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Antibiotic use was “very high” among Covid-19 hospital patients in the UK during the first wave of the pandemic even though confirmed bacterial infections were rare, scientists have found.
Antibiotics are medicines used to treat some types of bacterial infections and do not work on viral diseases, such as Covid-19.
New analysis, published in the journal The Lancet Microbe, shows that, between February 6 and June 8 2020, 85% of coronavirus patients received one or more antibiotics during their hospital stay, while 37% were prescribed the drugs prior to admission.
It suggests many ill Covid-19 patients who did not have a bacterial infection were being unnecessarily treated with medicines that kill bacteria.
The scientists say that giving antibiotics to Covid-19 patients who do not have a bacterial co-infection risks worsening global antimicrobial resistance - which occurs when bacteria no longer respond to the drugs made to kill them.
They recommend that antibiotic use should be more evidence-based (known as antimicrobial stewardship), while adding that medics should restrict prescribing these drugs unless tests confirm a bacterial infection, PA reports.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said president Joe Biden could announce this week Washington’s plan for distributing 80 million coronavirus vaccines globally, Reuters reports.
“I want you to know as well that in a few short days ... possibly as early as tomorrow, the president is going to announce in more detail, the plan that he’s put together to push out 80 million vaccines, around the world,” said Blinken at a gathering at the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica.
Authorities in Australia have released a list of public exposure sites in New South Wales visited by a confirmed case of Covid-19.
Here are the current coronavirus hotspots, Covid exposure sites, venues and case location alerts and what to do if you’ve visited them.
The new White House science adviser wants to have a vaccine ready to fight the next pandemic in about 100 days after recognising a potential viral outbreak.
Eric Lander told The Associated Press: “This is a moment in so many ways, not just health, that we can rethink fundamental assumptions about what’s possible and that’s true of climate and energy and many areas.”
Brazil registered 2,507 Covid-19 deaths on Wednesday and 95,601 additional cases, according to data released by the country’s health ministry.
The South American country has now registered 467,706 total coronavirus deaths and 16,720,081 confirmed cases, Reuters reports.
Amazon is testing its front-line staff in Britain for coronavirus variants and feeding the data to public health officials, including in hotspots where a strain first found in India is spreading fast, Reuters reports.
The retail giant opened Covid-19 testing labs in the UK and the US last year to provide voluntary testing for staff and can now also test for variants in Britain, where scientists have pioneered sequencing coronavirus genomes.
Luke Meredith, director of the Amazon Diagnostic Laboratory in Britain, said the company was open to offering the same service in the US and did not rule out making its testing programme available to the UK public.
“It’s very important that we acknowledge the fact that variants can transmit in different ways, they have different responses to vaccines, they may have different impacts on people’s health,” he told Reuters.
“This is a learning phase.”
Updated
The UK’s vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi, pressed about the dropping of restrictions on June 21, told ITV’s Peston programme: “At the moment there’s nothing in the data to suggest that we need to move the road map.
“We’ve been straight with people, as both the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary have said, on June 14 we will share with the nation all the data that we’d have gathered.
“The next 12 days are going to be really important to see what the virus is doing. We’ve got a very large-scale surveillance infrastructure in place in terms of waste water surveillance and large-scale testing.”
On giving vaccines to children, Zahawi said: “Some children do get serious Covid and long Covid, but on the whole you’ll be vaccinating to protect families, the community and public health.”
Romania has started administering Covid-19 vaccines to young teenagers aged 12 to 15, after the European Medicines Agency approved use of the Pfizer jab last week for that age group in the 27-nation European Union
Associated Press reports:
National vaccination committee chief Valeriu Gheorghita said more than 2,100 appointments were made for children in the past 24 hours via the online national booking platform.
Vaccination centres will also accept no-appointment walk-ins, he said, speaking at the inauguration of a children’s vaccination centre in the capital, Bucharest.
“By authorising the vaccination of those between 12 to 15 years old, we bring an important advantage especially for kids with chronic diseases or other conditions which make them vulnerable to serious illness,” Gheorghita said.
Sir Kevan Collins has quit as the education catch-up tsar over his fears the UK government’s 1.4 billion fund to help children recover missed lessons “falls far short of what is needed”.
It has been reported that he called for 15 billion of funding and 100 extra hours of teaching per pupil, rather than the 1.4 billion additional fund announced by the government.
In his letter to the prime minister, Sir Kevan, who has resigned after just four months of being the education recovery commissioner, states: “One conservative estimate puts the long-term economic cost of lost learning in England due to the pandemic at 100 billion, with the average pupil having missed 115 days in school.
“In parts of the country where schools were closed for longer, such as the North, the impact of low skills on productivity is likely to be particularly severe.”
He warns the current package of support is “too narrow, too small and will be delivered too slowly” and the pandemic has already wreaked the greatest damage to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
In just over four months, thanks to the American people, we have made incredible progress getting people vaccinated.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 2, 2021
Nearly 170 million Americans — of every party, every background, every walk of life — have stepped up and rolled up their sleeves to get a shot.
An announcement from the US president:
Today, we are announcing a month-long effort to get 70% of adult Americans vaccinated. It will take everyone doing their part so we can declare our independence from COVID-19 and free ourselves from the grip it has held over our lives.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 2, 2021
Argentina’s largest oil workers union said on Wednesday that it would call a strike if the government does not allow it to privately purchase Covid-19 vaccines amid a second wave of infections, Reuters reports.
The Rio Negro, Neuquen and La Pampa Private Oil and Gas Union, representing 24,000 workers, many of them in the Vaca Muerta shale oil formation, said it would wait for government authorization until the end of next week.
If permission to purchase vaccines is not granted, it said it would call a strike.
“Next Friday the 11th, if there are no answers to our request, we are going to withdraw from our jobs to protect the health of all our colleagues,” the union’s leader, Guillermo Pereyra, said.
A summary of today's developments
- France will start vaccinating teenagers from age 12 with the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine on June 15, the government said.
- Mexico reported 3,269 new cases of Covid-19 in the country and 306 more fatalities, Reuters reports. It brings the total to 2,423,928 infections and 228,146 deaths, according to health ministry data released on Wednesday.
- Spanish regions with a low Covid infection rate will be allowed to reopen nightlife before herd immunity is achieved, which is expected by mid-August, the health minister said.
- The Canadian province of Ontario will keep schools closed for in-person learning until the new school year starts in September, premier Doug Ford announced.
- Germany plans to pay vaccine manufacturers an annual reservation fee to build up reserve capacity of around 600-700m doses per year to help it fight future pandemics, the health minister said.
- Colombia has began what its government called a gradual opening of its border with Venezuela after a 14-month closure intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
- In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute has confirmed that a third wave of the virus has been broken.
- EU governments have agreed to add Japan to their small list of countries from which they will allow non-essential travel, it was reported earlier.
France will vaccinate teenagers from mid-June
France will start vaccinating teenagers from age 12 with the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine on June 15, the government said.
France, which began vaccinations late last year with priority given to care home residents, has gradually been widening eligibility by lowering age thresholds and removing conditions such as profession or state of health.
From May 31, Covid-19 vaccines were made available to everyone over 18.
President Emmanuel Macron told reporters earlier on Wednesday that from June 15, young people aged 12 to 18 will be allowed to get a Covid-19 vaccine from June 15.
AstraZeneca Plc is in talks with the US government to shift production of its Covid-19 vaccine from a Baltimore plant to a factory owned by Catalent Inc , the New York Times reported.
AstraZeneca has been on the lookout for an alternative production site after the US government stopped it from making use of the Baltimore plant owned by Emergent BioSolutions Inc after workers accidentally contaminated a batch of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine. The British drugmaker’s vaccine has not been approved in the US.
Countries and private donors have pledged nearly $2.4 billion to the COVAX vaccine-sharing plan, intended to make vaccines more available to people in poorer nations, Reuters reports.
The announcements, ranging from $2,500 from island nation Mauritius to millions of dollars and doses from wealthier countries, came during a video summit hosted by Japan and the GAVI Vaccine Alliance, which leads the COVAX facility alongside the World Health Organization.
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison said his country was giving a further A$50 million ($39 million) to COVAX.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation later announced a $50 million commitment to COVAX.
Mexico records over 3,000 new confirmed cases
Mexico reported 3,269 new cases of Covid-19 in the country and 306 more fatalities, Reuters reports.
It brings the total to 2,423,928 infections and 228,146 deaths, according to health ministry data released on Wednesday.
Separate government data recently published suggests the actual death toll is at least 60% above the confirmed figure.
Early evening summary
Here is a quick recap of all the main Covid updates from around the world:
- Spanish regions with a low Covid infection rate will be allowed to reopen nightlife before herd immunity is achieved, which is expected by mid-August, the health minister said.
- The Canadian province of Ontario will keep schools closed for in-person learning until the new school year starts in September, premier Doug Ford announced.
- Germany plans to pay vaccine manufacturers an annual reservation fee to build up reserve capacity of around 600-700m doses per year to help it fight future pandemics, the health minister said.
- Colombia has began what its government called a gradual opening of its border with Venezuela after a 14-month closure intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
- In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute has confirmed that a third wave of the virus has been broken.
- EU governments have agreed to add Japan to their small list of countries from which they will allow non-essential travel, it was reported earlier.
Spain to allow nightlife to resume in regions with low Covid infection rates
Spanish regions with a low Covid-19 infection rate will be allowed to reopen nightlife before herd immunity is achieved, which is expected by mid-August, the health minister has said.
Regions with a 14-day notification rate of infections below 50 cases per 100,000 people will be able to open discos and clubs until 3 am, although some restrictions will continue, Reuters reports.
It was not clear whether dance floors will be allowed and the party group - a maximum of six people inside - has to remain masked, according to local media.
“A gradual and progressive return to normality is needed. Lessons must be learned”, the health minister, Carolina Darias, told journalists.
Health standards are in the hands of the regions in Spain, although according to the minister, this agreement is binding.
Madrid, where bars and restaurants are already open until 1am despite being one of the top five regions with the highest infection rates, rejects the criteria and wants more flexibility.
Spain’s overall infection rate fell to 118.5 cases per 100,000 on Wednesday, nearly halving since the end of April, but only the Balearic islands, Valencia and the North African enclave of Ceuta meet the sub-50 requirement.
The US had administered 296,912,892 doses of Covid vaccines in the country as of Wednesday morning and distributed 366,977,535 doses, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Those figures are up from the 296,404,240 vaccine doses the CDC said had been administered by 1 June out of 366,317,045 doses delivered, Reuters reports.
In France, the number of new Covid cases held below 10,000 for the second day in a row on Wednesday, as pressure on hospitals eased further and the daily death toll dropped sharply from last week.
Reuters reports:
The number of new infections is usually well below 10,000 on Mondays or the day after a public holiday, due to data reporting lags.
But on Wednesday, the health ministry reported 8,743 new cases, down from 9,848 on Tuesday and the first time since September that new cases were below 10,000 two days running.
On Monday, there were just 1,211 new cases, the lowest level for a Monday since mid-August.
The ministry also reported that the number of people in intensive care units with Covid-19 fell by 71 to 2,754, getting closer to the 2021 low of 2,582 set on 7 January, and down from a 2021 high of 6,001 at the end of April.
Schools in Ontario to remain shut until September
The Canadian province of Ontario will keep schools closed for in-person learning until the new school year starts in September, premier Doug Ford has announced.
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, took schools back to online learning in April as the third Covid wave threatened to overwhelm hospital and healthcare systems.
The decision to keep schools closed “was a hard choice to make, but I will not - and I repeat, I will not - take unnecessary risks with our children right now,” Ford said, citing the increased danger posed by variants to younger people.
But Ford also said that the province could begin its planned three-step reopening plan sooner, if the chief medical officer gave his blessing, Reuters reports.
The province announced in May that it would start slowly reopening restaurants and retail during the week of 14 June if certain vaccination targets were met.
Facing questions of whether he was choosing the economy over schools, Ford said not enough teachers and students were vaccinated to make reopening schools safe.
In Australia, Melbourne GPs say they are being forced to turn away huge numbers of vaccine-seeking locals, including busloads of vulnerable residents from care facilities, because the commonwealth’s supply of doses has not increased to match the explosion in demand.
The latest outbreak has caused a huge increase in demand for the Covid-19 vaccine in Victoria, and the state is now recording daily vaccination numbers of above 20,000, up from the roughly 2,600 doses administered on 24 May.
The demand has inundated local GPs, who say their supplies of vaccine doses are evaporating almost immediately.
My colleague Christopher Knaus has the full story here:
Canada’s chief medical officers have said the country should seek to administer second Covid vaccine doses as soon as possible as inoculation supply rises and variants spread, according to a statement.
As Reuters reports, Canada delayed second doses for up to 16 weeks as it pushed to get first shots into peoples’ arms.
Now almost 60% of adults have received a first dose, while less than 6% are fully vaccinated.
In a joint statement, the chief medical officers from each province and territory:
Given Canada’s current and projected vaccine supply, second doses should be offered as soon as possible, with priority given to those at highest risk of severe illness and death from Covid-19.
Urban crime ranging from vehicle theft and burglary to robbery and assault fell substantially during Covid lockdowns as stay-at-home orders around the world cleared the streets and ensured more houses were occupied in the daytime.
An analysis of crime reports from 27 cities in Europe, Asia and the Americas found overall urban crime fell by more than a third while lockdowns were in place and then steadily climbed back up when restrictions were lifted.
Robberies fell on average by 46%, and vehicle theft and daily assaults were down 39% and 35% respectively. Burglaries dropped by 28% overall, while more minor crimes such as pickpocketing and shoplifting fell by about 47% across the countries studied.
Manuel Eisner, a professor of criminology at the University of Cambridge, said the declines were sharp but short-lived, with the lowest crime rates reported two to five weeks after lockdowns came into force. “After that, the figures start to creep up again,” he said.
Ian Sample, the Guardian’s science editor, has the latest here:
Argentina will begin to produce the Sputnik V Covid vaccine locally after test batches from the South American country passed quality tests conducted by Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, the health minister Carla Vizzotti has said.
In April, Argentine firm Laboratorios Richmond produced test batches of the vaccine, with plans to scale up once Russia had carried out quality inspections.
Vizzotti told reporters:
The Gamaleya Institute has confirmed the quality control of three consecutive batches of component one and three consecutive batches of component two. Yesterday, we were informed that the quality control was satisfactory and that we are going to advance in the import of antigens of component 1 and 2 so that Argentina is part of the Sputnik V vaccine production chain.
The announcement comes as Argentina battles a harsh second wave of infections.
The virus has left 78,733 dead and 3.8m infected in Argentina since the start of the pandemic last year, Reuters reports.
Updated
The EU has delayed putting the UK on a “white list” of countries from where non-essential travel into the bloc is approved because of concerns about the rise in cases linked to the Delta variant first identified in India.
Japan, which is in an extended state of emergency during which it has enjoyed a sustained reduction in infection cases, has been added to the list, diplomatic sources said. The country is due to host the Olympic Games on 23 July.
The decision in principle was made during a meeting of ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday. Sources said the UK’s status would be examined again on 14 June.
Daniel Boffey, the Guardian’s Brussels bureau chief, has the full story here:
Lack of effective political leadership has hampered efforts to stop the Covid-19 pandemic in Latin America, where infections are dangerously on the rise again, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said.
While the United States, Canada, and Mexico are reporting overall reductions in Covid-19 cases and deaths, new infections are increasing in the rest of the Americas, PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said.
Colombia is reporting the highest rate of infections in South America, where new cases have nearly tripled in some regions, and Brazil is seeing a rise in new infections and hospitalizations, she said.
But without effective leadership, Latin American countries are failing in their response to the illness.
“Sadly, across our region, we’ve seen misinformation about Covid-19 sow doubt on proven health measures, often in the context of political disputes,” Etienne said in a briefing.
“By stoking controversy where there is none, our leaders are sending mixed messages to the public and standing in the way of effective measures to control the virus,” she said.
Of greatest concern now is Haiti, where despite sharp increases in cases, hospitalisations, and deaths, public health measures required to stop transmission are being largely ignored by the population, Etienne said.
Britain is in talks with AstraZeneca for additional doses of its Covid-19 vaccine that will have been modified to better target the Beta coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa, health minister Matt Hancock said.
Britain has previously secured 100 million doses of the vaccine, developed at the University of Oxford and licensed to AstraZeneca.
“We’ve started commercial negotiations with AstraZeneca to secure a variant vaccine: future supplies of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine that have been adapted to tackle the B.1.351 variant first identified in South Africa,” Hancock said in a speech at the university.
Italy has reported 62 coronavirus deaths and 2,897 cases, according to the latest data.
Updated
The United States, Canada, and Mexico are reporting overall reductions in Covid-19 cases and deaths, though overall new infections are on the rise again in the rest of the Americas, the head of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Carissa Etienne, said.
Colombia is reporting the highest rate of infections in South America, where new cases have nearly tripled in some regions, and Brazil is seeing a rise in new infections and hospitalizations.
Despite sharp increases in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in Haiti, public health measures required to stop transmission there are being largely ignored by the population, Etienne warned.
Britain reported a further 4,330 cases of coronavirus and 12 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to official data.
The total number of people to have received the first dose of a vaccine stood at 39,585,665, the figures showed.
Japan’s prime minister announced Wednesday an additional $800m contribution to the U.N.-backed initiative to provide COVID-19 vaccines to poor countries, a four-fold increase of Japanese funding for the COVAX program.
The pledge by prime minister Yoshihide Suga comes as his government attempts to accelerate vaccinations in Japan, one of the world’s least inoculated countries, only about 50 days before it hosts the Olympics amid a continuing surge in infections.
He spoke as Japan co-sponsored a fundraising event for COVAX with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which helps run the program. The program managers are seeking about $2bn more to reach a target of $8.3bn for its effort to fund free vaccines for low- and middle-income countries around the world.
Global airline body IATA increased pressure on governments to ease travel restrictions on Wednesday, pointing to UK testing data that showed low incidence of Covid-19 in arriving passengers, Reuters reports.
“These data tell us we can do better,” IATA Director General Willie Walsh said, citing a 2.2% positive rate among 365,895 tests carried out in February-May, according to the NHS figures.
Germany to build reserve vaccine capacity to fight future pandemics
Germany plans to pay vaccine manufacturers an annual reservation fee to build up reserve capacity of around 600-700m doses per year to help it fight future pandemics, health minister Jens Spahn has said.
The government plans to launch a call for tenders for so-called pandemic preparedness contracts with a five-year term so that vaccine doses “can be activated quickly if the worst comes to the worst,” Spahn told a news conference.
Manufacturing setbacks and an over-reliance on EU approval for supplies slowed Germany’s rollout of Covid vaccines.
It wants to boost domestic production to ensure it is not deprived of shots in future pandemics, Reuters reports.
The stand-by contracts will help maintain know-how acquired during the pandemic so that next time “we don’t have to ramp up production from zero to 100,” Christoph Krupp, head of the vaccine production task force told reporters.
“We want to bet on several companies and several vaccine types and not just one,” Krupp added.
Colombia reopens border with Venezuela after 14 months
Reuters reports:
Colombia on Wednesday began what its government called a gradual opening of its border with Venezuela after a 14-month closure intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Colombia, whose porous border with Venezuela extends roughly 1,380 miles (2,220km), has been the chief destination for Venezuelans fleeing their country’s social and economic crisis.
The two countries do not maintain diplomatic relations.
The gradual opening of river and land crossings was authorised starting at midnight on Wednesday, according to a resolution published by the Andean nation’s interior ministry.
The interior ministry said biosecurity measures in light of the Covid-19 pandemic established by Colombia’s health ministry must be followed during crossings. Colombia closed its borders in March 2020.
Updated
Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, has appealed to the public to get vaccinated against Covid-19, after data showed the government was far behind its immunisation targets, Reuters reports.
In a televised address, Duterte said:
I invite all our countrymen to be vaccinated at the earliest possible opportunity because this is the most, if not the only way, effective way, to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic. Let us all keep in mind that the vaccine will not only protect you from the virus, it will also protect your loved ones, especially the sick and elderly.
John Wong, a data analyst on the government’s Covid taskforce, said that in the three months since early inoculations started, just 14% of senior citizens and 8% of people with health conditions had received first doses of a vaccine, short of the 21% target.
Wong attributed the slow rollout to limited vaccine supplies, vaccine hesitancy and accessibility problems.
Updated
As Reuters reports, the chairman of the Gavi vaccine alliance, Jose Manuel Barroso, has said that a pledging summit secured nearly $2.4bn, bringing total contributions nearly to $9.6bn for the Covax dose-sharing programme to buy vaccines and deliver them to poorer nations (see earlier post).
Updated
Egypt aims to vaccinate 40% of its population against Covid-19 by the end of this year, the prime minister said in a televised address.
By the end of Wednesday, 2.5 million people will have been vaccinated from a total of 6 million who signed up on the government’s registration platform, Reuters reported Mostafa Madbouly as saying.
The first batch of locally made vaccines will be ready in July, Madbouly added.
Updated
A debate over whether children in Germany should be vaccinated is showing no signs of letting up.
Whilst the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved the use of Biontech/Pfizer in children aged 12 to 15 on Friday, and the government has also given the green light for its use from 7 June, the standing committee on vaccination, Stiko, which reports to the ministry of health, has still to make its recommendation.
The chair of Stiko, Thomas Mertens, has urged people to be patient, telling a weekly podcast dedicated to coronavirus developments, now on its 91st episode, that the vaccine is “no liquorice sweet” but a medical intervention.
“The decision as to whether Stiko recommends that all children between the ages of 12 and 16 be vaccinated against coronavirus must be based only on the best available evidence basis,” he said.
He stressed however, that Stiko would recommend the use of the vaccine on children with pre-existing conditions.
Mertens said the data provided by the vaccine makers resulting from their clinical studies of the mRNA vaccine were so far insufficient to recommend its use on all children.
“The number of vaccinated children in the study is simply too small in order to be able to make a reliable statement about its safety in this age group.”
Out of 1,100 children who took part in the study, about 14 of them suffered a severe reaction.
Mertens said other factors had to be taken into account when deciding whether to recommend the jab, such as a child’s risk of getting sick without a vaccine, as well as the question of herd immunity in the wider population.
Mertens said the decision was not an easy one, despite the millions of children who have already been vaccinated in the US and Israel.
“It’s not like offering the children a liquorice sweet,” he said. “This is a medical intervention”.
He added it was extremely rare for children to have a severe bout of coronavirus and that also had to be part of the equation.
Updated
The European budget airline Wizz Air plunged to a €576m annual loss as it warned 2021 would be a “transition year” with further losses to come until travel restrictions are fully lifted.
The carrier’s revenue slumped by 73% in the 12 months to the end of March, the period covering the first year of Covid-19, and it carried 10m passengers, a 75% fall compared with a year earlier.
The airline said it had carried more than 830,000 passengers in May, while its planes were two-thirds full.
József Váradi, the chief executive, said:
We expect [this] to be a transition year where we will experience a slow but gradual recovery, mostly subject to the pace of vaccinations globally including in Europe.
You can read the latest by my colleague Joanna Partridge here:
Australia and European countries have announced fresh contributions to the Covax doses-sharing mechanism, in an attempt to widen vaccination of people in low and middle income countries.
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison said that his country was making a further $50m donation to the Gavi vaccine alliance’s Covax facility, bringing its total to $130m.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, who announced a donation of 15m doses and $61m, said: “Only by leading by example we will be effective in preaching solidarity.”
Sweden, Austria and Luxembourg were among other countries to also announce new donations, Reuters notes.
Third Covid wave in Germany has been broken- Robert Koch Institute
Germany is slowly beginning to open up again with the government’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute confirming that a third wave of the virus has been broken, and the number of new infections is lower than at any time since the autumn.
Almost a fifth of all Germans have now been fully vaccinated, and about 900,000 to 1m jabs are being administered every day.
But caution is being urged as virologists say until 70% of the population have received two jabs, the situation remains fragile.
Among the much-awaited restriction easing measures taking place in Berlin from Friday are the reopening of gyms and swimming pools as well as restaurants and bars, though establishments with service both inside and out will have to demand a negative result from customers if they wish to open both areas.
The obligation to make an appointment before going shopping, so-called “Termin Shopping”, will be dropped, though mask wearing will remain the rule, including on public transport.
Despite the fact that 500 people are now allowed to meet for cultural or sporting events in the open air, 100 inside, Stephan Hengst from the Berlin Music Commission has criticised the suddenness of the announcement, saying club operators and musicians have been given little notice to be able to organise events.
Companies must continue to allow their employees to work from home wherever possible which the German Trade Union Association, DGB, has insisted is necessary.
“As long as a majority of the population is not fully vaccinated, employers must not be allowed to shirk from their responsibilities,” the DGB’s head, Reiner Hoffmann, said.
But the head of the German Association of Employers (BDA), Steffen Kampeter, has insisted companies and employees should be relied upon to make the right decision as to whether they should return or not, with regular testing and the option to continue in home office necessary measures to help manage the coming weeks and months.
From Monday, about 6,000 company doctors are expected to boost the vaccine campaign when group prioritisation rules are lifted.
Having received an initial contingent of 700,000 doses, they have said they expect to be able to carry out around 5m vaccinations every month.
Updated
EU confirms Japan will go on safe travel list
EU governments have agreed to add Japan to their small list of countries from which they will allow non-essential travel, while holding off until at least mid-June for British tourists, EU sources have confirmed.
Reuters reports:
Ambassadors from the EU’s 27 countries approved the addition of Japan at a meeting on Wednesday, with the change to take effect in the coming days.
EU countries are recommended gradually to lift travel restrictions for the current seven countries on the list- Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.
Individual EU countries can still opt to demand a negative Covid-19 test or a period of quarantine.
The EU last month eased criteria for adding new countries to the list, by changing to 75 from 25 the maximum number of new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people in the previous 14 days.
Britain met that revised target but was left off the list because of an increase in Covid-19 cases arising from an infectious coronavirus variant first identified in India.
Updated
South Australian health authorities have warned AFL fans not to touch the ball if it flies into the crowd during Adelaide’s home game against Collingwood, sparking puns about possible “airborne transmission” of Covid.
The Melbourne-based Magpies have been granted a special exemption to travel to South Australia for Saturday’s twilight clash with the Crows at Adelaide Oval, which has been operating with full-capacity crowds since early May.
South Australia’s chief public health officer, Prof Nicola Spurrier, on Wednesday defended the decision to allow the team to visit despite the border being closed to Victoria amid the state’s growing Covid-19 cluster.
Spurrier described the exemption as a “special situation”, saying the risk was “negligible” because the team was already in quarantine at home in Melbourne along with their families or housemates.
You can read the full story by Emma Kemp, the Guardian Australia’s deputy sport editor, here:
This has been shared by the World Health Organization. Its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesuis, is speaking at the Gavi Covax summit.
"Countries with the highest #COVID19 vaccination coverage are now seeing a significant decline in cases & deaths. Investing in #COVAX is not charity. It’s the best investment in ending the pandemic & driving a truly global recovery"-@DrTedros #VaccinEquity
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) June 2, 2021
Vietnam’s health minister has said that Russia has agreed to provide it with 20m doses of its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine this year, Reuters reports.
The south-east Asian country approved the Russian vaccine in March but has stepped up its procurement push after being hit by its biggest outbreak so far, although its overall cases and fatality numbers remain relatively low.
“Vietnam is trying to get access to Covid-19 vaccine sources to speed up its vaccination rollout at the earliest,” health minister Nguyen Thanh Long said in a statement announcing the Sputnik V agreement.
Updated
At least 220 million people globally are expected to remain unemployed this year, well above pre-pandemic levels, with a weak labour market recovery exacerbating existing inequalities, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has said.
The UN agency forecast the outlook improving to 205 million unemployed next year – still well above the 187 million recorded in 2019 before the onset of the pandemic, Reuters reports.
According to ILO models, that equates to a global unemployment rate of 6.3% this year, falling to 5.7% next year but still up on the pre-pandemic rate of 5.4% in 2019.
In a report, World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2021, the ILO said:
Employment growth will be insufficient to make up for the losses suffered until at least 2023.
Updated
Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog until the evening (UK time). As always, feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
Cyprus to reopen internal crossing checkpoints for first time since December
Checkpoints between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot sides of Cyprus are to reopen on Friday, the United Nations has said, marking the first time restrictions have been eased since December 2020 because of the pandemic.
Cyprus is split between its Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations, with a number of designated checkpoints controlling movements between the north and south of the island.
“The reopening of all crossing points will facilitate free movement, promote people to people contacts, build trust and have an overall positive socio-economic impact across the island for the benefit of all Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots,” the United Nations mission on Cyprus, UNFICYP, said in a statement.
Reuters report that a committee of health experts from both sides would be assessing the situation on a bi-weekly basis.
Vehicle and pedestrian crossings have been subject to on-and-off closures since February 2020, when the Greek Cypriot side shut the checkpoints for the first time in decades as a precaution to quell the spread of the virus.
Under present circumstances, people who cross will require a seven-day negative antigen test or PCR test, the peacekeeping mission said.
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Rural northern California is seeing a troubling rise in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, an alarming trend that comes as residents and businesses continue to protest against safety measures and vaccinations – with one Mendocino cafe threatening to charge customers $5 for wearing a mask.
While the region makes up a small proportion of the state’s population, the growth in its caseload has been considerable, and comes at a time when the state overall is enjoying some of the lowest rates of Covid in the country. After largely avoiding the worst of the pandemic, a block of far northern California counties now leads the state with nearly 40 cases per 100,000 residents over the past week, according to statistics maintained by the Los Angeles Times. Tehama county ranked the highest in the LA Times case ratings with 139 cases per 100,000 residents. Meanwhile 10 of the 21 total Covid deaths in nearby Siskiyou county have occurred since the beginning of May.
The region has long been one of the most forceful in its pushback against measures such as masks, business restrictions and vaccine mandates – and the protests have only continued to gain steam. A cafe in the town of Mendocino made headlines after announcing it will charge customers a $5 fee if they order while wearing a mask. It also threatened to charge $5 to anyone “caught bragging about your vaccine”.
“It’s about time the proponents of these ineffective government measures start paying for the collateral damage they have collectively caused,” the cafe owner Chris Castleman told NBC News. He also offered a 50% discount to customers who threw their masks in the trash.
George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco, said the current situation feels inevitable. “I was waiting for this to happen,” he said, adding that the outbreaks mirror trends occurring in southern and eastern Oregon, just north of California’s border. “It shows you where vaccination is lagging and transmission is taking place.”
Read more of Erin McCormick’s report from Berkeley: ‘Waiting to happen’: the California region where masks are taboo - and cases are rising
Today so far…
- The World Health Organization has approved the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use – the second Chinese vaccine to receive the WHO’s green light.
- The WHO said the emergency use listing gives countries, funders, procuring agencies and communities assurance that the vaccine has met international standards. Last month Sinopharm became the first Chinese vaccine to be approved by the WHO.
- The GAVI vaccine alliance is in talks with Sinovac to expand the Covax dose-sharing portfolio available to poor countries following the WHO approval.
- India has reported 132,788 new cases over the past 24 hours, and an additional 3,207 deaths.
- China has reported 24 new cases, including 10 domestic cases all in Guangdong province where authorities have imposed localised lockdown measures to control an outbreak.
- International flights to Vietnam’s two biggest cities are to resume, reversing a short-lived ban imposed over fears of a new coronavirus wave.
- AstraZeneca has said it would soon provide Thailand with 1.8m doses of locally manufactured Covid-19 vaccine, the first of multiple batches this month, just days out from the launch of its mass vaccination drive.
- Germany’s top diplomat in Taipei has said his government has been helping in talks between Taiwan and drugmaker BioNTech to supply Covid-19 vaccines, after Taiwan said a deal fell apart earlier this year due to Chinese “intervention”. Taiwan announced 372 new cases and 12 deaths in its latest daily update.
- Poland will raise the limit for the number of guests at large gatherings such as weddings to 150 from 50 from 6 June. People who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus will not be counted as part of this limit
- Russia’s single-dose Sputnik Light vaccine has been approved for use in Mauritius.
- Russia’s third vaccine, CoviVac, is more than 80% effective, according to preliminary data.
- Mexico has revised its death count, adding 4,272 fatalities. The clinical review of past deaths, by a team of doctors and nurses, is largely a record-keeping exercise.
- The Victorian government in Australia will now require people to check in at retail stores and supermarkets regardless of the length of time they spend in the store, as new data reveals a huge increase in check-ins to the Service Victoria app once the state forced businesses to begin using it.
The Victorian government in Australia will now require people to check in at retail stores and supermarkets regardless of the length of time they spend in the store, as new data reveals a huge increase in check-ins to the Service Victoria app once the state forced businesses to begin using it.
As part of the extension of the lockdown in Melbourne, the acting premier, James Merlino, announced on Wednesday that supermarkets and retailers would be required to make everyone check in when they entered into the store. Previously it was only a recommendation.
After the state recorded a number of Covid-19 transmissions at retail stores where the contacts had “fleeting” contact, Victoria’s chief health officer, Prof Brett Sutton, said the change was to ensure records of everyone at potential exposure sites were complete.
“We are in a position now where the Victorian community is motivated to do the right thing and they understand the importance of contact tracing in this space,” he said.
“And even though we have been doing really well in identifying people at all exposure sites, I think everyone recognises that we have to do absolutely everything in our power to be able to chase down every single person who may be exposed because it is that one person who is not found who may be the one who spreads it.”
The Victorian government launched its Covid QR-code check-in app, Service Victoria, at the end of November 2020 but continued to allow hospitality venues to to use their own QR-code systems to record people visiting.
Read more of Josh Taylor’s report here: Victoria makes Covid check-in mandatory at shops after transmissions from ‘fleeting’ visits
Drugmaker AstraZeneca has said it would soon provide Thailand with 1.8m doses of locally manufactured Covid-19 vaccine, the first of multiple batches this month, just days out from the launch of its mass vaccination drive.
The announcement in a joint statement by AstraZeneca and Siam Bioscience, a firm owned by Thailand’s king, comes amid public anxiety about vaccine supplies, as the country suffers its most severe outbreak so far.
The statement did not say whether the Thai plant would make all 6m doses that Thailand’s government has promised would be available this month.
Reuters report that the government’s immunisation drive starts on Monday and relies almost entirely on its reserved 61m doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, the majority of which it said would come from Siam Bioscience, which is making vaccines for the first time.
Questions about Siam Bioscience meeting production targets are sensitive because King Maha Vajiralongkorn is its sole owner. Insulting Thailand’s monarchy is a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Thai health minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on Wednesday the promised 6m doses would come this month “as planned”, but did not specify delivery dates or how many would be sourced locally.
“We will get AstraZeneca vaccine. It may come from wherever, but all AstraZeneca just the same. It could be made in Thailand or imported from overseas. It depends on AstraZeneca’s supply chain,” Anutin told reporters.
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A one-liner from Reuters here that Russia’s single-dose Sputnik Light vaccine against Covid-19 has been approved for use in Mauritius, Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund, which markets the shot internationally, said today.
Germany’s top diplomat in Taipei has said his government has been helping in talks between Taiwan and drugmaker BioNTech to supply Covid-19 vaccines, after Taiwan said a deal fell apart earlier this year due to Chinese “intervention”.
China denied that accusation. But a war of words escalated after Taiwan rejected Beijing’s offer to supply it with shots made by Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group, which holds a contract to sell them in Greater China.
In a Facebook post in Chinese on Wednesday, Thomas Prinz, Germany’s de facto ambassador to Taiwan, said they had “noticed the recent controversy regarding vaccine acquisition”.
“Please believe that the German government, especially federal economy minister Altmaier himself, have made great efforts in the continuous communication and coordination between Taiwan and BioNTech,” he said, adding that whether a contract is eventually signed would depend on the two parties, report Reuters.
“If the parties to the contract can reach a consensus, the federal government is naturally happy to see it happen.”
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Nicola Slawson has opened up our UK live blog for the day, which is immediately leading with the debate over the government’s plan for post-pandemic “catch-up” education provision in England. You can follow that with her here:
I’ll be continuing here with the latest coronavirus developments from around the world.
My colleague Frances Ryan writes for us this morning about how transformational being able to work from home has been life-changing for disabled people, and says don’t take it away now:
At the start of the first lockdown, I reported that society was opening up to millions of disabled and chronically ill people as “virtual living” became the norm – from Zoom job interviews and streamed gigs and theatre to NHS phone appointments. But just as it took the non-disabled public to experience a dose of what disabled people have for years before access was improved, the fear is that any gains made during the pandemic will be discarded now that the wider public no longer need them themselves.
Take work for example. The shift to working at home over the past year brought new opportunities to those previously excluded from the workforce. As one woman with agoraphobia told me: “Lockdown has opened my world” – it allowed her to get a job from her front room. But as ministers and some employers push for a return to the office, many disabled workers are worried their hard-won progress will go backwards. A research scientist with endometriosis and IBS told me her employer has already stopped letting her work from home full-time, even though her job can be done remotely. “The office is ‘going back to normal’ and they don’t want us at home even though I can do a better job [here],” she said.
The Zoom pub quiz became a cliche of lockdown, but what many of us did informally with friends was also replicated by companies, with art exhibitions streaming online or bars running virtual club nights. As venues open back up, I’m hearing from scores of disabled people losing out.
Read more here: Frances Ryan – Remote working has been life-changing for disabled people, don’t take it away now
The GAVI vaccine alliance is in talks with Chinese drugmaker Sinovac to expand the Covax dose-sharing portfolio available to poor countries following the World Health Organization’s approval of its Covid-19 vaccine earlier today, a GAVI spokesperson said.
“Gavi, on behalf of the Covax Facility, is in dialogue with several manufacturers, including Sinovac, to expand and diversify the portfolio further and secure access to additional doses for Facility participants,” a statement reported by Reuters said.
Union criticises ‘pitiful’ £1.4bn Covid catch-up plan for England pupils
The main Covid focus in England today hasn’t been the pandemic itself, but government proposals to help pupils “catch-up” on learning they may have missed. The package has been roundly criticised, as Haroon Siddique reports:
The £1.4bn announced for the post-pandemic catch-up programme for pupils in England is “pitiful” and a fraction of that committed by other countries to help children’s education, a school leaders’ union has said.
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), hit out at the government on Wednesday as it faced scrutiny over why the money is about a 10th of the £15bn total understood to have been recommended by the education recovery commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins.
Barton said the government package was “dispiriting” and accused the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, of having lower ambitions for children than those of his union’s members.
“It’s pretty pitiful, only yesterday we were hearing stories about extending the school day and even if some people disagreed with it, at least there was a sense of ‘let’s do something radical, let’s do something different’,” he told Sky News.
“Today’s announcement essentially equates to £50 per head, you compare that with the USA which is putting £1,600 per head, per young person, or the Netherlands, £2,500 per head. So what is it about those children in the Netherlands or the USA that makes them worth more than our government seems to say? It’s time to stop the rhetoric I think and start the action on behalf of children and young people.”
During a series of interviews of Wednesday, Williamson struggled to explain the discrepancy between the announced government spending and that recommended by Collins, who was appointed in February by Downing Street to lead efforts to make up for the damage done by the coronavirus pandemic, particularly to pupils from more deprived backgrounds.
Read more here: Union criticises ‘pitiful’ £1.4bn Covid catch-up plan for England pupils
Poland to raise limits on gatherings next week in further restriction easing
Poland will raise the limit for the number of guests at large gatherings such as weddings to 150 from 50 from 6 June, the health minister said, as the country eases Covid-19 restrictions further due to a falling number of cases.
People who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus will not be counted as part of this limit, Reuters report that Adam Niedzielski told a news conference.
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Many countries in the world have been looking on enviously at the very small number of cases in Australia over recent months, but a new cluster has left people asking questions about the country’s approach. Michael Toole writes for us this morning:
Just two weeks ago, Australians were living in a Covid-19-free environment that was unthinkable this time last year. Even in Melbourne, people were once again meeting family and friends at cafes, pubs and cinemas. Football games were played in front of packed stadiums.
But that came to an abrupt halt when a new cluster of cases was identified in Melbourne early last week. This outbreak has now grown to 60 known cases across the greater metropolitan area, including several aged care workers and two residents. Genomic sequencing links all these cases to a man who was infected while staying in an Adelaide quarantine hotel.
As Melbourne moves into a second week of lockdown, it’s worth asking why we’re back in this all too familiar situation. Two issues that loom the largest in explaining how we got here are a hotel quarantine system that clearly doesn’t work as well as it could, and a more concerning virus variant that seems to have taken full advantage of the time it circulated undetected from the Wollert man to case number five – the key piece of rotten luck in this outbreak. Add to that a painfully slow rollout of vaccines and, deeply worryingly, the related lack of attention to the safety of aged care home residents and staff.
Read more here: Michael Toole – Australia is in a race against Covid-19. I’m waiting to hear the starting gun
Vietnam reverses international travel ban
International flights to Vietnam’s two biggest cities are to resume, AFP reports, reversing a short-lived ban imposed over fears of a new coronavirus wave.
The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam on Monday announced a temporary suspension for international passenger arrivals at Hanoi’s Noi Bai airport from 1-7 June.
A similar decision was in force for the airport in commercial capital Ho Chi Minh City until 14 June, as the country struggles to contain a virus outbreak in more than half of its territories.
But today the aviation authority told airports and airlines that it had reversed the suspension, without mentioning a timeframe or giving an explanation.
Vietnam has managed to keep infection rates low, but cases have more than doubled in the past month and now stand at more than 7,500, with 48 deaths.
Updated
With less than two months left until the start of the Tokyo Olympic Games, Japan’s Asahi Breweries still doesn’t know whether fans will be allowed into stadiums to buy its beer.
Japan has scaled back its Olympic plans amid the pandemic and a slow national vaccine rollout. Foreign spectators won’t be allowed in the country and organisers have yet to decide how many domestic spectators, if any, can attend.
More than 60 Japanese companies together paid a record of more than $3bn to sponsor the Tokyo Games, an event most Japanese want cancelled or delayed again. Sponsors paid another $200m to extend contracts after the Games were delayed last year.
Many are uncertain how to proceed with advertising campaigns or marketing events, according to 12 officials and sources at companies directly involved in sponsorship who spoke to Reuters.
Asahi has the exclusive rights to sell beer, wine and non-alcoholic beer at the stadiums, but even if spectators are allowed, the Tokyo government has no plans to allow alcohol at its public viewing sites outside venues, a representative said.
Sponsors have grown frustrated with what they see as slow decision-making and have complained to the organisers, Eimi Yamamitsu and Maki Shiraki report. “There are so many different scenarios that we can’t prepare,” said the source.
Some domestic firms, worried about opposition to the Games, have called off plans for commercials featuring Olympic athletes or supporting Japanese national teams, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
“I’m worried that by airing Olympic ads, it could be negative for the company,” said a source at a domestic sponsor. “At this point, no amount of publicity we could get would make up for what we paid.”
Some top-tier global sponsors, whose contracts run until 2024, are scaling down Tokyo promotions and deferring budgets for Beijing in 2022 or Paris in 2024, said a second person with direct knowledge of the matter, and the employee of the sponsor company who was briefed on the issue.
But domestic sponsors don’t have another Olympics. “That’s why we can’t simply quit,” said the source at the domestic sponsor.
Updated
Data shows Russia's third vaccine CoviVac is more than 80% effective – reports
Bit of a reporting chain here, but Reuters is quoting Interfax saying that Russia’s third vaccine against Covid-19, CoviVac, is more than 80% effective according to preliminary data.
The Chumakov Centre could produce six times more than the previously planned 10m doses of the vaccine a year, Interfax added.
Updated
Australia’s Covid vaccination programme has lacked urgency at every stage, with the government forced to revise its own targets and never seeming to meet its own goals. Victoria’s latest outbreak has exposed Scott Morrison government’s failure to successfully get the vaccine out to even the most vulnerable in the community.
The outbreak has hit unvaccinated aged care workers, despite federal promises they would be vaccinated by March. Along with mixed messages about the urgency of getting Australia vaccinated, the Morrison government became mired in a debate about whether Australia’s coronavirus vaccination rollout is or is not a race.
Our multimedia team has put together this video report:
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Taiwan announces 372 new cases and 12 deaths
Taiwan has announced 372 new cases of Covid-19 and 12 deaths in its latest daily update.
The CECC also announced 177 cases across the preceding five days from the backlog of test results. The number is a significant increase from yesterday, when 262 new cases were reported, with just 65 from the backlog. The backlog is clearing, authorities have assured, but in the meantime it has continued to cause problems in analysis of trends and response measures.
Health and welfare minister Chen Shih-Chung said it wasn’t clear if today’s rise was due to an increase in cases or faster reporting times, local media said.
Chen also gave some updates about Taiwan’s vaccination process – a complicated issue, which involves accusations of geopolitical interference as well as of government bungling. The government has procured around 1m doses so far for 23.5 million people, and has ordered tens of millions more – a significant proportion of which are domestically produced vaccine candidates in trial stage.
Chen told the media he hopes that once they have enough supply, they will be able to administer 1m doses per week, through Taiwan’s 300 hospitals, 800 clinics and 200 other locations.
According to local media he said any businesses with more than 1,000 employees can host a vaccination stop.
Chen said the government hopes to have 60% of the population receive at least one dose by October. It’s potentially a tall order, requiring about 14m doses.
Currently Taiwan has received 850,000 doses, a mix of AstraZeneca and Moderna.
It has ordered about 4.5m more from Moderna, 9.2m from Astrazeneca, and 4.7m via Covax, but the imminent arrival of any of these is far from confirmed given the aforementioned complications and global shortages.
Another 10m have been ordered via two Taiwan producers, but these vaccines are still in trial stage. Producers have said they intend to apply for emergency use this month – international approval likely a long way after that.
Updated
In the UK, Labour’s opposition spokesperson on education, Kate Green, has called for more support for extra-curricular activities in schools as part of the Covid catch-up package being proposed by the government.
She told BBC Breakfast: “What we’re proposing is that there should be a range of measures in a package of support for children and young people.
“Yes more time for small group tutoring and catching up on lost learning, but children can’t learn well if they’re worried, if they’re anxious, if they’re not having time to play and develop.
“So we’re also suggesting support for extra-curricular activities, play, drama, art and so on, and of course in putting in mental health support in schools.”
PA Media reports she added: “Children need some time to relax and enjoy life, over the summer and into the new school year we think the important thing is to make sure the fabulous facilities that schools have, the sports fields, the art rooms, the music rooms and so on, can be used for out-of-school activities too.
“So we’re talking about school being open for longer but not for lots of extra formal learning, we don’t want children doing maths at five and six in the evening when they’re really tired.”
Updated
Somewhere, someone in the UK government wrote “education” on their media grid for today, and so education minister Gavin Williamson has been sent out on the airwaves with details of plans to help pupils in the UK catch-up with schooling they may have missed during the pandemic.
He has endured quite a torrid time in a somewhat bad-tempered appearance on Sky News, where at one point he was told that the presenter hates doing shouty, repetitive interviews, but that the minister just wasn’t answering the questions.
In particular, he was pressed over the discrepancy between the money offered – £1.4bn – and the amount that catch-up tsar Sir Kevan Collins has said is needed to increase education opportunities – £15bn.
PA Media quotes Williams as saying: “It is a lot of money and it builds on £1.7bn that we’ve already committed in terms of actually delivering for children – it is an extra 100m hours of tutoring.
“It is making sure that children who need that help, who need that support, that we’re delivering that tutoring revolution to help them get it.
“But we recognise it is part of a process. Over the past 12 months, we have already announced a previous £1.7bn worth of additional funding and we are looking at a whole raft of additional ideas for how we can continue to support our children, making sure none of them are left behind.
“We have been working very closely with Sir Kevan Collins and actually the interventions around tutoring, driving up teaching quality, these are very much built on the work we’ve been doing together, recognising how incredibly important it is that we take on these interventions in order to help children.”
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson says the government are delivering a 'tutoring revolution', as they announce a £1.4 billion scheme to help children in England catch up on lost learning.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 2, 2021
He adds the new scheme is 'part of a process'.https://t.co/ImtupcaAIQ pic.twitter.com/MsWx0US1Ji
There’s more detail on the government plans here from my colleagues Peter Walker and Rachel Hall, who write that:
Pupils will be offered an extra 100m hours of tuition under post-pandemic catch-up plans unveiled today – but the government faced immediate criticism of the £1.4bn programme, with its own tsar warning “more will be needed”.
After months of unprecedented school closures, £1.4bn will be spent on up to 6m sets of 15-hour tutoring courses for disadvantaged pupils as well as an expansion of an existing fund for helping 16- to 19-year-olds with subjects such as English and maths, the Department for Education (DfE) said.
There is also provision for extra training and support for teachers, and funding to allow some year-13 students to repeat their final year if it was badly affected by the pandemic.
It gave no immediate verdict on mooted plans to extend schools days by 30 minutes. This idea, criticised as misplaced by some teaching unions, will be the subject of a separate review due to report later in the year.
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Today’s WorldView email from the Washington Post by Ishaan Tharoor makes for quite bleak reading. He writes that while in the US, life is returning to normal, the pandemic is getting worse, even when it seems like it’s getting better:
The pandemic is hardly in retreat elsewhere. The emergence of more virulent variants and the slowness of vaccination efforts in many places outside the West have contributed to deadly new waves. Coronavirus case counts worldwide are already higher in 2021 than they were in 2020.
Southeast Asia, once a bastion of resistance to the virus, is in the grip of a harrowing spike in infections. Cases in Thailand and Vietnam rose dramatically over the past month. Malaysia is now registering more new infections per million people than any medium- or large-size country in Asia, surpassing India.
In Africa, concerns are growing over the possible arrival of a new wave powered by a more transmissible variant of the virus, with the health systems in many countries at risk of being quickly subsumed by a surge of infections. A recent study found that the continent has the world’s highest death rate of patients critically ill with covid-19, thanks to limited intensive care facilities and reserves of vital medical supplies like oxygen.
In parts of Latin America, the virus rages on, largely unabated. Peru, according to its own government-adjusted data, now has the worst covid-19 mortality rate per capita in the world.
Even in East Asia, where a handful of nations set the gold standard in preventing community spread, the virus is on the march. Taiwan has seen an explosion of cases over the past month. In Japan, which still intends to host the Summer Olympics, numerous areas including Tokyo remain under a state of emergency.
Read more here: Washington Post – The pandemic is getting worse, even when it seems like it’s getting better
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Neil Lancefield, PA Media’s transport correspondent, has some quotes from Tom Bartosak-Harlow from the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) this morning. He’s worried that if face coverings and social distancing requirements continue on public transport in England after they have been dropped in other settings, it will stigmatise the use of buses and trains. He said:
We need to see public transport moving at the same pace as the rest of the country. If you no longer have to wear a face covering in certain situations such as hospitality and retail but you do on public transport, we think that would undermine confidence in public transport. If people have this view that going on a bus or a coach carries a greater risk of catching Covid, in the longer term that will encourage people to use their car.
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Scotland fans urged not to travel to London without tickets for Euro 2020
Good morning, it is Martin Belam here taking over in London, where this morning the mayor Sadiq Khan has been warning fans of Scottish football not to travel if they don’t have tickets when England and Scotland face each other at Wembley on 18 June.
Khan joins the Scottish government and Scottish Football Association (SFA) to ask fans not to travel to the city unless they have a ticket, or a safe place to watch the match.
He said: “I am so excited for Euro 2020 and one of the games that I am looking forward to the most is England’s match with Scotland at Wembley.
“I have some amazing memories of England v Scotland games in the past and I love the atmosphere that Scottish fans always bring to major football tournaments.
“However, I am today urging all fans to only come to London if you have a ticket for the match or if you have arranged a safe place to watch it from, in compliance with Covid-19 guidelines.”
He added: “I want to be completely clear that Scottish fans will not be able to access their traditional Trafalgar Square base, as it will be used as a socially-distanced fan zone for key workers who are helping our city through the pandemic.
“Due to Covid regulations there are no alternative sites for fans to gather in large numbers in central London.”
Updated
Here’s how UK media reported the great news on Tuesday of zero Covid-related deaths in the country for the first day since the pandemic began.
Many papers suggest that the first day without a single Covid death for 10 months means the complete easing of lockdown restrictions will go ahead in England as planned on 21 June.
Mexico revises death toll adding 4,272 fatalities
Mexico has revised its death count, adding 4,272 fatalities. The clinical review of past deaths, by a team of doctors and nurses, is largely a record-keeping exercise, AP reports. Mexico’s government has long acknowledged that the true death toll from the pandemic is far higher than the current total of 227,840, due to low testing capabilities. Many Mexicans have died at home, or never been tested.
As well as the medical team-led reviews, another process also provides adjusted figures. The computerised search of death certificates for Covid-related symptoms has suggested more than 350,000 have died, which would give Mexico one of the highest per-capita fatality rates in the world.
Updated
Reuters:
A shipment of coronavirus vaccines to North Korea via the global Covax sharing programme that was expected for late May has been delayed again amid protracted consultations, South Korea’s unification ministry said on Tuesday.
Covax, which secures vaccines for poor countries, has said it will provide nearly 2 million doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine to North Korea.
“Countries that want Covax support are required to hold various consultations and submit some documents including an inoculation plan,” a ministry official said.
“But in North Korea’s case, such consultations have been prolonged and it appears that the shipment will be made later than initially planned.”
Insular and secretive North Korea has not commented on any consultations on vaccines. It has not officially confirmed any Covid-19 infections, although Seoul officials have said an outbreak there cannot be ruled out as the North had trade and people-to-people exchanges with China before closing its border early last year.
The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) alliance, which co-leads Covax with the World Health Organization (WHO), said work is ongoing and discussions continue with North Korea, but no shipment date was finalised.
GAVI said last month that shipments have not been made to North Korea due to its lack of “technical preparedness” and global supply shortages but could be expected later this year.
In a statement last week to the ongoing WHO annual assembly, North Korea accused unspecified countries of dominating vaccine supplies and causing a global “bottleneck” due to “national egoism.”
“Some countries are procuring and storing the vaccines more than their needs ... when other countries can’t even procure it,” it said.
In the last few hours a few countries have reported updated daily case numbers.
India has reported 132,788 new cases over the past 24 hours, and an additional 3,207 deaths. Health ministry data says the country’s infection tally is about 28.3 million, with more than 335,000 deaths.
In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute has said 4,917 new cases has brought the country’s total to 3,687,828, and an additional 179 fatalities has raised the death toll to 88,774.
China has reported 24 new cases, including 10 domestic cases all in Guangdong province where authorities have imposed localised lockdown measures to control an outbreak. It also reported seven asymptomatic cases in Guangdong, which are counted separately.
Updated
WHO approves Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use
Via AFP:
The World Health Organization has approved the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use – the second Chinese vaccine to receive the WHO’s green light.
The UN health agency signed off on CoronaVac, a two-dose vaccine developed by the Beijing-based firm which is already being deployed in several countries around the world.
The WHO said the emergency use listing (EUL) gives countries, funders, procuring agencies and communities assurance that the vaccine has met international standards. Last month Sinopharm became the first Chinese vaccine to be approved by the WHO.
The organisation has also given EUL status to vaccines being made by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and the AstraZeneca jab being produced in India, South Korea and the EU, which it counts separately.
WHO’s listing paves the way for countries worldwide to approve and import a vaccine for distribution quickly, especially those states without an international-standard regulator of their own.
It also opens the door for the jabs to enter the Covax global vaccine-sharing facility, which aims to provide equitable access to doses around the world, particularly in poorer countries. Currently only AstraZeneca and some Pfizer jabs are flowing through the scheme.
Read more here:
Updated
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing rolling coverage of the pandemic.
You can catch up on the previous live blog here, or see below for a quick roundup of the past 24 hours.
- The Australian state of Victoria has extended its lockdown for another seven days as it works to control an outbreak in Melbourne.
- The UK has enjoyed a day without a single reported Covid death for the first time since the pandemic began.
- India said it is aiming to triple capacity to 10 million jabs per day by July to avert another wave of Covid-19 infections as deadly as the outbreak suffered since April.
- A Brazilian Supreme Court judge has given president Jair Bolsonaro five days to submit information regarding the government’s decision to host the Copa America football tournament despite the nation’s ongoing struggles with Covid-19.
- A decrease in local Covid-19 vaccine production has slowed the pace of Brazil’s inoculation drive and contributed to a growing number of people not taking their second doses, according to the latest data from the Fiocruz biomedical institute.
- Heathrow airport in London has begun processing arrivals from red list countries in a dedicated terminal following concerns about them mixing with other passengers. Travellers arriving from red list nations on direct flights are being taken to Terminal 3.
- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa called on faster delivery of vaccines to poorer countries, including by waiving patents on vaccine development.
- Peru has revised its official Covid-19 death toll to 180,764, nearly triple the previous official figure of 69,342, following a government review that shows the severity of the outbreak in the country.
- The World Health Organisation has recommended a new set of names for the coronavirus “variants of concern”, which will be known by letters of the Greek alphabet. Alpha is the new name for UK/Kent (B.1.1.7), Beta for South Africa (B.1.351), Gamma for Brazil (P.1) and Delta for the variant first detected in India (B.1.617.2).
- Malaysia has begun a tough nationwide lockdown to battle a worsening coronavirus outbreak. Of almost 2,800 deaths from Covid-19 recorded in the country of 32 million since the start of the pandemic, over 40 percent were in May alone.
- Israel announced it will begin phasing out coronavirus-related payments to the unemployed and Ireland announced similar steps later this year while maintaining other income and business supports as the economy fully reopens.
- The Coachella music festival will return to the US in April 2022 after being repeatedly delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, organisers have announced.
