduled for 21 June, in a bid to buy more time and get more people vaccinated amid rising infections with the Delta virus variant.
The head of the German biotech company CureVac, which announced on Wednesday that its Covid-19 vaccine was shown to be only 47 per cent effective in a late-stage trial, has defended the shot and insisted it still has a future.
CureVac’s announcement based on a study involving 40,000 volunteers in Europe and Latin America, has delivered a damaging blow to vaccine campaigns across the European Union after the bloc ordered 400 million doses of it.
Much hope has been placed in CureVac’s shot, known as CVnCov, due to its relative low cost and after age limits were introduced on both the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines, owing to links to a rare but potentially fatal clotting disorder.
It was expected to give a boost to campaigns in low and middle income countries which are lagging way behind those of richer nations.
The Tübingen-based company’s shares dropped by more than 50 per cent following the announcement.
But its CEO Franz-Werner Haas has gone on the offensive, defending CVnCov and insisting that no other vaccine had been tested on so many virus variants. He said the results reflected how the virus has developed to become more resistant, but it did not mean CureVac could not be adjusted accordingly.
“It is factually incorrect to put the figure of the preliminary efficacy of our Coronavirus vaccine and the figures of the efficacy of other vaccines next to each other,” he told the news agency dpa. He said the study had included 29 virus variants, more than any other vaccine has been tested against for efficacy so far.
Haas insisted that as the virus had developed, and with the original virus, known as the wild type, hardly playing a role anymore, “the figures regarding the efficacy of the other vaccines would also probably look different had their studies been carried out at a later point”.
CureVac intends to complete the analysis of data in the final study phase within the next two to three weeks Haas said. He said he was convinced that the efficacy of the vaccine would have changed again in that time.
CureVac would then submit the results to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and wait to hear if more data is required, Haas said.
Experts have said the crucial question will be how effective CureVac is at stopping serious disease, hospitalisation and death. Even though the WHO has said it is focussed on an efficacy of 70 per cent, this might not be a realistic goal as the virus continues to spread and evolve.
Peter Kremsner, the scientific head of CureVac’s vaccine trial, said he was convinced it would be possible to make the vaccine fit for use. “It will certainly be the case that the vaccine can be reconditioned so that it can be very effective,” he told the broadcaster BR. “From where I see it, this won’t happen in the next weeks but it will happen.”
Karl Lauterbach, health spokesman for the Social Democrats and a leading and respected voice throughout the pandemic, said he believed the setback might slow down Germany’s vaccine programme by two to three weeks, but that the government’s promise to have offered a vaccine to all adults by the end of the summer, was not under threat.
By Friday morning, just over 50 per cent of Germans had received at least one vaccine, whilst 30 per cent were fully vaccinated. Health minister Jens Spahn called the numbers “reassuring” but he said Germany was in a race to ensure as many people as possible were vaccinated before the Delta variant, now making up around six per cent of cases in the country, got the upper hand. “It’s a question of not if but when it becomes the dominant variant,” he said.
Austria will provide a million doses of coronavirus vaccine to the countries of the Western Balkans in addition to the doses it is funnelling towards the region on behalf of the EU, chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Friday.
The doses are to be delivered this summer.
Kurz made the announcement at a news conference after a summit with his counterparts from the countries of the former Yugoslavia that are not European Union member states. An envoy from Albania also attended.
“We are only safe when all countries are safe,” Kurz said.
Austria is coordinating the distribution of 651,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that the EU has ordered for the Western Balkans.
Norway will this week begin the third major phase of its plan to reopen society from the pandemic as Covid-19 infections continue to decline, prime minister Erna Solberg announced on Friday.
From 20 June, Norwegians will be allowed to receive up to 20 guests in their homes, double the current level, while bars and restaurants will no longer have to close at midnight, she said.
“Norway is on track and we’re ready for step three,” Solberg told a news conference.
The latest set of relaxations were part of the government’s four-step plan, introduced in April, to gradually unwind the national lockdown, Reuters reports.
The fourth step, which could still leave some local restrictions in place, could be introduced next month, depending primarily on infection rates and vaccinations, the government said.
Covid-19 infection rates continued to increase in England and remained low in Wales in the week ending 12 June, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday.
In Northern Ireland and Scotland, the trend of people testing positive was uncertain.
In England, one in 520 people had the virus that week, one in 1,500 in Wales, one in 610 in Northern Ireland and one in 600 in Scotland.
“We estimate that 105,000 people within the community population in England had Covid-19,” the ONS said, while estimating that 3,000 had Covid-19 in Northern Ireland that week, 8,800 people in Scotland and 2,000 people in Wales.
Due to low positivity rates, caution should be taken over interpreting small movements in trends, it added.
Updated
People over 18 who live in north east London and haven’t had their first Covid-19 jab yet will be able to register for a vaccine event held at the London Stadium in the Olympic Park, Stratford on Saturday 19 June, between 10am and 8pm.
Residents of the London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, City of London, Hackney, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets or Waltham Forest can sign up here for their jabs. The event is for booked appointments only, and only for first doses of the vaccine, and will not accept walk-ins.
The Philippines has increased the number of nurses and healthcare workers allowed to go overseas to 6,500 annually, a senior official said on Friday, amid high demand for its health professionals.
Reuters reports:
The Philippines, one of the world’s biggest sources of nurses, reached its annual cap of 5,000 health worker deployments late last month.
Those with contracts as of May 31 can take up overseas employment, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in a statement. That means another 1,500 nurses and healthcare staff can work abroad, according to the labour ministry.
The labour minister on Wednesday said he would seek approval to allow 5,000 more healthcare workers to be deployed abroad, but a nurses’ group said there were many more than that hoping to find jobs with better pay abroad.
Health workers under government-to-government labour deals, such as that with the United Kingdom, are exempted from the new cap.
Roughly 17,000 Filipino nurses signed overseas work contracts in 2019, but the Philippines put a temporary halt on that in 2020, to shore-up its health sector as coronavirus hospitalisations rose sharply.
Jocelyn Andamo, secretary general of the Filipino Nurses United, said the additional 1,500 was frustrating.
“It is very unrealistic compared with the huge need for nurses,” she said.
Wales will go ahead with easing coronavirus restrictions even without conclusive evidence that vaccinations have broken the link between rising infections and hospital cases, the first minister Mark Drakeford has said.
This from PA:
[Drakeford] said the country’s four-week pause on lifting more rules cannot be extended indefinitely “in search of perfection” from scientists about the effect of the spike in cases of the Delta variant.
Latest figures show there are nearly 490 cases of the variant in Wales and more than four out of five new Covid-19 cases are attributed to it.
Two-thirds of these are not linked to travel or contact with another case.
Wales is aiming to roll out more than half a million doses of vaccine over the next four weeks, and the Welsh Government hope that delaying easements will reduce a potential peak of daily hospital admissions by up to half.
Mr Drakeford said the pause would also be used to establish more definitively the extent to which vaccinations have altered the relationship between falling ill and needing hospital treatment, but that if an answer could not be given then easements would still need to go ahead.
Some technical amendments are being made to the regulations in the meantime to make them easier for people to understand, which Mr Drakeford said showed things were moving in a “positive direction”.
These include the number of people who can attend a wedding or civil partnership reception or wake, organised by a business in an indoors regulated premise, such as a hotel, will now be determined by the size of the venue and a risk assessment.
Small grassroots music and comedy venues will also be able to operate on the same basis as hospitality venues, and primary school children in the same school contact group or bubble will be able to stay overnight in a residential outdoor education centre.
Wales has the lowest coronavirus rates in the UK and the highest vaccination rates for first doses.
Rules in Wales were last relaxed on June 7 and said outdoor events with up to 10,000 people were allowed to resume and other events, such as concerts, football matches and sporting activities, could recommence for up to 4,000 people standing and 10,000 people sitting.
The regulations will be reviewed again on July 15.
Delta variant cases in UK rise by 33,630 to 75,953 in a week
The total number of cases of the Covid Delta variant in the UK has risen to 75,953 to date, data has revealed, with the variant now accounting for 99% of Covid cases.
Also known as B.1.617.2, the Delta variant, combined with relaxations in coronavirus restrictions, is believed to be behind a sharp rise in Covid cases in the UK in the past weeks – a development that led Boris Johnson to delay the planned 21 June date for full lifting of Covid restrictions in England.
The latest figures from Public Health England (PHE) reveal that cases of the variant have risen by 33,630 since last week, with data supporting previous reports that Delta is more transmissible than the Alpha variant, B.1.1.7.
The report also adds to evidence the Delta variant is somewhat more resistant to Covid vaccines, particularly after just one dose – although protection is far higher against hospitalisation that symptomatic disease.
Considering the different Covid jabs together, the team say one dose offers 75% protection against hospitalisation for Delta compared with 78% for Alpha, while two doses provide 94% protection against hospitalisation for Delta compared with 92% against Alpha – although it is important to note these vaccine effectiveness figures are estimates that lie within a range of possible values.
The findings are important, not least because data suggests the Delta variant may be associated with around a twofold greater risk of hospitalisation, a link seen in data from both England and Scotland.
The PHE report also sheds light on the spread of the Delta variant. According to data based on whole-genome sequencing and a more rapid approach known as genotyping, 99% of Covid cases in the UK now involved the Delta variant.
As before, educational settings and workplaces were found to be the most common settings for reported exposures, however in the latest week hospitality settings and travel have accounted for a larger proportion.
Updated
The British education secretary Gavin Williamson has urged secondary pupils and their parents to continue taking regular coronavirus tests at home, twice a week, to help “break chains of transmission”, after academics called for the suspension of daily Covid-19 testing trials in schools amid a range of concerns.
In an open letter to secondary school and college parents in England, Williamson said:
With the increase in cases with variants of concern, it is important to continue regular testing in order to detect cases of coronavirus, stay ahead of the virus and keep Covid out of the classroom.
This means that regular asymptomatic testing for all will continue, and we need you and your children who are in secondary school or college to carry on testing at home, twice a week.
As you know, testing has been playing a vital role in our response to the virus. It is helping to break chains of transmission by identifying asymptomatic positive cases quickly.
This means those who test positive can self-isolate, keeping other pupils and students in face-to-face education. Reporting all test results, positive or negative, helps the health experts have a clearer picture of any potential outbreaks in different parts of the country.
Academics had said it was “deeply concerning” that daily testing trials are “being presented as a solution for educational disruption”.
Currently around 200 schools and colleges across England are participating in a trial, with one group following the national guidance of quarantining contacts of positive cases, and the other allowing daily testing of contacts for a week instead of isolation.
As part of the trial, rapid lateral flow tests are to be used each day, with participants also offered a PCR test - which involves sending results to a lab - on day two and seven, PA reports.
But the letter to Williamson, backed by 14 experts, lists ethical and scientific concerns, worries about the risks due to missed infections, and what they describe as a lack of robust mitigations in schools.
Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said:
The home testing system using LFD test kits is clearly far from perfect. Secondary schools encourage pupils to test themselves twice a week as per the government guidance but it is a hit and miss affair.
When a pupil tests positive they have to immediately self-isolate and schools have to trace all their close contacts and ask them to self-isolate too.
The pupil who has tested positive is asked to arrange a PCR test which if negative overrides the LFD test and they can return to school and so can their close contacts.
But all of this is hugely disruptive and time-consuming.
She added there were concerns about pupils attending class after false positives, and recommended a vaccination programme for secondary school pupils.
I’m Jedidajah Otte and will be taking over for the next few hours. As ever, feel free to get in touch if you have anything to flag you think we should be covering, I’m on Twitter @JedySays or you can email me.
Updated
Spain to drop mask requirement outdoors from next weekend, PM announces
Masks will no longer need to be worn outdoors in Spain from next weeked, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced.
“We’re going to hold a special cabinet meeting next Thursday to propose to Spanish society that the wearing of masks outdoors will cease to be compulsory from Saturday 26 June,” he said on Friday morning.
Masks have been compulsory on the streets and in public places since May 2020, although there are exemptions for children under the age of six, people exercising, and those with health conditions that make their use difficult or dangerous.
Sánchez made the announcement two days after saying that the lifting of the restriction was imminent thanks to Spain’s vaccination programme reaching “cruising speed”.
To date, Spain – which has a population of about 47 million – has administered 34,845,346 doses of the vaccine, while 13,641,091 people have received both doses.
On Thursday, the number of cases per 100,000 people across the country over the past two weeks fell to 97 – the first time it has dropped below 100 since last August.
Spain has logged 3,753,228 cases of the virus and registered 80,634 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Updated
Today so far…
- Israel will send around 1m doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to the Palestinian Authority, with a reciprocal arrangement in place that Palestinians will send a similar amount back to Israel later in the year.
- The Pfizer-BioNTech doses earmarked for transfer “will expire soon”, a Israeli prime minister’s office statement said. The Palestinians expect to receive their own shipment of Pfizer doses in August or September and the Israeli statement said that Israel would receive reciprocal doses from the PA in September or October. Neither side said when the initial Israeli transfer to the PA would be made.
- Some 760,000 South Koreans who have received a first dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine will be offered Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine as a second shot due to shipment delays by global vaccine sharing scheme Covax, the government has said.
- Russia has seen a big jump in case numbers today. The official figures are 17,262 new Covid cases, including a record 9,056 in Moscow.
- The health service in England will open up Covid vaccinations to everyone aged over 18 on Friday, a big step towards the government’s target of giving every adult who wants a vaccine a first shot in the next month
- The UK has reported 33,630 new cases of the Delta coronavirus variant in the last week, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 75,953. According to the figures, as of 14 June, a total of 806 people have been hospitalised with the Delta variant, an increase of 423 since the previous week. It is by far the dominant strain in the country.
- The organisers of the Notting Hill Carnival in London have made the decision to take the event off the streets because of the pandemic.
- There are reports the UK government will waive Covid restrictions for visitors from Fifa and Uefa for the final stages of the Euro 2020 tournament in order to head of a threat of moving the matches from Wembley to Hungary, where authorities are willing to guarantee a full capacity crowd.
- First minister of Wales Mark Drakeford has said the Welsh government will not make it compulsory for care staff to have a Covid-19 vaccination
- The more infectious Delta coronavirus variant will become dominant in Germany in Autumn at the latest, the country’s top public health official said.
- Medical experts in Japan have strongly warned against hosting the Olympic Games during the pandemic. Tokyo, meanwhile, is proposing to relax restrictions to allow limited sales of alcohol between 5pm and 7pm for solitary drinkers.
- Taiwan has reported 187 new local cases and 21 deaths, one month after it went into level 3 restrictions in response to its worst ever outbreak.
- The United States is devoting $3.2bn to speed development of antiviral pills to treat Covid-19 and other dangerous viruses that could turn into pandemics.
- And a reminder that we have this in-depth piece today on the harrowing Covid situation unfolding in South America, which is well worth your time.
That’s it from me, Martin Belam, for this week. I’ll see you Monday. Jedidajah Otte will be here to take over from me shortly. Take care and stay safe.
First Minister: another lockdown in Wales later this year 'highly unlikely'
First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has given a little interview to PA media this morning. He’s slightly made himself a hostage to fortune by saying another lockdown in Wales this year was “highly unlikely”. Here’s the quotes:
I’m not willing to say that it is completely inconceivable. I think it is highly unlikely. Can I say it’s absolutely impossible, given the changes that we see, given the risk that another new variant could arise at any time, anywhere in the world that might be even less amenable to the current vaccination? It simply doesn’t make sense to be as definitive as that.
He also said that the current coronavirus restrictions in Wales could be eased following a four-week pause, even if there is not conclusive evidence that vaccinations have broken the link between rising infections and hospital admissions.
You cannot, in the end, delay everything in the search for perfection in terms of data. But what we are quite clearly told by our scientific advisers as well as others is that this four weeks will allow us to get a sufficiently good handle on the extent to which a relationship between falling ill and needing hospitalisation has been modified by the vaccine. Then we will make a calculation about how much headroom we have, as we always do, to take further steps.
In an incentive to get Tottenham Hotspur fans vaccinated in London, at the weekend former players, including Argentinian legend Osvaldo Ardiles, Ledley King and Gary Mabbutt will be in attendance at a special walk-in vaccination clinic being held on Sunday 20 June at the club’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Those wishing to receive a jab are advised to make an appointment in advance, although people can walk-up on the day between 10am-6pm.
There’s a tiny bit more detail from Reuters here on the vaccine deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The latter has now also confirmed it is going ahead.
The Pfizer-BioNTech doses earmarked for transfer “will expire soon”, the Israeli prime minister’s office statement said, and they were “approved in light of the fact that Israel’s vaccine stock meets its needs today.”
The Palestinians expect to receive a shipment of Pfizer doses in August or September and the Israeli statement said that Israel would receive reciprocal doses from the PA in September or October. Neither side said when the initial Israeli transfer to the PA would be made.
Around 55% of eligible Israelis are fully vaccinated. Some 30% of eligible Palestinians have received at least one vaccine dose.
This morning we have an in-depth piece of reporting from the continent of South America, looking at the way Covid has been devastating nation after nation, often without too much attention from media outside of the region. William Costa in Asunción, Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires, Flávia Milhorance in Rio de Janeiro, Dan Collyns and Sam Jones have all contributed to the piece. Here’s a sample of just how bleak the situation is:
On Wednesday this week, Paraguay registered 18.09 deaths per million, compared with 2.71 in India, 2.2 in South Africa, 1.01 in the US, and 0.14 in the UK. And as the US and Europe begin to emerge from the pandemic, discard their masks and ponder how best to spend the recovery funds, the crisis most evident in Paraguay is playing out across much of South America.
India may have commanded much of the world’s attention over recent weeks, but Paraguay, Suriname, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Brazil and Peru are suffering – in that order – a silent decimation by Covid unlike that anywhere else in the world. Even in seventh-placed Peru, the number of deaths per million stands at 9.12 – more than three times the figure in India.
In the early months of the pandemic, Paraguay and nearby Uruguay were praised as Latin America’s standout success stories in Covid management.
But since March the two countries have seen an explosion of the disease, largely attributed to the aggressive Brazilian variant that has torn through much of South America, and to decreased compliance with social distancing measures.
You can read more of it here: A silent decimation – South America’s losing battle against Covid
The more infectious Delta coronavirus variant will become dominant in Germany in Autumn at the latest, the country’s top public health official said, urging the public both to continue wearing masks indoors and get vaccinated.
“The Delta variant makes up about 6% of infections, but it share is growing,” Lothar Wieler, head of Germany’s Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases said. “It is not a question of if Delta will become dominant but a question of when,” he added. “It will have the upper hand in autumn at the latest.”
Notting Hill Carnival in London to be taken 'off the streets' due to Covid risk
The organisers of the Notting Hill Carnival in London have made the decision to take the event off the streets because of the pandemic.
PA report that in a statement, the board of Notting Hill Carnival Ltd said it had decided this year’s event in London “will not be on the streets due to the ongoing uncertainty and risk Covid-19 poses”.
“This has been an incredibly difficult decision to make,” the statement added.
“Everyone involved in the event desperately wants a return to the road where carnival belongs but safety has to come first and with the latest cautious announcement on the Government’s road map, this is the only way to ensure that.
“In making this decision, we have considered our responsibilities to deliver a safe, spectacular, successful and sustainable carnival.
“The conclusion is that with so much uncertainty, with time short for carnivalists to prepare and the risk of eventual cancellation a real possibility, we must refocus our efforts for 2021.”
UK reports 33,630 new cases of the Delta variant in a week
The UK has reported 33,630 new cases of the Delta coronavirus variant in the last week, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 75,953, Public Health England said in a data release this morning.
According to the figures, as of 14 June, a total of 806 people have been hospitalised with the Delta variant, an increase of 423 since the previous week. Of these, 527 were unvaccinated, and only 84 of the 806 had received both doses. That implies that 195 people who had received one dose were hospitalised. The data doesn’t appear to show how recently people had received their vaccine.
Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK health security agency said:
Cases are rising rapidly across the country and the Delta variant is now dominant. The increase is primarily in younger age groups, a large proportion of which were unvaccinated but are now being invited to receive the vaccine. It is encouraging to see that hospitalisations and deaths are not rising at the same rate but we will continue to monitor it closely. The vaccination programme and the care that we are all taking to follow the guidance are continuing to save lives.
Israel to send 1m vaccine doses to Palestinian Authority in reciprocal exchange agreement
Israel will send around 1m doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to the Palestinian Authority, newly-installed Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office said on Friday.
Reuters report that in a joint statement with the health and defence ministries, Bennett’s office said the Palestinian Authority in exchange had agreed to give Israel a reciprocal number of Pfizer doses from one of its own shipments that is expected to arrive later this year.
Updated
As expected, Russia has seen a big jump in case numbers today. Reuters report the official numbers are 17,262 new Covid cases, including a record 9,056 in Moscow. There were 453 coronavirus-related deaths in the past 24 hours.
Our UK politics live blog is up and running for the day – but it is going to be almost exclusively swamped with reaction to yesterday’s by-election in Chesham and Amersham, so I’ll be continuing to take in the Covid news from the UK and around the world. But if you do want your politics, then it is over here…
VIPs ‘to be let into England without quarantine to keep Euros final at Wembley’
Also on a sporting news tip, officials are doing “as much as we possibly can” to accommodate the European football championships after it was reported the government is to allow thousands of VIPs into England without the need to quarantine to stop the final being moved from Wembley to Budapest, a minister has said.
The proposal would exempt about 2,500 Uefa and Fifa officials, politicians, sponsors and broadcasters from the quarantine restrictions faced by ordinary travellers, according to the Times.
On Monday, the government announced a four-week delay to the final easing of lockdown restrictions in England in order to allow more people to be vaccinated to combat the Delta coronavirus variant.
The only teams playing in the tournament on England’s green list of countries that do not require isolation on arrival are Wales and Scotland.
Updated
We’d been expecting some expert medical assessment in Japan today on the risks associated with hosting the Olympics. The quotes are extremely strong, and opinion seems very much against hosting the event. Here’s a few samples:
Scientifically, I still believe that cancelling the Games would be optimal to save lives and for the health of the nation. But, the decision is the government’s and organisers’. If the epidemic situation worsens, no spectators and cancelling the Games in the middle (of the event) should be debated – Hiroshi Nishiura, Kyoto University professor.
Even if the optimum mitigation strategy is employed, including, for example, vaccination of every attendee, I think there is still a very significant risk of transmission at the event. And I think that’s concerning, because this is perhaps the first event that I’m aware of where people will be attending in such large numbers from all corners of the world. In terms of potentially mixing variants, and even variances of concern, I think it’s very significant – Paul Griffin, professor at the University of Queensland, Australia
It should be noted that if the Olympics are held with spectators, the risk of infection will not be confined only to the stadium. We need to remember that the increased flow of people is itself a major risk for the spread of infection – Takahiro Kinoshita, public health researcher at Harvard University
I understand that the athletes want an audience so that they can get motivation. But I think this year is probably a special case. To on the safe side, most public health officials would probably say to minimise the risk as much as possible. This shouldn’t be a negative legacy for Japan. Prime minister Suga has said the safety of the people was the priority. If we believe what he said, then he should listen to what the experts have recommended – Kazuaki Jindai, physician and infectious disease researcher recently attached to Kyoto University
Updated
Another quick update on the situation in Moscow here. The Russian capital will extend the Covid restrictions imposed this week until 29 June, mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
Reuters report the measures include bans on public events with more than 1,000 people, shutting cafes and restaurants at night, and closing soccer fan zones set up for Euro 2020.
Updated
Wales: First Minister rules out compulsory vaccines for care staff
First minister of Wales Mark Drakeford has also been on Sky News this morning, saying that the Welsh government will not make it compulsory for care staff to have a Covid-19 vaccination
Drakeford told Sky News: “We already have very high levels of take-up of the vaccination amongst care home staff and we’ve done that by persuasion and by conversation and voluntarily.
“Well over 90% of our care home staff have had a first dose and nearly 90% have had a second dose. So we’re pressing ahead to try to make sure we have those remaining staff members offered the vaccine, taking up the vaccine, but if you can do it voluntarily then I think that is a much stronger basis from which to go on persuading people to do the right thing.
PA Media reports he added “Our belief is that actually it would undermine our programme in Wales, which has been the most successful in the United Kingdom. That sense of voluntary participation in the programme is very important to us and has been part of our success.”
Updated
Taiwan reports 187 new local cases and 21 deaths
Taiwan has reported 187 new local cases and 21 deaths, one month after it went into level 3 restrictions in response to its worst ever outbreak.
New Taipei city remained the site with the biggest number of cases, with 76, while the capital Taipei reported 71. In Maioli, where an outbreak among factory workers has infected more than 400, there were 26 new cases reported – primarily workers who have been under quarantine since not long after the cluster was detected.
Vaccination rates in Taiwan – initially terrible – are improving, with huge increases in the daily rate of doses being administered to priority groups. More than 5% of the population has received at least one dose.
While comparatively low when set against other many countries, this has been a major step up. The government is now working to combat some hesitancy over the AstraZeneca vaccine, not helped by sensational media reports of deaths among elderly people who had also received the vaccine.
Health and welfare minister Chen Shih-Chung has confirmed two private companies – Foxconn and TSMC – have both applied to obtain and donate vaccines from overseas suppliers. Chen said the government will do their best to assist.
Updated
First minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has told the BBC this morning that the delay of the further easing of coronavirus restrictions in Wales would allow it to gather data on whether the spread of the Delta variant risked putting “unsustainable pressure” on the health service.
Asked why the decision had been made on Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “Because the Delta variant is now in every part of Wales and because it is being transmitted at a community level, we need to pause the changes we had hoped to make in order for us to get better data on whether the number of people falling ill, and we know that number’s going to go up in Wales, does that translate into additional and unsustainable pressure on the health service?”
PA Media reports he added: “Our scientists tell us another couple of weeks will give us that data and in the meantime we will be pressing ahead, vaccinating over half a million more people in these four weeks, building up our defences in that way.”
Asked if he could commit to easing restrictions completely after 15 July, he replied: “I can’t say that because I do not know and nobody else knows what the impact of the Delta variant will be by then.”
Drakeford said people in Wales are “absolutely not in lockdown” and “the vast bulk of freedoms are already restored”.
Updated
South Korea to mix vaccines due to Covax supply issues
Some 760,000 South Koreans who have received a first dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine will be offered Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine as a second shot due to shipment delays by global vaccine sharing scheme Covax, the government has said.
Some 835,000 doses of the AstraZeneca’s vaccine from Covax were scheduled to arrive by the end of June, which South Korea planned to use mainly as a second shot for around 760,000 health and frontline workers who had received their first dose in April.
The shipment is delayed to July or later, while the country had used up available AstraZeneca reserves to meet stronger than expected participation in its vaccination campaign, which helped the country meet its first-half inoculation target ahead of schedule.
Several countries, including Canada and Spain, have already approved such dose-mixing – mainly due to concerns about rare blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
A Spanish study found that giving a dose of the Pfizer shot to people who already received the AstraZeneca vaccine is highly safe and effective, according to preliminary results.
Sangmi Cha reports for Reuters that South Korea said last month it will conduct a clinical trial that mixes Covid-19 doses from AstraZeneca with those from Pfizer and others. It has so far run a trial in 100 health workers to examine the formation of antibody and other immune effects.
South Korea reported 507 new infections yesterday.
Updated
Minister: UK government has no intention to make it compulsory to return to the office
Talking of missing the office, the UK government’s plans for people returning to work have been one of the things that has cropped up in the morning media appearances.
PA Media reports that crime and policing minister Kit Malthouse said the government did not have any intention to make it compulsory to return to the office, while there will be a consultation on more flexible working going forward.
“This is a situation for employers and employees to discuss and negotiate themselves,” he told Sky News.
“I know there has been some media about this over the last two or three days, we don’t have any intention to make it compulsory to return to the office.
“Our manifesto at the last election did contain a pledge to consult on more flexible working to allow people to work from home should they wish to, and we will be doing that later on this year.”
Updated
There’s quite thin pickings in the news this morning, but while you are here, we have a couple of Covid-related diversions today. Steven Poole has picked “zoonotic” as his word of the week, and my very dear colleague Hannah Jane Parkinson has chosen missing the office as her joy of small things column.
As I mentioned earlier, with that shock by-election result, Covid isn’t getting much of a look-in during the UK early morning media round today. The UK’s crime and policing minister Kit Malthouse has just been asked on Sky News about there being any possibility of an earlier release of lockdown restrictions, and he stuck pretty faithfully to the script, saying:
This is a decision obviously for the prime minister and the the court of ministers, and they’re looking at the data as we go. Nobody wants to stay in lockdown any longer than we need to, and I know that they’ll be looking carefully at the numbers over the days and weeks to come to see what can be done.
.@KayBurley: Can you rule out early release of lockdown on July 5?@kitmalthouse says "nobody wants to stay in lockdown any longer than we need to" but the decision to ease restrictions early is for the prime minister.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 18, 2021
Latest on #COVID19: https://t.co/d1Mho8cxZx pic.twitter.com/aduQ7oEscs
In another tiny move towards normalising things in Tokyo before hosting the Olympic Games in a month’s time, Reuters are reporting that local authorities are set to allow the ordering and consumption of alcohol between 5pm and 7pm, in a slight relaxing of the rules.
Tokyo will allow “solitary drinkers” to order alcohol between 5pm and 7pm, but retain an 8pm deadline for bars and restaurants to shut, while limiting to 90 minutes the time each customer spends on the premises.
Updated
Starbucks slumped to a £41m loss in the UK in the past year as the Covid-19 pandemic took its toll on the coffee shop chain.
PA Media’s City editor reports their accounts showed revenues in the year to September 2020 fell £243m, down 32.7% due to the heavy restrictions imposed during much of the year.
Starbucks say they continued to pay their staff in full and did not take any furlough money for its non-franchised stores, which account for around 30% of all their sites in the UK.
Updated
Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said the city is facing a surge of the Delta variant, and the situation in the city is rapidly deteriorating.
Reuters report he said Friday’s caseload would be more than 9,000, which would be the most recorded in Moscow since the pandemic began. Until the beginning of June, daily new infections had been mostly below 3,000 for months.
The head of the consumer health watchdog in Russia said the number of coronavirus cases attributed to the Delta variant – the one first identified in India – was rising significantly across the country.
Good morning, it is Martin Belam here in London, taking over from Helen Sullivan. I’ve got a feeling that the domestic media round in the UK this morning is going to feature a lot of questions about Chesham and Amersham, and not so much about coronavirus. But I’ll be continuing to bring you all the latest coronavirus news from around the world, so do stay tuned.
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern gets Pfizer vaccine
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern received the her first shot of the Pfizer Covid vaccine on Friday, as the country steps up efforts to inoculate its population, Reuters reports.
The Pacific island nation shut its borders and used tough lockdown measures to become one of the few countries to have virtually eliminated Covid in the community, but the government is facing criticism for a slow rollout of vaccines.
“I’m smiling under the mask,” Ardern said as she sat down to receive the shot at a vaccination centre in Auckland, as the media watched on.
US launches $3.2bn virus treatment program
The United States is devoting $3.2bn to speed development of antiviral pills to treat Covid-19 and other dangerous viruses that could turn into pandemics.
AP: The new program will invest in “accelerating things that are already in progress” for Covid but also would work to come up with treatments for other viruses, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. He announced the investment Thursday at a White House briefing.
“There are few treatments that exist for many of the viruses that have pandemic potential,” he said, including Ebola, dengue, West Nile and Middle East respiratory syndrome.
But he added, “vaccines clearly remain the centerpiece of our arsenal.
The U.S. has approved one antiviral drug, remdesivir, specifically for Covid, and allowed emergency use of three antibody therapies that help the immune system fight the virus. But all the drugs have to given by IV at hospitals or medical clinics, and demand has been low due to these logistical hurdles.
Health experts have increasingly called for a convenient pill that patients could take themselves when symptoms first appear. Some drugmakers are testing such medications, but initial results aren’t expected for several more months. The new funds will speed those tests and support private sector research, development and manufacturing.
England opens vaccines to all over 18s from Friday
The health service in England will open up Covid vaccinations to everyone aged over 18 on Friday, a big step towards the government’s target of giving every adult who wants a vaccine a first shot in the next month, Reuters reports.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday pushed back the full re-opening of England from lockdown until July 19 because of a rise in cases, but also accelerated his vaccination plans, pledging to give every adult a first dose by the same date.
“Offering all adults a jab less than 200 days after the programme launched is one of our country*s greatest collective achievements, saving over 14,000 lives so far,” he said, referring to Public Health England estimates of the impact of the vaccine rollout.
Britain has given a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to more than 42 million people, almost 80% of adults, while well over a half have received both shots.
Health authorities in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each run their own vaccination campaigns. Wales and Northern Ireland have already made vaccines available to any adult, while Scotland is offering them to anyone over 30.
Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines are being rolled out across the United Kingdom, although officials have said that people under 40 should be offered an alternative to AstraZeneca’s shot after it was linked to rare blood clots.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
The United States is devoting $3.2bn to speed development of antiviral pills to treat Covid-19 and other dangerous viruses that could turn into pandemics.
The new program will invest in “accelerating things that are already in progress” for Covid but also would work to come up with treatments for other viruses, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. He announced the investment Thursday at a White House briefing.
The health service in England will open up Covid vaccinations to everyone aged over 18 on Friday, a big step towards the government’s target of giving every adult who wants a vaccine a first shot in the next month.
Here are the other key recent developments:
-
Wales is delaying further easing of coronavirus restrictions for four weeks after seeing a spike in cases of the Delta variant of the disease first identified in India.
- Germany will reopen its borders later this month to non-EU nationals who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, the government announced Thursday.
- AstraZeneca can charge a higher price for its Covid-19 vaccine in dozens of poor countries once the pharmaceutical company decides the pandemic has ended, according to a copy of its contract with Oxford University seen by the Guardian.
- Travel in and out of the Lisbon metropolitan area is to be banned over coming weekends as Portuguese authorities respond to a spike in new Covid-19 cases in the region around the capital, officials announced.
- Nepal significantly reduced coronavirus infections after its worst outbreak, which overwhelmed the country’s medical system, but is in desperate need of vaccines, according to its health minister.
- Denmark will administer Covid-19 vaccines for those aged 12 to 15, broadcaster TV 2 reported, citing sources. Danish health authorities are due to hold a news briefing to about using the vaccines on that age group later today, amid concerns there is limited information about possible side-effects to children who have nothing to gain from such a move.
- Austria announced that revellers will be allowed to hit the dance floor legally again from next month as nightclubs reopen, in line with a broader easing of measures.
- France’s tourism sector is taking a further step toward normality with the reopening of Disneyland Paris, two weeks after the country reopened its borders to vaccinated visitors from across the world.
