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Summary
Here the latest key developments at a glance:
- The reopening of schools in England will have an impact on infection rates that could affect the roadmap for lifting restrictions, prime minister Boris Johnson has warned, despite the number of new cases recorded in the UK having fallen to its lowest total since late September.
- Fully-vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing.
- The pandemic has had an “extremely unfair” impact on the income and economic opportunities of women, US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday.
- Most Dutch coronavirus restrictions must remain in place for now, prime minister Mark Rutte said on Monday, with the evening curfew being extended until 31 March and foreign travel advised against until mid April.
- Italy’s coronavirus death toll eclipsed 100,000 on Monday, as prime minister Mario Draghi reiterated his pledge to speed up the vaccination programme.
- Italy approved the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for people aged over 65 on Monday, after the Italian government had initially blocked the use for over-65s over doubts regarding the vaccine’s efficacy in that age groups and a lack of data.
- Preliminary data from a study in Brazil indicates that the Covid-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd is effective against the P1 variant of the virus first discovered in Brazil.
- The EU’s executive criticised Belgium on Monday for extending its blanket ban on non-essential travel to and from the country despite the European commission asking it to ease restrictions on movement.
- The US federal government should be able to launch the delivery of $1,400 checks to around 160m American households almost immediately once Congress finalises the new coronavirus aid bill and president Joe Biden signs it.
- High schools in New York City will welcome students back to the classroom for in-person instruction on 22 March, mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday.
That’s all from me, my colleague Nadeem Badshah will pick up the blog in a bit.
More than half of secondary schools and colleges in England have seen nearly all their students opt in for voluntary on-site coronavirus tests as they returned to class, a survey suggests.
PA reports:
Nearly three in four (73%) secondary school heads said more than 90% of pupils had complied with face covering policies in classrooms, according to the snap poll by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).
But some heads reported lower compliance with masks, with 2% saying it was below 70%.
The early findings came as millions of pupils began to return to class after months of remote learning.
Children’s minister Vicky Ford said secondary school students in England will not be forced to wear face coverings in classrooms when they return, as some will be “anxious and nervous” about wearing them.
But she said secondary school and college pupils should be “strongly encouraged” to wear face coverings wherever social distancing cannot be maintained, including in class, as set out in government guidance.
Secondary school pupils are also being asked to take three voluntary Covid-19 tests on site and one at home over the first fortnight. They will then be sent home-testing kits to use twice-weekly.
Primary school children are not being asked to carry out Covid-19 tests or wear face coverings.
Most Dutch coronavirus restrictions must remain in place for now, prime minister Mark Rutte said on Monday, adding that the evening curfew would be extended until 31 March.
Rutte said that Covid-19 infection and hospitalisation numbers had stabilised, but that the Outbreak Management Team had expressed that it would not be wise to reduce the measures now.
Exceptions will be made to make national elections on 15-17 March go ahead as planned.
Rutte said the impact on businesses and young people made it clear the country would not be able to continue the lockdown for another four months.
From 16 March, swimming lessons will be allowed again, Rutte said, and up top four adults, who must be older than 27, can sport together outside.
Small shops of less than 50m2 will continue being limited to two customers on their premises at any given time.
Earlier it had emerged that the government was set to extend the recommendation to avoid all foreign travel until 15 April, according to the Telegraaf newspaper.
The ban on foreign travel was due to expire at the end of March.
Updated
Italy’s coronavirus death toll eclipsed 100,000 on Monday, as prime minister Mario Draghi reiterated his pledge to speed up the vaccination programme.
There were 318 more deaths registered in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 100,103 – the highest in mainland Europe. Italy recorded 13,902 more new infections, down from 20,765 on Sunday. Hospital admissions were up by 687 and by 95 to intensive care.
Speaking in a video message on Monday afternoon, Draghi said: “The pandemic is not yet defeated but we can glimpse, with the acceleration of the vaccine plan, an exit path which is not distant.”
Health minister Roberto Speranza said on Sunday that the government aims to vaccinate all Italians by the summer.
Tuesday marks a year since Italy became the first European country to impose a tough lockdown, which lasted for two months. The country is currently using a coloured, tiered-system of various restrictions across its 20 regions depending on the severity of the virus’s spread and capacity of hospitals to deal with it, and further measures are expected to be announced in the next few days.
Draghi said that passing the “terrible threshold” of 100,000 deaths was something “we would never have imagined a year ago”.
He added that the vaccination programme will be “decisively strengthened” in the next few days, with the jab going first to the most fragile people and categories at risk. On Monday, Italy also approved the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in people over the age of 65.
Updated
The reopening of schools in England will have an impact on infection rates that could affect the roadmap for lifting restrictions, prime minister Boris Johnson has warned, as England’s deputy chief medical adviser said infections were still at a rate where a fourth wave could take off.
England’s deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries said that while pupils returning to classrooms will have an impact on the R rate, schools will be “inherently safer places” due to increased testing.
Harries told a Downing Street press conference:
We do expect there to be an impact on R.
What we do know is, or at least we can’t disentangle, the social interaction element of that rise in R. So, it’s just as likely it’s people meeting at school gates, or the different numbers of social interactions, as much as it is in schools.
I think the critical point is there are new interventions, so the testing for schools is in place, starting from now and gradually for some senior pupils going forward.
What that is likely to do is diminish the number of community transmission cases which could come into schools, so schools will be inherently safer places, but equally it will reach back into families.
So although I suspect we may see a rise at the start, with luck as we go forward and people get used to using that testing whole families will be protected as well.
Some countries should have listened more carefully when the World Health Organisation declared a global health emergency in January 2020, Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergency expert, said on Monday.
The WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern, its “highest level of alarm”, on 30 January and described the coronavirus as a “pandemic” for the first time on 11 March, Reuters reports.
Asked if the organisation should have used the term “pandemic” sooner, Ryan said: “Maybe we needed to shout louder, but maybe some people need hearing aids.”
China's Sinovac jab effective against Brazil variant, preliminary study suggests
Preliminary data from a study in Brazil indicates that the Covid-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd is effective against the P1 variant of the virus first discovered in Brazil, a source familiar with the study told Reuters on Monday.
The source, who did not provide data details, said the study had tested the blood of vaccinated people against the Brazilian variant of the virus.
Coronavac, as the Sinovac shot is known, is the main vaccine currently being used to inoculate people in Brazil.
France has reported a further 5,327 coronavirus infections, up from last Monday’s daily tally of 4,703 fresh cases.
The country’s seven-day average of new infections has been stubbornly above the 20,000 mark since 21 February.
I’m Jedidajah Otte and taking back over from my colleague Rachel Hall. If you’d like to flag relevant updates, you can get in touch with me via Twitter @JedySays or you can email me.
Updated
More from Reuters on Italy’s bleak milestone:
Italy is the seventh country in the world to reach 100,000 deaths, following the United States, Brazil, Mexico, India, Russia and Britain.
The health ministry said 318 people had died of the disease in the past 24 hours bringing the total tally since the epidemic hit the country 13 months ago to 100,103.
Some 13,902 new cases were logged today against 20,765 on Sunday. Fewer tests are normally carried out at the weekend, which means case numbers are often low on Mondays. There were 687 new hospital admissions over the past 24 hours, up from 443 on Sunday. The total number of intensive care patients increased by 95, to 2,700.
Infections rose 23% last week by comparison with the week before and health officials have warned that the country faces a fresh surge of cases as a more contagious variant of the disease gains ground.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi acknowledged that the situation was deteriorating, but said his government was going to “significantly step up” its vaccination campaign and predicted that the end to the crisis was in sight.
More on the US guidance on meeting indoors for vaccinated people, from US breaking news reporter Joan E Greve.
According to CDC guidelines released on Monday, those who have been fully vaccinated can visit indoors with others who are fully vaccinated without wearing masks.
Additionally, those who have been fully vaccinated can safely gather indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without wearing masks, the CDC said.
That will probably be a huge relief for older Americans, many of whom have been vaccinated but have gone months without visiting children, grandchildren or other relatives because of the pandemic.
The total coronavirus death toll in France has risen by 359 over 24 hours to reach 88,933, a Reuters snap reports.
The figures also show that 3,849 people are currently in intensive care units, the highest level since 17 November.
Updated
Italy surpasses 100,000 coronavirus deaths
Italy’s coronavirus death toll has surpassed 100,000, according to a Reuters snap.
The country’s health ministry reported 318 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, up from 207 on Sunday, and 13,902 new coronavirus cases, down from 20,765 on Sunday.
The death toll cited by the ministry is slightly higher than in the John Hopkins measure used by the Guardian, on which Italy has yet to reach the 100,000 threshold.
Updated
The number of new Covid-19 cases recorded in the UK has fallen to its lowest total since late September, Reuters reports.
The government’s daily data showed 4,712 people tested positive for Covid-19, down from 5,177 on Sunday and marking the smallest total since 28 September. The figures also showed 65 new deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test, the smallest total since 12 October.
The government said 22,377,255 people had been given a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of Sunday, up from 22,213,112 the previous day.
Updated
Vaccinated Americans allowed to meet indoors
Fully-vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, Associated Press reports.
The long-awaited guidance from federal health officials said that vaccinated people can come together in the same way with people considered at low-risk for severe disease, such as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren.
Rachel Hall here taking over from Jedidajah Otte. Do send over any thoughts or tips to rachel.hall@theguardian.com
Pandemic had 'extremely unfair' impact on women's incomes, US treasury secretary says
The pandemic has had an “extremely unfair” impact on the income and economic opportunities of women, US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday.
Yellen, in a dialogue with International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva, said it was critical to address the risk that the pandemic would leave permanent scars, reducing the prospects for women in the workplace and the economy.
She noted that women’s participation in the workforce was already lower in the US before the pandemic than in Europe, another issue that needed to be addressed.
Speeding up Italy’s vaccination campaign will enable the country to overcome the coronavirus crisis, prime minister Mario Draghi said on Monday, adding that his government would do whatever was necessary to protect lives.
“The pandemic is not yet over, but with the acceleration of the vaccine plan, a way out is not far off,” Draghi said in a speech to mark International Women’s Day.
Updated
High schools in New York City will welcome students back to the classroom for in-person instruction on 22 March, mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday.
“We have all the pieces we need to bring high school back and bring it back strong, and of course bring it back safely,” de Blasio told a news conference.
Reuters reports:
The mayor had shut down school buildings across the city in mid-November due to an increasing Covid-19 infection rate and has gradually brought students back to classrooms, starting with the youngest students, followed by middle school students last month.
De Blasio had promised high school students would not be far behind.
New York City’s school system is the largest in the United States with 1.1 million students and 1,800 buildings.
As of Sunday, 18.3% – or 3.6 million – of people in New York state had received at least one vaccine dose.
New York state governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday that total current Covid-19 hospitalisations stood at 4,789, and that a further 59 people had died from the virus.
Updated
Almost a year after they admitted Serbia’s first Covid-19 patient, women doctors and nurses at the Clinical Center hospital in the northern city of Novi Sad are still at the frontline in the fight against the disease.
Reuters reports:
Instead of a traditional International Women’s Day party, a legacy from the decades of communist rule, they spent most of their working day on Monday treating severely ill people.
The risk of catching the disease which has killed 150 doctors and nurses in Serbia is great and their work is physically and psychologically demanding.
“Emotions are involved in treating patients, especially when they are fully conscious and scared,” nurse Maja Cvjetkovic told Reuters. “Sometimes we sing to them.”
In Serbia, which has a population of 7 million and a nationwide vaccination programme, 4,562 people have died from Covid-19 and 485,439 have tested positive for the virus, according to official data.
Despite the inoculations, case numbers in Serbia are rising again, with about 4,000 new infections daily.
Updated
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday that president Joe Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus aid package will provide enough resources to fuel a “very strong” US economic recovery, but will not address longstanding inequality problems.
“This is a bill that will really provide Americans the relief they need to get to the other side of the pandemic, and we expect the resources here to really fuel a very strong economic recovery,” Yellen said in an interview on MSNBC.
As France, Germany and Italy have changed tack and are giving the AstraZeneca vaccine to people over 65, some people in France still don’t trust the jab.
Reuters reports:
According to the most recent data made available by the French health ministry, for the end of February, France was using 24% of its AstraZeneca doses, compared with 82% for vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and 37% for the Moderna shot.
That is partly due to logistical bottlenecks, but also because some French people don’t trust the AstraZeneca shot – despite multiple scientific studies that indicate it is safe and effective – according to interviews Reuters conducted with eight people involved in France’s vaccine rollout.
They said some of those offered the vaccine were worried about side-effects, sceptical it was effective against new variants of Covid-19, and confused by shifting evidence on how well it works for older people.
European regulators recommended it not be used for people over 65, citing a lack of data. French president Emmanuel Macron was quoted as saying the shot was “quasi-effective” and the French regulator called on hospitals to stagger inoculations of their staff after side effects led frontline workers to call in sick.
[...] To be sure, France is one of the most vaccine-sceptic countries globally, though surveys have showed the proportion of the public intending to get inoculated increasing.
Like other wealthy countries, France has made the AstraZeneca shot a pillar of its vaccine rollout. With all the big vaccine makers experiencing production problems, countries cannot afford for people to snub one of the shots.
A health ministry official and two doctors involved in the rollout said the uptake was accelerating as logistics improve and people get used to the AstraZeneca shot.
European regulators have concluded the side-effects caused by the AstraZenaca vaccine are not a cause to doubt its safety.
Updated
Pope Francis said on Monday that he decided to visit Iraq despite a rise in coronavirus cases after much prayer and contemplation and suggested God would protect those who came to see him from the virus.
Reuters reports:
Speaking to reporters on the plane returning from his trip, Francis also said he realised that some conservative Catholics would see his meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as “one step from heresy” but that sometimes it was necessary to take a risk in inter-religious relations.
The 84-year-old pontiff, speaking while standing for about 50 minutes, said the trip, his first foreign visit in 16 months, had left him much more fatigued than previous trips.
But he said he felt “reborn” after “feeling like I was imprisoned” by coronavirus restrictions. He added that “84 years do not come without baggage” and that he could not say if he would make fewer trips in the future.
While mask and social distancing regulations were respected at some indoor papal gatherings, where participation was limited, thousands of mostly young people attended a mass at Erbil stadium on Sunday night and most were not abiding by the rules.
The pope has often urged people to respect guidelines of local authorities and the Vatican said before the trip they were confident that Iraqi officials would be able to make people follow the rules.
Updated
El Al Israel Airlines Ltd aims to offer an extra level of Covid-19 precaution by requiring that passengers supplement negative PCR tests either with proof of they are immune to the disease or by undergoing rapid antigen testing before boarding.
Reuters reports:
The measures, applied to a trial flight on Monday, were tied into Israel’s world-beating Covid vaccination drive and post-pandemic planning, which have drawn foreign interest.
Like other countries, Israel requires negative PCR tests of incoming and departing travellers.
But El Al said its evening Flight 003 to New York would be unique in carrying only those who also presented vaccination certificates, proof of recovery from Covid-19, or who passed antigen tests at Ben Gurion airport.
Anyone failing a test would not be allowed to fly, it said.
“Today’s flight is, I think, the first in the world where you will know that you have verified that everyone onboard is certainly clean and non-coronavirus contagious,” Leehu Hacohen, El Al’s vice-president for operations, told Israel’s Army Radio.
Used widely, the method could reduce social distancing that limits turnover at airports and cramps passenger comfort, and allow business as usual for duty-free shops and restaurants, he said: “It’ll be possible to open up all of these and go back to or approximate the experience of flight, of terminal commerce.”
The antigen tests, developed by Sheba Medical Center, take 15 minutes to deliver results and are considered reliable for detecting active coronavirus infection, an El Al spokesman said. He said they would be provided to passengers for free, for now.
Updated
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been accused of squandering public money and trying to distract from his country’s Covid catastrophe by sending a high-level delegation to Israel to learn about a little-tested nasal spray that Brazil’s leader has called “miraculous”.
The three-day mission – involving Bolsonaro’s foreign minister, his son Eduardo and a friend with no scientific background – began on Sunday and was greeted with widespread derision in Brazil, as Covid death toll soared to record levels.
“How much did this ‘scientific mission’ (which includes not a single noteworthy scientist or epidemiologist) on an airforce jet to Israel cost?” the journalist André Trigueiro asked on Twitter.
Many critics noted how Bolsonaro’s envoys had been photographed leaving Brazil without face masks and then again, after landing in Israel, apparently obliged to wear the protective equipment. Others mocked Brazil’s foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, after he was given a public ticking off by an Israeli official for failing to don his mask. Images of the admonishment went viral on social media.
Detractors contrasted Israel’s fast-moving vaccination program, which has seen more than half of the population given a shot, with Bolsonaro’s sluggish campaign which has reached fewer than 4% of Brazilians.
Reports in Israel suggested the Brazilians had irked their hosts by spurning social distancing, just as Bolsonaro has notoriously done back home. While visiting Israel’s foreign ministry the Brazilian delegation had to be reminded to wear masks and keep socially distant, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Embarrassingly, Bolsonaro’s emissaries had asked to visit the hospital where the nasal spray is being developed – but their request was denied. A report in the Times of Israel added to the sense of fiasco, claiming Bolsonaro’s team “would be confined to their hotel for the entire visit” except for meetings with Israel’s foreign minister and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Araújo claimed fighting Covid was a priority for his government, described the Israeli nasal spray as “very promising” and claimed it had been essential to visit Israel in person.
Updated
There have been a further 164 cases of coronavirus in Wales, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 205,202.
Public Health Wales reported no further deaths, with the total in the country since the start of the pandemic remaining at 5,403.
The agency said a total of 998,296 first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine had now been given in Wales, an increase of 14,877 from the previous day.
The agency said 183,739 second doses had also been given, an increase of 15,576.
The EU’s executive criticised Belgium on Monday for extending its blanket ban on non-essential travel to and from the country despite the European commission asking it to ease restrictions on movement.
Reuters reports:
Highlighting how the bloc’s 27 countries struggle to stick to a unified line in battling the Covid-19 pandemic, Germany has equally ignored a call from the commission in late February to roll back its latest curbs on travel and borders.
In laying out plans for gradually restarting more social and public activities from May, prime minister Alexander de Croo said last Friday that Belgium’s ban on foreign travel would be extended by more than two weeks to 18 April.
“We were rather surprised by the Belgian authorities’ announcement,” said a spokesman for the commission, which – as most EU institutions – sits in the Belgian capital Brussels.
“We have asked Belgium to replace that with more targeted measures,” they said, referring to strict testing and quarantine requirements to discourage – but not ban – foreign trips.
The commission has said excessive limitations imposed recently to contain the spread of new variants of the coronavirus hurt the flow of goods, services and people in the bloc’s cherished single market, already going through a record recession triggered by the pandemic.
Updated
A defunct luxury hotel in Cambodia’s capital finished conversion into a 500-room coronavirus hospital on Monday, as authorities enforced a new law imposing criminal punishments for violating health rules and infections continued to rise.
The Associated Press reports:
The Great Duke Phnom Penh hasn’t been in operation for two years, and is now set up to treat virus patients amid a third wave of the pandemic in Cambodia.
Prime minister Hun Sen assigned Gen. Hun Manet, his eldest son and a powerful army chief, to lead the two-day effort to turn the hotel into a temporary hospital. The property is currently owned by a Chinese businessman who renamed it after purchasing it from a Cambodian tycoon.
It’s unclear why the upscale hotel has since been closed. Located in central Phnom Penh and apparently in good condition, the hotel was well known in the 2000s and was a popular spot for foreign embassies, NGOs and other groups during government-hosted conferences or summits.
On Friday, Cambodia’s government passed a law allowing criminal punishments, including fines and prison sentences, for breaking health measures aimed at preventing the virus’s spread.
For example, under the new law, intentionally spreading the virus is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, or 20 years if the offense is committed by an organised group.
The law also includes administrative measures, such as travel prohibitions, bans on gatherings, lockdowns of areas with a high number of virus cases and unspecified “administrative and other measures that are necessary to respond to and prevent the spread of Covid-19.”
Critics say such vague provisions allow for potential overreach and abuses by authorities because they can arbitrarily target people and groups, such as those protesting government policies.
Cambodia has officially tallied 1,011 virus cases and no deaths since the start of the pandemic. The Health Ministry announced 24 new infections on Monday.
A ministry statement said the new cases were caused by a local community outbreak. It’s been traced to a foreign resident who broke quarantine in a hotel and went to a nightclub in early February.
That caused a slew of infections and led the government on Feb. 20 to announce a two-week closure of all public schools, cinemas, bars and entertainment areas in Phnom Penh.
The government has since extended the closures for more two weeks for schools, gyms, concert halls, museums and other entertainment venues in Phnom Penh, nearby Kandal province and the coastal province of Sihanoukville.
Updated
The Covid-19 pandemic has achieved what many mayors across Europe have tried and failed to do: wipe out tens of thousands of Airbnbs from city centres and so help lower rental costs for locals, in some places by as much as 15%.
Reuters reports:
While Europe’s cities have long welcomed tourists, critics say the surge of properties listed on short-lettings site Airbnb in recent years had priced many locals out of their own housing markets, turning historic neighbourhoods into soulless spaces.
Property management companies and landlords contacted by Reuters in cities including Lisbon, Barcelona, Prague, and Venice said the collapse of tourism in the pandemic meant some hosts had now replaced holidaymakers with mid- to long-term tenants, moved in themselves, or given up properties altogether.
Data from holiday rental analytics firm AirDNA showed the number of Airbnb listings with at least one night booked or available in the past month in Europe’s 50 largest cities plunged 21.9% year-on-year in 2020.
Airbnb says it has adapted to changing travel patterns, with people heading to smaller towns and cities rather than tourist hotspots. “We had more listings in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic combined at the end of 2020 than the end of 2019,” spokesperson Andreu Castellano told Reuters.
While some hosts in major European city destinations plan to return to Airbnb when tourists come back, others have left the holiday-let business for good.
[...]
In Venice, where AirDNA data showed year-on-year bookings for Airbnb and rival Vrbo combined were down 67% in January, residents’ activists are urging the government to seize the opportunity to help locals by, for example, capping rental days and converting empty space into low-cost housing.“Before the pandemic, renting in Venice had become almost impossible for normal people,” Marco Gasparinetti from residents’ rights group Gruppo 25 Aprile told Reuters, blaming short-term lets for pushing up prices. The city of just 60,000 residents is normally visited by 20 million tourists a year.
“There are 30,000 people who commute to Venice every day but can’t afford to live here. Now that could change and help make sure Venice is not just an open-air theme park for tourists.”
Italy approves AstraZeneca vaccine for over-65s
Italy has approved the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for people aged over 65, the Italian health ministry said on Monday.
The green light for the use of the jab in the elderly was given after the Italian government’s initial doubts over the vaccine’s efficacy among those aged over 65, citing a lack of data.
Those who are “extremely vulnerable” to particular pathologies remain excluded, the health ministry said.
The vaccine can therefore be administered to all people in Italy over 18 years of age with the exception of patients identified “as extremely vulnerable due to immunodeficiency conditions, primary or secondary to pharmacological treatments or for concomitant disease that considerably increases the risk of developing fatal forms of Covid-19“.
The decision follows a statement from Italy’s Superior Health Council that said: “Further scientific evidence made available […] indicates that, even in aged subjects over the age of 65, the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine is able to induce significant protection both from the development of pathology induced by Sars-Cov-2, and from severe or even fatal forms of Covid-19.”
Last week, Germany’s vaccination committee reversed its guidance not to administer the AstraZeneca jab to over-65s in light of new studies proving the vaccine’s efficacy.
Updated
The US federal government should be able to launch the delivery of $1,400 checks to around 160m American households almost immediately once Congress finalises the new coronavirus aid bill and president Joe Biden signs it, tax experts say.
Reuters reports:
Some Americans might see direct payments as soon as this week if the bill passes the House of Representatives on Tuesday as expected, compared with several weeks’ lag in April 2020. Nearly 160mhouseholds are expected to get payments, the White House estimates.
The Treasury Department’s Internal Revenue Service will have new challenges on its hands, though, thanks to the $1.9tn relief bill. Incarcerated people, those with non-citizen spouses and relatives of those who died in 2020 will be eligible for payments.
The bill also includes an expanded child tax credit of up to $3,000 per child, paid monthly starting in July, essentially forcing the revenue collector to act as benefits administrator for the rest of the year.
The IRS, which has more than 70,000 employees, handles over 190m individual and corporate tax returns a year, but it has been hobbled by budget cuts and obsolete technology in recent years. The Covid-19 bill includes $1.46bn for the agency, which is running into its busiest season, as the 15 April deadline for individual taxpayers approaches.
A US Treasury spokeswoman said the Biden administration’s priority was to speed relief to Americans, adding: “Treasury stands ready to implement the direct payment check program as soon as the American Rescue Plan is passed.”
Updated
Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and his wife, Asma, have tested positive for Covid-19 after showing minor symptoms, the president’s office said in a statement on Monday.
It said they were both in good health and would continue to work while in isolation at home, Reuters reports.
The Syrian health ministry announced on Monday that 56 new coronavirus cases had been recorded, adding that 81 coronavirus patients recovered and that 5 further people had died.
According to the ministry, the official total of recorded infections stands at 15,981, of which 10,374 have recovered and 1,063 have died.
The first coronavirus case was registered in Syria on 22 March last year, the SANA news agency reports.
Updated
UK parents of children under the age of four are significantly more likely to be hesitant about taking a coronavirus vaccine than those without dependent children, figures show.
PA Media reports:
Younger adults, black and black British adults, renters, lower earners and those living in the most deprived areas are also more likely to be hesitant, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
It said 94% of those surveyed were positive about the vaccine, up from 78% in December when the data was first collected.
But it found that 9% of 18,112 adults in Great Britain reported vaccine hesitancy between 13 January and 7 February.
The ONS defined hesitancy as adults who have refused a vaccine, say they would be unlikely to get a vaccine when offered, and those who responded “neither likely nor unlikely”, “don’t know” or “prefer not to say” when asked.
More than four in 10 (44%) black or black British adults reported vaccine hesitancy.
This was the highest level in all ethnic groups, with the odds of hesitancy six times as high in black or black British adults compared with white adults after adjusting for other factors.
The age group with the highest level of hesitancy was 16- to 29-year-olds, with 17% reporting hesitancy, compared with 1% of those over 80.
The ONS said higher rates of hesitancy in the younger age groups could be driven by the prioritisation of older age groups in the vaccine rollout.
The survey also found that 16% of parents of dependent children aged 0-4 were hesitant, compared with 8% of those without a dependent child.
Parents of dependent children aged 0-4 were 37% more likely to be hesitant after controlling for other factors.
The same proportion (16%) of adults living in England’s most deprived areas were hesitant, compared ith 7% in the least deprived parts of the country.
The survey also found that 4% expressed negative sentiment towards the vaccine, defined as adults who have refused the vaccine and those who say they would be very or fairly unlikely to take it when offered.
The most common reasons included being worried about side-effects, the long-term effect on health, wanting to wait to see how well the vaccine works, or not thinking it is safe.
I’m Jedidajah Otte and will be taking over for the next few hours.
Feel free to get in touch with updates and tips, you can reach me on Twitter @JedySays or via email.
Updated
UN: 32% of global holiday destinations completely closed to tourists
Almost one-third of worldwide holiday destinations are completely closed to international tourists because of the “persistent seriousness of the epidemiological situation”, the United Nations’ tourism body has said in a report.
At the start of February, 69 destinations out of 217 worldwide, or 32%, were completely closed to international tourism – including 30 in Asia and the Pacific, 15 in Europe and 11 in Africa.
That is down from the peak in May 2020 when 75% of destinations worldwide were completely shut, but up from November when 27% were closed.
The Madrid-based World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) said there was a trend towards a “more nuanced, evidence and risk-based approach” to travel restrictions, such as requiring international tourists to provide a negative test on arrival.
International tourist arrivals fell by 1 billion, or 74%, in 2020, according to the UNWTO, which called it the “the worst year in tourism history”.
The pandemic cost the global tourism industry $1.3tn in lost revenue last year, more than 11 times the loss recorded during the 2009 global financial crisis.
“Travel restrictions have been widely used to restrict the spread of the virus. Now, as we work to restart tourism, we must recognise that restrictions are just one part of the solution,” the UNWTO head, Zurab Polilikashvili, said in a statement.
Updated
Andrew Sparrow’s UK Covid blog is now live but stay right here for the global news as it breaks.
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Israel has begun vaccinating Palestinians who hold permits to work in Jewish settlements in the occupied territory and inside the Jewish state, AFP reports.
Some 100,000 Palestinian labourers from the West Bank work in Israel and its settlements.
The campaign comes over two months after Israel launched an immunisation program that has successfully vaccinated more than 53% of its own 9.3 million population.
Over 3.7 million Israelis – more than 40% – have received two doses of the vaccine.
Human rights groups and many Palestinians argue that, as an occupier, Israel is responsible for providing vaccines to the Palestinian population. Israel says that under interim peace accords reached in the 1990s, it does not have any such obligation.
Updated
Summary
If you’re just joining me, here’s a summary of today’s main news so far:
- Vietnam has launched its vaccination programme with healthcare workers first in the queue, as the country looked set to contain its fourth outbreak of the coronavirus since the pandemic began. Monday’s shots were part of Vietnam’s first batch of 117,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that arrived late last month.
- Schools in England are reopening on Monday for all children under the first step to ease restrictions, but secondary schools can stagger the return of students over the week to allow for mass testing. It comes as the UK recorded its lowest daily death toll on Sunday (82) since October.
- Thailand will reduce mandatory quarantine from 14 to seven days from April for foreigners vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the health minister, Anutin Charnvirankul. Travellers must have had a vaccination administered within three months of the travel period and travellers will be required to show negative Covid-19 test results.
- The French government has warned it could make it compulsory for health workers to be vaccinated after the prime minister revealed only 40% had been inoculated. Gabriel Attal, the government spokesman, urged those working in the health sector, who have been a priority for Covid-19 vaccinations for weeks, to get vaccinated.
- South Korean health officials have found no link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and at least eight recent deaths. Health officials had been investigating the deaths of eight people with underlying conditions who had adverse reactions after receiving AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, but said they found no evidence that the shots played a role.
- Poland says it could see 20,000 new cases a day this week, according to the Polish health ministry.
- Russia has reported 10,253 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24 hours, including 1,421 in Moscow, taking the national case tally to 4,333,029 since the pandemic began. The government’s coronavirus taskforce said 379 people had died, bringing the official death toll to 89,473.
- A senior European Medicines Agency official has urged European Union members to refrain from granting national approvals for Russian Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V while the agency reviews its safety and effectiveness.
- Slovakia, a country suffering the world’s highest mortality rate from Covid-19, has received a donation of 15,000 coronavirus vaccine doses from France, Slovak prime minister Igor Matovič said on Sunday.
Updated
Thailand to reduce mandatory quarantine from 14 to 7 days from April
Thailand will reduce mandatory quarantine from 14 to seven days from April for foreigners vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the health minister, Anutin Charnvirankul.
Reuters report that travellers must have had a vaccination administered within three months of the travel period and travellers will be required to show negative Covid-19 test results.
Those who have not been inoculated but have Covid-free certificates would be forced to quarantine for 10 days.
Covid has led to a severe downturn in Thailand’s tourism industry, which accounted for about a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product pre-pandemic.
The local tourism industry has called for there to be no mandatory quarantine for vaccinated visitors from 1 July.
Updated
The French government has warned it could make it compulsory for health workers to be vaccinated after the prime minister revealed only 40% had been inoculated, reports our Paris correspondent, Kim Willsher.
Gabriel Attal, the government spokesman, urged those working in the health sector, who have been a priority for Covid-19 vaccinations for weeks, to get vaccinated.
“For the last year our health workers have been heroic, but the vaccination rate among them today is not acceptable,” Attal said in a question and answer session with readers of Le Parisian newspaper.
“It would be irresponsible to refuse to be vaccinated when one is a health worker.”
Attal said the government would try the carrot approach first by urging health workers to have the vaccine. If that didn’t work, the stick of making it obligatory “remains a possibility”, he said.
“Everyone is rolling up their sleeves to get us out of this epidemic. Now they have to roll them up to the shoulder to get vaccinated.”
Attal was echoing the gentle warnings issued by PM Jean Castex and health minister Olivier Véran at their weekly Covid-19 press conference last Thursday. Castex said health workers had a responsibility “to themselves, to their families and to those they care for”, to get vaccinated.
Le Parisian described Attal’s comments as a “delicate threat” that “hit hard”.
“The government spokesman has given health workers a final warning: go get yourselves vaccinated or we will make you do it! … let’s admit, it’s difficult to understand why health workers, whose role is to look after their patients, are so reluctant. Only one in three has agreed to be vaccinated leaving 75% of doses aimed for them sitting in fridges,” it wrote in an editorial.
However, the paper questioned whether forcing them to be vaccinated was a good idea. It said: “Why should the government decide for them when the rest of the population has the choice? The health service isn’t the army.”
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Hong Kong’s top officials said on Monday that the city’s vaccine programme would be expanded to include more priority groups including teachers and delivery workers, as fears grow over a series of adverse reactions following the vaccine rollout.
At least two people have died and several fallen seriously ill after receiving a vaccination by China’s Sinovac. The government has said it is still assessing the causality between the incidents and the vaccine and would report findings as soon as possible.
About 93,000 people have been vaccinated since the public rollout started on 26 February.
“These serious adverse events are of much concern to us,” Sophia Chan, the city’s health secretary, told a news briefing on Monday. “We are still uncertain whether it was related to the vaccine. Once we have any information or conclusions, we would report the details to the public.”
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The tiny south-east Asian nation of East Timor will put its capital city, Dili, into lockdown for the first time amid fears it could be facing its first local outbreak, reports Reuters.
It said the measure was because of a “high probability of community transmission”.
A former Portuguese colony with a population of 1.2 million, East Timor has detected just 122 cases of the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic.
However, East Timor’s porous border with Indonesia, which has recorded close to 1.38 million Covid-19 cases and more than 37,000 deaths, has raised concerns that the virus could spread and wreak havoc on the country’s poorly equipped healthcare system.
The country’s council of ministers said in a statement:
It is forbidden to travel, by land, sea or air, out of this municipality, except in duly justified cases for reasons of safety, public health, humanitarian or other that are necessary for the accomplishment of the public interest.
The council of ministers also approved a national vaccination plan, with 33,000 doses expected to arrive in the country by the end of March.
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South Korea finds no link between AstraZeneca vaccine and recent deaths
South Korean health officials have found no link between the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine and several recent deaths, reports Reuters:
Health officials had been investigating the deaths of eight people with underlying conditions who had adverse reactions after receiving AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, but said they found no evidence that the shots played a role.
“We’ve tentatively concluded that it was difficult to establish any link between their adverse reaction after being vaccinated, and their deaths,” Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) director Jeong Eun-kyeong told a briefing.
South Korea began vaccinating residents and workers at nursing homes and other at-risk individuals at the end of February, with 316,865 people having received their first shots as of Sunday.
South Koreans aged 65 or older were not being given AstraZeneca’s vaccine after health regulators concluded that more data was needed to confirm its efficacy among that age group.
But on Monday, Jeong said an expert panel had now recommended that the shot be given to older people, and that the KDCA would soon make a final decision.
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Poland says it could see 20,000 new cases a day this week
Poland could this week record up to 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day, according to the Polish health ministry, reports Reuters.
In addition, a ministry spokesman told the private radio station Radio Plus that Poles should expect restrictions during the Easter holidays.
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Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool and a member of Sage, said schools were “absolutely” safe for children but that it was “inevitable that we will see a rise in cases”.
However, he said it was not so important if the R number rose slightly, saying it was more about “the absolute number of cases going to hospital and needing intensive care”.
Semple told BBC Breakfast:
The subtle question about transmission and teachers, and bringing it home, well the school infection survey is showing that primary school children are half as likely to have had it and probably half as likely to transmit it.
Secondary school children (are) slightly less protected because as they become adolescents they effectively have the biology of an adult, but even there, they’re half to a quarter as likely to have had it and transmit it.
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Russia reports 10,253 new coronavirus cases
Russia has reported 10,253 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24 hours, including 1,421 in Moscow, taking the national case tally to 4,333,029 since the pandemic began.
The government’s coronavirus taskforce said 379 people had died, bringing the official death toll to 89,473.
This figure represents Russia’s lowest daily death toll since November.
Updated
Hundreds of pharmacies in England could be forced to close because the Treasury is demanding repayment of emergency loans it gave them to help stay open during the Covid pandemic.
Ministers have been warned that most closures will occur in poorer areas and will hamper both the Covid vaccination rollout and the annual winter flu jab campaign.
Pharmacy leaders claim that thousands of England’s 11,500 pharmacies are at risk because the Treasury is insisting that they pay back much of the £370m it gave them last year.
“The government’s decision to demand repayment of the Covid-19 funding given to pharmacies will put many at risk of closure,” said Simon Dukes, chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee.
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Hello, Alex Mistlin here taking over our rolling coverage of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Summary
Here’s a summary of today’s main news so far:
- Schools in England are reopening on Monday for all children under the first step to ease restrictions, but secondary schools can stagger the return of students over the week to allow for mass testing. It comes as the UK recorded its lowest daily death toll on Sunday (82) since October.
- Half of all women think the social impact of the pandemic risks setting back gender-equality gains, after a year in which they bore the brunt of job losses, home schooling and domestic chores.
- Vietnam has launched its vaccination programme with healthcare workers first in the queue, as the country looked set to contain its fourth outbreak of the coronavirus since the pandemic began. Monday’s shots were part of Vietnam’s first batch of 117,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that arrived late last month.
- A senior European Medicines Agency official has urged European Union members to refrain from granting national approvals for Russian Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V while the agency reviews its safety and effectiveness.
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Slovakia, a country suffering the world’s highest mortality rate from Covid-19, has received a donation of 15,000 coronavirus vaccine doses from France, Slovak prime inister Igor Matovič said on Sunday.
- Norway will probably need stronger restrictions to combat the latest resurgence in coronavirus infections, prime minister Erna Solberg said in a televised speech on Sunday. “Ahead of us is another hill to climb, probably with tighter national measures before we can ease and then lift the restrictions,” Solberg said.
- The US is approaching Joe Biden’s target of 100m vaccinations in his first 100 days in office, with 90,351,750 doses of Covid-19 vaccines as of Sunday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines.
- More than a thousand clubbers in Amsterdam were given a short break from lockdown as part of a trial investigating how large events can operate safely amid the pandemic.
- A German MP has announced his resignation after it was revealed that his company had made hundreds of thousands through deals to procure face masks.
- Police used teargas against protesters in Athens on Sunday night after footage of an officer beating a man during a coronavirus lockdown patrol went viral.
Updated
UK teachers anger over Covid Chaos
Martin Farrer has done a round-up of the Covid stories making headlines in the UK this morning in his Guardian Morning Briefing (you can read the full version here):
English headteachers have described the government’s plan for helping disadvantaged pupils catch up after the disruption of coronavirus as chaotic and confusing, ahead of today’s full reopening of schools across England.
A survey of 150 schools in the north-east found only 20% had engaged with the much-vaunted national tutoring programme, with one calling it a “shambles”.
The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has promised to transform schools with longer days and a move to a five-term academic year as a means to help pupils regain lost ground. But the head of Ofsted warned that any changes must be supported by evidence and have the backing of parents.
Amid concern about pay for NHS staff, Boris Johnson is being criticised for earmarking £9m for a new situation room in Whitehall. In better news for ministers, the UK has recorded its lowest daily deaths since October, with 82 people dying yesterday from Covid. People will also be able to visit loved ones in care homes in person from today as part of the first phase of lockdown easing in England. Catch up with this and other developments in the pandemic at our live blog.
Updated
UK: half of women think social impact of pandemic risks setting gender equality back
More than half of women in the UK believe that the social impact of the coronavirus pandemic risks setting gender equality back decades after a year in which they bore the brunt of job losses, home schooling and domestic chores. Women are increasingly fearful about their futures, with almost half of those surveyed in a Mumsnet poll for International Women’s Day expecting gender equality to go into reverse over the next few years. Three-quarters of women said that during lockdown it was easier for their partner to work uninterrupted. The UK impact on women has worsened because the policy response suffered from the lack of a female perspective, women’s leaders say.
You can read our full story here:
Updated
Malaysia will buy additional Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 doses, bringing the total secured to 32 million, science minister Khairy Jamaluddin said on Monday.
The total amount of doses secured is expected to be enough to cover 50% of Malaysia’s population, Khairy said.
Earlier I reported that New Zealand had bought enough doses to cover twice its population.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 5,011 to 2,505,193, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Monday.
The reported death toll rose by 34 to 71,934, the tally showed.
Schools in England reopen on Monday
Children return to school in England on Monday for the first time since January, as the government begins to ease tough restrictions thanks to a mass vaccination drive against the coronavirus.
Throughout the latest lockdown since the start of the new year, schools have remained open to children of key workers and the most vulnerable.
But all other children have been at home, causing a headache for working parents, and fears about the effect on their learning.
Pupils aged five to 11 go back to the classroom Monday, with a staggered return over the coming week for secondary school students aged 11 to 18.
Schoolchildren returned to class after the Christmas break but were sent home again after just one day, to contain a more transmissible virus strain.
Secondary school pupils are being asked to take three voluntary Covid-19 tests on site and one at home over the first fortnight. They will then be sent home-testing kits to do twice-weekly.
The Department for Education (DfE) is also advising secondary school students to wear face coverings wherever social distancing cannot be maintained, including in the classroom.
But primary schoolchildren are not being asked to carry out Covid-19 tests or wear face masks on their return.
In Scotland, children aged four to seven returned last month and older students are due to follow – part-time – from 15 March.
A similar timetable has been outlined in Wales, starting with those preparing for exams on the same date.
Children aged four to eight in Northern Ireland are also back on Monday, with secondary pupils aged 13 to 18 on 22 March. Others have to wait until April.
Vietnam launches vaccination programme
Vietnam has launched its vaccination programme with healthcare workers first in the queue, even as the country looked set to contain its fourth outbreak of the coronavirus since the pandemic began.
Reuters reports that Vietnam has been lauded globally for its record fighting the virus. Thanks to early border closures, targeted testing, and a strict, centralised quarantine programme, Vietnam has suffered fewer disruptions to its economy than much of Asia.
“When it’s your turn, go and get your shot against Covid-19 to protect yourself and your relatives for a healthy community, the health ministry said in a statement on its website.
Vietnam has kept the total number of infections in the country of 96 million at around 2,500 and reported just 35 deaths. It crushed a first wave of cases in February last year, and a larger cluster detected among foreign tourists in April.
An outbreak in the central city of Danang was quickly contained in September and a fourth, more concerning outbreak of the more contagious variant of the virus first detected in Britain appears to have been largely brought under control across several northern provinces.
New cases in that outbreak, first detected in January, fell to single digits last week.
Vietnam’s government said last month it would acquire 150 million jabs for its vaccination programme, including both those directly purchased and doses obtained via the COVAX vaccine-sharing scheme.
Monday’s shots were part of Vietnam’s first batch of 117,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that arrived late last month.
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New Zealand buys enough Pfizer vaccine for whole population
The New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has announced the country has bought enough Pfizer vaccine for the entire population.
She said the decision to go with the Pfizer jab was based on its strong efficacy in preventing symptomatic infection.
“Whilst the Pfizer vaccine does need to be kept at ultra-cold temperatures, this challenge is offset by only having to deal with one vaccine, rather than multiple vaccines with multiple protocols. It will simplify our vaccine roll out.”
New Zealand has a total of 10m doses, enough for each of the “team of five million” to get two shots.
“This purchase marks a significant milestone in New Zealand’s fight against Covid-19. We can all take heart that we have now secured one of the strongest and more effective tools in the Covid-19 toolkit,” Ardern said.
WATCH LIVE: The government has purchased enough of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for every New Zealander, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.https://t.co/OS0XIBN09a
— RNZ (@radionz) March 8, 2021
European Medicines Agency urges EU not to grant emergency approval for Russian vaccine
A senior European Medicines Agency (EMA) official has urged European Union members to refrain from granting national approvals for Russian Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V while the agency reviews its safety and effectiveness, Reuters reports.
“We need documents that we can review. We also don’t at the moment have data ... about vaccinated people. It is unknown. That’s why I would urgently advise against giving a national emergency authorisation,” EMA managing board head Christa Wirthumer-Hoche told a talk show on Austrian broadcaster ORF.
“We can have Sputnik V on the market here in future when the appropriate data have been reviewed. The rolling review has begun now at EMA,” she added after the agency said last week it had launched such a review.
“Data packages are coming from Russian manufacturers and of course they will be reviewed according to European standards for quality, safety and efficacy. When everything is proven then it will also be authorised in the European Union,” she added.
Sputnik V has already been approved or is being assessed for approval in three EU member states – Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – and EU officials have said Brussels could start negotiations with a vaccine maker if at least four member countries request it.
Wirthumer-Hoche said EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) would hold an extraordinary meeting on 11 March to review Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine for use in the EU.
“We expect a positive assessment and that the (European) Commission will quickly grant authorisation,” she added.
Face masks can be worn safely during intense exercise, and could reduce the risk of Covid-19 spreading at indoor gyms, preliminary findings suggests.
Scientists from the Monzino Cardiology Centre (CCM) in Milan and the University of Milan tested the breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels of six women and men on exercise bikes, with and without a mask.
Wearing a face covering reduced the participants’ ability to perform vigorous exercise by about 10%, probably because they found it slightly harder to breathe through the mask, according to the paper published in the European Respiratory Journal.
“This reduction is modest and, crucially, it does not suggest a risk to healthy people doing exercise in a face mask, even when they are working to their highest capacity,” said Dr Massimo Mapelli, a cardiologist at the CCM. “While we wait for more people to be vaccinated against Covid-19, this finding could have practical implications in daily life, for example potentially making it safer to open indoor gyms.”
More research needs to be done to see if the same would be true for people with heart or lung conditions, scientists say.
The volunteers, made up of healthy individuals with an average age of 40, did three rounds of exercise. One, without a face mask, another with a single-use surgical mask and the last with a FFP2 mask. The thicker FFP2 mask resulted in a 10% reduction in peak oxygen uptake and the surgical mask had a marginally smaller impact, researchers say.
Researchers are investigating whether wearing a face mask affects people’s ability to carry out daily activities such as housework or climbing stairs, examining healthy people as well as those with heart and lung conditions.
You can read the full story here.
France donates 15,000 vaccine doses to Slovakia
Slovakia, a country suffering the world’s highest mortality rate from Covid-19, has received a donation of 15,000 coronavirus vaccine doses from France, Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic said on Sunday.
Matovic described the Oxford-AstraZeneca doses as a “very kind and useful gift” and a “great gesture of friendship”, at a news conference with French Ambassador Christophe Leonzi, local press agency TASR reported.
Speaking in Bojnice, western Slovakia, the premier added that France had supported the idea of the European Union urgently sending 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to Slovakia.
An EU nation of 5.4 million people, Slovakia has registered an average of 24.09 deaths per 100,000 residents over the past 14 days – the highest rate in the world.
The Slovak health ministry on Sunday announced that it had identified the South African strain of Covid-19 in seven samples taken in the country.
China reports 19 new cases
China reported 19 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, up from 13 a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Monday.
The National Health Commission said in a statement that all of the new cases were imported infections. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose to 17 from 11 cases a day earlier.
Total confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stand at 89,994. The death toll remains unchanged at 4,636.
Norway may introduce stronger Covid measures
Norway will probably need stronger restrictions to combat the latest resurgence in coronavirus infections, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said in a televised speech on Sunday.
“Ahead of us is another hill to climb, probably with tighter national measures before we can ease and then lift the restrictions,” Solberg said.
She did not outline which additional measures could be needed to curb the Covid-19 outbreak however.
The Nordic country has maintained one of Europe’s lowest rates of infection but a recent resurgence in cases has led to concerns that a third wave of the outbreak may be under way.
In the capital region, where the more contagious variant first identified in Britain as B.1.1.7 now dominates, non-essential stores are already closed, restaurants are only allowed to provide takeaway service and some schools are shut.
As of 4 March, the nation of 5.4 million had vaccinated close to 377,600 people with a first dose, and nearly 200,700 had also received a second dose, according to data from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
Mexico nears 200,000 Covid deaths
Mexico’s health ministry on Sunday reported 2,734 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 247 additional fatalities, bringing the total tally to 2,128,600 infections and 190,604 deaths.
Health officials have said the real number of infected people and deaths in Mexico is likely significantly higher than the official count because of a lack of wide-scale testing.
UK records lowest deaths since October as England schools return on Monday
The UK has recorded its lowest daily deaths since October, with just 82 people dying on Sunday from Covid. It brings the total deaths to 124,501 and is down from 144 last Sunday.
It’s the first time deaths have dropped below triple figures in five months. There were also 5,177 new cases recorded, which is the lowest daily count since September.
The figures come as schools prepare to return in England after months of remote learning.
All children will be able to return to class from Monday under the first step to ease restrictions, but secondary schools can stagger the return of students over the week to allow for mass testing.
Secondary school pupils are being asked to take three voluntary Covid-19 tests on site and one at home over the first fortnight. They will then be sent home-testing kits to do twice-weekly.
The Department for Education (DfE) is also advising secondary school students to wear face coverings wherever social distancing cannot be maintained, including in the classroom.
But primary schoolchildren are not being asked to carry out Covid-19 tests or wear face masks on their return.
Pupils in England, except children of key workers and vulnerable pupils, have been learning remotely since the start of the lockdown in January.
The latest Government figures show that more than one in four (27%) primary school pupils in England were being taught on-site in the week after half-term.
Overall, nearly a fifth (18%) of state school pupils were in class on 25v February, up from 16% on the week before half-term, according to the DfE statistics.
Head teachers have criticised the government’s scheme for helping disadvantaged pupils catch up as chaotic and confusing. You can read our full story on that here.
US approaches 100m vaccinations
The US is approaching Joe Biden’s target of 100m vaccinations in his first 100 days in office United States, with 90,351,750 doses of Covid-19 vaccines as of Sunday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines.
The agency said 58,873,710 people had received one or more doses while 30,686,881 people have received the second dose as of Sunday.
A total of 7,389,102 vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the CDC
The figures emerged as Dr Anthony Fauci warned it is too early to end Covid-19 restrictions, despite Texas and Mississippi having lifted mask mandates and business capacity limits this week.
States are easing restrictions after a drop in cases, though that decline is starting to plateau at a high rate of 60,000 to 70,000 infections a day.
“We’re going in the right direction but we just need to hang on a bit longer,” Fauci said on Sunday, to CBS’s Face the Nation.
Fauci, chief medical adviser to Joe Biden, said turning restrictions “on and off” risked another surge.
“This is not going to be indefinite, we need to gradually pull back as we get people vaccinated,” he said.
You can read our full story below:
New Zealand air crew member tests positive
Just as Auckland’s lockdown lifts and New Zealand celebrates two weeks free of community transmission, a new case of Covid-19 has been identified in an airline crew member.
The Ministry of Health said on Sunday evening the individual had returned to New Zealand from Japan on 28 February and initially returned a negative test result before testing positive during routine surveillance testing.
The crew member was moved into a quarantine facility in Auckland. The ministry believes the risk was low due to Auckland observing Level 3 restrictions in the past week but the 14 other air crew on the same flight are being isolated and re-tested while a supermarket the individual visited is being deep-cleaned.
Epidemiologist Michael Baker has suggested that the processes for air crew may need to be revisited as an “area of vulnerability”.
Hello and welcome to our continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, with me, Alison Rourke.
Before we get underway, here’s a summary of the main news so far:
- The US has administered 90.35m doses of vaccine according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency said 59m people had received one or more doses while 30.6m people have received the second dose as of Sunday.
- The UK has reported a further 82 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, bringing the total to 124,501. This compares with 144 last Sunday, and is the first time fatalities have dropped below triple digits since October.
- North Macedonia received its first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccines on Sunday, after beginning its vaccine rollout last month.
- France has donated 15,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses to Slovakia as the country battles against the world’s highest coronavirus mortality rate.
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More than a thousand clubbers in Amsterdam were given a short break from lockdown as part of a trial investigating how large events can operate safely amid the pandemic.
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Mexico’s health ministry has reported 2,734 new confirmed Covid-19 cases and 247 further fatalities, bringing the total tally to 2,128,600 infections and 190,604 deaths, Reuters reports.
- A German MP has announced his resignation after it was revealed that his company had made hundreds of thousands through deals to procure face masks.
- Police used tear gas against protesters in Athens on Sunday night after footage of an officer beating a man during a coronavirus lockdown patrol went viral.
Updated
